Grumman F4F Wildcat

Grumman F4F Wildcat




The Grumman F4F Wildcat was an onboard fighter used by the US Navy and the Royal Navy. First used in combat by the British in Europe, the Wildcat was also used mainly by the Americans in the Pacific theater in 1941-1942.

The Wildcat was outscored by the Mitsubishi Zero, his main opponent in the Pacific Theater, but he still managed to win, mainly due to his ability to take the damage. Relatively well armored and equipped with self-sealing tanks, the Wildcat could survive many impacts inflicted by the Zero, to the surprise of these, weakly armored.

The Japanese ace Saburo Sakai describes the ability of the F4F to collect damage:

"I had full confidence in my ability to destroy the Wildcat and decided to finish my enemy with my only 7.7 mm machine guns. I activated the switch of my guns of 20 mm in deactivated position, and brought me closer to my target. For a strange reason, after I had fired about 500 to 600 shots in the Grumman, the aircraft did not fall but continued to fly. I thought it was very weird, it had never happened before, and I moved closer to a distance so that I could almost touch the Wildcat. To my surprise, his drift and fins had been torn to pieces. With a plane in such a state, it was not surprising that the pilot was unable to continue the fight! A Zero that would have received as many bullets would have long been turned into a fireball. "

On the wing aircraft carriers, the Wildcat was replaced in 1943 by the biggest Grumman F6F Hellcat to face the Zero. But the Wildcat was still manufactured by General Motors under the acronym FM to serve on escort aircraft carriers where heavier and larger fighters could not be used. It was to be replaced by the small Grumman F8F Bearcat in order to standardize hunter models between wing aircraft carriers and escort carriers, but the latter did not enter service before the end of the the Pacific War.

Source Wikipedia