Comment Re:Not a Nazi Plane (Score 1) 353
I hav eno idea what this boom and zoom is. i have never heard of it.
for the F4F, what leveled the playing field was the concept of a wingman (it's where it came from), and staying together in pairs. this marked the end of the days of the lone flying ace, and pilots fighting essentially duels. really in a way, the japanese doomed themselves in air superiority. japanese fighter culture still revered the samurai concept of the lone warrior, and was too slow to adapt to the concept of working in teams.
for the F4F specifically, this was the use of the defensive break, which is basically a modification of the scissors tactic, but where the two allied planes begin scissoring each other, rather than aggressor/defender scissoring. First you always launch more than enough fighters, such that it would be 2 F4Fs against each Zero. so now when the Zero engaged one of the F4Fs, and pursues it, the other plane is naturally in an opposite arc and gets easy shots. though it could be rather hairraising for the guy being chased... But overnight after the adoption of the tactic the Zeros went from dominating the F4F, to the reverse.