[tanknetter]

"It did what it was designed to do and that was defeat the Japanese Zero," Smith said.

One small correction here. The Corsair wasn't designed to defeat the Zero. The Corsair was designed years before the US had enough knowledge of the Zero to design an aircraft to counter it. The Corsair was certainly improved over the course of it's WWII service based on combat against the Zero and other aircraft.

The F6F Hellcat had a lot more "counter-Zero" elements incorporated into its design. But even then the Hellcat started as an evolution of the F4F Wildcat that grew (thanks partly to analysis of Zeros captured early in the war) into a completely new aircraft.

[Dysart]

Interesting. I’ve never heard that we reverse engineered Zero tech during the War. I’d like to read more about it.