[Strategerist]

One of the things about the Flying Tigers unit was they discovered how to defeat the Mitsubishi A6M "Zero"

The AVG NEVER encountered a Zero.

The Zero was Japanese Navy; a few were deployed to China before the the AVG arrived (hence Chennault knew of their capabilities) but they were later withdrawn.

All of the AVG's fighting was against the Japanese Army, with the fighters mostly being Nates and Oscars.

[RayChuang88]

Actually, the Japanese Navy deployed a number of pre-production A6M's to China to test their capabilities against Chines-flown Polikarpov I-15's and I-16's. It was obvious that that Zero was WAY better than the Russian planes (especially in terms of top speed), and as such the Chinese knew quite well how deadly they were.

AVG did encounter a lot of combat against the Ki-43 "Oscar," a plane that had excellent maneuverability but its relatively low top speed and extreme vulnerability to gunfire made it a sitting duck for any modern American fighter.