Type 0 Observation Seaplane

Introduction

複葉でありながら、優れた運動性と高い空戦能力を持つ二座の水上偵察機です。
主力艦隊の砲戦弾着観測と偵察のための機体ですが、その高い格闘戦闘力は、専門の水上戦闘機も顔負けの高性能ぶり。
複葉機だけど近代的な、名作観測機なのです！

"Altough being a biplane, this is a dual-seat float reconnaissance plane with outstanding maneuverbility and high air-to-air capability. Its initial purpose was for fleet's gunnery spotting and reconnaissance, however its high dogfight ability even outqualify purposely built float fighters. Being modern enough as well as being biplane, it's no doubt a masterpiece of its own class."

Codenamed "Pete" by Allies, the Mitsubishi F1M had high air-to-air capability resulting from its crisp maneuverbility (basically a biplane have better mobility than monoplane, trading off high-speed capability) as highlighted in description text. It seldomly served its original role of gunnery spotting, but with its high dynamics and stability it served many purposes such as ground attack, anti-sub patrol, convoy escort and sometimes air-to-air combat, having its maneuverbility equalling Type 96 fighters (which are purposely-built monoplane) and actually have kill records of American fighters such as F4F and even F6F (the pilot shot down the F6F was Officer Nobuo Fujita, the only man succeeded to bombard American mainland in 1942).

Notes

Buildable as of the 14th March update. Not to be confused with Type 0 Recon Seaplane. Stock equipment of Yamato and Musashi. Ranking reward in June 2013.

See Also

Mitsubishi F1M