From Wikipedia"
While the Navy was testing the first two prototypes, they suggested that the third be fitted with the 700 kW (940 hp) Nakajima Sakae 12 engine instead. Mitsubishi had its own engine of this class in the form of the Kinsei,
so they were somewhat reluctant to use the Sakae. Nevertheless when
the first A6M2 was completed in January 1940, the Sakae's extra power
pushed the performance of the plane well past the original
specifications.
The
new version was so promising that the Navy had 15 built and shipped to
China before they had completed testing. They arrived in Manchuria in July 1940, and first saw combat over Chungking in August. There they proved to be completely untouchable by the Polikarpov I-16s and I-153s
that had been such a problem for the A5Ms currently in service. In one
encounter, 13 Zeros shot down 27 I-15s and I-16s in under three
minutes without loss. After hearing of these reports the Navy
immediately ordered the plane into production as the Type 0 Carrier
Fighter, Model 11. Reports of the Zero's performance filtered back to
the US slowly. There they were dismissed by most military officials,
who felt it was impossible for the Japanese to build such an aircraft.
After
the delivery of only 65 planes by November 1940, a further change was
worked into the production lines, which introduced folding wingtips to
allow them to fit on aircraft carriers.
The resulting Model 21 would become one of the most produced versions
early in the war. When the lines switched to updated models, 740 Model
21s had been completed by Mitsubishi, and another 800 by Nakajima. Two
other versions of the Model 21 were built in small numbers, the
Nakajima-built A6M2-N "Rufe" floatplane
(based on the Model 11 with a slightly modified tail), and the A6M2-K
two-seat trainer of which a total of 508 were built by Hitachi and the
Sasebo Naval Air Arsenal.
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