Yes! The Thach Weave, which laid the groundwork for one Lt. Comdr. Thach in becoming Admiral Thach! This was a USN tactical flight maneuver developed immediately as a result of early combat experience; specifically from naval aviator Lt. Comdr. James "Jimmy" Thach and command experience of Lt. Comdr. James Flatley.

The USN suspicions based on intelligence and other field reports were confirmed - the A6M2 Zero's had several performance characteristics that were superior to the F4F Wildcat's. Especially when in the hands of an experienced Zero pilot. A lone Wildcat was in jeopardy against the superior dog-fighting characteristics of the Zero. The Wildcat was not obsolete and did have it's own advantages, but it was different than the design decisions that created the Zero. Although the Battle of the Coral Sea (sometimes referred to by veterans as "Clash at the Coral Sea" resulted in an Allied strategic victory - the IJN was able to inflict serious damage to the USN. The Wildcats were having difficulty with enemy CAP, being too few and misapplied tactics in a dog-fight. Even on the defensive, this was noted.

Thach noted that:

• “we must provide a VF airplane superior to the Japanese Zero in at least climb and speed, if not maneuverability.” * - Noting that the Wildcat could not outperform the Zero in several traits. However, it was known the Wildcat had a heavier, more reliable armament, and heavier armor.

• "The only way we can ever bring our guns to bear on the Zero fighter is to trick them into recovering in front of an F4F or shoot them when they are preoccupied in firing at one of our own planes.” *

As a result of Lt. Comdr. Thach and Lt. Comdr. Flatley brainstorming their pilot's and aircraft advantages and disadvantages during a rest and training period - they came up with a defining tactic. The tactic would require at least 2 fighters, whichever one the enemy fighter chose to tail would become "bait", the other would become the "hook". They would then turn towards each other, and upon execution would allow an deflection angle of the enemy aircraft. Lt. Comdr. Thach and his wing practiced it and it appeared effective.

Only weeks later Lt. Comdr. Thach and air wing would be deployed as VF-3 on the Yorktown which would take part in the American victory at the Battle of Midway. Several USN pilots had been drilled in the Thach Weave and was credited for several Zero kills during the battle. It was the Lt. Comdr. Thach and VF-3 executed the maneuver in combat. For his efforts, Lt. Comdr. Thach received the Distinguished Service Medal, and would go on to receive several other commendations and eventually the rank of Admiral.

F4F Wildcat -

• Superior armament (6 .50 cals) which were easier to use and quite reliable.

• Superior armor, including armor for the pilot. Self Sealing gas tanks (resisted fire and fuel loss)

• Powerful engine, although heavy weight compromised this

• Pilots heavily drilled in gunnery

• Heavy (but granted better dive speed), inferior maneuverability and shorter range

A6M Zero

• Superior performance overall - maneuverability and lightweight - rolling, climbing, speed, and acceleration.

• Hard hitting wing mounted cannons (were difficult to use), but also comparatively simple and accurate but weak 7.62 nose MGs.

• No armor, vulnerable pilot and fuselage

• Pilots drilled in aggressiveness, had the edge experience wise (they had many more aces going into Midway)

Sources -

Thach Weave by Steve Ewing

http://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/ffg43/Pages/Namesake.aspx#.WW-eifnyuUk

http://usnhistory.navylive.dodlive.mil/2013/06/07/midway-tactical-lessons/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_Weave (posted for use of their diagrams)

One of the things Parshall and Tully mention in Shattered Sword is that the results of the battle seemed to validate the American model of keeping carrier air wings as their own separate units (that is, able to operate on any flight deck in the USN), rather than having carrier wings that were tied to individual ships, which was the IJN practice.

What I mean by that is this: In the battle, the Americans lost one fleet carrier (Lexington) and the Japanese lost one light carrier (Shōhō). The American fleet carrier Yorktown and the Japanese fleet carrier Shōkaku were both heavily damaged, and the Japanese fleet carrier Zuikaku escaped damage in the battle, but had its air wing badly shot up.

When Yorktown was rushed back to Pearl Harbor for a quick refit, its air wing was able to be augmented with planes and crew from Saratoga, and Yorktown was able to fight at Midway with a full complement of planes. On the Japanese side, though, both Shōkaku and Zuikaku had to be returned to home waters -- Shōkaku for repairs, and Zuikaku to refit its air wing -- which meant that both missed Midway.

In that battle, then, the Japanese essentially brought four aircraft carriers to set against the three of the US Pacific Fleet and the island of Midway (itself an unsinkable aircraft base). Armchair admirals since the battle have argued that the Japanese could have moved Shōkaku's air wing to Zuikaku and fought with one more carrier at Midway, but the fact is that there wasn't any part of Japanese doctrine that would allow for that (and besides, Japanese carrier divisions, or pairs of carriers, were always intended to fight together -- it's somewhat doubtful they would have deployed half of Carrier Division 5, even if they had thought of transferring the air wing).

The related bit of tactical doctrine that the Japanese learned, but were unable to act on, after the battle, is that at prior to the Coral Sea in the Pacific war, there were two types of targets: those worth attacking with all six of the carriers in Kidō Butai, and those worth attacking with none of them. Unfortunately the Port Moresby operation cost the Japanese the services of a third of their carrier fleet at a time when they were seeking decisive battle at Midway.

The IJN, unlike the USN, took a much different approach in their after action report and analysis: the commanding admiral of 4th Fleet, Shigeyoshi Inoue, was essentially cashiered out of active service for his failure to continue the operation and to pursue the Allied carriers. It was alleged that reports of the battle at Imperial HQ had red inked comments cursing out the admiral as a fool and a coward. Yamamoto was also upset that pursuit was not made, although such pursuit in retrospect would have been a poor choice at best-of the two fleet carriers and one light carrier that Japan had on hand, the light carrier, Shoho, was burning and scuttled: Shokaku was badly damaged and unable to launch her planes, and Zuikaku's air squadrons were essentially hors de combat from heavy casualties in the battle. It was argued that Shokaku could potentially transfer her air squadrons to replace Zuikaku's losses, but Japanese doctrine and training essentially made aircraft and pilots a part of a particular carrier and not as a transferable unit: the transferred pilots would find it difficult to acclimatize to the different ship's "culture" and combat performance would be reduced. In effect despite "winning" the engagement the Japanese were furious that they had to cancel their original strategy and that effective pursuit was not made. They blamed Admiral Inoue for this, referring to him as a "scholar general" that had no place at the frontline.

The only "lesson" learned was ironically incorrect. Because of the reported damage to Yorktown and the sinking of Saratoga, it was assumed by the IJN that the US would only have two operational carriers. IJN carriers were notoriously more difficult to repair and operate than US carriers and the Japanese assumed that Yorktown would be out of action for the Japanese assault on Midway, reasoning that their similarly damaged carriers would also not be repaired in time. As a result, they did not think the US would react nearly as quickly to the Japanese attempted invasion of Midway... so Yorktown's appearance was quite a surprise.

So to awesome answers that gave you lost of good stuff so I will only highlight a few points. In part how we can trace a few of the ideas and experience from Coral Sea at Midway. And then how they impacted the carrier battles that Fall.

Coral Sea gave the impression that it was the SBD's that needed close escort up high not the TBD's. In particular several former Saratoga pilots hitched a ride back to Pearl Harbor as they had orders to join VF-6 on Enterprise. On arrival they were predictably pumped for information, and initial reports scanned closely. However the fact that most SBD losses occurred low after bomb release and the TBD's used cloud cover and luck wasn't appreciated. That led to VF-6 planning on escorting the SBD's up high, and essentially orbiting the Kido Butai as they got separated and missed radio calls from VT-6. VF-6 eventually returned due to lack of fuel having taken no active part in the battle.

Thach in the VF-3/VF-42 composite squadron tried to split the issue, with a pair of Wildcats as close escort to VT-3 and his flight several thousand feet above where they could respond to threats as they came.

In the main though there simply wasn't enough time for the lessons to filter from Yorktown to the other carriers as TF-17 and TF-16 spent about 24 hours in port together, just enough time for Nimitz to get Fletcher in a room with Spruance for a few hours.

While the down time before the Guadalcanal invasion did allow for some retrospection, some issues were just going to take experience. New tactics required fully trained pilots not rushed replacements, more effective CAP management required better Radar and each friendly aircraft to have IFF gear. While other ideas like Fletcher's desire to adopt multi carrier screens received a good deal of pushback through his tenure and were never really used in battle both from institutional resistance and lack of hulls.

Other issues had been identified long before Coral Sea, thanks in part to experiences like the Marshall and Gilberts Raid, and the aborted Rabaul Raid in Spring 1942. Above all for the USN was the need for more fighters aboard, and the need to better coordinate strikes, taking into account the short range of the F4F. Others had already been hashed out, such as the transition for 6 fighter divisions to 4 plane flights as the basic tactical unit for VF's.

The final issue that would never really be fixed was scouting and the flow of information. Land based scouting aircraft be it B-17's or PBY's were often an unreliable source of info. Contact reports could be several hours old, or even never properly forwarded. And could leave commanders at sea with more questions than answers. While ship based scouting was never perfect, a squadron of SBD's could at least make a good attack run while scouting sometimes, and were generally close enough to the task force to report quickly. This lack of good land based scouting practices led Fletcher to hold onto a portion of his force at both Midway and Eastern Solomons as opposed to going for the largest strike he could as soon as he could. Though to be sure this and the problem of wrongly identifying contacts plagued the IJN too!

It was really only with the coming of the Essex's and newer aircraft and development of a sufficient number of experienced crews that the USN finally became fully proficient in carrier operations from mid 1943 on.

For a good look at USN carrier operations to the end of 1942 I would pick up the two First Team books by Lundstrom.