The Zero's had a better rate of climb than our earlier fighters( 40's,39's, F-4-F's). If they could force our guys to climb, dead meat.
That is correct, the Zero was better to about 9-10K as I recall, at higher altitudes it's performance suffered (including turn rate) so, depending on where you were I would tend to agree with you. The Japanese as you recall were used to having air superiority and fighting at lower altitudes. At higher altitudes it had no business fighting any US Iron made after 1940 excepting maybe the 39 which they stupidly stripped of its supercharger, even then at higher alts, likely no. But again, a booming US plane had vastly superior airspeed (P-40B could dive at 480 or better, a Zeke tapped out 100 MPH less in a dive) and climb rate was negated much by that: not all dogfights were fought from zero altitude up, as it were. I would still posit that Pilot experience and years at the craft were the greatest factors in the early going. Japan had a long training program and war experience, they had superb pilots early on. After 1942, they had very, very few fully trained pilots and no training program to bring new pilots online at the same level of capability as new US pilots. Also, the heavily armored US craft--even those you note in the early war--afforded a higher pilot survival rate so, again the US planes were superior. So, essentially the Japanese had a
better chance (maybe even odds) for a few months, maybe 9-12, and after that, they had "Zero" chance (pun intended).
The great Japanese ace, Saburo Sakai, when asked how the Japanese could rationalize Kamikaze attacks said that sending the raw recruits up against F6Fs and F4Us etc., was in fact suicide and that it was simply logic, not delusional belief in the nation: you are going to die, may as well take someone with you, it was plain odds for him, not militaristic zeal.
It's a funny argument because the US had built a Naval plane and two US Army planes that could have out dogged the Zeke early on: The F4F but they over armed and armored it. The stripped, original specifications model flying as the FM2 was an awesome little fighter. The Army craft were the original design of the P-39 with a supercharger and the P-38. The 38 was unconventional and extremely expensive so it lost out but that plane could eat up just about anything in either theater in the right hands.
Cheers friend