As obsolete as it could be in December 1941, the A5M was still in service. Some American Intelligence sources believed that the A5M still served as the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service's main fighter when it had been replaced by the A6M Zero on the first-line aircraft carriers and with the Tainan Kökütai (Taiwan Air Group). Other Japanese carriers and Kökütais continued to use the A5M until the A6M was produced in enough quantities.
On 1st February 1942 the American carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) launched air-strikes at Japanese naval and air-bases on Roi and Kwajalein Atolls in the Gilbert islands. During those actions, three Douglas SBD dive bombers were shot down by Mitsubishi A5M, including the aircraft of Lt.-Cdr. Halstead Hopping, CO of VS-6 Squadron. The last combat action of the A5M took place at the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7th May 1942 when two A5M together with four A6M Zeroes, belonging to the Japanese carrier Shöhö, clashed against American airplanes that had shot down their carrier.
During the closing months of the war, some A5M airframes were used for kamikaze attacks.
There were various variants of the A5M like the A5M3, which was a single regular A5M2 powered by an Hispano-Suiza 12Xcrs twelve-cylinder Vee liquid-cooled engine which delivered 602hp of power for take-off and 681hp at 12.795ft high (4.500m). It was armed with just one 20mm Hispano-Suiza HS-404 cannon mounted in the engine and firing through the propeller hub. However there were plans to install more machine guns in the wings, but, as both Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army favoured radial engines against inline ones, the model was discarded and only one prototype was built in 1938.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_A5M
2. https://forum.valka.cz/topic/view/28833
3. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
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