# Am I the only person in the world who's a fan of the Ki-43



## Johnny .45 (Mar 24, 2016)

Just bored and was wondering. For some reason, I love that plane, in spite of it seeming so...underwhelming...compared to most of the "big" planes. It seems to have such character, and it was surprisingly successful for an aircraft that never had more than 2 x 12.7mm MG's or any kind of armor at all; sometimes the success that the Japanese and Soviets had with relatively light armament makes me wonder if we really needed as many big guns as we think we did. I also suspect the Ki-43 must have been great fun to fly, being so light and nimble. "Hayabusa" is a great name too. I know the A6M is more glamorous and better known (the Ki-43 was just "The Army Zero" to Allied pilots), maybe better looking too, but I prefer the Ki-43. Supposedly it shot down more aircraft than any other Japanese fighter (basically making it the Japanese Hurricane!), and did it in spite of being much lighter-armed and even more lightly-built than the Zero. And it was gaining victories right up to the end of the war, when in the right hands. Not bad for an aircraft that was facing opponents that outclassed it by such a magnitude. I guess I just always like the underdog...

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## Greyman (Mar 25, 2016)

The success the 'Type 01' also shook my understanding of aircraft armament in WWII. Reading through Shores' "Bloody Shambles" I gained a newfound respect for the fighter, their pilots, and the (usual) armament of one 7.7-mm and one 12.7-mm gun.

For what it's worth I think some versions had some armour plate.


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## Shinpachi (Mar 25, 2016)

My father, as a former IJA soldier, would have been happy to hear that, Johnny 
In fact, Japanese were surprised to know the zero fighter was most famous or popular with the allies after the war was over.
The Ki-43 was the most famous and popular fighter in Japan during the war.
Even most of Japanese today don't know that.

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## GregP (Mar 25, 2016)

I am a fan of the type, Shinpachi, and just finished a drawing of it. Most of the "Zeros" reported in early combat reports were most probably Ki-43's, but I'm sure you know that. it looks like a thoroughly pleasant aircraft to fly, but is a bit light on armament for combat versus more heavily-constructed opponents.


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## GrauGeist (Mar 25, 2016)

I prefer the late war types myself - this is just a personal preference and in now way diminishes the ability of the A6M or the KI-43, which were certainly an asset to the IJA & IJN


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## fastmongrel (Mar 25, 2016)

Been a fan of the Hayabusa for a long time. I built a 1:72 model by I think Hasegawa about 40 years ago and I remember it being a lovely kit.


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## vikingBerserker (Mar 25, 2016)

Even with the odd gun arrangement, it was impressive.


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## windswords (Mar 26, 2016)

Johnny .45 said:


> Just bored and was wondering. For some reason, I love that plane, in spite of it seeming so...underwhelming...compared to most of the "big" planes. It seems to have such character, and it was surprisingly successful for an aircraft that never had more than 2 x 12.7mm MG's or any kind of armor at all; sometimes the success that the Japanese and Soviets had with relatively light armament makes me wonder if we really needed as many big guns as we think we did. I also suspect the Ki-43 must have been great fun to fly, being so light and nimble. "Hayabusa" is a great name too. I know the A6M is more glamorous and better known (the Ki-43 was just "The Army Zero" to Allied pilots), maybe better looking too, but I prefer the Ki-43. Supposedly it shot down more aircraft than any other Japanese fighter (basically making it the Japanese Hurricane!), and did it in spite of being much lighter-armed and even more lightly-built than the Zero. And it was gaining victories right up to the end of the war, when in the right hands. Not bad for an aircraft that was facing opponents that outclassed it by such a magnitude. I guess I just always like the underdog...


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## windswords (Mar 26, 2016)

It is a misnomer that Japanese aircraft never had armor protection or self sealing fuel tanks. The early war fighters did not, and the Japanese paid for it, though at the time they thought the exchange of range and better climb and turning ability was worth it. As the war progressed both the Zero and the Hayabusa were given increased protection so that by the last year of the war they had armor plating behind the pilot, self sealing fuel tanks and bullet proof windscreens. The Zero even had a fire extinguishing system if I remember correctly. That's not to say that their self-sealing tanks were as good as the allies or the Germans but they did have them. Also the 12.7 mm guns of the Ki-43 were considered to be "machine cannon" by the Japanese. The shells were explosive (obviously not as much as the 20 mm size). I don't know how they compare with the American M2 .5 caliber. One of the drawbacks of the weapon is that it did not synchronize well with the propeller blade. The rate of fire was only around 400 rounds per minute, whereas the 7.7 mm rate of fire was 800 and some. That may explain the mix of weapons in some Ki-43 examples. Since the Ki-43 shot down plenty of aircraft including Col Neil Kearby's P-47, they were obviously effective when aimed well.

What fascinates me about the Ki-43 is that for the Japanese army air force it represents a transitional model from the old generation of aerial combat (WWI and after) to the next (WWII).

Initially the Ki-43 incorporated only a few "modern" features when compared to its predecessor the Ki-27. Retractable landing gear and the provision for radio equipment. It still had a telescopic gun sight and twin small caliber weapons firing thru the propeller like planes of Richthofen and Rickenbacker and only sported a two bladed propeller. By the end of the war in addition to the armor and self-sealing fuel tanks it had a three bladed propeller, individual exhaust stacks, water-methanol injection, reflector type gun sight and heavy caliber guns.

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## fastmongrel (Mar 26, 2016)

If you measure a planes effectiveness by comparing its weight to its adversaries the Ki43 would have been the best fighter of WWII you could probably get three Ki43s to a P38 or P47


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## Johnny .45 (Mar 26, 2016)

windswords said:


> It is a misnomer that Japanese aircraft never had armor protection or self sealing fuel tanks. The early war fighters did not, and the Japanese paid for it, though at the time they thought the exchange of range and better climb and turning ability was worth it. As the war progressed both the Zero and the Hayabusa were given increased protection so that by the last year of the war they had armor plating behind the pilot, self sealing fuel tanks and bullet proof windscreens. The Zero even had a fire extinguishing system if I remember correctly. That's not to say that their self-sealing tanks were as good as the allies or the Germans but they did have them. Also the 12.7 mm guns of the Ki-43 were considered to be "machine cannon" by the Japanese. The shells were explosive (obviously not as much as the 20 mm size). I don't know how they compare with the American M2 .5 caliber. One of the drawbacks of the weapon is that it did not synchronize well with the propeller blade. The rate of fire was only around 400 rounds per minute, whereas the 7.7 mm rate of fire was 800 and some. That may explain the mix of weapons in some Ki-43 examples. Since the Ki-43 shot down plenty of aircraft including Col Neil Kearby's P-47, they were obviously effective when aimed well.
> 
> What fascinates me about the Ki-43 is that for the Japanese army air force it represents a transitional model from the old generation of aerial combat (WWI and after) to the next (WWII).
> .



I've actually recently read that, about the Ho-103's poor sychronization. It even said that the Japanese pilots were so unhappy with its low rate of fire, that it was common for pilots to remove one of the 12.7mm's and replace it with an older 7.7mm Type 89 (might have even been one of the threads on here, now that I think of it). It seems like Japanese pilots frequently had different priorities than pilots from other nations, thus the unique character of their aircraft. I'd also note that the Soviets were similar in that they tended to fit much lighter armament to their fighters; a standard for an La-7/9 or Yak-9/3 was one 20mm and one 12.7mm, which they considered perfectly sufficient, and were very successful with. When they were given P-39's with .50cals in the cowl and wings, they immediately removed the wing guns, to improve the roll rate (which was already quite good, IIRC). Which reminds me of my original topic: I found it interesting to hear that the Ho-103 was so poor when sychronized, because the Ho-103 is actually a Browning (I've read that it's based on the M2, but I also have read that it's derived from the M1919, which would make it a parallel development. That would explain why it's chambered in the weaker Italian Breda 12.7mm cartridge; if they had copied the M2, why not take the .50BMG as well?). I've also read that the M2 sychronized poorly, but I wonder if it was quite THAT bad, and if it was that poor, then it makes it even more interesting that the Soviets would have so willingly stripped their P-39's down to their cowling .50cals alone; perhaps they considered the 37mm the "real" gun, and the .50cals were just backup? If the M2 isn't as poor in a synchronized configuration, I wonder if it has something to do with being derived from the M1919 (if it is) rather than the M2.
As for explosive 12.7mm shells, yes the Japanese considered anything over 11mm to be a "cannon", but that's more of a classification thing than any real difference; the German MG 131 and the 12.7mm Breda-SAFAT used explosive shells, and I THINK the Russians 12.7mm's did as well. The US trialed them, but decided it wasn't worth it. As for how the Japanese 12.7mm compared to the .50BMG, it had a somewhat shorter case, so less capacity and a lower muzzle velocity, thus less penetration and power, and poorer ballistics. In essence, it's identical to the Breda cartridge.

Shinpachi, I honor your father's memory and his service to Japan. I read your thread on Japanese aircraft engines the other day; thank you very much for the invaluable information and translations.

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## Steve Hnz (Mar 26, 2016)

As one who has read fairly extensively on the CBI theatre conflict, I have no trouble giving the Ki-43 the honour it deserves. Its Ho-103 12.7mm gun was a Japanese development firing a version of the Vickers .5" round, made semi rimmed because the British Govt wouldn't clear the rimless round used by the RN for export. More info here. Not as powerful as the .5 browning but handy nonetheless, the Italians used much the same round & I've long though that early Spitfires & Hurricanes would have been better of with 4 or 6 Brownings adapted to this round than the .303.
Steve


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## fastmongrel (Mar 27, 2016)

Steve Hnz said:


> Its Ho-103 12.7mm gun was a Japanese development firing a version of the Vickers .5" round, made semi rimmed because the British Govt wouldn't clear the rimless round used by the RN for export.
> Steve



I suppose the British Govt having paid for the development of the Gun and Round werent too keen for Vickers to make money off the taxpayers back.


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## Shortround6 (Mar 27, 2016)

I doubt that is it. Vickers was scaling the basic Vickers gun mechanism (modified Maxim gun) up and down to variety of calibers and had been for years (before WW I) . From smaller than .303 (but still service rifle ammunition) to the 2pdr (40mm) if not larger in experimental pieces. Vickers certainly sold a number of guns (and even ammunition sizes) to foreign governments that had nothing to do with British tax payers. 

The actual differences between the two .5in/12.7mm rounds was trivial. 






From Anthony Williams excellent web site. Rimless rounds have a lower tendency to cause jams than rimmed or semi-rimmed rounds. 
the Rimless round has a slightly later model number than the semi-rimmed round. Semi-rimmed round may offer more rim area for the extractor to grab and help get reluctant cases out of the chamber without the the extractor tearing through the rim. How good is your brass metallurgy/manufacturing? 

Please note the difference in size between the 12.7x81 SR and the 13.2x99 round next to it which was the round used in the Japanese Navy 13mm guns. The Navy gun is 6-8 kg heavier than the Army gun and the ammo weighs around 4 kg more per 100 rounds.

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## Timppa (Mar 28, 2016)

Shinpachi said:


> Japanese were surprised to know the zero fighter was most famous or popular with the allies after the war was over.



That is because air power dominated the Pacific war throughout, even more than in ETA (including Eastern front).
The crucial battles in that war were between carrier aircraft.
The most important land battles were to provide supporting sea/air bases for further naval offensives.

So it is obvious that the fighter mainstay of the IJN got more attention than the IJA mainstay in these battles.
The CBI theatre (and New Guinea/East Indies ) were really sideshows.

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## Johnny .45 (Mar 29, 2016)

Shinpachi said:


> My father, as a former IJA soldier, would have been happy to hear that, Johnny
> In fact, Japanese were surprised to know the zero fighter was most famous or popular with the allies after the war was over.
> The Ki-43 was the most famous and popular fighter in Japan during the war.
> Even most of Japanese today don't know that.



I was thinking about this fact, and that is very interesting to me. I wonder why that the Ki-43 was the better known aircraft. I'm speculating that it is because the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service had been doing most of the fighting in China, and so the civilians had seen a lot more Army aircraft on the newsreels. It seems like most of the newsreels I've seen were of Ki-21's, Ki-48's, Ki-27's and Ki-43, etc. I know the Navy did some fighting in China, and there was A5M's and G3M's operating there, but I suspect there were fewer than the Army. Probably the Navy was more held in reserve, in case of escalation. Of course, this is all speculation, but the fact that the A6M was lesser known than the Ki-43 is certainly ironic, since these days, it's the only Japanese aircraft that the average person recognizes at all!
(Although I have to note that I've noticed that interest about Japanese aircraft in general has increased a lot over the last ten years, at least among aviation enthusiasts. Given me a chance to be a "hipster" and say "I liked Japanese aircraft before it was cool!")


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## gjs238 (Mar 30, 2016)

Timppa said:


> The CBI theatre (and New Guinea/East Indies ) were really sideshows.



So do you support Nimitz's strategy & path to Japan over MacArthur's?


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## syscom3 (Mar 30, 2016)

Until Nimitz had a fleet large enough to plow through the Central Pacific, the Halsey and MacArthur strategy was valid.

As it was, the US had so much material available at its disposal by Q1 of 1944, both pathes could be pursued. It was Halsey destroying the IJN in the Solomons and MacArthur eliminating Japanese airpower in New Guinea that made the Central Pacific offensive succesfull.


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## Timppa (Mar 31, 2016)

gjs238 said:


> So do you support Nimitz's strategy & path to Japan over MacArthur's?



Yes. Taking Philippines was mostly for (MacArthur's) political reasons.
Invasion of Peleliu was also a mistake. Nimitz should have instead invaded Iwo Jima, and then Okinawa before the end of 1944.


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## GrauGeist (Mar 31, 2016)

Timppa said:


> Yes. Taking Philippines was mostly for (MacArthur's) political reasons.
> Invasion of Peleliu was also a mistake. Nimitz should have instead invaded Iwo Jima, and then Okinawa before the end of 1944.


And just how well were the Allies equipped to handle the strength of Japanese forces in 1944 compared to 1945?

The war of attrition on the Japanese was showing definite results on both the IJA and IJN by spring of 1945...so an assault on Okinawa and/or Iwo Jima in 1944, when the Japanese had greater material strength seems to me like it may have turned into a disaster for the Allies.

As for the "political assault" on the Philippines...at what point should they have been taken?

The Philippines provided a wealth of military resources for the Japanese in airfields, naval bases and staging areas that was a "jumping off" point to held areas to the south, east and the Asian mainland - taking that away from the Japanese drove a huge wedge into their ability to move, resupply and hold areas in the region.


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## syscom3 (Mar 31, 2016)

The invasion of the PI put a cork in japans ability to send raw materials back to it's factories. A snap invasion of Iwo in Sept 1944 would have been better. The marines were not really required by MaCarthur due to the numerous army divisions in the OOB.


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## soulezoo (Apr 1, 2016)

GrauGeist said:


> And just how well were the Allies equipped to handle the strength of Japanese forces in 1944 compared to 1945?
> 
> The war of attrition on the Japanese was showing definite results on both the IJA and IJN by spring of 1945...so an assault on Okinawa and/or Iwo Jima in 1944, when the Japanese had greater material strength seems to me like it may have turned into a disaster for the Allies.
> 
> ...



This is a bit of a derail from the OP, but I am reminded that MacArthur received the MOH out of pure politics as well. Roosevelt wanted to sack him due to his indifference at the initial reports of Japanese movements against the PI to the poor defense planning he utilized. So the MOH was awarded to deflect the attention from how bad he actually behaved. I've only been able to speak to a few people over time that were fairly close to MacArthur and he is not held in high regard. The Japanese, post war, have a different view.


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## Shinpachi (Apr 1, 2016)

Yes, General MacArthur was respected by Japanese because he tried to understand them as he testified later in the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees of the United States Senate – 82nd Congress, Thursday May 3, 1951. His mistake, however, was to have disbanded IJA and IJN perfectly. He would have missed them when he encountered communists in Korea.

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## Elmas (Apr 1, 2016)

Shinpachi said:


> Yes, General MacArthur was respected by Japanese because he tried to understand them as he testified later in the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees of the United States Senate – 82nd Congress, Thursday May 3, 1951. His mistake, however, was to have disbanded IJA and IJN perfectly. He would have missed them when he encountered communists in Korea.




This seems to be an error that Americans tend to do often.

In 2006 I was invited to a conference of Sir Edward Chaplin, then HM Ambassador to Italy and, just before, notable for serving as British ambassador in occupied Iraq from April 2004.

After his speech the audience was allowed to pose some questions.

_“What do you think, Sir”_ was mine _“ has been the worst error of the Americans in Iraq?”_

_“No doubt, to have disbanded the Iraqi Army”_ was his reply.

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## Shinpachi (Apr 1, 2016)

That's it, Elmas.
Our old proverb says a snake knows its path well.

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## Timppa (Apr 2, 2016)

Speaking of MacArthur , Japanese are the masters of interpreting subtle expressions. But even "gaijin" got a clear message of who was the boss in Japan immediately after WW2, after seeing the photo of Gaetano Faillace, MacArthurs personal photographer.


When MacArthur Met the Emperor


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## Shinpachi (Apr 2, 2016)

Hirohito looks taller than before.
Not a bad picture


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## Jenisch (Nov 30, 2016)

Bringing this thread back to life!

I also like from the Ki-43. I was wondering if the top speed of the the Ki-43I, of 495km/h, was military power or if the plane could fly faster than that. If it could fly faster, anyone knows how much?


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## Greg Boeser (Nov 30, 2016)

What impresses me about the Japanese fighter forces in general was their ability to take down even American heavies with such light armament. The 408th BG in China got a severe bloody nose in the summer of '43, when Ki-43s made mince meat of their unescorted formations.


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## GregP (Dec 1, 2016)

Funny you should say the CBI was a sideshow relative to the Pacific Ocean Areas. The USAAF flew 2.5 more sorties in the CBI than in the POA and dropped twice as much bomb tonnage in the CBI as in the POA. The Far East Air Force was 2.5 time more again than the CBI.

All probably due to the fact that a carrier didn't ccarry all THAT many aircraft when compared with a large ground base, and though we had a few carriers, we had a LOT more ground bases.


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## michaelmaltby (Dec 1, 2016)

"...General Douglas MacArthur had landed at Atsugi airbase two days before; since the VJ day, he had been asked by President Truman to oversee the occupation of Japan. It was a daunting task. On his drive to Yokohama from Atsugi, tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers greeted him with their bayonets out in one final act of symbolic defiance. .."

The General made a _greater_ impression when he debarked at Atsugi two days before UNARMED ... and at his insistence the rest of his staff. Winston Churchill claimed that was the bravest act of WW2 .... hyperbole, no doubt, but memorable


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## michaelmaltby (Dec 1, 2016)

_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1p8OIWdnAo_


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## Shinpachi (Dec 1, 2016)

I remember the ruined fields and lively Japanese in the 1950s as a kid.

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## Old Wizard (Dec 1, 2016)




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## Jenisch (Dec 4, 2016)

I found a post about armor in the Ki-43 II in a Japanese aircraft blog:

Aviation of Japan 日本の航空史: Armour Plate on the Ki-43 Hayabusa

An excerpt caught my attention:



> An intercepted Japanese report of early 1944 summarising combat lessons after the first clashes between the Ki-43 and RAF Spitfires in Burma mentions that its pilots were pleased with the armour and fuel tank protection in the Type 1 Hayabusa and that one aircraft had returned safely after receiving 39 hits.



However it appears that the Ki-43 never had an armored windscreen, since armor only for the back and head of the pilot are mentioned.


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## tomo pauk (Dec 4, 2016)

Indeed, the newly-installed protection is mentioned in Allied docs, too. Eg: link

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## Jenisch (Dec 4, 2016)

According to the report, that thing could go to almost 560km/h using WEP at 20,000ft. How much the late variants of the P-40 could go with WEP?


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## Shortround6 (Dec 4, 2016)

P-40s had a somewhat different performance envelope. A P-40N-1 (stripper model) could do 548kp/h at 20,000ft but that is with military power. The supercharger could *not* provide WEP at much above 15,000ft. It could provide 57in of boost (13 1/2 lbs?) up to 9200ft in level flight. Boost fell from that altitude on up. 46.75in at 15,000ft and 43.8in at 17,000ft (military power). 
The P-40N could do 352mph (567km/h) at 9-10,000ft using 57in of boost. 

These figures are from a RAAF tests and not Curtiss Factory tests which give better speeds. 

There is little doubt the P-40 was much faster at lower altitudes than the Ki 43 if more than the Military "rated" 43.8-44.5in of boost was used.
However even the later P-40s ran out of "puff" as they got close to 20,000ft and even the Stripper P-40N-1 (no electric start, one fuel tank taken out, magnesium wheels, aluminium radiators and just four guns with limited ammo) still went between 7750-7900lbs instead of the 8350-8550lbs of the fully equipped late model P-40s.

P-40s attempting to fight at over 20,000ft could be in real trouble. 

Picking only one altitude to compare performance at doesn't give a real good picture of planes actual ability.

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## Jenisch (Dec 5, 2016)

Yeah, certainly the speed at just one range is not enough.

By what I have read about the Ki-43, the main complaints were about lack of armor (at least before armor was introduced), structural failure (in the first production model) and weak armamment. However I did not read criticism about what I think is the greatest issue this plane had: it's speed. That thing was just SO slow for an aircraft that was entering in service in late 1941. I think that even against Hurricanes and Buffalos it was outclassed in terms of speed. Not to say a P-40E.

Contrary to popular criticism, I don't think the Japanese were wrong in regard to wish a great maneuverability in their aircraft. Their main problem, as I have said I belive, was with speed. The Soviets had planes with great speed and agility in the form of the late Yaks and La fighters. So I think the Japanese were not totally in wrong in trying to force close in combat with the Allied planes. They just needed a mean to do this (i.e. engine power). And I think the Ki-43 airframe was not bad at all, because I have read that the model III could reach 358 mph of top speed (again, I don't know how the speed was distribued among the different altitudes, neither if this value is with WEP or not). If only they could have started the war with this version as standard, the Japanese would have had a much more decent airplane. Although it should be mentioned that neither the P-40 was avaliable in it's full potential in 1941, with aircraft such as the P-40B and even the P-36 being operational. So things were indeed more complex.


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## Shortround6 (Dec 5, 2016)

The Ki 43-I had a single speed supercharger and power at the higher altitudes was a bit lacking. The Ki 43-II used a two speed supercharger and had a lot more power at 20,000ft while not giving up anything at lower altitudes. The engines were the army equivalents of the engines used in the Zero. 

You can get WEP in two basic ways, one is by using more boost (manifold pressure) than normally allowed but this only works at altitudes were the supercharger can actually supply the higher pressure, that is to say below the FTH. (full throttle height) or critical altitude. Once the throttle plate is fully open the supercharger is delivering all the air it can and there is no more power to be had. 
The 2nd way is to use more RPM than normally allowed, this places even more stress on the engine and is limited to short periods of time. It is also useful to countries than did not have access to high performance number fuel. 

Most countries also used water/alcohol injection for WEP in _some_ engines.


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## tomo pauk (Dec 5, 2016)

The Ha-115 was a redesign of the Ha-25, with greater max RPM (2800 vs. 2700), slightly increased compression ratio, increased boost enabled via usage of 92 oct fuel vs. 87 oct fuel on the Ha-25, and indeed a 2-speed S/C. Net gain was the increase of power in all altitudes, cost being 70 kg.
Data from the TAIC manual, the asterisk (*) represents Allied estimate:

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## Jenisch (Dec 5, 2016)

Actually I guess I shouldn't have underestimated the opinions of Japanese pilots, but still the speed question in regard to the Ki-43 and even the Zero puzzles me. I have read Jiro Horikoshi's book about the Zero and he criticizes the people who complain about the Zero without considering the context in which the plane was inserted (a naval fighter with long range), which thus means the designers had to make some trade-offs in order to achive the specifications. This is more palatable IMHO. As for the Ki-43, I don't think there's much of an excuse: the plane was fruit of a poor design and/or specifications. And indeed at the beginning, it was rejected. Only after improvements were carried out the IJA accepted the plane, but even so I guess it was bellow the expectations in terms of speed.


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## Jenisch (Dec 5, 2016)

I guess I wasn't very clear in what I was trying to express above. So to clarify: I think the airframe of the Ki-43 with a good engine was a decent fighter, specially for the Pacific and CBI in 1942 and even to some extent 1943. However unlike the Ki-27, which was a plane that when entered in service was quite faste (specially if compared with it's potential foe, the I-16) and also agile, the Ki-43 just wasn't like that. It took more than a year for the plane to receive a new engine, and and even more (1944) for it to achive a speed that would be adequate for 1942.

I guess the fault is not even from the Army in regard to the specifications or the design team. Maybe the Japanese simply didn't had an adequate engine, so you have to make up with what you have.


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## taly01 (Jan 2, 2017)

The Japanese had plenty of decent engines however they seemed to have "overtuned" the Homare and DB601 copies which their next generation fighters like Ki-84 and Ki-61 were designed around. One example the re-engined Ki-61 as Ki-100 could have been built in 1942 as its Kinsei radial was already in service! 

The Ki-43 did what is was built for a light fighter, the problem was that its "replacement" the Ki-61 was an unreliable nightmare, and later on the Ki-84 had many troubles on introduction, so Ki-43 had to be kept in full production even when it is 50+mph slower than newest allied types.


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## Shinpachi (Jan 2, 2017)

Japanese scientists owned the uranium 235 too.


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## Jenisch (Jan 2, 2017)

What I wonder is how the IJA staff viewed the way the Ki-43 should be operated. I have skpeticism in regard to the often mentioned dogfight capability as being a mistake in their specifications. I think they surely wanted quite agile planes to defeat their enemies in dogfights, but I wonder if the low top speed was necessarily a result of this policy. Because the Zero was quite similar to the Wildcat in speed, but was much more agile. Yes, it lacked armor and dive speed, but apart from this the design was solid and competitive vis-à-vis the F4F. Although the Ki-43 did not managed to do the same against the P-40 for instance, as far as speed in concerned.


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## tomo pauk (Jan 2, 2017)

The P-40 was faster than F4F, so it would be hard for the Ki-43 to be faster than P-40. Zero, once it got improved Sakae, was faster than F4F.
Looks like the Zero got the improved exhausts earlier than the Ki-43, that gained some 20 km/h once installed. 
As for what the IJA brass wanted, there was only so much the radials of initially 900 HP can afford.


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## tomo pauk (Jan 2, 2017)

taly01 said:


> The Japanese had plenty of decent engines however they seemed to have "overtuned" the Homare and DB601 copies which their next generation fighters like Ki-84 and Ki-61 were designed around. One example the re-engined Ki-61 as Ki-100 could have been built in 1942 as its Kinsei radial was already in service!
> 
> The Ki-43 did what is was built for a light fighter, the problem was that its "replacement" the Ki-61 was an unreliable nightmare, and later on the Ki-84 had many troubles on introduction, so Ki-43 had to be kept in full production even when it is 50+mph slower than newest allied types.



Japan wasted lots of resources when designing & producing plenty of competing fighter & attack aircraft designs, and some that were ot needed. Floatplane fighter by Kawainshi, dedicated land-based fighter for the IJN, too small a winged Ki 44. Three designs of CV torpedo bombers, another two or three CV-based dive bombers - all in 4-5 years. Dedicated recon aircraft (two types) is not a good use of limited resources.


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## Greg Boeser (Jan 2, 2017)

The Japanese were as guilty of fighting the last war as the Allies. Their experience in China and against the Soviets over Khalkin Gol seemed to validate their belief in the importance of high maneuverability vs speed. The Ki-43 was faster than anything the IJAAF had faced up to the launch of the Great Southern Offensive.


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## Greg Boeser (Jan 2, 2017)

tomo pauk said:


> Japan wasted lots of resources when designing & producing plenty of competing fighter & attack aircraft designs, and some that were ot needed. Floatplane fighter by Kawainshi, dedicated land-based fighter for the IJN, too small a winged Ki 44. Three designs of CV torpedo bombers, another two or three CV-based dive bombers - all in 4-5 years. Dedicated recon aircraft (two types) is not a good use of limited resources.



Whether resources were well spent or wasted is only measurable in retrospect. Each design is always based on the perceived need at the time it is conceived. Every air force was guilty of investing in aircraft that failed to meet expectations, yet it is the death knell of an air force that eschews development of newer and better types.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 2, 2017)

A big problem with the KI-43, in retrospect, was that the vast majority of it's production was in 1943/44 at a time when it should have been obvious that it was no longer in the front rank/s of fighters no matter how well it did in 1941/42.

Out of the 5800-5900 Ki 43s built a bit over 3000 of them were built in 1944. And another 748 (?) in 1945.

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## Jenisch (Jan 2, 2017)

tomo pauk said:


> The P-40 was faster than F4F, so it would be hard for the Ki-43 to be faster than P-40. Zero, once it got improved Sakae, was faster than F4F.
> Looks like the Zero got the improved exhausts earlier than the Ki-43, that gained some 20 km/h once installed.
> As for what the IJA brass wanted, there was only so much the radials of initially 900 HP can afford.



I guess I didn't expressed myself clearly. Yes, the P-40 was faster than the F4F. What I wanted to say was that the IJN had an aircraft with a comparable speed to it's main naval foe (the F4F). Whereas the IJA was in a disappointing position with the Ki-43 against vs the P-40 for instance.

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## tomo pauk (Jan 2, 2017)

Greg Boeser said:


> Whether resources were well spent or wasted is only measurable in retrospect. Each design is always based on the perceived need at the time it is conceived. Every air force was guilty of investing in aircraft that failed to meet expectations, yet it is the death knell of an air force that eschews development of newer and better types.



I'm all for newer and better types. Quirk with a new, expesive and long-ish to develop and start to mass produce (several years) is that the time and resources spent need to show results in a timely manner. Let's take IJN as example. They have Zero, in service as CV- and land-based fighter, as well as floatplane fighter. So the IJN embarks on developing a single-purpose Raiden, instead of pursuing a CV-based fighter of new generation that also can be land based. Outfit it with cameras so there is a recon machine.
Or - combine the late-war designs for torpedo- and dive-bomber in a single machine.

IJA could've had an useful mid- to late-war fighter had they opted for the Ki-44 with a bit bigger wing and 4 heavy MGs from start, later add 20mm instead of wing HMGs. Churn those out instead of Ki-43 from 1943 on.

All of this is before we talk about IJN and IJA being on worse terrms than, say, Stalin and Churchill, with their separate supply chains with regard to airframes, engines, armament etc.


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## taly01 (Jan 2, 2017)

Jenisch is right, Ki-43-I was 25mph slower speed to the Zero 21 with the same engine let alone no 20mm cannon. The IJA would have been better off accepting the Zero as a superior design, but from what I have read the interservice cooperation IJA vs IJN was poor!

The IJA could have made an Army Zero without carrier equipment and even used army guns 4x12.7!


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## Jenisch (Jan 4, 2017)

taly01 said:


> but from what I have read the interservice cooperation IJA vs IJN was poor!



The comparison of their relation as being like Churchill and Stalin made by tomo pauk is the best one I have ever seen. I guess Shinpachi can validate this better than most of us.


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## Shinpachi (Jan 4, 2017)

Competition between IJA and IJN was rather good each other to develop better planes.
This was effective until they made war on the U.S. in December 1941.
In April 1943, they decided to unify the designations of aviation engines as the first step toward cooperation.


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## rank amateur (Jan 4, 2017)

OK! I did not know that. I figured they battled each other as hard as they did their common enemies. Would you know which planes benefitted from that cooperation?


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## Shinpachi (Jan 4, 2017)

Mitsubishi J8M (Ki-200) comes to mind.
Army Ki-67 was also used as a torpedo bomber by the navy.


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## rank amateur (Jan 4, 2017)

OK thanks. I thought Peggy was from the start designed for torpedo use. Futhermore regarding the ki200, it still strikes me as odd that both services insisted on separate version. Nevertheless interesting to know that there was cooperation.

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## tomo pauk (Jan 4, 2017)

IMO - cooperation was thinkered about only after grave setbacks the Imperial Japanese war effort experienced, instead on timely manner.


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## Shinpachi (Jan 4, 2017)

A long distance escort fighter Mitsubishi Ki-83, a single seat ground attacker by Tokyo Koku and a long distance heavy bomber "Fugaku" by Nakajima were also planned as the joint developments.


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## The Basket (Jan 4, 2017)

I see no issue liking a particular airplane.
Nothing wrong with that.
However....The Hayabusa is not that great and shows the weakness of Japanese design, resources and planning.
The Boulton Paul Defiant is a good case or the Brewster Buffalo. The foibles of these 2 machines are not deal breakers as the Defiant was not a fighter in 1945 so you can be a fan without the fact that it was unsuccessful but you can enjoy the engineering. If the Hayabusa is still a front line fighter in the mid 1940s then that's not because the design is that good but because the Japanese war industry is that bad.

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## parsifal (Jan 4, 2017)

Japanese failures can be traced to their pre-war thinking and assumptions and this was borne out in the weakneses they accepted in their aircraft designs. The Japanese gave unrealistic assessments prewar as to their own strengths, and assumed the western democracies were weak kneed and would not fight beyond a few months into the campaign. They placed considerable weight on the assumption the Germans would force the Russians out of the war in 1941, and that the Germans would swing back west to the west, leaving the Allies with little choice but to negotiate a settlement with Japan.


For their war strategy to have any hope of success, the Japanese had to deliver a killer blow from the start, and complete the conquests at breakneck speed. Upon achievement of the (assumed) defeat of the western allies and Russia in other TOs, the Japanese believed they would have time to consolidate, fortify and build up their positions with years of time up their sleeves. If, or more likely when, the allies returned to the field of battle, it was assumed they would suffer heavy attrition as they attempted to advance onto the vital Japanese interests.


Clearly the Japanese were wildly over optimistic and unrealistic in their thinking. The allies recover, the Soviets did not surrender and within 15 months the axis on all fronts were on the retreat.


Whilst the Americans did modify their Plan Orange strategies to take advantage of their new fast carriers, these were hardly the war winning weapons of war the Americans so often like to claim. By the end of 1942, both sides had fought their carrier fleets to utter exhaustion. In the case of the USN they were reduced to just a single operational CV in the PTO (which even then was damaged), the IJNs had 3 smaller fleet carriers but had suffered near fatal losses in air crew. What crushed the Japanese were the powers of recovery possessed by the Allies and their ability to simply overwhelm the Japanese defences. They did this with a multi pronged series of attacks, the most important being their submarine campaign. Next in importance was the unrelenting allied air sea and land campaigns fought in the SW pacific, the south Pacific, NW Australia and the CBI, which prevented the Japanese from replacing losses and building reserves, whilst the Allies were able to do just that.


US carriers did play a pivotal role in the final campaigns, but they were noticeably absent for most of 1943, as were the IJN carriers. They were a factor, but not a critical one. Mac had worked out strategies by early 1943 which did not require carriers (the socalled “island hopping strategies” and “wither on the vine”). By June 1944, the Japanese were facing defeat, and they knew it. Their entire efforts from that date until warsd end was about securing an honourable surrender not about any form of victory. In that last year the USN fast carrier forces were at last decisive as they moved at will in enemy controlled waters blasting anything that opposed them out of existence.


The Japanese retained their two principal fighter types, the Zeke and the Oscar in more or less original form because they had no choice. The pressure from the allies was relentless there was no time to significantly alter the design as had always been intended so the Japanese struggled on with aircraft design for offensive purposes when they really needed fighters for defensive purposes, fighters in which range and manouverability were second to speed, firepower and protection. For those of us with Japanese symathies, it is a sad account of history. For the rest of humanity including the Japanese themselves, it was a merciful omission that allowed the war to end quickly

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## The Basket (Jan 4, 2017)

The Kawasaki Ki-61 was only par with say the Bf 109 Emil and so was 4 years behind the curve.
The idea of putting an aircraft with such a poor top speed such as the Hayabusa in service in 1941 is mind boggling.


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## parsifal (Jan 5, 2017)

The IJA was an incredibly conservative outfit, in which the qualities of turn capability were paramount. they also knew that in order to "get at" their opponents they needed range and in 1941 this was only really possible with small engines that were relatively fuel efficient, coupled with super lightweight construction at least in the context of 1938-40 when the plane was being developed. Its development was held up by the IJAs desire to develop a "heavy fighter" that ended in failure. The desire for range and disdain that speed and climb and protection as elements of aircraft design were held more or less guaranteed the form of the IJA fighter development. The Ki-43 was slower than the me109 E3, but greatly superior in terms of range. I wonder if the Ki-43 could have done better in the BoB if available. Could probably outfly the Spitfire V as demonstrated in the engagements between the Zeke (a comparable aircraft) and the Darwin Wing in 1943. The Ki-43 was clearly superior to the hurricane over the CBI. It is a design that can be easily dismissed because of its apparent lack of performance, yet it is also a design that has achievements and capabilities to its credit that clearly mount a serious challenge to that comfortable thinking. 

To the credit of the IJA they were working on replacement designs that would give greater credence on these other elements. A/C like the Ki-44 and somewhat later the Ki-61 were just beginning to enter service 1942/43 and would provide greater diving ability, level speed and firepower, somewhat at the expense of the more traditional qualities and significantly with more limited ranges. There were 12 experimental Shokis that participated in the opening campaigns but the limits on their range meant they could not do what the Hayabusas were doing. The Ki-43 was designed with offensive operations in mind, using technologies that dictated that certain compromises needed to be accepted if that role was to be successfully met

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## Jenisch (Jan 5, 2017)

IMHO The Basket is quite right in regard to the speed of the Ki-43. However the plane was not only agile, but also had a rate of climb that was considerably superior to the P-40 for instance. Perhaps with the right tactics it did caused a lot of trouble to Allied pilots. Unfornately I don't know almost nothing about the history of this plane in combat.


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## The Basket (Jan 5, 2017)

I am also a reader on Japanese history and do indeed find it fascinating. I have even come to the conclusion that the Nambu type 94 pistol isn't that bad which is a clear sign of madness.
But military speaking the Hayabusa or even the Zero is junk in 1945 and this isnt good enough.

A good pilot in a good plane with the right tactics can do wonders. We say how good the Hurricane is or the P-40 or the F4F but in reality that's not true and they are par at best with the Hayabusa or Zero. Even the early mark Spitfires are not too far ahead. It's when the later stuff comes along like the Hellcat and P-38 and P-51 and that is that.


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## GregP (Jan 5, 2017)

The Zero was NEVER junk and still isn't. In the hands of any decent pilot it was dangerous right up to the end. The only real question was whether or not the decent Zero pilot had some decent friends with him and whether or not they encountered any Allied pilots who were versed in properly handling the Zero. Mostly, I think they were. So decent American pilots versus decent Japanese pilots should have brought about something of a stalemete, favoring the more numerous Americans, with the Zeros being able to elude the Hellcats most of the time, while getting in some licks of their own some of the time. That of course, depends upon the disparity in numbers. If there was an encounter of, say, 8 Zeros versus 40 Hellcats, then the Zeros were in BIG trouble. If it was more like 8 vs. 8, then it could have gotten interesting, assuming combat veterans on both side. There is no way that ALL the Japanese pilots were always "newbies." Even some of the bigger aces survived the war.

In the end, I think it boiled down to too few decent IJN pilots for the swarms of Hellcats and Corsairs showing up, along with the newly freed-up P-51s from the ETO making their appearances, too. We simply threw too many aircraft with decent pilots flying them at the IJN / IJA for them to have any hope of handling the situation. Constant bombing raids would tends to hamper anyone's operations, and these never let up near the end.

Couple that with the Naval situation, and Japan knew the war was over LONG before VJ day arrived. The rather stange (to us, anyway) politics and power interplays of the Japanese Imperial / military hieraqrchy simply didn't deal with reality soon enough to avert disaster. You can say EXACTLY the same about the Nazi leadership. Had Hitler been killed in the bombing attempt, it is entirely possible that a much better solution could have been swiftly arrived at. Had Hirohito come down with an imperial command to cease war sooner, I wonder if the same could have been true in that theater. It's an interesting "what if," but there is no simple answer because it didn't happen.

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## parsifal (Jan 6, 2017)

You could say the same about the Ki-43 I think....


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## GregP (Jan 6, 2017)

I wouldn't. It was outclassed, but they fought on gamely with it, despite knowing they were disadvantaged.

I doubt it was very dangerous to anyone in 1944 - 1945 unless it had surprise on its side. Unfortunately, that is entirely possible in a lot of situations, so it maybe lloks better than it was in late-war. Without VERY good surveillance of the airspace, anyone can be snuck-up upon at almost any time.

Otherwise we a wouldn't have airborne nose and tail radar in EVERYTHING that is a fighter today.


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## GrauGeist (Jan 6, 2017)

The Basket said:


> The Kawasaki Ki-61 was only par with say the Bf 109 Emil and so was 4 years behind the curve.
> The idea of putting an aircraft with such a poor top speed such as the Hayabusa in service in 1941 is mind boggling.


And yet the KI-61 produced a quantity of Aces and accounted for quite a few B-29s downed - it also led to the KI-100, which was also a formidable fighter which coincidentally, came into being because of the B-29 bombing raids.

The KI-43 may not have been a world-beater in regards to it's speed or armament, but it was nearly untouchable with it's maneuverability. Considering that it was designed in the late 1930's and produced until war's end (like the Bf109), it was an asset to the Japanese. It also has the notoriety of downing more Allied aircraft than any other Japanese type.


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## The Basket (Jan 6, 2017)

If your main adversary is either the Hurricane or P-40 or Wildcat then aircraft like the Zero or Hayabusa are in the game and could be very good.
By 1945 the main adversary are going to be P-47 or P-51 or P-38 or Corsair or late model Spitfires or Bearcats and the Zero is so far behind the Bearcat that it's not even the same sport. Send the greatest pilot ever born in a Zero against a Bearcat and you have one dead Zero.
This isn't about how good the Zero was or is but how good is it against a Bearcat. And that is very telling.

The Me 109 would have been excellent for Japan. The Ki-61 was well behind in 1943 the latest European fighters but again the Hien adversary are P-40 and Hurricanes. You can say the Ki-61 did well against B-29s but a late model Spitfire or Dora 9 or Me109G would have done much better.
The Ki-100 had very poor performance for a 1945 fighter.
Sentiment gets nowhere in warfare. You may love the Zero and it's engineering but by 1945 it's nowhere near a front line fighter.

The RAF and other air force's flew the Buffalo against Japan because they had such a poor opinion of it. Japanese airpower was derided and was a nasty shock.


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## GrauGeist (Jan 6, 2017)

Well...first off, the Bearcat never saw action in WWII. Perhaps you were referring to the Hellcat.

Secondly, the KI-43 (and other older types) held it's own against the advanced Allied types, although it was becoming a minority towards the war's end.

My personal sentiments have nothing to do with fact. And the fact is, the KI-43 is the all-time Allied killer of the Imperial Japanese air arms. The KI-61 could have been a much better performer, but they water-cooled engine was plagued with problems and when they were forced to install a radial engine on the KI-61 airframe (becomeing the KI-100), a deadly combination was created. The KI-61 was well armed, having 2x20mm cannon and 2x12mm MGs and this arrangement carried over to the KI-100.

In the later portion of the war, Japan did field some exceptionally advanced types that were the better of the Allied types and I could go on about those, but this thread is about the KI-43, after all


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## The Basket (Jan 6, 2017)

The Bearcat didn't see service because the war ended too early. But it would have met the Zero and so would have slaughtered it. In late 1945 or 46. Or let's say the P-80.
It absolutely doesn't matter at all.
I am well aware of Japanese aircraft and did the Japanese have anything in mass production in 1945 which matches the P-51D? Answer is no.
Thier best aircraft was beset by reliability issues that the Hayabusa had to be widely used.

I honestly don't see this. If you were a top British or American air force figure and put forward a Hayabusa or Zero in 1945 then I don't know. The Hawker Sea Fury had a top speed of 460mph against a late model Zero 360mph?


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## tomo pauk (Jan 6, 2017)

In 1945, Ki-100 was nowhere near a formidable opponent.


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## taly01 (Jan 6, 2017)

The Basket said:


> I see no issue liking a particular airplane.
> Nothing wrong with that. However....The Hayabusa is not that great ......



IMHO the Hayabusa is the most beautiful plane of WW2, it is also interesting as it was super aerobatic and weakly armed when other countries were going for high speed and guns. At least the IJA give it seat armour and wrapped fuel tanks in mid-1943, the Zero didn't get seat armour until 1945........OUChhhhhh.


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## tomo pauk (Jan 6, 2017)

Zero got the cannons in 1940, the Hayabusa never got them


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## GrauGeist (Jan 6, 2017)

tomo pauk said:


> In 1945, Ki-100 was nowhere near a formidable opponent.


With all due respect, Tomo, the KI-100 was meeting Allied fighters on equal terms in performance and in some cases, out-performing them.


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## The Basket (Jan 6, 2017)

Outperform a P51D....
I can see it out turning or out rolling but the the Ki-100 unless my data is way off still only had the performance of a late model Zero.
On a par with an Emil.
Basically a 1940 fighter.


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## tomo pauk (Jan 6, 2017)

The Ki-100 was with 50+ mph deficit vs. what Anglo-Americans were deploying as 1st line fighters in 1945, bar Hellcat. It basically brought performance and fighting capability of the Spitfire Vb or Bf 109E-7 in '45.
Ki-100 was 'Fw-190A-3 minus' - no offense to anyone, just what it was.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 6, 2017)

A problem with trying to use total scores like the Ki 43 shot down more aircraft than any other Japanese Army fighter is that they built more Ki 43s than any other Japanese Army fighter. 
Around 6000 compared to 1225 Ki 44s, 3500 KI 84s and 3100 Ki 61s. 
The Ki 43 got an early lead in the scoring race being pretty much the only game in town for the initial attacks and for 1942. Even in 1943 it took the first 6 months to even build 200 KI 61s let alone deploy them to combat zones. The Ki 44 was little better with 138 built in 1942 and about 220 in the first 6 months of 1943. 
The Ki 43 had 616 built in 1942 and another 558 built in the first 6 months of 1943. 
The Ki 43 may have better serviceability and better sortie rates than the Ki 61 and Ki-84s.

By mid 1943 the Ki 43 was a has been. Keeping itself from being shot down is NOT good enough. It has to shoot down Allied fighters and bombers not on occasion but in sufficient numbers to stop the allies and this it could not do.


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## Glider (Jan 6, 2017)

I have always believed that the Ki84 was more than good enough to give any allied fighter a hard time. It was fast, agile, well armed and an excellent climb.
Far from perfect but if I had to go with a IJA fighter against a P51, that would be my choice.

The Ki43 was elegent agile with first class handling but past it as a fighter


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## Shortround6 (Jan 6, 2017)

It is not just fighter duels. The Japanese needed a fighter/interceptor in 1943 (at least) that could deal, not with the B-29, but with A-20s, B-25s and B-24s that were bombing the island and mainland bases and destroying hundreds of planes on the ground. Sure the Ki 43 shot down _some _of them but two 12.7mm machine guns with 250rpg each doesn't really allow for multiple intercepts or less than expert gunnery. 
The Japanese Army needed a _standard _fighter that had adequate firepower to deal with the B-25s and B-24s. Not hundreds of lightly armed fighters and dozens of slightly better armed _interceptors. _

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## GregP (Jan 6, 2017)

Hi Shortround,

I follow your logic above in post #81, but I don't see the problem. Regardless of how many of what were buiilt, the Ki-43 shot down whatever it shot down. This is not disagreement or a challenge of any sort. It's more of a question.

My curiosity comes from never having seen any data on Japanese aerial fighting that tracks these sorts of data. If anyone HAS data on the Japanese Army and Navy air operations during the war, it would be great to see it. Perhaps we could find out how many were shot down by what types as well as the number of combat sorties each. From that we could get, say, victories per combat sortie. That SHOULD even things out a bit, except for the apparent overall drop in Japanese pilot quality as the war wore on and training got more and more abbreviated before combat assignments.

What do you think? Are these data available anywhere for us to look through, as far as you know? If so, could you share a good source?

Thanks!


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## Greg Boeser (Jan 6, 2017)

The 308th BG learned the hard way that B-24s required escort to get past Ki-43s over China in 1943.


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## taly01 (Jan 6, 2017)

Although not a great destructive power with Ki-43 2x12.7mm it is possible to damage a plane so much it was a written off as a wreck. There are many accounts I read of allied bombers making it back in shot up planes planes and injured or dead crewmen.

The Ki-61 started with German U-Boat imported 20mm MG/151 cannon in 10/1943, so there was no JAAF cannon for available for Ki-43 anyhow!


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## GrauGeist (Jan 7, 2017)

taly01 said:


> Although not a great destructive power with Ki-43 2x12.7mm it is possible to damage a plane so much it was a written off as a wreck. There are many accounts I read of allied bombers making it back in shot up planes planes and injured or dead crewmen.
> 
> The Ki-61 started with German U-Boat imported 20mm MG/151 cannon in 10/1943, so there was no JAAF cannon for available for Ki-43 anyhow!


The type 99 20mm cannon was available, and in in use by the IJN, from 1939 onward and used on such types as the A6M.

The Ho-3 20mm was in use before 1941, on such Army types as the KI-45.

So the potential was there for the KI-43 to have better armament from the start.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 7, 2017)

Photo of the HO-3 cannon





Sources disagree on rate of fire with rates of 300rpm to 420rpm showing up. It used cartridge very close to the HIspano in power but a bit larger in dimensions. The gun itself was a bit lighter than the Hispano. 
With the drum feed this is going to be very difficult to put in a wing. The only plane to use the fixed gun in service was the Ki 45 twin engine fighter and it may have used the radio operator/rear gunner to change magazines. Most sources say the drum was of 50 rounds capacity with the turret gun using 15 round magazines. 

There is no doubt that B-24 were not invulnerable or that Ki 43s did not shoot them down. However it took good tactics and flying.

From an Ospry book so.....

"Through trial and error the Ki-43 sentais in Burma developed effective tactics for attacking the B-24- targeting the aircraft from the front quarter, aiming at the cockpit or engines and making concentrated, repeated attacks on a single bomber, preferably the lead Liberator in a formation" 

A fighter with double the firepower might well have to use similar tactics but might require fewer firing passes per attacking plane allowing for an attack on a second/third plane before running out of ammo. 
In 22 missions in 1943 (perhaps not all missions flown but just missions that resulted in air combat?) the 7th and 308th had 15 missions that resulted in either 1 or 0 losses (damaged planes not counted) while 7 missions accounted for 22 out of the 31 planes lost.


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## tomo pauk (Jan 7, 2017)

I'll point the folks to the latest set of jewels posted by our very own Paul in this thread:

TAIC 1 Report Japanese Aircraft

It seems the Ho-3, with RoF of 300 rpm, was an adaptation of anti-tank 20 mm weapon. Recalling that French managed to install the big Hispano in the small wings of the Bloch fighters, the Ho-3 should've fit in the bigger wings of the Ki-43. With a combined RoF of 600 rpm, such armed Ki-43 would've stood decent chances to kill a B-24, let alone the B-25/A-20/Beaufighter.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 7, 2017)

Note bulge in underside of wing. The Hispano guns were turned on their sides like was done in Spitfires and unless the French knew something the British didn't (and didn't tell the British) one could expect the same problems. 
I have no idea what happens when you turn the Japanese gun on it's side as far as reliability goes. With the double drum magazine (two 25 round spools?) even flipping the gun 90 degrees may mean bulges top and bottom plus the drag of the gun barrels. I am not sure how much more of hit the KI-43 could take to performance. 
This assumes you can redesign the wing to have a suitable gun bay (and it never even got a 7.7mm gun historically) without taking away from other projects. There were the Ki-62 a Nakajima competitor to the Ki 61 with the same liquid cooled engine and the Ki63 was was a radial powered version of the Ki-62, both never made to actually cutting metal but some work was Incorporated into the Ki 84. 

Using hindsight the Japanese best option would have been a big wing Ki-44 or Ki-84 "junior" using the same engine as the Ki-44. 
Ramp up production of the 12.7mm gun and use four per airplane (minimum) and switch to the 20mm Ho-5 when available.


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## tomo pauk (Jan 7, 2017)

I'll have to scratch the idea of installing the Ho-3 without the wing going through a major redesign - looks like the wing was with at least 3 spars - cutaway



Shortround6 said:


> Using hindsight the Japanese best option would have been a big wing Ki-44 or Ki-84 "junior" using the same engine as the Ki-44.



Maybe the Ki-61 airframe + Ha-109, but of course do it from get-go? Gets the equivalent of Ki-100 in 1943 instead of 1945. Ha-112 installed on the Ki-100 was with 1250 CV at 5800m; Ha-109 was with 1320 CV at 5250m. Ha-41 was with 1260 CV at 3700m.


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## taly01 (Jan 7, 2017)

Ki-43-II only had a 373mph dive limit, so adding wing guns may have risked of wing failure! Putting the little Type 99-I 20mm (MG FF) in the cowling might have been the best option as they weigh almost the same as Type 1 12.7mm. Using data from http://planesandpilotsofww2.totalh.net/Gustin/fgun.html?i=1 (although he doesn't use cowl synchronised rpm).

2 x Type 99-I 20mm (23kg) assuming synchronised rpm fell 520 -> 370 gives 16 seconds firing time with 100rd drum.
142g bullet for 0.88kg/s each gives 1.8kg/s total (12 rounds in air/sec) for pair.

2 x Type 1 12.7mm (22kg) synchronised fire was known to be very poor (ref. Mikesh) 900 -> 400 gives 38 sec firing time with 250rd.
38g bullet for 0.25kg/s each gives 0.51kg/s total (13 rounds in air/sec) for pair.

2 x Type 89 7.7mm (7kg) synchronised fire fell from 900 -> 657rpm giving 46 sec firing time with 500rd.
11.5g bullet for 0.13kg/s each gives 0.25kg/s total (22 rounds in air/sec) for pair.

For comparison Wildcat 6x0.50cal in wings at 750rpm gives 19 seconds firing time at 240rpg.
48.5g bullet gives 0.61kg/s each and 3.6kg/s total (75 rounds in air/sec) for the 6.

Most Ki-43-I used 1x7.7 and 1x12.7 giving 0.38kg/s (18 rounds in air/sec), roughly equivalent to 1/2 a 0.50cal in the wing!


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## Shortround6 (Jan 7, 2017)

The type 99 could not be synchronized. 
Time between initiating the firing sequence (gun fired open bolt, tripping the sear released the bolt to go forward, strip round from magazine, chamber it with sort of a crush fit and hit the primer with the bolt still moving forward) and projectile exiting the barrel was too variable. 
Other guns may have fired open bolt but locked the bolt to the barrel in some fashion that gave a more consistent timing. Please remember that a propeller could make several revolutions between shots (a prop turning 1350rpm is doing 22.5 revolutions per second.)


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## taly01 (Jan 9, 2017)

Shortround6 said:


> The type 99 could not be synchronized......)


ahh yes its like a big sub-machine gun? 

I ran some more numbers to find a way to improve Ki-43 guns and the best option is moving the Ho-103 12.7mm from the cowl to wing pods, no increase in overall weight and gets the full ROF, which is just more than *double* the poor synchronised ROF browning 50 types seem to suffer from. Also the wing fuel tanks could be reduced in size to make room for MG ammo and keep wing stresses the same, and a new fuel tank added in space behind cowl left by removed MG/ammo's to restore lost wing fuel.







The Ho-5 20mm in cowling like Ki-61-Kai is the next best option but it is MUCH heavier all up, and puts out less rounds/sec than the 12.7mm in wings would as again its based on Browning MG design!


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## tyrodtom (Jan 9, 2017)

You'd have a hard time getting the JAAF to agree to remove the cowl guns, only one single engine Japanese fighter in their entire WW2 enventory relied on wing guns, some of the later Kawanishi Shidens left off the 2 cowl mounted .30s and went with 4 wing mounted 20mm cannons. But, that's the JNAF, to my knowledge there was not a single JAAF single engine fighter that relied on wing guns only.

About every WW2 combatant believed in having some central mounted armament, except America, and Britain.

Eliminating the fuselage mounted guns and their ammo cans, might free up some weight in front of the cockpit, but not much room. Guns and ammo weighs a lot more per volume than gas.


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## parsifal (Jan 9, 2017)

Quality is far less important to the air superiority question to numbers. In short this explains why types like the Ki-43 had to be kept in production long after their use by dates had been exceeded.


All of the prospective replacements for the Ki-43 generated difficulties in some form or other that limited their usefulness in air combat. The Ki-61 had difficulties in engine availability, the Ki84 suffered nearly fatal issues with engine reliability and build quality, the Ki-44 was not really an effect a/c until the Ki-44 IIc variants and later (basically the latter part of 1944) and really was built for a purpose different to the raison detre behind the Ki-43.


It was probably possible for the IJA to get one or more of these successor designs up and running somewhat earlier than they did, but this could only have been done at the cost of a drop in production for some period. New types always affect outputs and operational readiness rates, and there is no guarantee as to how long it might take to get a new type into production and flying effectively, or even if such an outcome were possible. In the context of the absolute desperation the IJA found itself in from quite an early point in the war, it made sense to keep churning out and making small changes to the proven warhorse of the Ki-43. At least by keeping these types going, the IJA could mount a challenge to allied incursions and each time that was made necessary, it meant further delay and more effort and more losses for the allies. This gave japan time with which to search for answers to her dilemma. The fact that such answers were never found is hardly the fault of the Ki-43.


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## The Basket (Jan 12, 2017)

I could say I love the Sopwith Camel and how wonderful it is but by 1945 it's utterly useless.
It ain't a reflection on the machine or the people who flew it or designed it or built it.
But useless it is.
And that in a nutshell describes the Hayabusa in 1945.

If the RAF were still dependent on the Hawker Hurricane as a front line in 1945 then that ain't good. You could argue that's ok and the Hurricane is a fine fighter but not in 1945 it ain't.


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## GregP (Jan 13, 2017)

The same can be said for even the Vickers Vixen that wasn't adopted and also isn't relevant.

How did the Hurricane and Camel get into this?

It's about the Ki-43!

Most air victories were the result of an unwary pilot falling prey to ambush, or a 1st-pass kill. The Ki-43 in 1945 had about the same chance as it always did after the Hellcat arrived. If it surprises you in-flight, it might not be a good day for you. The thing to do is pay attention to the business of combat flying. A great pilot in a Ki-43 in 1945 probably would beat an average one in a better airplane, same as it has always been.

Was it outdated? Yes. But it was still armed and dengerous if flown well. So was the late-model Zero.


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## Shortround6 (Jan 13, 2017)

Yep, *IF* you can surprise the other aircraft and *IF* you had a skilled pilot in the Ki 43 it could be dangerous. 
*BUT *that wasn't the situation all to often for the Ki-43 from 1943 on. It was often tasked with bomber interception. (B-24s and B-25s, in 1943 and early 44) and _surprising _even a small bomber formation with tail gunners and top turrets was a lot harder. Japanese found (like the Germans) that head on passes were the least dangerous to the attackers due to lack of power turrets in the front. Unlike the Germans with either Fw 190s or 109s with under wing cannon it took even good pilots multiple attack runs to down a single bomber, due to lack of fire power. Once the bombers got escorts things got even worse for the Ki 43s. Yes the Ki 43s shot down bombers but a better plane would have done a lot more. 
The main problem with the Ki-43 was that they built around _2750 _of them in_ 1944. _That is equal to ALL the Ki 61s built in 1944, ALL the Ki 44s built in 1944 and about the production of the K-84 for the first 1/2 of 1944 all put together. Ki-84 production increase substantially in the last 1/2 of 1944. 

To put that much production effort into a plane that carried TWO 12.7mm guns with 250rpg when you needed bomber interceptors sure seems like a mistake to me.


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## Jenisch (Jan 13, 2017)

I wonder if the low top speeed of the Ki-43 was necessarily a consequence of the Japanese desire for maneuverability, or if it was fault of a lack of more powerful engines in Japan. People assume the Oscar and the Zero were slower than Allied fighters of their class (like the P-40) because the Japanese wanted planes basically for dogfight. I'm skeptical about this, because in order to enter in a dogfight, you have to reach your enemy first. If you can't or if this is difficult, it just doesn't make sense. Just look at the Yak-3 for instance. Very light, very agile, but adequate in terms of performance. And as I have said earlier, the Zero did not had this performance issue against the Wildcat. It did lacked pilot and fuel tank protection, and dive speed, but not level flight speed. So it's pilot's could chase Wildcats in level flight without having to worry about performance. Now a Ki-43 against a P-40E, I guess the IJA pilot's must have felt lack of performance. Specially in the first production model of the Hayabusa.


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## tomo pauk (Jan 13, 2017)

Jenisch said:


> I wonder if the low top speeed of the Ki-43 was necessarily a consequence of the Japanese desire for maneuverability, or if it was fault of a lack of more powerful engines in Japan. People assume the Oscar and the Zero were slower than Allied fighters of their class (like the P-40) because the Japanese wanted planes basically for dogfight. I'm skeptical about this, because in order to enter in a dogfight, you have to reach your enemy first. If you can't or if this is difficult, it just doesn't make sense.



Apart from the Kasei, there was no powerful radials in 1938-40 for the Japanese engineers to choose from. It is my understanding that any Kasei Mitsubishi was to produce was dearly needed for the G4M that was in design proces. The Japanese have had no 3-engined bomber in pipeline until too late, so 2 x ~1500 initial HP was dearl needed for the combination of bombload/range/speed neccessary.
The Oscar and Zero were much faster than Nate and Claude, but Japanese have had a proble that Europe and USA were introducing ever faster aircraft in a much faster tempo than the Japanese themselves. The Zero and p-40 were in see-saw battel for performance, one sometimes faster, then another, depending on engine and how much they were burdened by firepower and protection. Installation of engine on the Zero got improvements much earlier than on the Oscar.



> Just look at the Yak-3 for instance. Very light, very agile, but adequate in terms of performance. And as I have said earlier, the Zero did not had this performance issue against the Wildcat. It did lacked pilot and fuel tank protection, and dive speed, but not level flight speed. So it's pilot's could chase Wildcats in level flight without having to worry about performance. Now a Ki-43 against a P-40E, I guess the IJA pilot's must have felt lack of performance. Specially in the first production model of the Hayabusa.



Yak-3 introduced a tiny wing, of a thinner profile when compared with prevoius Yak fighters, that were already with small wings when compared with Oscar/Zero (nod for Soviets). Neither Zero nor Oscar were with thin wings, either (again a nod for Soviets). Almost a brand new aircraft. It also helps when low powered engine is a V12 rater than a radial (3rd nod for Soviets). The Yak 3 was a much later design (4rth nod), drawing from experiences of the major war against a formidable opponent.
A problem for the Yak-3 is that it was without the long range capabilities needed in Asia/Pacific, even if we attach the drop tanks on it. On the other hand, had the Japanese came out with an aircraft powered by Ha-40 V12 engine, featuring the tiny wings from the Ki-44...

Then, there was the interesting Ki-12 fighter from the 1930s, but IJA got cold feet and ordered the simple Ki-27.


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## ChrisMcD (Jan 13, 2017)

Jenisch said:


> I wonder if the low top speeed of the Ki-43 was necessarily a consequence of the Japanese desire for maneuverability, or if it was fault of a lack of more powerful engines in Japan.



For the Ki-43 I think the answer was yes, insomuch as that was the way that the specification was written and the way that the Japanese wanted that generation of aircraft to perform. 

It's successor, the Ki-44 was optimised for speed and climbing performance and then the Ki-84 was a superbly rounded fighter - arguably the best Japanese fighter of the war. Nakajima were excellent fighter designers and worked their way to a superb final fighter.

I find the subject of Japanese engines interesting. AFAIK the Sakae was a development of the Rhone 14 series and as such was a very compact engine of superb economy, but not amenable to further development. The Mitsubishi Kinsei and Nakajima Homare were good, powerful engines but significantly bigger and, I believe, originally intended for bombers.

It took a while for the Japanese to accept that speed and climbing performance from high engine power were more important than maneuverability from lightness at all costs.

In all fairness the lightweight, "jockey fighter" was a popular idea in the early 30's in a lot of countries and the Japanese versions were undoubtedly the best. Zero and Hyabusa both


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## Shortround6 (Jan 13, 2017)

The Zero and Hyabusa were not really jockey fighters. Granted definitions changed over time (and with countries).
But the Zero and Hyabusa were within a few hundred pounds of contemporey fighters like the MK I Spitfire, the Bf 109E. the P-36 (or Hawk 75). Macchi 200, or even Lagg-3 (noraml take-off not max with under wing loads).

Jockey fighters were more like.









and later evolved to the the French Caudron 714 and 4 competitors




Very few of the late 1930s versions went much past 4500lbs clean for take off, if that, the Caudron pictured was 4145lbs, about 1500lbs lighter than a Hyabusa.


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## tomo pauk (Jan 13, 2017)

Shortround6 said:


> ...
> Jockey fighters were more like.
> 
> 
> ...



Interesting fighter - what type was that one?


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## Shortround6 (Jan 13, 2017)

D.H. 77

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## The Basket (Jan 13, 2017)

If the question is that the Hayabusa and Zero by 1945 is better than nothing and desperate measures call for the Hayabusa to be a front line fighter then I have no problem with that. Plenty of aircraft have historically played that role. Polikarpov I-16 and I-15.
However....Minimum fighter threat in 1945 skies of Japan for me is P-51 and minimum bomber threat is B-29. You must at least match both these machines. If you can't intercept a B-29 then you're not much of a fighter. The 'worst' aircraft you might meet is a Hellcat and that still has better performance than a Hayabusa.


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## The Basket (Jan 13, 2017)

Is that the Vickers Jockey or the Venom? That was a weak engined fighter that had good performance.
Certainly good enough mid 1930s.


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## Jenisch (Jan 13, 2017)

One can find on the internet mentions that a version of the Ki-43 III produced by Tachikawa from 1944 had a top speed of 358mph. This is quite comparable to the P-40. It would be a decent plane for 1942, and to some extent 1943. If this speed was indeed achieved by the Oscar, and it's power curve was comparable to the P-40 in different altitudes, then I guess the plane was not that bad. The airframe was not that bad. It just needed a better engine. The "only" problem is that this engine should have been fitted to the plane in 1941, not in 1944!


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## taly01 (Jan 13, 2017)

The P-40 is a good contemporary of the Ki-43 to compare with. The P-40 did 350-370mph over its entire production run, whereas the Ki-43 improved 310-350mph. But the lack of guns was a flaw that never was solved. P-40 pilots said their plane could "take it" from the 2xMG of the Oscar, but if they hit an Oscar with 6x0.50 it really blew up.


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## The Basket (Jan 13, 2017)

P-40 is only a good contemporary because it was available. 
If you compare Hayabusa with Me109 or Spitfire it becomes a different sport.
First flight was 1939 for the prototype which compares with the FW190 also both aircraft entered service roughly same time
And the 190 absolutely is a trillion times better than any Hayabusa.

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## GregP (Jan 16, 2017)

I seriously doubt the Japanese pilots felt any lack of performance since almost ALL military pilots, both then and now, train on their own aircraft. Nobody has them fly, say, 3 aircraft and then select the worst-performing one.

If they flew the Hayabusa, it was the ONLY fighter they had flown and outperformed ALL the trainer sthye had ever seen by a large margin.

They certinaly had NO disadvantage in maneuverability versus the USA, but may have severely wished for bigger and more numerous guns, plus maybe more ammunition capacity.

Very few worried about the armor or lack thereof since, if they survived, they had never been "hit."


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## MiTasol (Jan 16, 2017)

tomo pauk said:


> I'll have to scratch the idea of installing the Ho-3 without the wing going through a major redesign - looks like the wing was with at least 3 spars - cutaway.



hi Tomo

This cutaway has at least one error and that is the drop tank is very wrong.

I will have to find my photos but the Ki-43 drop tank installation was a far more advanced design than any equivalent US drop tank of the period.

I will compare it with the P-39, P-39 and P-40 installations using photos.

Once the tank was dropped the K-43 wing was totally clean whereas the equivalent American aircraft were festooned with aerodynamic arse-holes

Mi


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## taly01 (Sep 23, 2017)

Most pictures of Ki-43-III i've seen have pylons fitted to the wings even when no ordnance is been carried.

Still thinking about only 2 x MG guns on all the Ki-43, a single 20mm was really essential by 1943, the Yak-9 and Bf109 (both 30,000 built!) mostly relied on a single 20mm.


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## Greg Boeser (Sep 23, 2017)

By the time the Ki-43 III came out, Ki-43 units were pretty much relegated to ground support (and Kamikazes). The air superiority and intercept roles had been taken over by Ki-44, Ki-61, and Ki-84 units.
The illustrious 64th Sentai, for example, finished the war performing ground support in Burma.


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## Ivan1GFP (Feb 13, 2018)

Hello Gentlemen,
I had just been searching for data on the Ki 43-II and stumbled upon yet another interesting thread.
I don't suppose anyone here would know what the capacities of the fuel tanks were on the Ki 43-II?
I already have the numbers for the Ki 43-I.
Anyone happen to know where I can find what the throttle settings and RPM were for Military, Normal, and Emergency Power?
The numbers from TAIC documents don't seem to match up with the Sakae 21, so I am not inclined to trust them for the Ha 115.

From these discussions, I am inclined to agree with GregP that the late model Hayabusa was a pretty dangerous adversary up until the very end of the war. Yes, there was about a 20-50 MPH advantage with the typical Allied fighter in 1945, but this is at their critical altitude and that I not where the battles were being fought in general. At low altitude, the maximum speed disadvantage is less for Hayabusa (and Ki 100 also) and the engagements do not start at maximum speed.
Here is where the Hayabusa had an advantage. It was light and had a lot of power for its weight and had very fast acceleration at low speeds.

For production purposes, I figure the Hayabusa was treated pretty much like the American F4F Wildcat except that a successor did not come along fast enough. The Ki 44 Shoki was not really the successor. It was a pure interceptor in design. The Ki 84 Hayate was the successor and when production was ramped up, Hayabusa production was relegated to Tachikawa just as Wildcat (F4F-8 / FM-2) production went to General Motors.

I find it interesting to compare the Ki 43 to the A6M Zero. It seems to me that the Ki 43 had many advantages over the A6M.
It had a little less speed in general but had a much better roll rate especially at high speed and probably had at least as good firepower.

- Ivan.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 13, 2018)

Firepower was pretty dismal compared to the A6M Zero. Most Ki 43 IIs had a pair of 12.7mm machine guns, and when synchronized the rate of fire wasn't all that great (although better than the US .50) however it used a much smaller cartridge than the US .50 which meant a smaller bullet and lower velocity. 




Japanese Army and Italian cartridge is 3rd from left. Japanese Navy 13.2mm is 4th from the left and is pretty much comparable to the US .50 (1st on left).
The IJA did use exploding ammo but usual content was about 1 gram or under per projectile compared to the 10 grams or so in a 20mm Hispano.


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## Ivan1GFP (Feb 13, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> Firepower was pretty dismal compared to the A6M Zero. Most Ki 43 IIs had a pair of 12.7mm machine guns, and when synchronized the rate of fire wasn't all that great (although better than the US .50) however it used a much smaller cartridge than the US .50 which meant a smaller bullet and lower velocity.
> Japanese Army and Italian cartridge is 3rd from left. Japanese Navy 13.2mm is 4th from the left and is pretty much comparable to the US .50 (1st on left).
> The IJA did use exploding ammo but usual content was about 1 gram or under per projectile compared to the 10 grams or so in a 20mm Hispano.



Hello Shortround6,
I know we are going a bit off topic and I started it.
As I see it, the A6M series, especially the A6M2 before the fighter-bomber versions had only 60 rounds for each 20 mm cannon. 
That meant that each cannon was only good for about 3-4 bursts before it was done. The rest of the work was done by the 7.7 mm MGs.
The Ho-103 was basically a Browning gun firing the Italian Breda 12.7 mm x 81SR round.
Yes, it was a small round but velocity (795 meters / second or around 2612 fps) wasn't too bad and it typically used an explosive shell.
Now one might argue that there was not a significant quantity of explosive and perhaps this was correct and perhaps not.
The original Italian cartridge was much more powerful than one might expect as was described by a Hurricane pilot who described the damage on his aircraft. The effect was not atypical of a 20 mm hit and a single hit had almost blown through his wing spar.
There was also a problem with the Japanese projectiles at one point in which they would detonate as soon as they left the muzzle of the gun.
It was necessary to put armour plate under the muzzles to avoid engine damage and this is not even from a direct hit.

As for the problems in synchronizing these guns, I believe there might be a bit more to the story.
Note that the problems with reduced firing rates was noted for the Ki 43-I but not for later versions.
One doesn't read about the Ki 43-II pilots replacing one of their 12.7 mm guns with a 7.7 mm MG.
I am suspecting it was because of the synchronizing mechanism because if it was the typical type, it would be attempting to fire the gun once in each gap between propeller blades.
With a two blade propeller, if you miss one cycle, it is a fairly long delay. It is less with a three blade propeller.
I am not suggesting that there was not an issue but rather than the two blade propeller made it more visible.

The Ki 44 also used the 12.7 mm Ho-103 as a cowl gun without the same horrible reputation.

Now keep in mind also that the 20 mm Ho-5 cannon also was a Browning design with an even slower cyclic rate (850 rpm versus 900 rpm).
Note that the Ho-5 was used as a cowl gun on the Ki 61-Id, Ki 61-II , Ki 100 and the Ki 84 and was even tested on the last Ki 43-III that did not go into production before the war ended.
If all Browning guns were such an issue to synchronize, then why would they continue to be used as cowl guns even on later aircraft?

- Ivan.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 13, 2018)

One reason they were used as synchronized guns was because nobody wanted to put a Vickers gun in the wings  

Once you have the plane laid out with gunbays and ammo boxes, it is easier to replacement guns where the original's were. 

Both the IJA and IJN used versions of the Vickers gun in 7.7mm and even the British rarely (and never on planes that went into combat) put a Vickers gun where a crewman (or pilot) could not reach it. 

All of these guns lost 10-20% of their rate of fire when firing through the prop. The US .50 was one of the worst (may have lost even more than 20%) but take another look. With the length of the cartridge you have a fair amount of travel for the bolt. Please remember that these guns pulled the round backwards out of the links before moving the cartridge forward into the chamber. 

Number of blades shouldn't have a lot to do with anything. Sakae engine did 2600rpm and used a 0.69 reduction gear? (corrections welcome) so prop was turning 1794rpm (?), with a 900rpm machine gun that is one shot every two full revolutions of the prop, regardless of number of blades. A slightly slower gun may run into more trouble. Machine guns also don't fire real evenly unless a lot of care is used setting them up and the ammo is very, very good. Gun is advancing the belt and depending on weight of belt and arrangement (lots of short layers or a few long layers) that can slow the guns down. US rather famously didn't test prewar installations with full belts and ran into all sorts of problems. You may _average _14 shots per second but that doesn't mean the the time between shots doesn't vary. 

Synchronizers often fired the gun when the blade was clear vs stopping the gun when the blade was in the way. It may not sound like it but that is a distinct difference. Look at the example again, a 3 blade prop on a Sakae is going to swing 8 or 9 blades past a 7.7mm gun for every time the gun fires in theory. 

Two 12.7 guns may have been good armament in the late 30s or even 1940 but it was falling behind in in 1941/42. Japanese pilots in Ki 43s did bring down a number of B-24s but the most favored tactic was to attack from the front (pre nose turret) and use 3-4 fighters, one behind the other to attack a single bomber in the formation. In other words they were using 3-4 planes to bring the same firepower to bear as an single American or British fighter could.


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## parsifal (Feb 13, 2018)

There is simply no comparison in the firepower of the Ki43 to the firepower of the A6M in that critical mid war period.

The Naval 1937 specifications for the 12-Shi fighter called for an armament of two 20mm drum fed cannon, with 60 rpg, two 7.7mm machine guns with over 600rpg and provision for two 60kg bombs. Soon after production of the A6M3 Model 32 commenced (in the latter part of 1942), ammunition supply for the cannon was increased from 60 to 100 rounds per gun, which I think were altered to a belt feed system, and this armament was carried forward to the Model 22 (see below). The designation Model 22KO (A6M3 Model 22a) was used to denote replacement of the standard cannon with the long-barrel type. In a search for even greater hitting power, a few Model 22s were experimentally fitted with 30mm cannon and operationally tested at Rabaul.

Engine change to 1130hp Sakae 21, and removal of the folding wingtip section, giving a clipped wing. To retain the centre of gravity position with the heavier engine, the latter was moved back towards the bulkhead. This reduced the fuel tank volume thus reducing the combat radius.

*A6M3 Model 22:* Adding the original folding-tip wing to the Model 32 engine/body combination, and incorporating a 12 gallon fuel tank in each wing to reclaim lost range. By the time the Model 22 reached production, the Model 52 was approaching operational status; thus the Model 22, appearing in combat after the Model 32, had a short operational life. 560 were built late 1942 and early 1943 (this figure is thought to include Nakajima production).

The 7.7mm machine guns, with a magazine of 680 rounds per gun, were mounted to fire over the engine cowl and through the propeller arc. These weapons were similar to the Army's Type 89 gun, a derivative of the Vickers LMG. It used disintegrating belt ammunition, could fire at 1000rpm, had an effective range of 600m, a muzzle velocity of 2460ft/sec and had a weight of 26lb per gun.

The wing armament comprised various versions of the Type 99 cannon, a version of the Oerlikon 20mm weapon, manufactured under licence by the Dai-Nihon Heiki Company. The versions used in the Model 22 appear to have been drum-magazine types, but later models were belt-fed. The long-barrel type used in the Model 22a were known as the Model 2 Mark 3, and had a rate of fire of 490rpm with a muzzle velocity around 2000ft/see and a range up to l000m. The 30mm version, known as the Type 5, was fed from a 45-round magazine and had a muzzle velocity of 2460ft/sec. 
Aiming was by means of a Type 98 reflector gunsight (based on the German Type 99 I believe), and a Type 89 camera-gun could be fitted to the port wing root.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 13, 2018)

Early war many of the Ki 43s had either a pair of 7.7mm or one of each. 
Now by later in the war perhaps the factories and armorers had figured out how to keep the rate of fire of the 12.7 gun up. I don't know. 
I have hit some information that seems to indicate that the Japanese bought 2 million rounds of 12.7mm HE ammo from the Italians but it is a gaming site so.....

Later in the war the Japanese Navy started sticking 13.2mm guns into the Zero and thus a Zero with two 200m guns and two 13.2mm guns in the wings had a very equivalent amendment to an American plane with six .50 cal guns.

I would note that most Japanese army fighters only carried 250rpg of 12.7mm ammo which affects combat duration. Less than 20 seconds firing time even with slow firing guns.

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## Ivan1GFP (Feb 13, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> One reason they were used as synchronized guns was because nobody wanted to put a Vickers gun in the wings



Since when were we discussing Vickers guns?
The Ho-103 and Ho-5 are both Browning designs and I thought this discussion was about how poorly the Ho-103 synchronized and how pilots had it replaced with the Type 89 which was the Vickers.



Shortround6 said:


> Number of blades shouldn't have a lot to do with anything. Sakae engine did 2600rpm and used a 0.69 reduction gear? (corrections welcome) so prop was turning 1794rpm (?), with a 900rpm machine gun that is one shot every two full revolutions of the prop, regardless of number of blades. A slightly slower gun may run into more trouble. Machine guns also don't fire real evenly unless a lot of care is used setting them up and the ammo is very, very good. Gun is advancing the belt and depending on weight of belt and arrangement (lots of short layers or a few long layers) that can slow the guns down. US rather famously didn't test prewar installations with full belts and ran into all sorts of problems. You may _average _14 shots per second but that doesn't mean the the time between shots doesn't vary.
> 
> Synchronizers often fired the gun when the blade was clear vs stopping the gun when the blade was in the way. It may not sound like it but that is a distinct difference. Look at the example again, a 3 blade prop on a Sakae is going to swing 8 or 9 blades past a 7.7mm gun for every time the gun fires in theory.



I believe I have a pretty good idea of how a synchronizer works as per this post which I will reproduce below for ease of reading. 
FW-190 - How Good Was It, Really?



> Gentlemen,
> I believe there is a serious misconception about how guns are fired through a propeller arc.
> First of all, there is a difference between an "interrupter" and a "synchronizer" mechanism.
> The interrupter may have been used in the early days of he Great War, but in general not much later.
> ...





Shortround6 said:


> Two 12.7 guns may have been good armament in the late 30s or even 1940 but it was falling behind in in 1941/42. Japanese pilots in Ki 43s did bring down a number of B-24s but the most favored tactic was to attack from the front (pre nose turret) and use 3-4 fighters, one behind the other to attack a single bomber in the formation. In other words they were using 3-4 planes to bring the same firepower to bear as an single American or British fighter could.



I never claimed that Ki 43's 2 x 12.7 mm Ho-103 even with explosive shells was heavy armament. 
I just claimed that it was better than the 2 x 7.7 mm Type 97 which is all the A6M2 would have after the 60 rounds of 20 mm were gone.
At a cyclic rate of 520 rounds per minute, the 60 rounds was good for slightly less than 7 seconds of firing time!

- Ivan.


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## Greyman (Feb 13, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> I have hit some information that seems to indicate that the Japanese bought 2 million rounds of 12.7mm HE ammo from the Italians but it is a gaming site so.....



As far as I know the Japanese used two types of Italian HE/Incendiary 12.7-mm rounds and two types of their own manufacture.

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## tomo pauk (Feb 14, 2018)

Ivan1GFP said:


> ...
> I never claimed that Ki 43's 2 x 12.7 mm Ho-103 even with explosive shells was heavy armament.
> I just claimed that it was better than the 2 x 7.7 mm Type 97 which is all the A6M2 would have after the 60 rounds of 20 mm were gone.
> At a cyclic rate of 520 rounds per minute, the 60 rounds was good for slightly less than 7 seconds of firing time!



The Ki 43 with two 12.7mm was not that a frequent occurance. Mostly it was one 7.7 and 12.7.link
Cannon was crucial for the success of the Zero, we can try to imagine IJN trying with Ki 43s to stop Allied bombers of different types attacking their carriers - not a good proposal for the Japanese. The 100 rd box was introduced some time ater Midway, and in 1943 the long barreled 20mm cannon was introduced.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 14, 2018)

Ivan1GFP said:


> Since when were we discussing Vickers guns?
> The Ho-103 and Ho-5 are both Browning designs and I thought this discussion was about how poorly the Ho-103 synchronized and how pilots had it replaced with the Type 89 which was the Vickers.



we were discussing gun placement and the evolution of Japanese fighter armament. Unlike the Americans who put a one or two .50s in the fuselage and additional .30s in the wings the Japanese almost never put their 7.7 guns in the wings. I am not sure if poor rate of fire was the only reason that some Ki 43s had one of their 12.7s replaced by a 7.7mm. The rate of fire of the 7.7 wasn't all that great either. Some people have suggested it was supply problems, either guns or ammo or both.





> I believe I have a pretty good idea of how a synchronizer works as per this post which I will reproduce below for ease of reading.
> FW-190 - How Good Was It, Really?


https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/fw-190-how-good-was-it-really.47877/page-5#post-1377498

Thank you. 
WW I engines were rarely geared so even a 1500rpm engine had a prop rotating well in excess of the rates of fire of contemporary machine guns (usually about 600rpm) 
The Germans on the MG 131 used electric priming and also used it on the wing root MG 151/20 guns of the FW 190. Me 109s and indeed all non-synchronized MG 151/20s got percussion primed ammo. This helped keep the rate of fire of the German synchronized guns closer to the free gun rate of fire (approaching only a 10% reduction).

Browning machine guns (and clones) are easy to synchronize. This is due to the basic mechanism. Some guns are impossible to synchronize. 
The Basic Browning fired closed bolt. Round is already in the chamber and synchronizer only has to release the firing pin. Please note the British modified their Brownings to fire open bolt due to change to cordite propellent. Synchronizer has to release the bolt from the rearward position and it travels forward chambering the round and then firing. Aside from the Gloster Gladiator I don't think the British ever synchronized their Brownings ? 
This does not mean the Brownings kept a high rate of fire when synchronized. The US .50 dropped from a nominal 600rpm pre war to around 450rpm when synchronized. I haven't seen a good figures for what happened when the US raised the rate of fire on the .50 from 600rpm to 800 rpm. But then the only US _fighters_ that continued after 1941 with synchronized guns were the P-39 and P-63. At least production versions. depends on how you count the A-36  







> I never claimed that Ki 43's 2 x 12.7 mm Ho-103 even with explosive shells was heavy armament.
> I just claimed that it was better than the 2 x 7.7 mm Type 97 which is all the A6M2 would have after the 60 rounds of 20 mm were gone.
> At a cyclic rate of 520 rounds per minute, the 60 rounds was good for slightly less than 7 seconds of firing time!
> 
> - Ivan.



The Zero had, for all practical purposes, the same armament as a Bf 109E, I would also note than any French fighters with 20mm guns used 60 round drums and the early Spitfire VBs used 60 round drums. Granted the Zero was a bit later in timing. However from the link Tomo posted it seems that very few Ki 43s had twin 12.7mm guns, at least in the part of the war where the Japanese were on the offensive. The majority of Ki 43s were built after Jan 1943 and even if all the later ones had twin 12.7s it is too late. 
I would note also that for those 7 seconds the Zero has 3-4 times the fire power of a twin 12.7mm Ki 43 and about 6 times the firepower of a split armament Ki 43. 
The Zero has much less need of repeated firing passes to score a kill on average.


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## tomo pauk (Feb 14, 2018)

Ivan1GFP said:


> Hello Gentlemen,
> I had just been searching for data on the Ki 43-II and stumbled upon yet another interesting thread.
> I don't suppose anyone here would know what the capacities of the fuel tanks were on the Ki 43-II?
> I already have the numbers for the Ki 43-I.
> ...



The Ki-43-I was supposed to hold 564L of fuel internally, the -II and -III having 528L, if I'm correctly decyphering the figures from the Bunrin Do book about it.

Table with Nakajima engines, I believe Shinpachi provided the translation. My contribution is the '1st speed, 2nd speed' remark. Please note that there is no mention of 'WER' or 'military power' in Japanese nomenclature.


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## Ivan1GFP (Feb 14, 2018)

tomo pauk said:


> The Ki 43 with two 12.7mm was not that a frequent occurance. Mostly it was one 7.7 and 12.7.link
> Cannon was crucial for the success of the Zero, we can try to imagine IJN trying with Ki 43s to stop Allied bombers of different types attacking their carriers - not a good proposal for the Japanese. The 100 rd box was introduced some time ater Midway, and in 1943 the long barreled 20mm cannon was introduced.



Hello Tomo Pauk,
From a couple of accounts (I believe one was about the CAP over the fleet carriers at Midway), the MG armament is all they had after the first engagements. I will need to find some references to be sure.
Agreed that the ammunition load for the cannon was increased in the A6M3 series and the Type 99-2 long barrel cannon were also introduced. The initial Type 99-2 had its issues as well. Its cyclic rate was even lower than for Type 99-1 at only 480 rpm and its muzzle velocity was only a bit better at 625 m/sec (2050 fps).
The A6M2 fighter bomber series by Nakajima also had increase ammunition loads from the original A6M2. I picked the original A6M2 because it was a great example to illustrate my point and also because it served throughout the war even after later versions were introduced.

Regarding the Ki 43 with two 12.7 mm being not so frequent, please observe that your link is describing the Ki 43-I with the two blade propeller.
My original theorizing was that there was some rather poor interaction between the two blade synchronizing mechanism and the Ho-103's less than regular cycle times which was causing issues because there don't seem to be accounts of Ki 43-II and Ki 43-III pilots having one of their 12.7 mm guns replaced by a 7.7 mm.
I have also seen references that state the Ki 43-I had a two pitch propeller and others that say it was "variable pitch" and others that state "constant speed". I do not know which is correct; I have only recently been collecting data on the Ki-43 series (with particular interest in the late Ki 43-II).
Some time ago, I wrote up a little spreadsheet to calculate the reduction in rate of fire based on propeller RPM and weapon cyclic rate that included a couple other variables for percentage of missed firing cycles. It was useful for discussions on another thread but I wasn't smart enough to keep a copy. It wasn't complicated, so perhaps I should write another version.

- Ivan.


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## Ivan1GFP (Feb 14, 2018)

Thanks for the data, Tomo Pauk,
I actually have the same reference from FAOTW 65.
From a diagram, I found that the Ki 43-I had a 132 liter tank and a 150 liter tank in each wing which adds up to match the 564 liter total.
What I am trying to find is the change in volumes of the tanks in the Ki 43-II to get down to 528 liters.
It is probably in the manual, but I don't read Japanese.

From TAIC data on Ha-115, the Take Off rating is shown as 41.7 inches Hg and Military is shown as 37.8 inches Hg.
It is the same for the Sakae 21 but the manual for A6M5 states that Take Off is +300 mm while 41.7 inches Hg converts to +310 mm.
The question is whether the settings are the same as the Sakae 21 and TAIC just was a little off or was the rating really higher for the Ha-115.
I suspect the actual number is really +300 mm but that would be 41.34 inches Hg and the difference is an error in conversion but this is just a suspicion and not fact....

- Ivan.


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## tomo pauk (Feb 14, 2018)

Ivan1GFP said:


> Hello Tomo Pauk,
> From a couple of accounts (I believe one was about the CAP over the fleet carriers at Midway), the MG armament is all they had after the first engagements. I will need to find some references to be sure.
> Agreed that the ammunition load for the cannon was increased in the A6M3 series and the Type 99-2 long barrel cannon were also introduced. The initial Type 99-2 had its issues as well. Its cyclic rate was even lower than for Type 99-1 at only 480 rpm and its muzzle velocity was only a bit better at 625 m/sec (2050 fps).



The result of expanded ammo by the Zeros were slaughtered US torpedo bombers. Zero have had good/excellent firepower, but during the crucial battles of 1942 the ammo count for cannons was too low. The Type 99-2 was with MV of 750 m/s (~2500 fps), it used a bigger cartridge with more propellant. link1 , link2



> The A6M2 fighter bomber series by Nakajima also had increase ammunition loads from the original A6M2. I picked the original A6M2 because it was a great example to illustrate my point and also because it served throughout the war even after later versions were introduced.
> 
> Regarding the Ki 43 with two 12.7 mm being not so frequent, please observe that your link is describing the Ki 43-I with the two blade propeller.
> My original theorizing was that there was some rather poor interaction between the two blade synchronizing mechanism and the Ho-103's less than regular cycle times which was causing issues because there don't seem to be accounts of Ki 43-II and Ki 43-III pilots having one of their 12.7 mm guns replaced by a 7.7 mm.



We can pick and choose exactly this variant of fighter A and exactly that version of fighter B, and arrive on some conclusions. My point was that Zero, on aggregate, was a better armed fighter, and from mid-1943 on it was a _much_ better armed fighter than Oscar.


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## taly01 (Feb 14, 2018)

In the USSBS survey posted by Micdrow on this site Japanese air weapons and tactics they describe the MA round developed during 1943, it was a fuzeless "impact" ignition round that carried 3 times more HE than fuzed 12.7mm, as the fuze space was replaced by HE! It was designed as an incendiary surface burster for use against protected fuel tanks and airframe and was admired by the USSBS authors for its ingenuity and effectiveness. It was developed for all JAAF guns and the JNAF was in the process of adopting it at wars end. I think this was one reason why the Ki-43 kept its 12.7mm rather than going to 20mm, the extra power of the 20mm would have been balanced against the fewer 20mm rounds you could fit into a ki-43.


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## Ivan1GFP (Feb 14, 2018)

tomo pauk said:


> The result of expanded ammo by the Zeros were slaughtered US torpedo bombers. Zero have had good/excellent firepower, but during the crucial battles of 1942 the ammo count for cannons was too low. The Type 99-2 was with MV of 750 m/s (~2500 fps), it used a bigger cartridge with more propellant. link1 , link2
> 
> We can pick and choose exactly this variant of fighter A and exactly that version of fighter B, and arrive on some conclusions. My point was that Zero, on aggregate, was a better armed fighter, and from mid-1943 on it was a _much_ better armed fighter than Oscar.



Hello Tomo Pauk,
Thanks for the data correction. I have updated my notes. Turns out the listing for MV on Type 99-1 was a bit off as well though not quite as much.
My original intent on picking those versions was for early war variants but skipping the Ki 43-I which definitely had some serious problems with armament and structure.

The general lack of respect for the firepower of the A6M (2?) series was indicated by tactics I have seen described in a few places.
In a one versus one fight, the A6M2 wins over the F4F-4 pretty easily.
In a many versus many fight, a non intuitive tactic was to ignore the fellow that was on your tail and shoot the zero that was chasing your squadron mates. Have you also heard about this?

- Ivan.


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## tomo pauk (Feb 14, 2018)

taly01 said:


> In the USSBS survey posted by Micdrow on this site Japanese air weapons and tactics they describe the MA round developed during 1943, it was a fuzeless "impact" ignition round that carried 3 times more HE than fuzed 12.7mm, as the fuze space was replaced by HE! It was designed as an incendiary surface burster for use against protected fuel tanks and airframe and was admired by the USSBS authors for its ingenuity and effectiveness. It was developed for all JAAF guns and the JNAF was in the process of adopting it at wars end. I think this was one reason why the Ki-43 kept its 12.7mm rather than going to 20mm, the extra power of the 20mm would have been balanced against the fewer 20mm rounds you could fit into a ki-43.



I'm not sure that was why the 20mm was installed too late on the Ki 43, the round that is being designed in 1943 will have no impact on deceisions made in 1941-43. And we have the 1945 prototypes that were supposed to carry 20 mm cannons.
One can wonder how much of an increase in capability for the Ki 43 would've been installation of extra two HMGs in the wings.



Ivan1GFP said:


> ...
> The general lack of respect for the firepower of the A6M (2?) series was indicated by tactics I have seen described in a few places.
> In a one versus one fight, the A6M2 wins over the F4F-4 pretty easily.
> In a many versus many fight, a non intuitive tactic was to ignore the fellow that was on your tail and shoot the zero that was chasing your squadron mates. Have you also heard about this?



The 'Thach weave' was roughly that - once the enemy fighters were to come into firing range, the pairs of a flight were to converge towards each other so the would-be-attackers will be subject to a head-on attack. It represented a lack of respect for the protection of the Japanese fighters (Zero mostly), though that maneuver was probably envisionaged before that lack was widely known
I'm not sure that A6M was regarded as lacking in firepower by Allies, it was the best armed Japanese 1-engined fighter for perhaps 2 years.


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## Greyman (Feb 14, 2018)

For what it's worth (re: armament) here is some info from some crash reports:

Army '1' S/E Fighter
crashed 5 December 1942 at Gandarama, Bengal
1 x 12.7-mm, ammo: explosive (only 2 rounds remained/survived)
1 x 7.7-mm, ammo: explosive, armour-piercing, incendiary

Army '1' S/E Fighter
crashed 10 December 1942 3 1/2 miles N.W. Chunati
1 x 12.7-mm, ammo: mostly explosive with a few armour piercing interspersed
1 x 7.7-mm, ammo: explosive, incendiary and armour piercing

Army '1' S/E Fighter
crashed 15 December 1942 1/2 mile S.E. of Ruma Village
1 x 12.7-mm, ammo: 3 types of explosive, 2 types of ball
1 x 7.7-mm, ammo: 1 type of explosive, 2 types of ball

Army '1' S/E Fighter, Mk.II
belly landed 2 April 1943 near Hpayabin
2 x 12.7-mm

Army '1' S/E Fighter, Mk.II
crashed 21 May 1943 at Signall Hill, Cox'a Bazar, East Bengal
2 x 12.7-mm

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## Ivan1GFP (Feb 14, 2018)

tomo pauk said:


> I'm not sure that was why the 20mm was installed too late on the Ki 43, the round that is being designed in 1943 will have no impact on deceisions made in 1941-43. And we have the 1945 prototypes that were supposed to carry 20 mm cannons.
> One can wonder how much of an increase in capability for the Ki 43 would've been installation of extra two HMGs in the wings.



I believe Shortround6 made the observation that there simply wasn't the room for installation inside the wing of the Ki 43 without compromising structural integrity or redesigning the wing.

Why no wing armament for the Ki-43?



tomo pauk said:


> The 'Thach weave' was roughly that - once the enemy fighters were to come into firing range, the pairs of a flight were to converge towards each other so the would-be-attackers will be subject to a head-on attack. It represented a lack of respect for the protection of the Japanese fighters (Zero mostly), though that maneuver was probably envisionaged before that lack was widely known
> I'm not sure that A6M was regarded as lacking in firepower by Allies, it was the best armed Japanese 1-engined fighter for perhaps 2 years.



Regarding Thach Weave: It was a nice conjectural exercise of "What can we do if these guys really are much more maneuverable than we are?" It was more or less evening the odds as much as possible if the factors of performance and maneuverability were conceded to the enemy. What I was describing was tactics that evolved AFTER initial encounters with the Zero.

Regarding the Zero as the best armed Japanese single engine fighter: Perhaps it was, perhaps it was not.
"....although the Type 99 Mk.1 cannon was effective when it could be used correctly, most of the aerial victories achieved by A6M2 Zero pilots during the crucial first six months of the war were being attained with the cowl-mounted 7.7mm types." - Saburo Sakai in an interview with Osamu Tagaya (from Zero by Robert Mikesh).

- Ivan.


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## tomo pauk (Feb 14, 2018)

Ivan1GFP said:


> I believe Shortround6 made the observation that there simply wasn't the room for installation inside the wing of the Ki 43 without compromising structural integrity or redesigning the wing.



Make a hole in the spars, so the HMG can fit, of course reinforce the spars so they are not weakened.



> Regarding Thach Weave: It was a nice conjectural exercise of "What can we do if these guys really are much more maneuverable than we are?" It was more or less evening the odds as much as possible if the factors of performance and maneuverability were conceded to the enemy. What I was describing was tactics that evolved AFTER initial encounters with the Zero.



Okay. I still doubt that Wildcat's pilot can choose to ignore the (faster) Zero that is on his tail and carry on with his business. Regardless to pilot's anecdotes.



> Regarding the Zero as the best armed Japanese single engine fighter: Perhaps it was, perhaps it was not.
> "....although the Type 99 Mk.1 cannon was effective when it could be used correctly, most of the aerial victories achieved by A6M2 Zero pilots during the crucial first six months of the war were being attained with the cowl-mounted 7.7mm types." - Saburo Sakai in an interview with Osamu Tagaya (from Zero by Robert Mikesh).
> 
> - Ivan.



I'm open to the suggestions re. Zero not being what I've claimed for it.
There at least 4 things WRT Sakai's statement.
- The 'when it could be used correctly' qualifier.
- He also said that he tried once to down a Wildcat with MGs only. After hosing out hundreds of rounds, Wildcat still flew. After closing to it, he saw the tail shredded to pieces, so he reverted to cannons to make a kill.
- Zero didn't saw a reduction of cannons down to multiple guns at any give time, but it got improvement in cannon armament and switch from LMGs to HMGs
- Multiple references from 'Shattered Sword' noting that US A/C will succumb to cannon fire, but not MG fire.


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## Ivan1GFP (Feb 14, 2018)

tomo pauk said:


> I'm open to the suggestions re. Zero not being what I've claimed for it.
> There at least 4 things WRT Sakai's statement.
> - The 'when it could be used correctly' qualifier.
> - He also said that he tried once to down a Wildcat with MGs only. After hosing out hundreds of rounds, Wildcat still flew. After closing to it, he saw the tail shredded to pieces, so he reverted to cannons to make a kill.
> ...



Hello Tomo Pauk,
There really isn't much competition for best armed Japanese single engine fighter. Besides A6M and Ki 43, there was the Ki 27 and probably a stray A5M in a few places. It is interesting that the Me 109E had basically the same armament.

Regarding Sakai's statement, it really comes down to whether you believe it is an accurate account of the event of the time.
Assuming his statement was accurate:
Considering the relative destructive power of the 20 mm shell as compared to the 7.7 mm bullet, it says a lot about how ineffective the 20 mm Type 99-1 actually was.

As others have already pointed out:
Consider also that the Ki 43 was never armed with more than 2 x 12.7 mm Ho-103 and still accounted for over half the number of kills credited to Japanese fighters.

- Ivan.


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## parsifal (Feb 15, 2018)

At the time the type 99-1 was in widespread service, the JAAF fighters were still generally equipped with no more than 2 x 7.7mm lmgs.  One exception was the single (9 plane) sqn equipped with the KI44 Shokis

By the time the JAAF began upgrading its Ki-43s to carry 2 x 12.7 HMGs, the Navy was already introducing the much improved Type 99-2. The Type 99 Mark 2 was a heavier weapon with a stronger recoil, and was put into service in the IJN from the latter part of 1942. It was used exclusively in fixed installations, i.e., either in fighters or in power-operated turrets. The Type 99 Mark 2 was carried by later models of the A6M, starting with the A6M3a Reisen Model 22 Ko (introduced from the end of 1942) and on later Navy fighters such as the George

The Model 4 of this weapon adopted the same belt-feed mechanism as the Type 99 Mark 1 Model 4. The Type 99 Mark 2 Model 5 resulted from attempts to increase the rate of fire. By modifications that included the addition of strong buffer springs, the rate of fire was raised to between 670 and 750 rpm. But the Model 5 was formally adopted only in May 1945. IJN fighters fought most of the war with the Type 99-2

Type 99-2 was a weapon that in my view was not far behind the MG 151/20. Problems with the Type 99-1 were its relatively low MV. However it was still comparable to the MGFF in other characteristics. Its biggest disadvantage was the drum feed ammunition supply. The limited ammunition capacity was an important disadvantage. The Type 99 Mark 1 Fixed Model 3 could be equipped with a 100-round drum, but the size of the drum was itself a problem in fighter installations, although the Model 3 guns were installed on the initial production versions of the A6M2. A more practical solution was provided by the Type 99 Mark 1 Fixed Model 4, which featured a Kawamura-developed belt feed mechanism.

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## tomo pauk (Feb 15, 2018)

Ivan1GFP said:


> Hello Tomo Pauk,
> There really isn't much competition for best armed Japanese single engine fighter. Besides A6M and Ki 43, there was the Ki 27 and probably a stray A5M in a few places. It is interesting that the Me 109E had basically the same armament.



Thank you.



> Regarding Sakai's statement, it really comes down to whether you believe it is an accurate account of the event of the time.
> Assuming his statement was accurate:
> Considering the relative destructive power of the 20 mm shell as compared to the 7.7 mm bullet, it says a lot about how ineffective the 20 mm Type 99-1 actually was.
> 
> ...



The Ki 43 was the most produced Japanese fighter, in it's prime it clashed with Western and some Soviet heardware that was obsolete in between 1942 and some time of 1944. Rarely a 4-engined bomber or other next-gen Western A/C were deployed against the IJA fighters in that time. Coupled with trained and experienced pilots, there is no wonder that kills were just piling up. From 1944 to 1945, the new types were flown against much better A/C with well trained and experiencced pilots, while the Japanese could not keep up with pilot's quality themselves. 
Similar thing happened to the German pilots - it was one thing to rack kills when having upper hand in A/C and pilot's quality, another thing was when those aces were pitted against well trained pilots flying equal and better A/C.

The Type 99-1 cannon was not ideal, with low MV and low ammo capacity. However, methinks that substituting the Zero's cannons with MGs (1 cannon vs. 2 LMGs) would've been an self inflicted wound.


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## Vincenzo (Feb 15, 2018)

talking of sinchronization, this is from a italian forum, i don't remember the name EDIT 150gct.it












Macchi_C202_Breda_127mm



__ Vincenzo
__ Feb 15, 2018






we have also for other italian fighter, the rate of fire of synchronized weapons varied with engine revolution

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## Juha2 (Feb 15, 2018)

Hello Vincenzo
thanks a lot for sharing!
Do you know the meaning of the red and green dotted lines?
Do you have same sort of info on Fiat G.50?

Juha


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## tomo pauk (Feb 15, 2018)

taly01 said:


> In the USSBS survey posted by Micdrow on this site Japanese air weapons and tactics they describe the MA round developed during 1943, it was a fuzeless "impact" ignition round that carried 3 times more HE than fuzed 12.7mm, as the fuze space was replaced by HE! It was designed as an incendiary surface burster for use against protected fuel tanks and airframe and was admired by the USSBS authors for its ingenuity and effectiveness. It was developed for all JAAF guns and the JNAF was in the process of adopting it at wars end. I think this was one reason why the Ki-43 kept its 12.7mm rather than going to 20mm, the extra power of the 20mm would have been balanced against the fewer 20mm rounds you could fit into a ki-43.



There was also fuse-less ammo for the Ho-5 20mm cannon, per docs Paul posted.


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## ebergerud (Feb 15, 2018)

I interviewed a number of 5th AF fighter pilots before writing Fire in the Sky. Robert DeHaven (14 kills, 10 in a P40) was one of the most interesting. Talking to a pilot doesn't necessarily tell you much about the technical - some were interested in the fine points of their planes, others weren't. (Edwards Park who wrote for the Smithsonian and was a P39 jockey made that point in his memoirs.) DeHaven once said that he thought he flew a bumblebee - big heavy metal things shouldn't fly: but his plane was too stupid to know it, so it flew. To put it mildly the Oscar certainly made an impression. Anyone who saw them in action during 1943 when they flew in numbers at places like Wewak was startled by the maneuverability of the plane. DeHaven claimed he saw one perform a "double Immelmann" - a maneuver you'd expect to see at an airshow. For reasons Americans never really understood, when present in large units, Japanese aircraft would often do complex maneuvers while in sight but not range of US planes: build morale? entice someone into a dogfight? Anyway, the Oscar was probably the only operational monoplane fighter in WWII that was more nimble than the Zero. But at a very serious cost. To get speed over 300 mph and retain the kind of maneuverability wanted by Japanese pilots (who had an unusual influence in aircraft design) the Ki-43 was put on a serious weight reduction plan. Like the Zero it had many innovative features. However, it shared every disadvantage of the Zero vs US fighters except more so. The Ki-43II on paper could make 330mph at 12,000 feet. The A6M2 put out 345 at 15,000 ft, the A6M5 350mph at 20,000. (In the front lines, fighters almost never performed up to specs. Indeed with the technology available in the early 40s it was not possible to measure performance with the precision found in later decades. That's one reason why it's hard to find two sets of performance figures that agree with each other. For US WWII fighters the "go-to" source has to be "America's 100,000" by Francis Dean. It's a large format Schiffer book and will delight anyone who likes graphs. Dean was an aviation engineer and knew the topic.) Figure about 350 at 16,000 feet for a P-40E. The speed and critical altitude for the second generation US fighters left both the Oscar and Zero in the dust. The P38G did 400mph at 26,000, the Corsair 390 mph at 24,000 etc. As far as the Oscar goes, it would have fought 5th AF P-40s and P-38s in the Pacific. Pay attention to critical altitude - if a plane performs well up high, you can expect to see it up there. What that meant in the Pacific is that the Oscars spent a lot of time looking up at an enemy - never good. P40s were happier at mid-alt but it was more nimble than the P-38 and could out-roll an Oscar at high speed. US planes got into trouble if they lost too much energy - at anything under 250 and Oscar would gain six in seconds. Of course US airplanes could get into trouble not seeing the enemy - that was true anywhere, and explained why any well flown fighter was dangerous. But US pilots favored disciplined group tactics - if a flight of P38s kept up their speed they could pass through a Japanese formation (perfectly willing to trade "headers") - the Japanese would scatter or an inexperienced pilot would react too slowly. No matter what if the US planes kept up their speed they would find victims and they would be beastly hard to shoot down. And if the first pass failed, they'd gain altitude, turn and make another pass: and another. The Japanese learned to hate the P-38.
The Ki-43 did fine work in China, yet even the mediocre Tojo was preferred there. The reason that 5,000 Oscars were built was because it was a plane that worked and Japanese industry was able to make and keep flying. (10,000 Zeros were produced for the same reason - both marks until VJ day). Japanese pilots were most eager to get better planes and Japanese industry tried very hard to produce them. The Ki-61 was certainly an improvement, but even this well tried design spent a lot of time on the ground because engines were poorly constructed. By 1944 the Ki-84 was showing up and was a fine plane - when it was off the ground. (The same could be said about any second generation Japanese fighter. Arguably the best of the lot was the Ki-100 because it's radial gave it good performance and was pretty robust.) 
So admire the Oscar if you like. It has lovely lines, although I prefer the Zero's. (To my eye the enemy made lovely planes - the Zero, FW-190 and BF-109 were all very handsome. Ours were business-like but lacked crisp lines. Even the Spit, to my eye, has an odd wing. Others may have different views.) But it's wrong to call the Oscar an underrated fighter. It was a modern fighter. It could shoot down planes if the situation was right. But it had only the lightest of armor, it's "self sealing" tanks didn't work against .50 caliber guns, and it didn't stand a chance in a dive against any opponent. It was seriously inferior to its American opponents - you didn't send a fragile plane with two mgs into a war of attrition against tough and well armed planes like those flown by 5th AF. Again, the Japanese were the best judge of things. Their finest engineers spent the war years trying to produce planes better than the Oscar and Zero.

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## Greyman (Feb 15, 2018)

ebergerud said:


> Even the Spit, to my eye, has an odd wing.



Ban this man.

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## taly01 (Feb 15, 2018)

> There was also fuse-less ammo for the Ho-5 20mm cannon, per docs Paul posted.



Your right I had neglected that side! this does then mean the 20mm was "better", although the firing time is reduced as the ammo load drops from 250 of 20mm > 150 of 12.7mm rounds as their rof is about the same. The trials with 20mm Ho-5 in the Ki-43-III in 1945 required extending the engine forward 0.12m so it wasn't an easy change to make, and at that the time the Ho-5 had derated ammo as the gun steel quality was reduced due to lack of alloys. The Ki-43 was obsolescent by then anyhow.


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## taly01 (Feb 15, 2018)

> The Ki-43II on paper could make 330mph at 12,000 feet. The A6M2 put out 345 at 15,000 ft, the A6M5 350mph at 20,000. .



I find the Ki-43 fascinating but I now believe the JAAF should have dropped the Ki-43 for the Zero once it became clear it was a superiour design already by 12/1941 Of course the army would make it "army" by removing carrier gear and changing to JAAF's own design 7.7mm and 12.7mm.


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## parsifal (Feb 15, 2018)

The Ki43 had glaring weaknesses, one of which was unique to it, but others that it shared with the A6M. The weakness unique to the Oscar, was its poor armament. The weaknesses it shared with the Zeke were the lack of armour, and allied to that, the propensity to catch fire and crumple under even small amount of combat damage. both were at best mediocre dive aircraft. Ive heard also that roll rate was pretty poor. Both were poor in maneuverability at high speed. Combine the dive characteristics with poor handling speed an you get the standard evasion tactic of the pacific....a high speed dive followed by a flick turn at the bottom and retreat at high speed. neither the Zeke or the Oscar had answers for these tactics.

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## Ivan1GFP (Feb 16, 2018)

Hello Parsifal,
I had actually heard that the Ki 43 unlike the A6M did not lose that much of its roll rate at high speeds and that was its advantage over he A6M series. Diving speeds were not great but reached about 650 KPH with the -II and is about the same as the A6M.
One of my friends actually had a piece of wing skin from a Ki 43 and it is amazingly flimsy. At the time I did not think to ask which version of the Ki 43 it came from because I did not know there was a difference in structure.

I wonder if it was the opposition that made the difference.
The Russians fielded many two gun fighters which seemed to be fairly successful. I know their 7.62 mm and 12.7 mm MGs had extraordinarily high firing rates, but their 20 mm cannon did not.

- Ivan.


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## parsifal (Feb 16, 2018)

Russians always had bad exchange rates in air fighting, but after the Kuban experiences, altered their tactics to deal with the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe was both a fire brigade , running up and down the front to contain as best they could, the various soviet offensives as they developed, but also acting as a rapier to surgically neutralise the opposition. The experiences over the kuban showed the Russians that winning air superiority over the qualitatively superior Germans was impossible. They changed tactics after Kuban. They realised that they didn't need to win air superiority, they needed air parity over those sections of the front where they wanted to project their airpower over the land battle. they needed also to present enough potential threats to the enemy through their fighters so as to keep them from applying their point attacks......so large numbers of poorly equipped fighters were just what the VVS needed. Large numbers of fighters meant that they could apply a presence over a battlefield more or less continuously, firstly to keep the LW fighters busy so as to minimise their effect on the VVS attack a/c, and secondly present enough threat to the LWs own attack aircraft as to discourage their total commitment to the developing land battle. It was a strategy that worked. The Russians during 1943-5 affected the battles on the eastern front to a vastly greater extent than the LW did, which I think materially affected the breakthrough battles on the ground. the successful breakthroughs they (the Soviets) achieved meant that far greater numbers of LW aircraft landed (and immobilised) close behind the front were lost in the land offensive than were ever lost in air combat. It was these losses on the ground in the breakthrough battles that really tore the heart out of the LW on the eastern front, not the losses in the air.

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## Vincenzo (Feb 16, 2018)

Juha2 said:


> Hello Vincenzo
> thanks a lot for sharing!
> Do you know the meaning of the red and green dotted lines?
> Do you have same sort of info on Fiat G.50?
> ...


No sorry i don't remember, i think that the symbol in low and right is the forum or creator avatar EDIT creator avatar now here as bruno_bis
i've

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## tomo pauk (Feb 16, 2018)

taly01 said:


> I find the Ki-43 fascinating but I now believe the JAAF should have dropped the Ki-43 for the Zero once it became clear it was a superiour design already by 12/1941 Of course the army would make it "army" by removing carrier gear and changing to JAAF's own design 7.7mm and 12.7mm.



There was plenty of options for the IJA in 1941/42. Like - stick another pair of guns on the Ki 43 and install better exhausts. Or, shove the Ha 41 on the Ki 43. Or, shove the Kinsei on the Ki 43. Or, make much more of the Ki 44s.



Ivan1GFP said:


> ...
> I wonder if it was the opposition that made the difference.
> The Russians fielded many two gun fighters which seemed to be fairly successful. I know their 7.62 mm and 12.7 mm MGs had extraordinarily high firing rates, but their 20 mm cannon did not.
> 
> - Ivan.



When Soviet fighter carried two guns, one of them was 20mm cannon, or two of them as in case with La-5. Shvak fired at 700-800 rpm, much faster than any Japanese cannon until Ho-5 arrived, or MG FF(M) or Hispano 404 or II. Could be easily synchronised. Granted, it's shell was among the lightest between the 20mm cannons.


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## Ivan1GFP (Feb 16, 2018)

tomo pauk said:


> There was plenty of options for the IJA in 1941/42. Like - stick another pair of guns on the Ki 43 and install better exhausts. Or, shove the Ha 41 on the Ki 43. Or, shove the Kinsei on the Ki 43. Or, make much more of the Ki 44s.



This sounds like a case of "Why mess with success?", especially for a short victorious war.
Most of these ideas sound pretty good and necessary in hindsight but would have compromised the basic design for agility.



tomo pauk said:


> When Soviet fighter carried two guns, one of them was 20mm cannon, or two of them as in case with La-5. Shvak fired at 700-800 rpm, much faster than any Japanese cannon until Ho-5 arrived, or MG FF(M) or Hispano 404 or II. Could be easily synchronised. Granted, it's shell was among the lightest between the 20mm cannons.



The Russians seemed to have a great preference for central armament over high firepower. Apparently they also recognized that the 2 x 20 mm cannon armament on La-5 was a bit too light and the later versions carried 3 x 20 mm guns which weighed less than the original ShVAK cannon.
Do you suppose that this preference for central armament made sense with the Lend Lease Airacobras? Removing the wing guns left only two .50 Cal and the questionable 37 mm.

- Ivan.


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## tomo pauk (Feb 17, 2018)

Ivan1GFP said:


> This sounds like a case of "Why mess with success?", especially for a short victorious war.
> Most of these ideas sound pretty good and necessary in hindsight but would have compromised the basic design for agility.



No hindsight needed. IJA gave green light for the Ki-60/61 and Ki-44 before 1941, problems with intercepting and destroying SB gave them a fair & timed warning. Plus they knew well already by 1941 that Western countries are either producing or have in pipeline fighters that can go faster than 550 km/h, and bombers that can go 500 km/h.



> The Russians seemed to have a great preference for central armament over high firepower. Apparently they also recognized that the 2 x 20 mm cannon armament on La-5 was a bit too light and the later versions carried 3 x 20 mm guns which weighed less than the original ShVAK cannon.
> Do you suppose that this preference for central armament made sense with the Lend Lease Airacobras? Removing the wing guns left only two .50 Cal and the questionable 37 mm.
> 
> - Ivan.



Central armament gave them good firepower at small weight and low volume requirement. They introduced 37mm high velocity cannon on two fighters and used them against aircraft and tanks alike.
Removing the wing guns on the P39s was a way to decrease weight and drag. The 37mm was reliable enough from some time in 1942, and packed enough punch to perhaps kill a He 111 or Ju 88 with singe shell. Much is said of low-ish MV of the M4 cannon, but it was greater than of the MG FF or Type 99-1.


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## Shortround6 (Feb 17, 2018)

The Russian planes were small and until the As-82 engine, under powered. 




Sticking guns in the wing means reducing the fuel tankage, which was less than desired as it was. All three Russian fighters had wings only few % bigger than a 109 
The Russian 7.62 machine gun was a very high rate of fire gun but it needed careful hand fitting (expensive to make in man hours) and suffered from jams. Replacement by the 12.7mm gun was partially due to the 12.7 being cheaper to make despite larger size. 
Russian armament fits also have to take into account numbers of airframes vs number of guns available. One factory was producing LA-5s with three guns. LA 9 or LA 11 got four 23mm guns post war?
Fewer fighters with more guns? or more fighters with fewer guns? 
Both the M-106 and M-107 engines were failures during the war so getting the power to carry heavier armament was a big problem. 
Russians in 1941-43 could not afford too much mucking around with the designs in production unless absolutely needed. 

Getting adrift here.

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## Shortround6 (Feb 17, 2018)

Parsifal has done a good job of giving a rundown on the Japanese 20mm cannon. 
This picture helps sort out some of the differences.




The 12.7 x 81SR being the Japanese/Italian round. The 12.7 x 99 is the US and the 12.7 x 108 being the Russian.
The 20 x 72RB is the round used in the Japanese type 99 model 1 cannon. The 20 x 80 RB being used in the German MG/FF. The 20 x 82 was used in the German MG 151/20 and the Japanese army used the 20 x 94 in the Ho-5 cannon. Russians used the 20 x 99R and the Japanese Navy used the 20 x 101 RB in the type 99-2 Cannon. 
Please note that the first 3 and last 20mm rounds use very similar projectiles (until the Germans introduce the MINE shell and it was by no means as universal as some people believe, sometimes only 40% of the ammo load.) the 4th and 5th 20mm rounds using shells somewhat closer in weight and much lighter than the others. They make up for this with higher velocities and higher rates of fire. (The MG 151 also had a higher rate of fire). The 20 x 101RB round used the heavy shell at a MV close to the 4th and 5th rounds but at a lower rate of fire. 
The long projectiles carried 2-3 times the amount of explosive/incendiary material as the short 20mm projectiles and 5-10 times that of the 12.7mm projectiles. 
The 20mm Hispano used essentially the long 20mm projectile at a very high MV and a rate of fire (until the MK 5 gun) about 1/2 between the slow firing guns and high rate of fire/low projectile weight guns. 
This is a quicky rundown and exceptions in specific shells/loadings can be found. 

A plane supplied with 60 round drums obviously runs out of ammo quickly and has poor combat endurance, but a plane with only few medium caliber (12.7mm) guns often cannot bring down multiple planes in one flight either as it needs a fair amount of ammo to bring down one plane _on average. 
_
I would note that the Zeros at Midway had over 30 seconds of firing time for their 7.7mm guns and so still had something left to try to attack the dive bombers with. If armed with 12.7mm guns with 18-20 seconds worth of ammo would they have had _anything_ left after dealing with the torpedo planes? 
Or enough ammo left to make a difference?

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## tomo pauk (Feb 17, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> The Russian planes were small and until the As-82 engine, under powered.



Too bad they didn't fit the AM-38 on a fighter, apart from couple of prototypes. As-is the engine power was not worse than Italian or Japanese fighters on aggregate, while there was plenty of Western fighters that didn't exactly bristled with engine power. 



> Russian armament fits also have to take into account numbers of airframes vs number of guns available. One factory was producing LA-5s with three guns. LA 9 or LA 11 got four 23mm guns post war?
> Fewer fighters with more guns? or more fighters with fewer guns?
> Both the M-106 and M-107 engines were failures during the war so getting the power to carry heavier armament was a big problem.
> Russians in 1941-43 could not afford too much mucking around with the designs in production unless absolutely needed.



The La-5 with 3 cannons was using B-20 cannons, 3 of those weighting about as much as 2 Shvak. Also less ammo per cannon. B-20 was from late 1944, it took a while to produce enough of them. One can't install what is not available 
La-9 was with 4 cannons, La-11 'lost' once cannon so another fuel tank can fit for longer range.

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## Shortround6 (Feb 17, 2018)

tomo pauk said:


> Too bad they didn't fit the AM-38 on a fighter, apart from couple of prototypes. As-is the engine power was not worse than Italian or Japanese fighters on aggregate, while there was plenty of Western fighters that didn't exactly bristled with engine power.



The trouble with the AM-38 was that it was a *big *engine.
It weighed about 50% more than a M-105 engine. The Mig-3 with the AM-35 engine was about 22% heavier than Bf 109F-2 and didn't carry a much different weight of armament. Granted the AM-38 makes more power low down but it was hardly a "plug in" replacement for the M-105 series engines in existing fighters. Especially as it couldn't take a gun through the prop hub. 

There is a reason the Italian or Japanese fighters didn't carry heavy armament. Low engine power  

Americans stuck heavy armament in low powered fighters and paid the price. P-40s and P-39s that needed other fighters to fly top cover for them.


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## DarrenW (Feb 17, 2018)

Personally I'm glad that the Japanese kept the Oscars and Zekes flying so late in the war. They provided more 'meat' for the hungry Lightnings, Hellcats and Corsairs to devour. And judging from the lines of the F6F it definitely had a healthy appetite! 

But seriously this is a great thread about a wonderfully designed aircraft which even in the final stages of the war could still bite an allied pilot if he wasn't paying attention or were caught at a disadvantage. It was easy to fly and maintain as well so it was perfect for the situation that Japan was experiencing after 1943, being the lack of experienced pilots and the raw materials to keep them in the air. The Japanese military was short-sighted enough to allow this situation to occur and the allies certainly capitalized on it.


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## tomo pauk (Feb 17, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> The trouble with the AM-38 was that it was a *big *engine.
> It weighed about 50% more than a M-105 engine. The Mig-3 with the AM-35 engine was about 22% heavier than Bf 109F-2 and didn't carry a much different weight of armament. Granted the AM-38 makes more power low down but it was hardly a "plug in" replacement for the M-105 series engines in existing fighters. Especially as it couldn't take a gun through the prop hub.



Oh, I did not suggest a plug-in replacement for the M-105 engine. M-82 engine was not a featherweight at 850-900 kg dry, yet they installed in on the LaGG-3 basic airframe to get the La-5. Small Fw 190 also carried heavy engines, like the BMW 801 or Jumo 213.
Shvak was not a Hispano or MG FF, it fired well synchronised, both on La-5 and 50-something MiG-3s that got it.


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## Juha2 (Feb 19, 2018)

Vincenzo said:


> No sorry i don't remember, i think that the symbol in low and right is the forum or creator avatar
> i've
> View attachment 482556



Hello Vincenzo
thanks a lot for the graph!

juha


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## Shinpachi (Jul 15, 2018)

If I forgot to tell -
Restoration project of a Ki-43-I seems to have almost completed at the Kawaguchiko Museum located nearby Mt. Fuji.





Source: 河口湖飛行舘：公開　「隼」の復元機体展示も　鳴沢　／山梨 - 毎日新聞





Source: https://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/20170825/20/blue-angels-no-1/d4/f3/j/o0768043214013005784.jpg





Source: https://stat.ameba.jp/user_images/20170819/07/hien-ki61/af/17/j/o2335186814008240442.jpg

Museum owner Mr Nobuo Harada and his Ki-43 airframe under restoration in 2015.




Source: 戦後７０年山梨：河口湖自動車博物館、飛行舘が開館　零戦や隼など復元　／山梨

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## BiffF15 (Jul 16, 2018)

The canopy looks way better than average for the timeframe!

Cheers,
Biff

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## Timppa (Jul 17, 2018)

parsifal said:


> lack of armour, and allied to that, the propensity to catch fire...



Ki43-II had both heavy pilot armor and self sealing tanks...


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## parsifal (Jul 17, 2018)

Prototypes for the Ki-43-II flew in February 1942, with early (unarmoured) versions entering service December 1942. Armouring of the ki43 did not begin until the introduction of the Ki-43 II (Ko) subtype, and then only with a 13mm sliver of armour to protect the pilots head, and some for the pilots back area. This was slightly more effective than the armoured screens being fitted at that time to the A6M5a subtype. The Ki-43II from April 1944 began to be fitted with a crude rubber like coating around the fuel cell, to act as a sort of fire retardant, which ive read were roughly as effective as the onboard extinguishers that were by then being fitted to the zero at about that time. This was later replaced by 3-layer rubber bladder, 8mm core with 2mm oil-proof lamination. The bladder has proven to be highly resistant against 7.7mm bullets, but was not effective against larger calibers. The pilot also enjoyed a slightly taller canopy and a reflector gunsight for the first time in place of the earlier telescopic gunsight., less most of the armour described above (which came later) Nakajima commenced production of the Ki-43-II at its Ota factory in November 1942. Production was also started at the Tachikawa Hikoki and the 1st Army Air Arsenal (Tachikawa Dai-Ichi Rikugun Kokusho). Although Tachikawa Hikoki successfully managed to enter into large-scale production of the Ki-43, the 1st Army Air Arsenal was less successful. –

Tachikawa also produced the Ki-43 III, which utilized the more powerful Nakajima Army Type 1 Ha-115-II engine. Maximum speed increased to 358 mph. The definitive armoured subtype of the ki-43 was the ki-43II (Kai) to entry date im uncertain of, but it was the latter part of 1944.

Tachikawa produced 2124 Ki-43-II and -III aircraft between April 1944 and the end of the war Total production of all versions amounted to 5,919 aircraft. On that basis, the majority of ki-43s were not armoured, and an even larger proportion were indifferently protected.






Ki-43-II Ko Hayabusa “Oscar” of the 25 Sentai China 1944 as the heavily armoured version was being introduced





Back armouring in the ki-43II ko subtype





Captured Nakajima Ki-43-IIb “Otsu” in flight. Pikots head protection is visible. Photo is dated mid 1944

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## michael rauls (Jul 21, 2018)

parsifal said:


> Prototypes for the Ki-43-II flew in February 1942, with early (unarmoured) versions entering service December 1942. Armouring of the ki43 did not begin until the introduction of the Ki-43 II (Ko) subtype, and then only with a 13mm sliver of armour to protect the pilots head, and some for the pilots back area. This was slightly more effective than the armoured screens being fitted at that time to the A6M5a subtype. The Ki-43II from April 1944 began to be fitted with a crude rubber like coating around the fuel cell, to act as a sort of fire retardant, which ive read were roughly as effective as the onboard extinguishers that were by then being fitted to the zero at about that time. This was later replaced by 3-layer rubber bladder, 8mm core with 2mm oil-proof lamination. The bladder has proven to be highly resistant against 7.7mm bullets, but was not effective against larger calibers. The pilot also enjoyed a slightly taller canopy and a reflector gunsight for the first time in place of the earlier telescopic gunsight., less most of the armour described above (which came later) Nakajima commenced production of the Ki-43-II at its Ota factory in November 1942. Production was also started at the Tachikawa Hikoki and the 1st Army Air Arsenal (Tachikawa Dai-Ichi Rikugun Kokusho). Although Tachikawa Hikoki successfully managed to enter into large-scale production of the Ki-43, the 1st Army Air Arsenal was less successful. –
> 
> Tachikawa also produced the Ki-43 III, which utilized the more powerful Nakajima Army Type 1 Ha-115-II engine. Maximum speed increased to 358 mph. The definitive armoured subtype of the ki-43 was the ki-43II (Kai) to entry date im uncertain of, but it was the latter part of 1944.
> 
> ...


 Great post. I have always felt the ki 43 was one of those under appreciated types. I think drastically in its case. Does anyone here know the performance figures( speed/climb) for the later models? I have read that hp was up to almost 1300 on the later models and this would seem to be substantial for such a light plane but have never seen performance figures specifically for the later versions.


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## Shortround6 (Jul 21, 2018)

The Ki-43 used just about the same engine as the Zero. In their usual mode of non co-operation the Army and Navy could not agree to a common specification (or testing procedure?) so the HP ratings for the KI-43 and Zero often differ by around 20hp or so or are given at slightly different altitudes.

There were a number of different prototypes built near the end of the war with more powerful engines but none in any real quantities (over 10?) so service use was pretty much non existent.


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## michael rauls (Jul 21, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> The Ki-43 used just about the same engine as the Zero. In their usual mode of non co-operation the Army and Navy could not agree to a common specification (or testing procedure?) so the HP ratings for the KI-43 and Zero often differ by around 20hp or so or are given at slightly different altitudes.
> 
> There were a number of different prototypes built near the end of the war with more powerful engines but none in any real quantities (over 10?) so service use was pretty much non existent.


 So the max speed of about325/335( depends which source your reading) remained more or less constant with the later operational types?


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## eagledad (Jul 21, 2018)

Gentlemen 
FYI
Data for Ki 43 III
Speed / Altitude
Mph / feet
305 @ sl
330 @ 9000
327 @ 15000
358 @ 22000
330 @ 30000
300 @ 35000
Rate of Climb
Feet/minute / Altitude
3430 @ sl
3500 @ 8000
2700 @ 13000
2630 @ 20000
Absolute ceiling 38000
Loaded Weight 5650 pound
Engine Power “War Emergency”
Source TAIC manual
Data Calculated by the TAIC staff 1944

If aircraft in the field reached this performance or not is anyone's guess

I “eye-balled” the data off of the graphs, but they should be close.

Eagledad

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## Shortround6 (Jul 21, 2018)

The trouble is the wike says (and wiki can be terribly wrong)

Ki-43-II-KAI (Mark 2 improved)
Fitted with ejector exhaust stacks (adding approximately 30 hp) and additional 151 liters fuel tank in fuselage.
*Ki-43-III*
Prototypes powered by Nakajima Ha-115-II engine of 920 kW (1,230 hp)
2 × 170 L (45 gal) drop tanks (~3 hour full-throttle endurance)
Ki-43-III "Ko" (Mark 3a)
Series model, some fitted with skis for operations from snow
Ki-43-III "Otsu" (Mark 3b)
Variant with the Mitsubishi Ha-112-II radial engine and armed with twin 20 mm Ho-5 cannon. (Prototype – Only 2 Built)
Ki-62 Project
Advanced interceptor version of Nakajima Ki-43 with a powerful engine and armed with 30 mm (1.18 in) or 40 mm (1.57 in) cannons.

and 

"Ki-43-III's pre-production started with ten prototypes completed during May 1944 to August 1945"

so when did the Ki-43 go into production and how many were made?


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## michael rauls (Jul 21, 2018)

eagledad said:


> Gentlemen
> FYI
> Data for Ki 43 III
> Speed / Altitude
> ...


 That 360 top speed and 3500 foot per minute climb rate when coupled with exeptional maneuverability would seem to make for a rather capable fighter.


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## Shortround6 (Jul 21, 2018)

The main problem with the Ki-43 was not it's performance, it is the lack of hitting power. 

By 1944 Japan was faced with large numbers of medium/heavy bombers and the Ki-43 was a very expensive way of getting two 12.7mm machine guns with 250rpg (500 rounds total) into firing position. yes they shot down the large bombers but it often took repeated passes by several fighters to bring down one B-24. 
A somewhat bigger fighter with four 12.7s or two 20mm and two 12.7s should have had a much higher success ratio and not actually cost twice as much to build or operate.

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## michael rauls (Jul 21, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> The main problem with the Ki-43 was not it's performance, it is the lack of hitting power.
> 
> By 1944 Japan was faced with large numbers of medium/heavy bombers and the Ki-43 was a very expensive way of getting two 12.7mm machine guns with 250rpg (500 rounds total) into firing position. yes they shot down the large bombers but it often took repeated passes by several fighters to bring down one B-24.
> A somewhat bigger fighter with four 12.7s or two 20mm and two 12.7s should have had a much higher success ratio and not actually cost twice as much to build or operate.


 That's another thing ive wondered about the ki43. Why was the armament kept so light. I know extra armament will add wieght and degrade performance but it seems putting 2 more 12.7s, one in each wing fpr example, wouldn't degrade performance much and would certainly be worth the trade off. I've wondered what the thinking was here.


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## GrauGeist (Jul 22, 2018)

michael rauls said:


> That's another thing ive wondered about the ki43. Why was the armament kept so light. I know extra armament will add wieght and degrade performance but it seems putting 2 more 12.7s, one in each wing fpr example, wouldn't degrade performance much and would certainly be worth the trade off. I've wondered what the thinking was here.


1930's philosophy.

Look at the major air forces of the day and you'll see a broad range of types that primarily had two MGs in the cowling with perhaps two additional MGs (or cannon) in the wing - typically near the wing root.

It wasn't until WWII got underway in earnest that aircraft armament started to evolve.


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## GrauGeist (Jul 22, 2018)

Michael, I rarely ever recommend a Wikipedia page as a WWII reference, however in this case I'll make an exception.

The link I'll provide is a list of ALL aircraft involved in WWII, and you can view the list and compare the 1930's fighters to the 1940's fighters. Take note of the armament of the types that were designed and put into service in the 1930's compared to the fighters that were put into service from about 1942 onward. There was a major shift in armament doctrine in about two years (1940 - 1942) and this was due to an escalation in both firepower and armor/countermeasures. 

In the case of the Japanese fighters, they had been up against lesser types in their early days of success, but when they ran up against the sturdy, well armed American types (1941 onward), their typical armament suddenly was not adequate and the days of easy kills were no longer.

Anyway, here's the link - perhaps this may help give an idea of how things progressed:
List of aircraft of World War II - Wikipedia


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## michael rauls (Jul 22, 2018)

GrauGeist said:


> 1930's philosophy.
> 
> Look at the major air forces of the day and you'll see a broad range of types that primarily had two MGs in the cowling with perhaps two additional MGs (or cannon) in the wing - typically near the wing root.
> 
> It wasn't until WWII got underway in earnest that aircraft armament started to evolve.


 
Yes that makes perfect sense but i was thinking more in terms of later modification once the need was known.
Many later Japanese types had at least reasonable armament and even the zero was better in this respect yet with the ki43 the never went beyond 2 heavy machine guns as far as i know. 
Maybe it would have taken a wing redesign? That's the only possible reason I can think of off the top of my head.


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## michael rauls (Jul 22, 2018)

GrauGeist said:


> Michael, I rarely ever recommend a Wikipedia page as a WWII reference, however in this case I'll make an exception.
> 
> The link I'll provide is a list of ALL aircraft involved in WWII, and you can view the list and compare the 1930's fighters to the 1940's fighters. Take note of the armament of the types that were designed and put into service in the 1930's compared to the fighters that were put into service from about 1942 onward. There was a major shift in armament doctrine in about two years (1940 - 1942) and this was due to an escalation in both firepower and armor/countermeasures.
> 
> ...


 I was to some degree aware of how light armament was on many pre war types but that page is indeed an eye opener. Thanks


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## Shortround6 (Jul 22, 2018)

I believe this has come up in other threads. The Ki-43 may have used a three spar wing? 
The 7.7mm type 89 machine gun may not have been the most reliable (jam free) weapon. 
I believe that in the Japanese Army only one model of the KI 61 ever used them as wing guns.


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## michael rauls (Jul 22, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> The main problem with the Ki-43 was not it's performance, it is the lack of hitting power.
> 
> By 1944 Japan was faced with large numbers of medium/heavy bombers and the Ki-43 was a very expensive way of getting two 12.7mm machine guns with 250rpg (500 rounds total) into firing position. yes they shot down the large bombers but it often took repeated passes by several fighters to bring down one B-24.
> A somewhat bigger fighter with four 12.7s or two 20mm and two 12.7s should have had a much higher success ratio and not actually cost twice as much to build or operate.


 Good point. And and that would also be one less pilot to train/ risk for the same result.


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## Shortround6 (Jul 22, 2018)

and about the same amount of ground crew. 

However good the Ki 43 may have been in 1942-43 it was something the Japanese could not really afford in 1944-45 no matter how cheap it was on per plane basis.


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## Greg Boeser (Jul 23, 2018)

Nakajima was already working on the Ki-44 as an interceptor and the pre-production models were combat tested right along side the Ki-43s in Malaya and Burma from the start of the war. It had all the things the Ki-43 lacked. heavy armament, powerful engine. But the pilots hated it because that performance came at the cost of maneuverability. Early examples in China fared poorly because their pilots tried to fly them like _Hayabusas _and got clobbered. Later, in 1943, when they were concentrated in their own Sentais with adequate training in the proper use of the type, they began to give the Americans and Chinese fits. Using zoom and boom tactics, they shifted the balance of air power back into Japanese favor until the arrival of P-51As and Cs in theater.The Ki 84 proved even better as a general purpose fighter. But these later types could not be made as quickly as the simpler Ki-43, which soldiered on well after its obsolescence was obvious.

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## marine38 (Jul 26, 2018)

Johnny .45 said:


> Just bored and was wondering. For some reason, I love that plane, in spite of it seeming so...underwhelming...compared to most of the "big" planes. It seems to have such character, and it was surprisingly successful for an aircraft that never had more than 2 x 12.7mm MG's or any kind of armor at all; sometimes the success that the Japanese and Soviets had with relatively light armament makes me wonder if we really needed as many big guns as we think we did. I also suspect the Ki-43 must have been great fun to fly, being so light and nimble. "Hayabusa" is a great name too. I know the A6M is more glamorous and better known (the Ki-43 was just "The Army Zero" to Allied pilots), maybe better looking too, but I prefer the Ki-43. Supposedly it shot down more aircraft than any other Japanese fighter (basically making it the Japanese Hurricane!), and did it in spite of being much lighter-armed and even more lightly-built than the Zero. And it was gaining victories right up to the end of the war, when in the right hands. Not bad for an aircraft that was facing opponents that outclassed it by such a magnitude. I guess I just always like the underdog...


Are


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## windswords (Jul 27, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> I believe this has come up in other threads. The Ki-43 may have used a three spar wing?
> The 7.7mm type 89 machine gun may not have been the most reliable (jam free) weapon.
> I believe that in the Japanese Army only one model of the KI 61 ever used them as wing guns.



That is correct. Because of the wing spars neither machine guns nor cannons could be added to the wing. The 12.7 mm used in the cowl guns did have a small explosive charge in them to give them more hitting power. I don't know how effective they were.


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## fibus (Jul 28, 2018)

Steve Hnz said:


> As one who has read fairly extensively on the CBI theatre conflict, I have no trouble giving the Ki-43 the honour it deserves. Its Ho-103 12.7mm gun was a Japanese development firing a version of the Vickers .5" round, made semi rimmed because the British Govt wouldn't clear the rimless round used by the RN for export. More info here. Not as powerful as the .5 browning but handy nonetheless, the Italians used much the same round & I've long though that early Spitfires & Hurricanes would have been better of with 4 or 6 Brownings adapted to this round than the .303.
> Steve


I wonder how the 43 compared to the p40b of the AVG? Black Mac was a friend.


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## Greg Boeser (Jul 28, 2018)

Read Dan Ford's_ Flying Tigers._ He looked at the combat reports from both sides so has a pretty good analysis, much to the chagrin of the AVG idolizers.

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## eagledad (Jul 29, 2018)

Fibus

This was posted on J-aircraft.com. It is not a P-40B, but the following is a comparison between the Ki-43I and P-40N

Eagledad



*OSCAR VS THE P-40 *


Subject: OSCAR VS P-40

I took the following excerpt from an official intelligence report which was originally classified CONFIDENTIAL. The document is called INFORMATIONAL INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY No. 44-14, 30 April 1944. I scanned the text from a hard copy using an OCR program and checked the results for errors, correcting the errors that I found. The text is word-for-word.

The OSCAR used in these trials was the same plane used in the trials against a P-38 that I reported on earlier.

Oscar Against the P-38 - PARTS ONE & TWO

Its original Japanese manufacture number is not known, but we know it in captivity as XJ002, a Ki-43 of the first model which was captured on 16 September 1943 at Lae. It was shipped to the technical intelligence unit at Eagle Farm Airfield, Brisbane, then rebuilt and first flown again on 17 March 1944. The trials were conducted as soon as possible, as can be seen by the date of is first flight in captivity and the date of the intelligence report: 30 April 1944.

The rebuilt OSCAR was given a protective coating of paint, probably a light gray of some sort. It carried XJ002 on its fin and rudder, presumably on both sides, and U.S. star-and-bars insignia on the fuselage sides and on the wings, top of the left and bottom of the right. It did not have the blue bar and red and white stripes on the rudder.

Although we do not know the exact original Japanese manufacture number at this time, we do know which Ki-43s of the first model were captured at Lae. XJ002 was one of these:

Manufacture Numbers – Dates of completion
239 December 1941
328 February 1942
397 April 1942
400 April 1942
426 April 1942
466 May 1942
520 June 1942
622 August 1942
646 September 1942
674 September 1942
808 December 1942
810 December 1942

These planes ranged from the 139th Ki-43 assembled by Nakajima in December 1941 to the 710th Ki-43 assembled by Nakajima in December 1942.* That data let the Allied intelligence analysts know that Nakajima had assembled about 572 of these planes in the 12-month period, an average of about 48 fighters per month. The actual quantity from 1 December 1941 through 31 December 1942 was 584, as determined after the war by the USSBS inspection teams that collected production data from the various Japanese aircraft manufactures.

(* NOTE: The manufacture numbers for the first run of Ki-43 aircraft had a base number of 100 added to each true serial number. Thus, in effect, the first Ki-43 had manufacture number 101 and a true serial number of 1. In order the find a plane's true place in the production run, you must subtract 100 from the manufacture number.) 

Jim Long

[BEGINNING OF TRANSCRIPTION]

*P-40 vs. OSCAR TRIALS*


_Performance tests between a reconstructed Type 1 F OSCAR Mk 1 and a P-40N were recently carried out in the Southwest Pacific Area. The pilots' individual reports of the combat trials as reported by Allied Headquarters, SWPA, are published in this article._


*BACKGROUND*


The P-40N was piloted by a flight leader of a Fighter Squadron who had a total of 650 hours in a P-40N. He also had combat experience against enemy fighters.

The OSCAR Mk 1 was piloted by another flight leader who had considerable combat experience in a P-40N against enemy fighters and a total of approximately two hours flying experience in an OSCAR prior to the trials.

*REPORT OF OSCAR PILOT*


"I joined the P-40 after take-off and climbed to 5,000 feet. The P-40 climbed to 6,000 feet and dove on my tail. In a tight turn to the left, the OSCAR made three and a half turns before reaching a firing position behind the P-40. The turns were tight enough to keep half blacked out all the way around but didn’t pull any streamers. The P-40 pulled streamers all the way around.

"The P-40 then dove on my tail again and in a turn to the right it took me two and a half turns to get on his tail. It was much harder to get on his tail going to the right (at 5,000 feet) than at 10,000 feet, but easier than on a turn to the left.

"On two hammer-head stalls, the P-40N followed the OSCAR all the way up, keeping on the outside and cutting back to keep from overrunning. Kicking it off at 70 and 60 mph respectively, the P-40 stayed in easy gun range in the dive following.

"I looped the OSCAR at 240 mph and the P-40 followed up part of the way, breaking off in a hammerhead stall. I reached the bottom of the loop and by going part way up in another I kicked off and fell on the P-40's tail as he dove out from his stall.

"When I dove on the P-40 in a turn to the left, after the initial 90° it was easy to stay inside his turn, reaching firing position at 270°. This didn't cause any blackout or pulling streamers from the OSCAR. Turns were tried twice, each bringing the same results with Indicated Air Speed (IAS) at start of 180 and 210 mph respectively for the OSCAR.

“On two turns to the right in the initial 90° of the P-40’s turn, the OSCAR skids outside due to his speed, but after that it is much easier to come in firing position than by turn to the left. At 18O° the OSCAR is set to fire.

"The P-40 pulled up into a hammer-head stall and the OSCAR was too far back for a shot, but climbed above the P-40 and on diving out turned inside and easily caught up.

"The P-40 dove for a loop and pulled away from the OSCAR, indicating 270. The P-40 went into its loop and when it started down from the top of the loop the OSCAR was just passing under him. By making a very tight loop, the OSCAR was on the P-40's tail halfway up in another loop.

"All tests were run with the OSCAR at 30" Hg, and 2,150 RPM.

"Climbing from 5,000 feet to 10,000 feet was at 34" Hg and 2,200 RPM, indicating a climb of l,800 feet per minute and 110 mph. Above 10,000 feet, the OSCAR seemed to climb better at IAS of 130, but would like to check again to make sure. Best rate of climb above 12,000 feet was 900 feet per minute, with IAS 130, 2,200 RPM, and 32" Hg.

"When the OSCAR was at 15,000 feet, the P-40 at 20,000 feet developed trouble and we returned to the field."

*REPORT OF P-40N PILOT*


"I was flying the P-40 against the OSCAR. The maneuvering was done at 5,000 feet. I would start at 6,000 feet and level off approximately 500 yards behind OSCAR in the following manner:

"I dived on OSCAR and he started a 70° _left_ turn. My IAS was 230 as we started and I pulled in to 130. We made three and a half turns before OSCAR was in firing position. I dived on OSCAR and he started a 70° _right_ turn. My IAS was 220 as we went in and it dropped to 130 to 120. Then we only made two and a half or three turns at the most before OSCAR was in the firing position.

"I dived on OSCAR with IAS of 200 as we started into a hammer-head stall. I had to cut back on the throttle to keep from overrunning. By staying on outside of turn I could stay on his tail. IAS at top of stall was about 75 mph.

"OSCAR looped but my IAS was only 260 and I decided not to loop with it. Instead, I pulled up into a hammer-head stall, but as I was recovering OSCAR could have gotten a shot at me from the bottom, my IAS at top of stall being 100.

"P-40 handles much better at 10,000 feet than at 5,000 feet, appears to be too 'mushy’ at 5,000 feet.

"On the following maneuvers, P-40 was at 5,000 feet and OSCAR would dive from 6,000 feet. I went into a 70° _left_ turn at 190 mph and pulled in to 120 mph on the turn, OSCAR skidded outside for 90° but when his speed was killed he could turn in steep. He was in a firing position after 270° or 360° had been completed. Two turns were made with the same results; my IAS at slowest point was 120 mph.

"I went into a _right_ 70° turn at an air speed of 200 mph. The same thing happened as it did in left turn, only it didn't take quite 270° for OSCAR to get in a good position. My slowest IAS in turn was 120 mph. I started a hammer-head stall from 180 mph and outdistanced the OSCAR, but altitude remained the same. As I would kick off, OSCAR would turn inside and in a good position. As I picked up speed I would outdistance him again. My lowest IAS was 95.

"I dived to 310 mph and pulled into a loop. I had pulled far ahead of OSCAR but made a tight loop. As I was on my back falling through the top of loop, I saw OSCAR start a very tight loop. As I was regaining altitude, the OSCAR finished his loop and was once again in a good firing position."

[END OF TRANSCRIPTION]

References Consulted:

1. GAKKEN No. 52, _Type 1 Fighter “Hyabusa,”_page 168.
2. Phil Butler, _War Prizes: The Album,_ page 90.
3. Production and Serial Number Table for the Ki-43, by James I. Long, Copyright 1995, AIR’TELL Publications & Research Service.
4. Office of the Assistant Chief of Air Staff, Intelligence, Washington D.C., Crashed Enemy Aircraft Report #17, Part 1, _Type, Code Name, Manufacture, Serial Number and Assembly Date of Japanese Aircraft Captured at Lae, Munda, Vila Strip, Rekata Bay,_pages 3 and 4.
5. Army Air Forces Informational Intelligence Summary No. 44-14, 30 April 1944, page 27.

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## Shinpachi (Aug 5, 2018)

The latest shots are coming in as the museum opens in August only.
Images dated August 5, 2018.















Source: 河口湖飛行館　隼一型戦闘機 - ニュートンリング模型日和





Source: 馬に蹴られた日もあれば:河口湖飛行館 2018夏

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## BiffF15 (Aug 5, 2018)

Shinpachi said:


> The latest shots are coming in as the museum opens in August only.
> Images dated August 5, 2018.
> 
> View attachment 504477
> ...



Shinpachi,

Great shots thanks for posting!

Biff


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## Shinpachi (Aug 5, 2018)

BiffF15 said:


> Shinpachi,
> 
> Great shots thanks for posting!
> 
> Biff



You are welcome, Biff.
Here are a couple of pictures to see the engine and the rear section if interested.








Source: やっその遠征記録: 河口湖自動車博物館・飛行舘


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## BiffF15 (Aug 5, 2018)

Shinpachi said:


> You are welcome, Biff.
> Here are a couple of pictures to see the engine and the rear section if interested.
> 
> View attachment 504501
> ...



Shinpachi,

Same plane or another? From the pilot perspective it’s canopy was fairly decent especially for its time of production.

Cheers,
Biff


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## Shinpachi (Aug 5, 2018)

Model 2 was restored as model 1.


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## Shinpachi (Aug 5, 2018)

Sorry for confusion.
Details are unknown but Mr Harada is said that he owns two Ki-43 airframes.
They might be both model 1 and model 2.
If so, he might be going to restore the intact model 2 in the future too.
No more idea at the moment.
Sorry again.

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