1943: ideal fighter for IJA?

[davebender]

Missed something critical.

WWII Japan cannot afford to mass produce expensive fighter aircraft such as the P-38 and P-47. This aircraft must be inexpensive to build.

 

[parsifal]

The IJA needed an a/c cheap to build, with good firepower and protection....something easy for inexperienced pilots to fly and a pressurizaed cockpit to enable interception of B-29s. wide track to enable usage of rough strips. A pure p[ipe dream, but someone to kick buts until commonality with the IJN was achieved.


What aircraft fits that bill the best. . 1942-3 proabably the Ki44. Not nearly a perfect fit., but the best they could do.....possibly also the George or the J2M (both Navy). Later the J7W Kyufu (more a late war fighter, again from the navy

Performance
Maximum speed: 750 km/h (469 mph)
Range: 850 km (531 miles)
Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,360 ft)
Rate of climb: 750 m/min (2,460 ft/min)
Wing loading: 240.4 kg/m2 (49.1 lb/ft2)
Power/mass: 0.32 kW/kg (0.20 hp/lb)

Armament

Guns: 4× 30 mm Type 5 cannon
Bombs: Up to 120 kg (264 lb) bombload

 

[davebender]

Not necessary until 1945 and even then it's a specialized mission for a purpose built home defense aircraft. The mass production IJA fighter aircraft will normally operate below 20,000 feet.

 

[Shortround6]

It wouldn't make much difference in the end but 2500 'big wing' Ki 44s that start showing up in numbers in 1943 instead of the last 2500 Ki 43s Is probably the best bet. Something that can help slow the Allies down a bit in 1943/early 1944 and can actually give the allies a fight instead of being target practice. Planes that give 'new' pilots a chance. Not B-29 killers but planes that can give P-40s and P-39s a much tougher time.

 

[davebender]

Ki-61 airframe can do that if Japan can get the engine right and into production by 1942.

 

[parsifal]

The problem with the Ki-61 as i recall in its early years was relaibility

 

[davebender]

Most of those reliability problems relate to the engine. I don't think there was anything seriously wrong with the Ki-61 airframe.

 

[cherry blossom]

If I understand, which is by no means guaranteed, the Ha-112 II was available in very small numbers from the end of 1942 and was used in the Ki-46 III. The reason that it was not available in large quantities may have been because it used fuel injection and Mitsubishi were making a copy of the Bosch equipment for the DB 601 using general purpose tools, i.e. by hand, because Bosch had never given Japan details of how to make the equipment. This also caused problems for both the IJA and the JNAF copies of the DB 601.

If producing the fuel injection systems was the main problem, then a more cooperative Germany (absolutely unbelievable) would have allowed large quantities of the Ha-112 II to be produced. Of course it would have also allowed a DB 605 copy to be produced (assuming that metallurgical problems could also have been solved). Thus either the Ki-100 or Ki-61 II equivalent could have been produced.

 

[davebender]

There were other more serious problems relating to things like steel quality used to build the crankshaft.

 

[parsifal]

If ther is some doubt about what aircraft should have ben developed for the late war day fighter, there should be little doubt about the choice needed for the night fighter. The Ki-46 would have made a twin engined night fighter as good as the Mosquito, less the radar. if the japanese could or obtained a design for a workable AI or passive detection system, they would have reduced their losses to bombing in the final year of the war considerably, or alternatively, increased the allied losses. B-29 incendiary raids, which did the lions share of the damage to Japanese cities were undertaken at night, at relatively low altitude. A coherent, properly trained and proportioned night fighter force might have reduced thosde effects.

The historical conversions were designated Ki-46 III Kai, and were not that successful. The engines were of too low a power rating to achive a sufficient climb rate, the basic airframe too lightly built to allow violent aerobatics, and the control surfaces too small to give the type much manouverability. However, what was needed was the fitting of a higher rated engine with better high altitude performance. This was available in the Ha 112 itself rather problematic but an engine with great potential IMO. Work needed to be undertaken to improve the serviceability of this engine, and to increase production, but none of this was out of the question.....it just needed better access to resources and production space. Once the engine issue was solved, changes could have been made to the airframe that would have made it a 1st class night fighter. The Ki46IV prtotype was heading in that direction, but the shortage and poor reliability of the Ha112 engines basically killed off the whole project.