Aces in a Hayabusa??? How??

[The Jug Rules!]

I dont know much gunnery, but something doesn't make sense to me. I always hear about american naval and army planes taking a tremendous pounding from enemy heavy mg's and 20mm cannons, even fighters taking direct hits from 40mm shells, and still get home. How is it that these same planes got shot to shreds by early model Hayabusas? The were only armed with 2 rifle cal machine guns. Unless you hit the pilot, fuel or oil systems, (in a wildcat) she has a good chance of gettin home. But some of the aces even downed P-47's and Corsairs. Even with the later models carrying 2 12.7mm mg's I don't see how the Hayabusa did so well...

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The Oscar was an extremely maneuverable aircraft - more than the Zero. Even with its light guns and armor if one got into a dogfight with it, the Oscar could still be deadly. Also keep in mind in aerial combat (especially in WW2) the one who sees the enemy first is usually the victor and that's where many of the Oscar's victories "could of" been scored.

 

[syscom3]

A good pilot could maneuver the Oscar into a deflection shot. One well aimed burst into the cockpit, and that would be enough.

I read one account of an Oscar shooting down a P40 simply by shooting up the rudder/elevator section of the tail. Once the P40 pilot realized those two surfaces were not responding, he bailed out.

 

[timshatz]

Wasn't Neal Kearby shot down and killed flying a P47 by a guy in an Oscar. Cockpit deflection shot (same type as noted above).

 

[drgondog]

During the early days of P-51B ops there were a lot of jams due to the angled 50's in the wing. A lot of 109s and 190s were shot down with 1 or 2 50s working... up close two would ruin anybody's day.

Regards,

Bill

 

[lesofprimus]

Straight up Bill....

 

[Soren]

The Bf-109 also often downed fighters with only its 7.92mm (And later on 13mm) guns - the cannon ammo having run out.

 

[Negative Creep]

It can happen, PZL 11's shot down a fair number of German planes, a group of 3 Ansons downed 2 109s, as did other bombers. I'm guessing that those that became aces in the Oscars already had a fair bit of combat experience against the Chinese; surely a highly skilled pilot could defeat an enemy even with light weaponry?

 

[JoeB]

Here's a research paper by Rick Dunn, highly knowledgeable about Pac Air War, on Type 1 Fighter (Ki-43, Oscar) armament. Generic sources like Francillon speak of Ia, Ib, and Ic versions with 2*7.7, 1 each and 2*12.7, but Dunn says there's doubt whether the Japanese ever used those sub type designations, but in any case concludes from captured Japanese equipment and docs that the mixed armament was standard from the beginning of the war until the combat introduction of the Ki-43-II in 1943.
Nakajima Ki-43

One each 7.7/12.7 was still a very light WWII armament, coincidentally similar to many US fighters in the 1930's (which commonly had at least provision to replace one synchronized .30 with a .50); the few P-36's which saw action at Pearl Harbor had that armament, lacked the wing guns of export P-36's.

But history clearly shows you could down numerous enemy planes with that armament ca. 1942. The Type 97 (Ki-27, Nate) had its successes in 1941-1942, seemed to have fought US P-40's in the Philippines and Allied fighters in Malaysia/DEI on even terms or better, though it was bested more and often by the AVG as 1942 went on, and that plane definitely had only two 7.7's, and lower speed than the Oscar too. The Oscar in that time period generally bested Allied fighters in Malaya/DEI (it wasn't used in PI), though again the AVG typically bested it. Avoid getting hit, and eventually hit the enemy; a heavy armament is important for hitting the enemy, but a light one contributes to a light plane that's harder to hit.

Even in 1943 at least one school of thought in the JAAF preferred the Type 1 to the Type 3 (Ki-61, Tony), again per Dunn's primary source research and contrary to a Francillon statement. They felt that an alert Type 1 pilot could not be hit: he would see the enemy's 'hit and run' attacks coming, and always evade them with superior turn, which the Type 3 couldn't always do. Sooner or later so the theory went, the combat would slow down to where the 'Oscar' could put in telling hits at close range (IOW the scenario of Neal Kirby's loss). Obviously in practice the perfectly alert pilot was not always the rule though, the AVG beat Type 1's with hit and run tactices even in 1942 and the Type 1 was in increasing trouble against higher performance Allied types from 1943.

Joe

 

[Glider]

It didn't help marale though even in the JAAF. I read the diary of a pilot whose unit was tasked to attack B29's over Japan. He was so worried that he took the almost unheard of step of questioning his officers about the wisdom of this.
Obiously he did take off and managed one head on pass which achieved little, but the unit lost a high proportion of its strength without any kills.

 

[Catch22]

It IS very light armament, but like Bill said, they are guns, and guns ruin planes.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

All it takes is one round in the oil cooler and that's it....

 

[Gnomey]

All it takes is one round in the oil cooler and that's it....

Or the pilot.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

YEP!

 

[drgondog]

Or the pilot.

Elephants are killed with a lot less than a 750gr Ma Duece round at 2600 fps

 

[Soren]

The 8x57mm JS is actually an excellent round against elephants as found by the many hunters in Africa in the 1920's 30's.

An Elephant put down by James McNeil with a single shot from his 8x57mm IS rifle:

 

[drgondog]

Soren - actually very true and Kilamanjaro Bell killed 7000+ with both the 7mm mauser and the 6.5 Swede.. might add that he had the BALLS of an elephant to take the 20 yard between the ear and eye hole shot. What a Hunter

I don't have those kind of stones. I have never killed an elephant.

Regards,

Bill

 

[Cub Driver]

I dont know much gunnery, but something doesn't make sense to me. I always hear about american naval and army planes taking a tremendous pounding from enemy heavy mg's and 20mm cannons, even fighters taking direct hits from 40mm shells, and still get home. How is it that these same planes got shot to shreds by early model Hayabusas? The were only armed with 2 rifle cal machine guns. Unless you hit the pilot, fuel or oil systems, (in a wildcat) she has a good chance of gettin home. But some of the aces even downed P-47's and Corsairs. Even with the later models carrying 2 12.7mm mg's I don't see how the Hayabusa did so well...

First, I don't think there were many Hayabusas with two rifle-caliber machineguns. Indeed, there may not have been any. Richard Dunn's research seems to show that two 12.x mm guns was standard much earlier than anyone thought. See http://www.warbirdforum.com/jaafmgs.htm and its link to Rick's monograph. (The planes the AVG Flying Tigers encountered on Dec 25 1941 were apparently armed with one 7.x and one 12.x mg. Those it met in April were later models, supposedly armed with two 12.x mgs but sometimes retrofitted with one rifle-caliber gun because of the rate-of-fire problem mentioned in the link above.)

Second, the AVG pilots did indeed best the Hayabusa on every occasion they met, both with P-40B types and with P-40Es. One of these encounters involved a midair collision which the P-40 survived and the Hayabusa did not.

Third, not only did Hayabusas occasionally destroy a much more rugged P-40, but so did the smaller, fixed-gear, two-7.7mm gunned Nakajima Ki-27 "Nate". Bullets kill, regardless of the caliber. Many a good pilot in a good plane has been shot down by a single rifle-caliber flex gun.

And fourth, in the end, apart from luck and armament, the man in the cockpit is pretty important too. Especially in the first six months of the Pacific War, the Japanese army (like the Japanese navy) had some of the best-trained and most experienced fighter pilots in the world.

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

 

[Cub Driver]

I should probably also have added that there's a lot more bullfeathers in Japanese fighter pilot claims (or victories attributed to Japanese fighter pilots, since as a rule they didn't themselves keep score) than there is in those of their American and British opponents. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford