**** DONE: GB-58 1/48 Kawasaki Ki.45 Hei - Night Fighters all Eras

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fubar57

General
33,061
19,666
Nov 22, 2009
The Jungles of Canada
Username: fubar57
First name: George
Category: Advanced
Manufacturer: Hasegawa
Model: Kawasaki Ki45Kai Hei/Tei Toryu (Nick) "Mainland Defence" Kit #09909
Scale: 1:48
Add-on: Dead Design Models canopy masks

My entry into this GB is the Toryu, Dragonslayer. Instructions say, "5th Fighter Regiment, Maj. Yoshiaki Yamashita, Kiyosu Air Base, June 1945. According to the never wrong Wiki, this is the "Hei" version or Mark C, used against naval objectives, one 37 mm (1.46 in) Ho-203 automatic cannon in the nose, one 7.92 mm (.312 in) machine gun in the back position. It looks like the rear gunners glass area was faired over on this aircraft. Not sure when or where I got the photo from as an image search shows no matches.

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Hello friend, well, I'll put you some photos of the installation of the 37mm cannon that was in the muzzle, all obtained on the net,







The last one is the rear part of the cannon, the part that faced in front of the pilot's feet.

 
Thanks Sergio but no nose gun in this version, the canon is in the belly which is a separate insert. I didn't feel like spraying this late at night so I looked for something I could start on so I added the inserts to the interior




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I also added the rear bulk head


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There is a lot going on in the cockpit with steps, sub-steps, gluing order and versions. The versions are in squares(3) and gluing order I've circled in red(7). The colour call out for the cockpit is "A". I spent about 45 minutes going over the instructions trying to figure out what to paint this colour. In the book, "Japanese Aircraft Interiors" by Robert Mikesh, there are some colour shots of the Ki.45 interior




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This is almost bang on to Tamiya XF-51 Khaki Drab so that will be my "A". It is also used in the wheel wells
 
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Wow, I had the illusion that this was it, then I've been looking at the hase kits and I've seen your kit... my fault, as if I had thought to do this I thought it was the same without contemplating that you were going to do another version. .. the cravings can me!!!! ha ha ha
 
Guys, I made "the trip" trough the variants and different armaments of Ki.45 a few years ago and I must tell you it's a long and hard one. Most of the sources (incl. some of the Japanese) are giving wrong information about the ventral gun, combinations of ventral and nose gun, the additional machine guns in the nose etc. There are early and late variants, there are mods and factory production a/c which are different etc.
For example the photo with the nose with a protruding gun is of a First Army Air Arsenal modified Ki.45 Kai Hei (b) (65 exemplars only) - a "short nose" Hei.

The standard farctory manufactured Ki.45 KAI Hei (b) was a "long nose" Hei.


IMHO the night fighter should be Ki.45 KAI Tei (d) with a 37mm cannon in the nose, 2 fixed oblique 20mm cannons (Schraege Musik in German) and one 7.92mm machine gun in rear position. (Note the wrong designation KAI c below - it should be KAI d!)


As per my notes Hasegawa 09909 can produce the above variant, the oblique firing guns are on sprue R, late cowlings for Tei are on sprue L, and you have the nose on sprue G. The canopy though with the solid rear part (sprue X) is for a special attacker/kamikaze type of Ki.45 called Tai Atari - AFAIK these were not night units.

These were modified Hei or Tei variants with practically no guns:

Cheers!
 
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