How good was Japanese aviation?

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Well i agree that it seems unlikely because of his lack of armament, but the man claims he actually saw them crash! not just smoke. And i have respect for Japanese aces 8)
 
Mountain recess lol
 

Again I have to point out the Ki-84 tested by the USAAF was rebuilt using an American fuel system and other modifications and using high-grade US fuel. It was a design test of the airframe, not the engine.

The Ho-5 was one of the weakest 20mm's of WWII. It's initial velocity was a low 730 m/s, and its ballistic qualities were poor. By 300 meters it had lost over 35% of its velocity, taking a half second to get that far. By 500 meters it had lost 50% of its velocity, taking a full second to reach that range. It also fired a rather small round, 79 grams for the HEI shell, meaning it only packed about 5-6 grams of payload. The Ho-5 was just a .50 BMG necked up to 20mm with a slightly smaller case. Because of this it is generally recorded as having the same RoF but this is dubious as the gun has less relative working energy. This gun was not nearly as good as you are making it out to be - at 1000 foot range its rounds would quite likely bounce off Hellcats, Corsairs, or P-47's (all of which had double thick skins). Japanese fusing was also the worst of any nation, so bad that they often used unfused HE rounds packed with PETN which is so unstable it detonated on contact. It was not uncommon for these rounds to detonate in the gun.

=S=

Lunatic
 

That's a negative. Two u-boats were dispatched carrying barrels of un-enriched uranium-oxide powder heading for Japan at the very end of the war. When the Germans surrendered the u-boats were still en-route - one chose to surrender (there is even a movie about it, the sub happened to be named U-235), and the other was sunk before it reached Japan.

The uranium was carried was not enriched.

=S=

Lunatic
 
cheddar cheese said:
But being Japanese it wasnt exactly hard to take out.
Click to expand...

Actually the Ki-84 was well armored for a Japanese plane. It had a very thick 13mm steel seat-bucket. This was some of the thickest fighter armor of the war - but it was made of very soft steel, it was pounded into shape using hammers which cannot be done with hardened rolled steel. It also had a thick peice of armor glass, but this was situated inside the canopy and had poor transparancy and was almost always removed - the pilot perfering to be able to see over being protected from forward fire. It also had self sealing fuel tanks, but Japanese self-sealing tanks were rather poor and ineffective.

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Lunatic
 
It was an interesting concept. In late 1944 the IJA wanted to use these to drop plague bombs on San Diego and other W. Coast cities. The IJN would not go along with it - not for moral reasons, simply because they hated the IJA!

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Lunatic
 
I always thought it was petty how the IJN and IJA pitted against each other all the time. Each had their own atomic bomb programs and such... they might have got somewhere if they'd cooperated!

Anyway RG care to explain PETN??
 
Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) is in many ways similar to cyclonite (RDX), but it is even less stable in its pure form. Usually, like RDX, it is mixed with TNT (and sometimes wax) to form the explosive pentolite, which provides stability (and more power than pure TNT). It is also used as the core explosive in primacord fuses used in demolitions and as a booster charge for blasting. PETN is an "initiating explosive", meaning it it quite sensitive to heat, friction, or percussion. By comparison, TNT and Black Powder are considered non-initiating explosives, requiring some kind of initiator or much more significant levels of heat, friction, or percussion to set them off. They are considered seperate classes of explosives for this reason.

The Japanese used this explosive in their HE rounds because it didn't requre a fuse so a little more HE could be stuffed into the shell. It was known to sometimes explode in the barrel or feed mechanism, espeically if there was a jam or misfire, or if the gun got hot.

Like nitro, it is also used in pill form as a vasodialator for treatment of chest pain

=S=

Lunatic
 
The Japanese Airforce was indeed impresive...but what I find the most moving was it's pilots...they were the most dedicated pilots the world has ever seen(I truly respect the Kamikaze pilots...they gave their life for their country...no other pilot had the heart to make the ultimate sacrifice). Of course they took it to the extreme with recognising the ones that completed their missions and disshoner the ones that failed in their attempts... The planes weren't heavily armed or protected because they would fill them up with explosive... A sunken enemy ship was far more important than one single plane... The reenforced armour would have been a minus, making the results of the impact less severe...
 

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Leaving out the Ki-84 rebuilt at the Middletown Air Depot in Pennsylvanial and tested using 140 av-gas at Clark field, the performance of the plane was:

392 mph @ 20,080 feet, cruising speed was 277 mph, and climb to 16,405 feet was 5 mins 54 secs. Ceiling was 34,450 feet, and range was 1,347 miles (with drop tank).

Ten Sentais were equiped with the Ki-84 in the Philapines and were soundly defeated by US fighters. There is no huge spike in US losses to indicate this was a "super plane" as you describe it to be.

The Frank did do moderately well in the China theater, where it faced P-40's and relatively few P-51A's and very few P-51B's of General Chennault's 14th Air Force.

As for being faster than the US planes, it was faster than the P-40, but slower than the P-51, which was capable of 405 mph on the deck (using +25 lbs boost). Climbrate of the P-51B was 6 mins 20 seconds to 20,000 feet, making it somewhat superior in climb over the Frank. The P-51D, fully loaded with fuel (-25 gallons in the rear tank) climbed to 20k in 7.3 minutes, making it about equal to the Frank. The F4U-1d of 1944 equaled or exceeded the Ki-84 in almost every catagory except low speed turn, and the F4U-4 exeeded it in every catagory except low speed turn. The low pressure fuel system of the Franks worked poorly, and was known to cut out spontaneously, especially in turns, largely negating the "turn advantage" this plane was supposed to have. High altitude performance was poor.

Finally, while much better armored than earlier Japanese fighters, the Ki-84 was still not a rugged aircraft by comparision with US fighters. The 12-13 mm seat bucket is hand pounded and welded from obviousluy mild steel. The armor glass was virtually always removed so the pilot could actually see forward. The self-sealing fuel tanks were of little use against .50 class ammo. And finally, the plane was of light construction making it generally suceptable to quick damage from .50 class hits.

The Frank was a big improvement over earlier Japanese aircraft, but it still didn't even the playing field vs. the first line US fighters it faced.

=S=

Lunatic
 
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