P-39 vs P-40

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The KI-44 did have a good RoC and it dove fairly well. As for speed, the KI-44 was about even with the P-40.

Also, the Nakajima was lightly armed: Two 12.7mm (cowl) and two 20mm cannon (wing) or four 12.7mm (two cowl, two wing) was not really impressive.
The KI-44 armed with the Ho-301 40mm cannon were useful against B-29s, when the cannon worked...
 
GrauGeist said:
The KI-44 did have a good RoC and it dove fairly well. As for speed, the KI-44 was about even with the P-40.

Also, the Nakajima was lightly armed: Two 12.7mm (cowl) and two 20mm cannon (wing) or four 12.7mm (two cowl, two wing) was not really impressive.
The KI-44 armed with the Ho-301 40mm cannon were useful against B-29s, when the cannon worked...
Click to expand...

The 40mm cannon is one of those "what they heck were they smoking" weapons.
Projectile is actually sort of a rocket.
View attachment 522434
Propellent vented out the 12 holes in the rear and drove the projectile up the rifled barrel.
No ejection to worry about :)
However the velocity makes the German MK 108 30mm like like a laser beam, the rate of fire was only 475 rpm(shots a second) and the weapon, as fitted only had 10 round magazines.
The shell, assuming it hit, was very destructive, but the chances of hit were very, very low.
 
Schweik said:
So was the Bf 109 (in both ways) but P-40s shot down a lot of those.
Click to expand...
Kind of misses the point.
Modern War is seldom about a specific battle on it's own but rather a series of battles/fights of attrition until one side can dominate the other and inflict it;s will almost whenever and wherever it wants.

The KI 44, even if not dominate over the P-40, was much closer to the P-40 than the Ki 43 and would negate many of the P-40s advantages or greatly reduce them.

One of the first (if not the first) 109s the British shot down in WW II was shot down by an Avro Anson, that doesn't mean you shut down Hurricane production and build more Avro Ansons.
I would guess the Ki 43 wasn't that much more expensive to build than the Ki 43 , certainly not double. but it had double the firepower (even with four 12.7mm guns) was harder to shoot down and was harder for the P-40 to get away from (but certainly not impossible).
A force of Ki 44s compared to an equal force of KI 43s should have had fewer losses in a given time period and inflected greater losses on the Americans, Not saying they would have won, just saying the fight might have been longer and costlier for the Americans.
 
Actually no it doesn't - the attrition warfare especially in a Theater like the Pacific or CBI is just the aggregate of all of the squadron vs squadron and plane vs plane combats over time. How the former went down affected the latter, albeit with certain factors like say, pilot rescue programs or parachutes having an increasing impact over time.

The Ki-44 was better than the Ki-43 for attrition in one important sense, it had armor and self sealing tanks. So more likely to survive damage without a pilot MiA or KiA. Overall though the Ki-43 probably had a higher victory to sortie rate.

And to be honest, the best Army fighter until the very end of the war and biggest threat to the P-40 was the Ki-61 - when they could keep them running. The Ki-61 could dive at high speeds, climbed well, had good altitude performance, had the armor, self sealing tanks etc., but was also pretty maneuverable. And heavily armed with 2 x 20mm cannon plus 2 x 12.7mm mgs. It made short work of Wildcats and was about even with P-40s (depending on who you believe) It could also hold it's own with F6Fs and tangled with P-38s.

The Ki-44 was really kind of a one trick pony. It could dive (and climb) quite fast but the wing-loading was so high with it's stubby 31' wings (about the same as a Typhoon) that it could basically only do hit and run attacks. I have a model of one of these things in my office it looks like a real short weightlifter. Has a sort of Joe Pesci vibe.

Both aircraft caused some alarm initially but the Ki-61 was harder to adjust to I think. The only real advantage of the Ki-44 over the Ki-61 was it's oversized and heavy but much lower maintenance and less vulnerable Ha-1098 radial engine.

Finally, don't knock the Ki-43 - it was a very reliable and deadly fighter. Just not well suited to attrition war over a long period of time. Maybe I need to do a Ki-43 thread...
 
Like I said - Ki-43 was a tough opponent, especially in the hands of a good pilot... better handling (no high speed lockup) and roll than an A6M for example. I have a model of one of those too, it's an elegant plane. Had some teething issues early on but once worked out it was a very deadly instrument.

21047314635_fdd1f310cc_b.jpg
 
Thing is, the armament mentioned for the Ki-43, Ki-44, Ki-61 is for the late war models. Ki-43 I, with just one 12.7 and one 7.7 mg in the nose were front line fighters into mid-'43.
Ki-44s initially had only two 7.7 mgs in the nose and two 12.7s in the wings, and these didn't show up in front line units until mid-'43 (mostly in China). Heavier armed Shokis didn't start showing up until late '43 and '44.
Ki-61 I first deployed to South Pacific armed with same.
 
Heavier armament for many later war Japanese fighters usually were associated with quixotic attempts to use them as B-29 killers which few of them could manage mainly due to the altitude. They were desperate to save their cities from being incinerated for obvious reasons but could not work it out, must have been unbelievably frustrating.
 
You know, I am still trying to figure out how the Ki 43 shot down so many allied airplanes when there were only 157 of the built in 1941 and 616 built in 1942 and 1347 built in 1943.

And somehow they shot down about 50% of the allied aircraft shot down by fighters during the whole war! ( yeah, I know the war lasted until late summer of 1945).

Just how many aircraft (of all types ) did the allies have in south East Asia in 1941-42?
 
MSgt. Satoshi Anabuki claimed 21 of them (Hurricanes) shot down, I think that is what he was referring to. They lost a lot of Hurricanes in Singapore and Malaysia etc. in the early weeks of the war, and they continued operating Hurricanes in Burma and India probably longer than they should have, I think maybe right to the end of the war.

A lot of the victims of Ki-43s were also Buffaloes, F4Fs, P-39s, P-40s, and many bombers - hapless Vindicators and Devastators, helpless Blenheims, plus Avengers, Mitchels, Havocs, Helldivers and a few B-24s. And scout / sea planes, flying boats etc. they lost a fair number of them too.

And though outclassed in speed etc., Ki-43s did shoot down some F4Us, F6Fs, P-47s, Mustangs, P-38s etc.

Ki-43 operated in the CBI but also all over the Pacific from the Islands.
 
The Ki-44 was really kind of a one trick pony. It could dive (and climb) quite fast but the wing-loading was so high with it's stubby 31' wings (about the same as a Typhoon) that it could basically only do hit and run attacks. I have a model of one of these things in my office it looks like a real short weightlifter. Has a sort of Joe Pesci vibe.

Hit and Run was its forte. Its roll rate likened to that of the Fw190 help a lot in this category.

The only real advantage of the Ki-44 over the Ki-61 was it's oversized and heavy but much lower maintenance and less vulnerable Ha-1098 radial engine.

Except for its MUCH GREATER climbing ability, rolling ability and acceleration, I'd have to agree
with you.:)
 
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