The real combat history of the Ki-43 (2 Viewers)

You might find some useful material in these two documents that I have had for years and cannot remember where I got.

EDIT - first one too big. I will try and reduce size so it fits. Fixed.

Juha3 said:

Thanks a lot for the link, I haven't read that very interesting article before. I'm not an expert on 20mm HE fragmentation, I've only seen fragmentation patterns of Finnish Army pipe mines, which are completely different animals. We placed human-shaped targets at different distances from the mines before detonating them. When we approached them, they looked relatively intact at first, but closer, we noticed that the closest targets looked like sieves, full of small holes. But I've seen pictures of the fragmentation patterns of German 20mm MG FF HE rounds, Soviet 20mm HE round, and modern 20mm round. They all fragmented into numerous small fragments. So I think the picture shows a cooked off 20mm round. But like I said, I'm not an expert and I've only seen a small picture of it. But that might be why later articles say "unfired 20mm bullet".

Click to expand...

MacGuire's aircraft was not brought down by gun fire, so the 20 mm round is likely irrelevant: This area is very near a Japanese Army Air force base, with many combats taking place around it before and after January 1945. It's just a round that seems mushroomed from hitting dirt...

The throttle action could be seen in the propeller of MacGuire's P-38L-5 (the borrowed "Eileen-Ann", of which one poor photo exists): What is interesting about this is it shows that once you lowered the throttle to turn tighter, you DID NOT want to add power once deep in a low-speed turn.... This would would flatten the dogleg of air that I speculate accelerated the wing top air, increasing lift with minimal drag.

People always assume the drop tanks played a big role in the stall, but I would argue for the reason below that it may have been only a minor contributing factor:

Weight of remaining fuel in MacGuire's P-38L drop tanks: 786 pounds/tank

. Lt. Royal Madden from the 370th FG, 9th AF, July 31, 1944 (P-38G vs Me-109G): "We proceeded to mix it up in a good old-fashioned dogfight at about 1000 feet (305 metres). This boy was good and sat on my tail for about five minutes, but I managed to keep him from getting any deflection. -I was using maneuvering flaps often and finally got inside of him.-- Upon landing I learned that my two 500 pound bombs had not released. As a result I carried them throughout the fight."

An extra 286 pounds per tank is not insignificant (based on the 50 minutes elapsed time and average cruise consumption), but it does not explain the abrupt wing drop not typical of a P-38 accelerated stall:

P-38 instruction film: "In an accelerated power-on stall, the P-38 has no tendency to slip off on either wing at any altitude."


That lowered power allowed better turns is illustrated by Erich Brunotte stating he almost never went outside 50-60% of WEP power during combat: 0.9 ATA to 1.2 ATA over 1.9 ATA max.):

At 13:50:


View: https://youtu.be/kOuVqP89058?si=fIIM8k2unsXtC4lV

-Erich Brunotte (YT interview, "The Fighter Collection/Eagle Dynamics": "Luftwaffe fighter pilot Erich Brunotte meets the Digital Combat Simulator FW-190D-9"): 12:15: "Engine Power Management": "We almost never used full throttle – We had it on normal power but we pulled back even from that, as you did not need that much in a fight – You used WEP to get away or get close [straight lines] but it happened rarely – The manifold pressure [in combat] was usually 0.9 to 1.2 ATA." [The FW-190D-9 maximum was 1.7/1.9 ATA.]
He does mention WEP but only as rare and to get close or get away, which I interpret as straight lines.

And this below is the reason why: What happens when you throttle up in a low speed curve...:


"With regard to our continuing investigation into the crash that killed Major Thomas B. McGuire, I thought you might be interested to know the following from the evidence we've gathered so far. As you probably already know, if an engine on a P-38 were to, for some reason fail or not supply normal power while the plane is at or near the stall speed, then the plane will snap roll to an inverted position as it was reported happened to Major McGuire. The two surviving witnesses stated that McGuire had reduced throttle in order to make a tighter turn to gain the angle on the Japanese airplane that was attacking Weaver, and that he increased throttle as the plane shuddered near the stall speed, and at that point, the plane instantly rolled inverted and crashed." (Throttle action is easily observable in the propeller discs.) Aces High BB "What really killed Major Thomas B. McGuire." (March 01, 2002)

That's interesting but I would note it was not that unusual for P-38s to get shot down in combat with Ki-43s in this period, both in the South Pacific are and in the CBI