Westland Whirlwind in Battle of Britain

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Admiral Beez said:
Can you imagine the destruction of the IJAF if the fighter variant could be available..... faster than any Japanese fighter, armed to destroy any Japanese bomber.... but sigh, it's not to be.
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Depending on the Mosquito's mark and time period involved, the Japanese had heavy fighters that could match the Mossie - so it would not have been impervious.
 
tomo pauk said:
Something that they have had in service?
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The first Mossies went into service in 1941, how long would it take to get the Mosquito into the PTO/CBI in operational strength?
Additionally, which Mark(s) would be used there?

The Japanese had a virtually untouchable recon twin, the KI-46 (introduced 1941) which had armed variants as necessity dictated.
If the KI-45 (introduced 1941) couldn't catch the Mossie, the KI-46 could.
 

Hi

The KI-46 was "virtually untouchable" over Burma and India until Spitfires arrived, Mk. Vs then Mk. VIIIs, along with radar, then the Japanese found they weren't!

Mike
 

Yes, but did the Japanese have the radar and fighter control system in place to put the Ki-46 in the right bit of sky to intercept a Mosquito before it had come and gone. Remember, when the Mosquito made its debut, the Bf109F-4 was arguably as fast and had the altitude performance to intercept a Mosquito, but the Germans had a very hard time actually achieving it..
 
GrauGeist said:
Interesting, because as late as '44 they had to use a modified Mk.VIII to catch and down a KI-46...
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Hi

Well the Spitfires (Mk.V) of 615 Sqn. flown by F/Lt P Louis and F/O S L Weggery had their first victory on 8th November 1943 over an 81st Sentai Ki 46, this was flown by:

"...Lt Ryoma Kimura at 25,000 feet over Chittagong, catching it with ease, and seeing it fall in flames over Chiringa at 0823 hours." from p.111 of 'Air War for Burma' by Shores.

The next Ki 46 lost to Spitfire Mk. Vs was on 10 November 1943, then 16 November.

Mike
 
What was the location and altitudes of interception for the first instance?

And 25,000 feet for the second saw the KI-46 operating well below it's ceiling.

As impressive as all that may sound, claiming that Mk.V's could easily down a KI-46 is sort of like claiming an easy victory over an Me262...when it was in a landing pattern...
 

Hi

As I mentioned the first one was at 25,000 feet. The 10 Nov. was at 29,000 feet and the 16 Nov. at 26,000 feet, it appears from this that the Japanese missions were probably being flown between 25,000 and 30,000 feet, probably for operational reasons. They were intercepted at higher altitudes later by Spitfire Mk. VIIIs, for example on 26 April 1944 (see p.214 in source previously mentioned):

"Later in the afternoon the Spitfire VIIIs of 81 Squadron were returning from an uneventful patrol over the new air corridor, when Flt Lt Day (JG340) and Lt. G.H. Copeland (JF629) were diverted after a reconnaissance aircraft flying at 32,000 feet. They caught this, an 81st Sentai Ki 46 flown by Capt Taisuke Honma, and it blew up and disintegrated when they opened fire, the wreckage falling in the Silchar area."

The Spitfires would not get all the Ki 46s of course, they needed warning time and time to climb to height, however, they get got quite a few. Both the Spitfire V and VIII had a higher 'Service ceiling', (Vc 37,000 ft, VIII 43,000 ft) than the various marks of Ki 46 (34,450 ft to 36,090 ft), at least in the sources I have. Reconnaissance aircraft are not always going to fly at their maximum service ceiling all the time, they are going to fly at the best height to take their photos and get the coverage needed depending on variables such as visibility and weather conditions etc at the time.

Mike
 
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".....catching it with ease....." True, but the suggestion has been made that Kimura had been lulled into a false sense of security because previous flights had been invulnerable to Hurricanes and P-40s, and so he wasn't at full chat and was following the same path/height as previous recces, all of which made it easier for Louis and Weggery to intercept. IIRC correctly, the Japanese weren't getting much information back on the missing recces, so it took them a while to realise the Spitfires had been shooting them down. I think there was something similar with the PR Mosquitos and the early Me262s, it wasn't until a PR Mossie MkIX of 544Sq escaped an interception and got home that the RAF learned there was a new interceptor capable of catching PR Mosquitos.
 
GrauGeist said:
Depending on the Mosquito's mark and time period involved, the Japanese had heavy fighters that could match the Mossie - so it would not have been impervious.
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Yes and no. The thing is with an interception is that you have an interception control system that allows you to (a) know the enemy is coming, (b) where your interceptor is relative to the enemy during the move to intercept, and (c) be able to tell the intercepting pilot of any changes.
One of the reasons that Dowding insisted on developing his system for GCI was because pre-War trials showed less than 30% of RAF interception sorties actually resulted in an interception. During the BoB, the 11 Group fighters managed an average successful interception sortie rate of 75%, and that was with the then most advanced GCI system available anywhere in the World over a geographically small defensive area. AFAIK, the Japanese had nothing like it in 1942 to defend a much larger airspace.
In 1942, Blenheims were often making unintercepted raids into Malaysia, and Vultee Vengeance dive-bombers operated over the Arakan in 1943 without losses to fighters, so it's highly likely that Mossies would have a very done very well.
I'm not doubting he Japanese had capable planes and pilots, just that they would have been given the optimal situation to be able to get the job done.
 
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