Best japanese army fighter

[Vincenzo]

What's the best japanese army fighter? what of they has more advantage (or less disadvantage) on the enemy fighters?

list for memory
Type 97 "Nate"
Type 1 "Oscar"
Type 2 "Tojo"
Type 3 "Tony"
Type 4 "Frank"
Type 5 "Tony" (i'm not sure on nickname)
Type 2 "Nick" (twin engined)
idk if there are others twin engined fighter


commonly i'm read that japanese continued the production of all type but 97 for all the war, this is true? what you think of this policy?

 

[Soren]

The Ki-84.

 

[Lucky13]

How did the Ki-100 compare to allied fighters?

 

[Soren]

Not too well

 

[Shinpachi]

I like Type 2 two-seater "Nick" (twin engined) as it could keep the altitude 30,000feet easily to fight.

 

[GrauGeist]

Thge KI-100 was a formidable fighter, it's track record proves that in the hands of an experianced pilot, it was able to outperform anything the Allies put up against it.

It's only shortcoming, was it's engines performance was geared for medium to higher altitudes. Your best bet of getting the upper hand against it, was to draw it down to lower altitudes.

It's armament was a little on the light side, but still very capable of downing a B-29 or anyone unlucky enough to get on it's business end.

 

[bbweiweiw]

How did the Ki-100 compare to allied fighters?

According to "Famous Airplanes of the World" No.23, Page 58

 

[phatzo]

The Ki-61 was an interesting and somewhat underestimated Japanese fighter, lots of spitfire and 109 influence to create a whole different bird.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Ki-61 was an interesting and somewhat underestimated Japanese fighter, lots of spitfire and 109 influence to create a whole different bird.

The KI-61 was based, to a large degree, on the Heinkel He100 which the Japanese had purchased 3 of, and had delivered in 1940. It's engine was based on the DB601 and some of the early models even had German supplied weapons installed.

Even one of the prototypes had the internal cooling in the wings, and produced some of the fastest speeds of all the KI-61s built.

 

[verner]

Any pics or drawings of wing-cooled Ki-61 anywhere?

 

[GrauGeist]

Any pics or drawings of wing-cooled Ki-61 anywhere?

I sure wish I had some pics of the evaporative system, but it's based directly on Ernest Heinkel's design, so if you can find some technical drawings on the early He100's system, you'll have a good idea of what it looked like.

Hopefully someone might have some photos available.

 

[davebender]

The Ki-84 and Ki-100 were great aircraft. However they entered service too late to mattter. The Ki-61 is the great "what might have been" aircraft of the WWII Japanese Army if the program had been adequately funded.

Ki-61 Timeline.
March 1938. Kawasaki obtains license to produce the DB601A engine.
Apr 1940. Kawasaki engineers visit Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart to obtain plans and samples.
Two years wasted getting the Japanese version of the DB601 into production!

Feb 1940. IJA begins design work on the Ki-60 and Ki-61 fighter aircraft. The superior Ki-61 design wins the competition.
Once again two years wasted designing the Ki-61 airframe.

Nov 1941.
Ha-40 (i.e. DB601) engine enters Japanese production. However the Japanese have difficulty making the crankshaft bearings and substitute inferior versions. Consequently the Japanese version of the DB601 engine remains unreliable.

Dec 1941. Ki-61 prototype first flight.
Aug 1942. 13th Ki-61 prototype. The IJA finally approves production.
Dec 1942. 34 Ki-61 production aircraft through the end of 1942. Essentially none at all.

Spring 1943. Ki-61 finally enters combat in small numbers. Except for the unrelaible Ha-40 engine performance is generally superior to Allied aircraft in New Guinea.

Approximately 1,000 Ki-61 fighter aircraft were produced during 1943. Another 1,500 or so were produced during 1944 and 1945.

IMO the Ki-61 should have and could have been in mass production during 1941. All resources historically used by the Ki-43 program should have gone to the Ki-61 program and Ha-40 engines. If Japan cannot manufacture the proper DB601 crankshaft bearings they are simply purchased from Germany. Just as they did with MG151/20 cannon. This gives the IJA an early war fighter aircraft considerably superior to the P-39, P-40, Brewster Buffalo, F4F etc.

 

[Lucky13]

What on earth were they doing for two years??

 

[Vincenzo]

The Ki-84.

for true i'm more for the type 1 (Ki 43) the enemy of Ki 43 were not "top" fighters, the enemies of Frank are some of best fighter of war (P-47, P-51, Corsair)

 

[Thorlifter]

Can you imagine if the IJA had produced the Ki-84 and Ki-100 in numbers a year or so earlier? With the Ki-84 for medium to low altitude and the Ki-100 for high altitude, it would have produced quite a problem for the allies.

 

[davebender]

Nakajima Ki-43 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Ki-43 prototype was produced in response to a December 1937 specification for a successor to the popular Nakajima Ki-27.

You review promises of various weapon designers and take your best guess as to which weapons are superior. My best guess is the Ki-43 salesman was more convincing then the Ki-61 salesman. So the Ki-43 program got the lion's share of development money. In this case the IJA guessed wrong.

 

[Amsel]

I really like the Ki-61. One of the better designs mid-war.

 

[Soren]

Thge KI-100 was a formidable fighter, it's track record proves that in the hands of an experianced pilot, it was able to outperform anything the Allies put up against it.

It's only shortcoming, was it's engines performance was geared for medium to higher altitudes. Your best bet of getting the upper hand against it, was to draw it down to lower altitudes.

It's armament was a little on the light side, but still very capable of downing a B-29 or anyone unlucky enough to get on it's business end.

I wouldn't call a 580 km/h fighter a formidable in any period past 1942, by 1944 most Allied fighters could beat that from SL to service ceiling without any difficulties. The Ki-84 was a far more impressive a/c.

for true i'm more for the type 1 (Ki 43) the enemy of Ki 43 were not "top" fighters, the enemies of Frank are some of best fighter of war (P-47, P-51, Corsair)

But this is about the best fighter the Japanese produced, and the Ki-84 was above the rest, being able to outrun virtually any Allied fighter at low altitude and keep pace at high altitude.

 

[Vincenzo]

But this is about the best fighter the Japanese produced, and the Ki-84 was above the rest, being able to outrun virtually any Allied fighter at low altitude and keep pace at high altitude.

imho the speed was not a trouble in '42 engament for type 1, and it can outmanouvring the enemy fighters. the large disadvantage it's the light weapons (only 2 mg). But it's possible that the advantege of Type 4 were superiour of that of Type 1 and the "situation" (outnumbered to enemy, less skilled pilots, not enough fuel...) do not show this

 

[JoeB]

On Type 1 v Type 3, the latter was more like most Western fighters not only in armament and protection but range: relatively short. The Type 1's range was important in the early-mid 1942 campaigns, as was the range of the even longer legged Navy Zero, and the Type 1 had good success v most Allied fighters in that period, there was no crying need for something better. Even when introduced in New Guinea in 1943, the Type 3 was not obviously superior as far as the Japanese were concerned. Some Japanese pilots still felt an alert pilot in a more manueverable plane (like the Type 1) could foil 'hit and run' attacks by turning into them. Also the early Type 3's had serious servicibility issues in New Guinea. The Type 3 was clearly superior in intercepting bombers.

On Type 4 as usual it tends to come down to 'sim game' mentality v historical perspective. Sim game mentality seeks out a single 'truth' about a/c aerodynamic performance to program into the game, a game without certain reproduceable performance for the a/c would be frustrating to play. A historical perspectve realizes there are simply uncertainties in some cases. It's just not certain what the actual speed capability of real Type 4's in real operating units actually was, and probably wasn't uniform anyway. In actual combat, Type 4's had a relatively unimpressive record, including probably worse than 1:1 v late model P-40's in China, though it did better against advanced Allied types than the Type 1 did in the same later period. The Type 4 also had servicibility issues in early use in 1944, which counters the idea of 'well made' early Type 4's v 'poorly made' later ones. You had the technical maturity curve of the new design or a/c and engine particularly, going in the other direction.

The Type 4 was more advanced and capable than the Type 1, which had remained the most numerous Army type up to 1945, but as far as being more effective than its opponents, history is a question of what was, not what could have been. Which of the Japanese Army fighters enjoyed the greatest operational success? the Type 1, in 1942 and some cases (v the British in Burma for example) well into 1943.

The Type 5 had no official name. There is no example I know of of Type 5's having any great success v US fighters, and even as of July 1945 the a/c is described in a Japanese account as 'just having the bugs worked out'.

Joe