18:54 This was almost the norm with late-war Japanese fighters. They either couldn't reach the B-29's altitude, or when they did, they were actually slower than the B-29.
This is a bit off topic, but I'm reminded of a former F-4 pilot's assessment of his plane " All those cranks and angles of the wings were to over come it's defects, it was a Buss, but a FAST bus"!
When I was earning my pilots license one of my instructor pilot was a former Navy F4 Phantom pilot. One time I ask him how he liked the phantom jet. His answer “a piece of $/-/ ; T” complementary with a look of hatred into the past.
The Navy always wants sturdy. Grumman has always known how to make them happy, and made decent but reliable jets with that experience in mind. McDonnell-Douglas, didn't seem to quite understand the balance the Navy prefered in a fighter and then tried several times to little or moderate success. Apparently fed up with that, they said "Screw it they want fast and stout, so we will give fast and stout." and designed a Mach 2 capable brick, aka the F4.
As you explained, the first "Zero" was classified as "A6M1," with "M" standing for Mitsubishi and the last number referring to its modernization. Rather like the letters added to American and German aircraft, and the "Mark" numbers added to British planes. The name "Zero" came from its official name: "Type 0 Navy Fighter," as the Japanese military preferred to keep information about its aircraft secret by giving every Navy fighter or bomber entering service in a particular year the same name. This opaqueness is largely why the U.S. gave boy's names to Japanese fighters and girl's names to Japanese bombers. I think the last major development of the "Zero" was the A6M5. "Type 0" referred to the fact that the airplane came out in 1940. Aircraft from 1939 were called "Type 99," and so on. The idea of naming aircraft types came about later in the war, e.g., "Tenzan" (Heavenly Mountain) and "Ohka" (Cherry Blossom). So Reppu was probably known as the Type 5 Navy Fighter.
@@iskandartaib Except that Japan's system incorporated the manufacturer of the plane, similar to Germany, France, and Italy. That would have been awkward with the U.S., where multiple companies sometimes built the same plane.
@@pacificostudios The American system DID incorporate the manufacturer. I will need to go look up the details but Wildcats built by Grumman were F4Fs while those made by (can't remember off the top of my head) were FM2s.
@@iskandartaib You're right, the second letter designated the manufacturer in the U.S. Navy. FM2 was an improved version of the F4F, that happened to be built by General Motors. The F4F followed the FF, F2F, and F3F bi-planes, and was superior to the Brewster F2A, the tragically famous Brewster Buffalo. I'm not sure how you get F from "Grumman" and A from "Brewster," or U from "Vought" or Y from "Consolidated," J from "North American" and H from "McDonnell-Douglas," but apparently the Navy picked a different letter whenever one had been used already. "M" was used for Martin and "C" was used for Curtiss, and "N" was used for Naval Aircraft Factory, when the Government built airplanes for itself during WWI.
When they didn't even share common hardware, that has to really complicate logistics. IIRC, they did not start cooperating on equipment and standardization until late 1943 or 1944.
i remember this book on the Marines taking the islands like Solomons, and there was an entire chapter on Guadalcanal where the US Navy intercepted the exchange between the IJN and Imperial Army on who will pick up their soldiers during the retreat and it was just insults thrown at each other. I know Nimitz and MacArthur didnt like each other but they had the professionalism to work with each other.
The Japanese had some decent engineers (not enough) but no resources to speak of. Technically they could have "matched" the allies in practical engineering and produced better aircraft earlier but no resources make for a moot point.
While I agree in general often the stat of max speed at 20k feet over-estimates the performance of American ww2 fighters versus those from other countries. as an example ki-84s could out-climb & out-speed many American fighters at low to medium altitudes. The Fw-190 could out-speed many western fighters at low altitude and out roll them all. There was definitely a technical gap widening between the US and especially Japan. this was a product of limited resources being spread too thinly or on obsolescent aircraft and wartime blockade/ bombing.
@@garydownes2111 : The Axis had too small of an industrial base and lost much of that as the war took its toll. Germany made record numbers of planes in 1944 but it meant using slave labor and making deep compromises in fabrication and materials. That was not sustainable. They tried to make up the difference in advanced technology but were never more than a few months ahead of the Allies. And the effort devoured much capacity needed for basic needs that got ignored. Meanwhile the Allies were arming, feeding and supporting armies from Greenland, to Australia and in every time zone on earth.
@@charlesjames1442 German aircraft development was a joke. They were approving all kinds of harebrained schemes based on rivalries and self-interest and the management of those programs was ridiculous. Britain could have produced a jet fighter to at least match the 262 in performance, with more reliability and manoeuverability if they were in desperation mode, but they didn't need to. The 262 was an experimental dead end as were many of the duds Germany produced.
Reminds me of the Yugoslav IK-3, a respectable plane for it's time [1938-1940], cursed by having only 13 units produced. Out of the 13, 1 was a prototype that had been lost during testing, only 6 ever saw combat. They managed to shoot down 11 enemy planes in 11 days of combat, none were shot down.
Some of the zero mark 7/8 Actually had a 1,500 hp engine. Not many were built and little information is available. But self sealing and armour were added.
"Decent power" for the F-4? A little better than "decent" I'd say. Two J-79's meant a lot of power at that time. It needed the power because the airframe was a giant brick. F-4's achieved roughly equivalent speed to an F-104 with two of the same engines. The F-4 became a very successful aircraft partly because of its enormous "horsepower" (thrust). Had Robert Strange McNamara not been Defense Secretary, the Phantom might have been eclipsed by USAF fighters with superior performance. RSM fixated on the F-4 for both the USAF and USN because it was the "cheap" way to go. This meant that the Air Force was saddled with a Naval "Missile Platform" with lots of extra weight (to survive carrier operations), no gun (because the Navy thought missiles would do the job) and two engines (because the a/c had to operate at long distances over water).
@@jimjamauto That perhaps would have left with them catching the F111B instead of the F14. Say what you will about the F4 it was able to handle later avionics updates that would not have been capable to introduce on the F8 or even the proposed Super Crusader. Both have their respective downfalls, so pick the poison.
Take a look at USAF kill ratios using Aim 4 (Ir or Radar) vs Aim 7 and Aim 9 (both Navy developed missiles)... there were reasons there and in average flight hours between overhaul compared to certain Century series aircraft. RSM caused many problem but with this several were mostly sorted and the experience with F4 lead to them being fine with a large aircraft like the F15. He almost stuck both with the F111 as a fighter so yea thats worth the hate he earns by itself.
@@presidentmerkinmuffley6769 Robert Strange McNamara (it's important to stress his middle name) and the TFX/F-111 program was definitely one reason for "the hate he earns by itself." There was also the matter of the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam and the 224,000 Allied troops. Plus, the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed. So, yeah, McNamara earned the hate he got. Much later he kinda sorta admitted that "mistakes had been made." I'm not sure he thought he made any but he did acknowledge that somebody did. I'm sure he thought the War was "cost effective" right up until his last day.
No mention of the cooling fan (similar to the Fw190 or J2M Raiden) on the Homare powered version? Or the planned turbosupercharged land based interceptor version?
You know what always amazes me. The Germans upgraded the Me109 and FW190 comprehensively over the duration of the war. You would have thought these aircraft had limitations of how far they could be improved and yet in terms of performance they were broadly competitive with the allied aircraft towards the end of the war. At the beginning, the A6M was the dominant aircraft in the theatre. Was it's development potential limited, or was the Japanese design philosophy revolution not evolution.
The Zero's development potential was limited, it's a plane who's inherent design just cannot be improved much. Even then, the A6M8 was much more powerful than the original.
@@ThatZenoGuy It probably reinforces the view that the Japanese must have thought the war was going to be short and the quality of the replacement wasn't going to be an issue.
@@TheSideband Nope, that has very little to do with it. It was a simple matter of technology and design decisions around the plane. Japan struggled to make gasoline with high octane, so horsepower was always in limited supply. Meaning they had to slap bigger engines on planes to make them faster. Zero was simply not big enough to handle a larger engine without massive redesigns. Soooooooo it never got a much bigger engine until the very end of the war.
"You know what always amazes me. The Germans upgraded the Me109 and FW190 comprehensively over the duration of the war. You would have thought these aircraft had limitations of how far they could be improved and yet in terms of performance they were broadly competitive with the allied aircraft towards the end of the war." Oh, but it gets better when you look closer. Remember, the Me-109 is an aircraft from 1935. And yet it competed VERY well against aircraft designed as late as 1942 even some from 1943. The 190 was a much better plane on raw advantages, but it was also effectively half a decade newer and pretty much from the same timeframe as the Zero. "It probably reinforces the view that the Japanese must have thought the war was going to be short and the quality of the replacement wasn't going to be an issue." Absolutely not. They just didn't have the resources to easily achieve the nextgeneration aircraft they wanted. Their single biggest problem was that while they were among the world leaders in regards to radial engines, their industry was very low precision and quality, as it was more cottage industry than true massproduction, this resulted in lots of engines whose prototypes at optimal conditions were SUPERB, once they were taken out of labconditions, or worse, put in massproduction, didn't get even remotely close to their theoretical best, or even function properly at all. Under peacetime conditions, it wasn't a big problem, you just spent the extra time with all parts in the workshop and fixed everything up. But in wartime, Japan effectively had to spend something like 1/4 of its total industrial capacity to do post-production "fixing" of parts, especially anything for high performance machines. And that took a LOT of skilled manpower(and overall resources), severely limiting Japan's ability to do advanced developments once the war started. . "Japan struggled to make gasoline with high octane, so horsepower was always in limited supply." And that also compounded with the problems mentioned above. Not to forget making gasoline at all. As Japan literally ran a noticeable chunk of its airforce late in the war on fuel made from the needles of coniferous trees. And that was extremely wasteful of resources as well. Just the resources needed to come up with the ability to make aircraft fuel from such a source at all, it was a huge accomplishment, but costly.
@@DIREWOLFx75 Good comment, the difficulties experienced when trying to mass produce the Kawasaki Ha-140 copy of the DB-601 need no elaboration. I think many people downplay the difficulty of aero-engine manufacture because of Packard's massive output of their Merlin version; "If a car company can do it, how hard could it be?". Japanese pilots evaluating the captured P-51C "Evalina" were shocked that it's production quality was so far above their aircraft, with one pilot saying "It did not leak oil!" Anyway, let us be thankful Mitsubishi didn't get any further developing their J8M Shusui copy of the Me-163!
This video makes it clear just how much depends on available power. The A6M got the maximum use out of the Sakae engine, albeit at the cost of light structure/low tolerance of battle damage. The range arguably made the A6M the first STRATEGIC escort fighter, something the Allies couldn’t match until the P-51B/C production started in 1943. Combined with a corp of elite pilots the A6M was certainly the best carrier fighter in the period 1940-1942. Unfortunately it lacked growth potential, as the Japanese aero-engine industry was at least 5 years behind the U.S. and British firms. Even by the time Japan could produce something competitive with say the R-2800, it’s reliable production was beyond Japanese capabilities at that stage of the war. (See also problems with Ki-84 landing gear, engine) The sheer duplication of effort between the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy frittered away what limited resources Japan had. Note, even at it’s greatest territorial extent, Japan hadn’t captured any PRODUCTION facilities worth talking about, only raw materials such as rubber, oil, but even those needed to be shipped back to the Home Islands.
I noticed that the Mitsubishi engine (19:51) has a Kurt Tank/FW-190 style cooling fan on it! This would allow a big spinner on the prop (like the FW-190 had) which would seriously reduced the drag! And if they put the needed oil coolers were Tank put them on the "190" along with the Air Intakes for the Superchargers that would reduce drag even more....
The A6M-3 originally had the clipped wings, without any folding mechanism and was called the Model 32. It was quite unpopular with its pilots as it used more fuel, loweering the range and endurance, and had a lower top speed than the A6M-2. Serial Production was limited to around 550 examples. The only benefit of the A6M-3 Model 32 was a better roll rate in combat. Mitsubishi then produced the A6M-3 Model 22 - called that to associate the A6M3 with the popular A6M2 (Model 21) - wich restored the wing tips and folding mechanism, making it visually identical to both the A6M-2 and the early A6M-5 variant which succeeded it. Later A6M-5s had the belt fed cannon, as did the Model 22 A6M3 versions. The Clipped versions (model 32) all had the Drum-fed (60RPG) like the A6M-2 models. In fact the "Standard A6M-3" (Model 22) with the restored wingtips was far more common (Over 1350 produced) than the Clipped wing type, and because it was so often camouflaged with the upper greens many A6M-3 wrecks were counted as A6M-5s, as they were externally identical - only the Manufacturer's Data Plate on the rear fuselage would ID them as A6M-3 or as A6M-5s. This led to decades of mis-information about the technical changes in the Zero.
Very good. All new information to me. I live flying the A6M2 in a simulator, and evidently the sim is pretty accurate, because it is a very easy plane to fly, as well as being super maneuverable. It would make a great sport plane, IMHO. You don't need armament or armor for that. Add a back seat, good to go!
The Zero could outmaneuver early Allied aircraft at low speed, but in a high speed dogfight it lost this edge. The stubby little Wildcat was not only tougher and better armed, it also had a higher service ceiling than the Zero. It boiled down to choosing your tactics wisely. Once these facts were realized, the jig was up.
Indeed Wildcat had good supercharger for it's time, but that might have been somewhat detrimental as it was also heavy. Later on Americans realized that most naval aviation took place below their supercharger's peak altitude. For a similar reason P-38 and P-47 didn't have the performance advantage against Bf 109 and Fw 190 as B-17s and B-24s didn't operate so high.
Another fatal failure of the Japanese was in their strict adherence to orders. When the order was given to "Return To Base", the Japanese would form up & do just that, and if they were bounced by American fighter aircraft, Japanese fighter pilots were not allowed to break formation to try & fight off the opposing Americans. THEY SIMPLY HAD TO FOLLOW ORDERS WITHOUT FAIL. So in a number of situations, American fighter pilots, (some who were just flying their very first combat patrols), could just cruise in on the Japanese 6 o'clock position and leisurely shoot down the Japanese with impunity, and with no fear of retaliation. In fact, a number of "Ace In A Day" rookie pilots were made this way throughout the air war in the PTO. If memory serves, I believe the highest single mission kill count by a rookie pilot was 12 confirmed, which left just two Japanese aircraft remaining out of 14 initially. It would have been higher, but the pilot ran out of ammunition & was getting low on fuel. I don't remember the pilot's name right off the bat, but I do remember reading an account of the incident.
@@SierraThunder Double ace in day was rare even for axis super aces. This sounds false simply because a US pilot with such score would be far better known. Perhaps it it was multiple rookie pilots?
Americans, as usual, will inevitably embellished and exaggerated their results as they won the war. When I watched Combat by Vic Morrow or John Wayne movies as a kid, I always wonder why German and Japanese soldiers were so stupid and why bullets tried their best to avoid GI's. Well, the American war in Vietnam proved how horrific & prolific the American propaganda arm & its media accomplice misinformed and disinformed reality.
@@Teh0X. He is likely referring to Capt. William Shomo, who was flying a brand new P-51 Mustang, after using overage P-40s on reconnaissance missions. Shomo and his wingman Lt. Paul Lipscomb, encountered a Betty bomber escorted by 12 Tony fighters. Shomo shot down the bomber and six fighters, earning the Congressional Medal of Honor while Lipscomb accounted for four and a Silver Star, making a total of 11 shot down out of 13.
The A5-M "Claude" is just so adorable, with its art deco fairings on its static landing gear, and it's 2-tone VERY 30's paint job. It's a shame to think of the part it played in bringing into being the unmentionable horrors of the "Pan-Asian Coprosperity Sphere". It's our species greatest shame that we just can't have nice things without needing to bludgeon our neighbors with those things in order to steal their adorable stuff so we can add it to our own.
I know it’s a video game but it’s all we really have to go off of. I’ve flown the A7M2 a lot in war thunder and it’s actually one of my favorite planes in the game other than the zero. From my experience it suffers from a lot of the same problems as the zero plus a new one. It still can’t catch up to allied planes (granted said allied planes are usually F8F bearcats, F7F tigercats and de havilland hornets) it’s also very big making it an easy target if you stall or aren’t paying attention. Despite its flaws I still love the reppu, the zero and almost all Japanese props
My favorite in war thunder (that ive researched so far, i dont play alot) is the ki44, i play on ps4 so the less maneuverability is a benefit as im less jerky haha. But in il2 or cfs2 i prefer the zero or ki27, the ki43 ii is good too. I do like nearly all the japanese single engine aircraft though, cant get around the dinah or ki21 though haha
10:00 the P-40, F4F, P-38, and P-39 all scored positive kill ratios against the zero and it's other nimble Japanese brethren. The issues early on in the war stemmed from lack of pilot discipline, training, and experience. Pilots were too aggressive and didn't adhere to their training that told them NOT to turn fight anything, especially Japanese aircraft, but rather to do slashing attacks (Boom and Zoom), which is what their aircraft were designed for.
@@jeffbybee5207 in theory, but in practice Japanese fighters were designed and built for Turn and Burn. All US aircraft were designed for Boom and Zoom. Claire Chennault helped establish Boom and Zoom as US fighter doctrine in the 1930s, long before forming the AVG. In order to fight and win as a Boom and Zoom fighter in a dogfight, you must have the faster aircraft in the matchup. Japanese never had this. the P-38, P-39, P-40, P-51, P-47, F4F, F6F, F4U, etc. Were all faster in level flight and a dive than the Japanese fighters. Thus, even if they taught boom and zoom tactics, they couldn't win a boom and zoom fight with a faster airplane. When you come into a Boom and Zoom fight and you have the slower more maneuverable fighter, you must counter by Turn and Burn style fighting. Using superior maneuverability to try to mess up the diving fighter and pull him into a turn fight.
Well, the most crucial problem with the first used 20mm cannon was not actually the limited 60rounds per gun ammo capacity. The Spitfire Mk.Vb - or rather say the B-type wing on Spitfires - had 60 rounds per gun drum magazine as well, yet it had a much better use (if they did not freeze or jammed which were common issues). The Type 99 Mark 1 cannon was based on the Oerlikon FF design, just like the German MG FF and MG FF/M (MG FF were used up to the Bf-109E-3, MG FF/M started from the Bf-109E-4, and could fire the "mine-shell"). The cannon had two drawback features: too short barrel and that's why external ballistics were poor (huge bullet drop, curved trajectory) and low rate of fire, somewhere between 490-540 rounds per minute. Experienced Japanese pilots often returned to base with empty machine guns but carried back almost all of the cannon ammo, except if they were on a strafing run - where the cannons had a good use. In dogfights Zero pilots usually switched off the cannons and only used the two machine guns. Which being technically .303British caliber (7.7x56mmR) many cases ineffective (F4F, P-39, P-40 were tough opponents, P-38, F6F and F4U even tougher). Later Type 99 Mark 2 guns were better, longer barrel and larger - box magazine - ammo capacity were available.
Yeah, the Type 99-1 were an excellent starting point for the new idea of mass use on aircraft, but they were on the edge of obsolete already from the start. The Zero should have had the 99-2 from the moment serial production started. Just as the 7mm's should have been replaced with heavy MGs right from the start. And with only 4 weapons, it might have made good sense to go for something slightly more powerful like 23mm cannons instead of the historical 99-2. Or, of course, start the opposite way and put 6 heavy MGs on it instead. It's hard to tell what would have been most functional due to all the limits for weight, size etc.. 6 might not even fit those limits... The Zero was such a weird mix of amazing and "OMG! R U CRAZY?!?"...
You didn't mention anything about Reppu's armor and fuel tank protection. It shared a unique fuel tank protection setup with J2M: -Fuselage fuel tanks with thick self-sealing rubber coating. -Wing fuel tanks without any kind of self-sealing coating. -All fuel tanks were protected with automatic CO2 fire extinguisher system. -55mm bulletproof vertical glass in front of pilot. Mitsubishi had an odd habit to place them like this. Same with their J2M, J8M and Ki-83. -No armor behind the pilot. Late Zeros actually had very thin seat back armor, but mostly Navy's fighters, including planned ones still didn't have seat back armor. Meanwhile Army fighters used thick armor plates to protect pilot from behind. It's an interesting difference between the two airforces. Overall Japanese aircraft companies were only 2-3 years behind US, UK and Germany. Italians hardly developed their own high performance aircraft engines and Soviets managed with weak powered and short ranged low altitude fighters. Things advanced so awfully fast during the war time with such enormous funding. Even so there were few things were Japanese were ahead, at least on the drawing board. They were also pretty good at optimizing some of their designes for the weak engines they had, but A7M wasn't among those. A7M was kind of like F6F in some aspects. For fighters with 2200hp engine they didn't have that amazing performance at all. They were just too specialized for carrier use. Ki-84 and F8F for example were far faster with similar power. IJN clearly went overboard with Reppu's requirements. They should have lowered those for something that could have been done with Homare 21 and maybe even asked proposals from other companies. At the end Shiden Kai and it's prototyped carrier variants were what they had needed. In 1945 only good thing about Reppu would have been the planned interceptor variants with high altitude engines and far heavier armament to fight B-29s.
"Overall Japanese aircraft companies were only 2-3 years behind US, UK and Germany." I wouldn't say they were truly behind at all. Japans big problem wasn't even lack of good engines, their problem was that due to their horribly poor industrial standards, their engines NEVER performed anywhere near as well as they should have, or did as prototypes. And spare parts, often had to spend as much time in a workshop on the based they were being used, as it had taken to make it in a factory, before they actually fit as they were supposed to. (This is also why Japan postwar became such a high end nation in massproduction and high quality production, because lots of people did see this problem during the war, when it was too late to fix it, but after the war, they spent years carefully creating several industry standards for precision manufacturing, that once it started being implemented, provided a huge advantage.) And of course, there was also the IJA and IJN coming up with superficially good requirements for new gear, but which in reality severely crippled the end product. For example, the engine that became the standard on the Zero, Horikoshi stated in an interview that that was just supposed to be for the first batch of planes meant more for testing and introduction. He wanted to put a 1350HP engine in it before it went to full massproduction. But IJN said no. Because the fighter would become too heavy and use too much fuel. Considering how they still got the Sakae up to 1130HP and then managed to fit the Kinsei anyway, and it was probably the Kinsei that Horikoshi was referring to, they could literally have had that already in 1941. "Italians hardly developed their own high performance aircraft engines and Soviets managed with weak powered and short ranged low altitude fighters." Italy and USSR got caught at the wrong part of development cycles(Japan was dangerously close to that as well, but managed anyway because they were actually among the world leaders for radial engines at the time), while both also being unlucky with their next generation engines not working well enough and then simply not having the time to do the job either fix the problematic ones or develop new ones. There was also the HUGE problem for USSR that they were caught entirely on the wrong side of doctrine. They were expecting a medium-high altitude airwar with heavy bombers. And they got a low-medium altitude airwar against medium bombers and ground support attack planes. Where the German planes had their best performance, while too many of the Soviet aircraft didn't reach their best until a few thousand meters higher. And unlike UK and USA who were also doing the Douhet whoopsie, USSR didn't get any real chance to rectify the problems caused by this until after WWII.
@@DIREWOLFx75 That's mostly true, although most of their 14-cylinder engines models didn't have big issues. Ha-33 and even Ha-32 ran reliably at their rated power at the end. It's mainly their 18-cylinder radials which needed more time and indeed improved manufacturing standards. Ha-36, which was their first 18-cylinder engine was quickly abandoned, Ha-45 was running at derated power settings and all the rest remained in development hell. To run reliably in combat and 18-cylinder radial simply needed something more advanced than a float type carburetor, which Nakajima didn't have until spring 1945. Apparently using Mitsubishi's direct injection wasn't an option for them... Also their V-engines had well known extra pains from nickel shortages.
@@Will_M600 Most of the ones built during the war yes. Earlier planes, like the MiG-3 were the opposite. And it took until late 1942 before the Yak-1 got an engine upgrade to improve its low altitude performance, while it had a clear superiority over the -109 above 5 thousand meters.
@@Teh0Xi guess another issue less recognised is the fuel. The navy had 100 octane available, the army had 92 octane, so an engine designed for running on 100 at x power level will not be able to produce that power on 92 without damaging itself, and for context, the americans had 130/150 octane, so could run more boost and more ignition timing on their engines to achieve higher power levels from an engine the same size.
Makes sense p&w’s radial engines were boss. You could have cylinders blown off and it would still be running like a champ. Air cooled didn’t have to worry about a coolant leak. I’d take a F6F over just about every other plane from the time.
It is not a copy of R-1830.Sakae engine has 130mm bore and 150mm stroke.On the other hand,R1830 engine has 140mm bore and 140mm stroke.Nakajima company did licensed copy of Pratt & Whitney’s engine and there is a lot of elements that came from that engine in Sakae engine.But definitely Sakae engine is not a direct unlicensed copy of the R1830 engine.
@@ابوعبداللهالشيعي-ت3ص It wasn't an exact copy. As you note, stroke and bore were slightly different, as were overall dimensions and output. But those are minor details. While not a "direct copy", the basic design and operation of both engines were the same. Zero's prop was however a direct copy of the three Hamilton-Standard blades used on DC-3. I've found no record of Nakajuma's paying license fees to P&W, but is you have evidence to that effect, I'd appreciatre your pointing it out to me. Thanks. Nakajima did license the British Bristol Jupiter single row radial engine, to which it later added Wright Cyclone and P&W R-1340 features. Nakajima Ha5 was a 14-cylinder, twin-row development of this line. After further evolution, to include a supercharger, the Ha219 variant grew to 18 cylinders. Nakajima Sakae was also a twin-row 14-cylinder engine, nominally an advanced, scaled-down Ha5 derivative. But it has too many functional similarities to the P&W R-1830 Twin Wasp for coincidental convergence.
@@johntillman6068 According to some sources, Nakajima purchased the rights to manufacture the R-1690 Hornet engine and the R-1340 Wasp C in 1929. English is not my native language, so I only use Japanese literature, but it is difficult to think that Mitsubishi has purchased the manufacturing rights but Nakajima has not, so I think that Nakajima also did .I disagree that the Sakae engine is a copy of the R-1830 Twin Wasp. Of course, there was also the influence of P&W, but Nakajima received technical guidance from Curtiss-Wright, and this influence can be seen in the lubrication system of the Sakae engine and the nitride steel cylinder.
@@ابوعبداللهالشيعي-ت3ص Nakajima might have considered Sakae an in house development not requiring a license. It and its predecessors did draw on other unlicensed Western designs besides R-1830.
Guess I am getting old but "fun" really should not be a part of the equation for anyone serious about history, especially the bloodiest and most horrific war in history. No matter what if you come up with the opponent gets to have their what if.
@@hoodoo2001 history is fun. get over it. stop whining. Stop acting like a sheltered child who thinks the world hasn't always been violent. I'm a combat vet, and I still thoroughly enjoy studying military history, as well as aviation history, and the history of technology.
@@hoodoo2001 war is never fun. but what i guess i could have used the word interesting instead. the idea of "what would need to happen for X plane to get into production" what would have happened if X person did Z instead of Y. and i do find history fun, otherwise i wouldn't be here.
@@peekaboopeekaboo1165 Nausicaa Howl's Moving Castle Grave of the Fireflies The dream sequence in Porco Rosso Which of these movies glorifies war or imperialism? He openly criticises it. Throughout Miysaki's oeuvre is a fascination with flight. I hope your criticism of Hollywood's connection with the US military industrial complex is more on point than your vapid criticism of Miyasaki.
@@pencilpauli9442 Miyasaki never openly depict his nation's military's deeds abroad . Hollywood have made movies about atrocities they committed in Vietnam .
@@peekaboopeekaboo1165 Yeah sure there have been US anti-war films. But there are plenty of directors of war movies who have never depicted US atrocities, and glorify war. It's ludicrous to pick out one Japanese anti- war director who is fascinated by flight to lambast. I'm totally with your disgust at the Imperial Japanese war crimes, but not sure why Miyasaki is being singled out for not directly tackling the subject. It's like expecting Disney to make a film about My Lai.
I’m a big fan of “light”, light cars, light motorcycles, & I guess light planes. It was very sensible idea to get the performance with lower powered engines so Japanese engineers went light to make remarkable aircraft....never had to go to war but if I did have to in any vehicle or aircraft it would immediately break my preference towards light 😮.....” getting shot at” would make me very keen on “heavy armour please”😅
It's probably worth pointing out that the Zero had a low-normal amount of armor for the technological period in which it was designed. Armor on single-engine fighters was by no means universal in 1938-1940, and where it was present, was most commonly an armored seat back to protect the pilot. This wasn't unusual, but as I said, it wasn't super-common, either. Same goes for self-sealing fuel tanks, if not more so. I'm pretty sure no one had those in 1938.
8:19 At the time, only the Spitfire could really compete with the Zero. It wasn't as agile, but it was closer than everything else. Also, the Zero was an opponent where 8 rifle-caliber guns were more than enough to take it down.
By the time the Reppu was ordered in production there were no more carrier to service it. At that point there were better planes in service that were not hampered by carrier service requirements.
I'm so glad I stumbled over your channel. Great story that I didn't know thinking I already knew each and every one of them. Equally great narraiting. I like the way you're are telling a story and your voice and accent are perfect sides to a delicious menu.
Loved the video but the real what-if is: What if Japan had well trained pilots to man those late war planes? They never had a training pipeline that produced pilots in great enough numbers, and they threw away their expirienced pilots eh.. experience by letting them fly until they got shot down.
Jus wanna say I love watchin these videos i love learning sum i jus completed Japan for war thunder so all these videos about Japan couldt have come at a better time lol keep up the good work my g
One big problem with Japanese engine power was the fuel they were losing. Because of their limited oil supply, even before the war started, they couldn't refine it to the levels the US did because they would lose too much quantity. The Germans faced the same problem, which is why German engines were built to a significantly higher displacement for the same horsepower. And both Japan and Germany pioneered water injection.
17:30 do you stand by your claim the A7M was 3m taller than the A6M (You said in ALL 3 directions)? A6M Length: 9.06m A7M Length: 11.04m (Less than 2m longer) A6M Width: 12m A7M Width: 14m (2m wider) A6M Height: 3.05m A7M Height: 4.28m (about 1.2m taller) your 1-2m estimate would have been accurate. 3m would add an additional 3ft in every direction, that's a LOT.
Engineers never quit, the war ended and so did those 'ultimate' projects. Had WWII in the pacific continued the F7F and F8F would have appeared, followed by AAF flyers in the P-80. Ironic too an early prototype crashed on the day of the Hiroshima bombing. That crash taking the life of Richard Bong.
What if Japan does not attack Pearl Harbor and only the British. Us might not even enter the war the isolationist side prevents it or US enters war reluctantly early defeats maybe even quits with treaty at some point. You then get this fighter made. But only worth it if Japan massively increases training process.
Please start using the Allied reporting names for Japanese aircraft!. A lot of people nowadays don't know what you're talking about!, this plane was called the Sam!. It just makes it a lot easier to research.
The shame is that this aircraft could have been in production and at least in limited service before the allies (and natural events) began curtailing the necessary resources for it's and other aircrafts developments. No Japanese fighter, no matter how advanced and maneuverable could withstand the masses of very capable allied fighters piloted by well trained and experienced pilots nor stop bombers that astounded the Japanese in their size and range. Materially, they had already lost the war but it took two atomic bombs to convince them that they were facing enemies capable of obliterating their homeland completely. The plane obviously shows its A6M heritage.
The Japanese military totally refused to co-operate with each other which cause serious issues of duplication. It also complicated projects as in the Reppu which took over 4 years to develop, then production delays ment it would not see service.
QQ. The Japanese were fielding engines that fell far short of power parity with Allied types. It seems to me they had captured specimens of The Allies best engines to date. Why then, weren't they knocking out clones like the Russians did with the B-29/TU-4?
The Japanese (and Axis members' aircraft development all together) was like the pupil who didn't learn in all year, but he tries to learn the whole years' material with two weeks not to get fail on the final exam. Sorry guys, miracles just don't exist. This Reppu worth as much as giving enema to a dead man (sorry, local idioma in my country😂).
My Father was the head of the after-burner shop in Rammstein, Germany in 69-early 70s. His shop was very well run and from my Mother's recollection, they never had issues with the after-burners coming out of his shop. He and my mother met about then and started dating. He almost got court marshalled for escorting my mother home because he didn't feel it was safe for a young lady to be out after dark, walking home alone. I like to think my dad got off for his Sterling performance in his Duty, but also because his base commander and his subordinates sympathized with my Father's sentiments concerning my Mother.
@@BeachTypeZaku He MENTIONS it. The subject of the video is not the F-4 Phantom and his introduction was TOTALLY superfluous. Additionally, you DON'T mention the Phantom at all in your silly-assed comment, so stick it up YOUR afterburner, bozo...
Well, the A6M's lack of armor or self-sealing tanks wasn't a big deal at the time. Actually, few US aircraft had them until after we'd been fighting for a bit... so the Type 0 lacking them wasn't really a glaring omission.
Your analysis that the lack of armour and self-sealing wasnt a big problem at the time is incorrect. It was always a problem and got worse with the increased number of combat engagements. The fact that others might have had the same issues for a short period is irrelevant. The difference is that one country fixed it.
Ah yes, the sequel to the Zero, the One
The chosen one?😁
This made me chuckle 😊
I thought it went from Zero to Hiro
Touche' (smile)
Why did they call it the Zero? Is zero a Japanese word and the same as the English word but chance?
18:54 This was almost the norm with late-war Japanese fighters. They either couldn't reach the B-29's altitude, or when they did, they were actually slower than the B-29.
they had the Ki84 though
If the Zero was like the standard TIE fighter in Star Wars, then the A7M would basically be the TIE Interceptor.
This is a bit off topic, but I'm reminded of a former F-4 pilot's assessment of his plane " All those cranks and angles of the wings were to over come it's defects, it was a Buss, but a FAST bus"!
When I was earning my pilots license one of my instructor pilot was a former Navy F4 Phantom pilot. One time I ask him how he liked the phantom jet. His answer “a piece of $/-/ ; T” complementary with a look of hatred into the past.
The Navy always wants sturdy. Grumman has always known how to make them happy, and made decent but reliable jets with that experience in mind.
McDonnell-Douglas, didn't seem to quite understand the balance the Navy prefered in a fighter and then tried several times to little or moderate success.
Apparently fed up with that, they said "Screw it they want fast and stout, so we will give fast and stout." and designed a Mach 2 capable brick, aka the F4.
Same with Japan as with Germany. No pilots no fuel. Doesn't matter what planes they developed.
As you explained, the first "Zero" was classified as "A6M1," with "M" standing for Mitsubishi and the last number referring to its modernization. Rather like the letters added to American and German aircraft, and the "Mark" numbers added to British planes.
The name "Zero" came from its official name: "Type 0 Navy Fighter," as the Japanese military preferred to keep information about its aircraft secret by giving every Navy fighter or bomber entering service in a particular year the same name. This opaqueness is largely why the U.S. gave boy's names to Japanese fighters and girl's names to Japanese bombers. I think the last major development of the "Zero" was the A6M5.
"Type 0" referred to the fact that the airplane came out in 1940. Aircraft from 1939 were called "Type 99," and so on. The idea of naming aircraft types came about later in the war, e.g., "Tenzan" (Heavenly Mountain) and "Ohka" (Cherry Blossom). So Reppu was probably known as the Type 5 Navy Fighter.
The Japanese Navy's naming scheme for its aircraft was remarkably like the one used by the US Navy.
@@iskandartaib Except that Japan's system incorporated the manufacturer of the plane, similar to Germany, France, and Italy. That would have been awkward with the U.S., where multiple companies sometimes built the same plane.
@@pacificostudios The American system DID incorporate the manufacturer. I will need to go look up the details but Wildcats built by Grumman were F4Fs while those made by (can't remember off the top of my head) were FM2s.
@@iskandartaib You're right, the second letter designated the manufacturer in the U.S. Navy. FM2 was an improved version of the F4F, that happened to be built by General Motors. The F4F followed the FF, F2F, and F3F bi-planes, and was superior to the Brewster F2A, the tragically famous Brewster Buffalo. I'm not sure how you get F from "Grumman" and A from "Brewster," or U from "Vought" or Y from "Consolidated," J from "North American" and H from "McDonnell-Douglas," but apparently the Navy picked a different letter whenever one had been used already. "M" was used for Martin and "C" was used for Curtiss, and "N" was used for Naval Aircraft Factory, when the Government built airplanes for itself during WWI.
@JoeyFiguero - I pointed this out a month ago. It eventually became confused because some manufacturers had a name beginning with the same letter.
The Japanese ability to self sabotage due to the navy and army's inability to cooperate should never be underestimated. 😊😂❤😂😊
When they didn't even share common hardware, that has to really complicate logistics. IIRC, they did not start cooperating on equipment and standardization until late 1943 or 1944.
Lol
The Americans were an annoying distraction in the IJA/IJN war
i remember this book on the Marines taking the islands like Solomons, and there was an entire chapter on Guadalcanal where the US Navy intercepted the exchange between the IJN and Imperial Army on who will pick up their soldiers during the retreat and it was just insults thrown at each other. I know Nimitz and MacArthur didnt like each other but they had the professionalism to work with each other.
So, until there was no navy anymore :D@@MrCateagle
The A7M2 would be have been going up against the Bearcat,P-51H,P-47N,and the Super Corsair. It would be at an extreme disadvantage
The Japanese had some decent engineers (not enough) but no resources to speak of. Technically they could have "matched" the allies in practical engineering and produced better aircraft earlier but no resources make for a moot point.
While I agree in general often the stat of max speed at 20k feet over-estimates the performance of American ww2 fighters versus those from other countries. as an example ki-84s could out-climb & out-speed many American fighters at low to medium altitudes.
The Fw-190 could out-speed many western fighters at low altitude and out roll them all.
There was definitely a technical gap widening between the US and especially Japan. this was a product of limited resources being spread too thinly or on obsolescent aircraft and wartime blockade/ bombing.
@@garydownes2111 : The Axis had too small of an industrial base and lost much of that as the war took its toll. Germany made record numbers of planes in 1944 but it meant using slave labor and making deep compromises in fabrication and materials. That was not sustainable. They tried to make up the difference in advanced technology but were never more than a few months ahead of the Allies. And the effort devoured much capacity needed for basic needs that got ignored. Meanwhile the Allies were arming, feeding and supporting armies from Greenland, to Australia and in every time zone on earth.
@@charlesjames1442 German aircraft development was a joke. They were approving all kinds of harebrained schemes based on rivalries and self-interest and the management of those programs was ridiculous. Britain could have produced a jet fighter to at least match the 262 in performance, with more reliability and manoeuverability if they were in desperation mode, but they didn't need to. The 262 was an experimental dead end as were many of the duds Germany produced.
@@nerdyali4154 262 was absolutely not a dead end. It helped develop many of the post-war jet fighters.
Reminds me of the Yugoslav IK-3, a respectable plane for it's time [1938-1940], cursed by having only 13 units produced. Out of the 13, 1 was a prototype that had been lost during testing, only 6 ever saw combat. They managed to shoot down 11 enemy planes in 11 days of combat, none were shot down.
Some of the zero mark 7/8
Actually had a 1,500 hp engine. Not many were built and little information is available.
But self sealing and armour were added.
"Decent power" for the F-4? A little better than "decent" I'd say. Two J-79's meant a lot of power at that time. It needed the power because the airframe was a giant brick. F-4's achieved roughly equivalent speed to an F-104 with two of the same engines. The F-4 became a very successful aircraft partly because of its enormous "horsepower" (thrust). Had Robert Strange McNamara not been Defense Secretary, the Phantom might have been eclipsed by USAF fighters with superior performance. RSM fixated on the F-4 for both the USAF and USN because it was the "cheap" way to go. This meant that the Air Force was saddled with a Naval "Missile Platform" with lots of extra weight (to survive carrier operations), no gun (because the Navy thought missiles would do the job) and two engines (because the a/c had to operate at long distances over water).
McNamara was an ass
My heart yearns for an alternate reality where the XF8U-3 Crusader III was chosen over the Phantom. Gotta go fast
@@jimjamauto That perhaps would have left with them catching the F111B instead of the F14.
Say what you will about the F4 it was able to handle later avionics updates that would not have been capable to introduce on the F8 or even the proposed Super Crusader. Both have their respective downfalls, so pick the poison.
Take a look at USAF kill ratios using Aim 4 (Ir or Radar) vs Aim 7 and Aim 9 (both Navy developed missiles)... there were reasons there and in average flight hours between overhaul compared to certain Century series aircraft.
RSM caused many problem but with this several were mostly sorted and the experience with F4 lead to them being fine with a large aircraft like the F15. He almost stuck both with the F111 as a fighter so yea thats worth the hate he earns by itself.
@@presidentmerkinmuffley6769 Robert Strange McNamara (it's important to stress his middle name) and the TFX/F-111 program was definitely one reason for "the hate he earns by itself." There was also the matter of the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam and the 224,000 Allied troops. Plus, the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed. So, yeah, McNamara earned the hate he got. Much later he kinda sorta admitted that "mistakes had been made." I'm not sure he thought he made any but he did acknowledge that somebody did. I'm sure he thought the War was "cost effective" right up until his last day.
Ki-84 Hayate next please!! Such a great plane, under reported on.
No mention of the cooling fan (similar to the Fw190 or J2M Raiden) on the Homare powered version? Or the planned turbosupercharged land based interceptor version?
You know what always amazes me. The Germans upgraded the Me109 and FW190 comprehensively over the duration of the war. You would have thought these aircraft had limitations of how far they could be improved and yet in terms of performance they were broadly competitive with the allied aircraft towards the end of the war. At the beginning, the A6M was the dominant aircraft in the theatre. Was it's development potential limited, or was the Japanese design philosophy revolution not evolution.
The Zero's development potential was limited, it's a plane who's inherent design just cannot be improved much. Even then, the A6M8 was much more powerful than the original.
@@ThatZenoGuy It probably reinforces the view that the Japanese must have thought the war was going to be short and the quality of the replacement wasn't going to be an issue.
@@TheSideband
Nope, that has very little to do with it. It was a simple matter of technology and design decisions around the plane.
Japan struggled to make gasoline with high octane, so horsepower was always in limited supply. Meaning they had to slap bigger engines on planes to make them faster. Zero was simply not big enough to handle a larger engine without massive redesigns.
Soooooooo it never got a much bigger engine until the very end of the war.
"You know what always amazes me. The Germans upgraded the Me109 and FW190 comprehensively over the duration of the war. You would have thought these aircraft had limitations of how far they could be improved and yet in terms of performance they were broadly competitive with the allied aircraft towards the end of the war."
Oh, but it gets better when you look closer.
Remember, the Me-109 is an aircraft from 1935. And yet it competed VERY well against aircraft designed as late as 1942 even some from 1943.
The 190 was a much better plane on raw advantages, but it was also effectively half a decade newer and pretty much from the same timeframe as the Zero.
"It probably reinforces the view that the Japanese must have thought the war was going to be short and the quality of the replacement wasn't going to be an issue."
Absolutely not.
They just didn't have the resources to easily achieve the nextgeneration aircraft they wanted.
Their single biggest problem was that while they were among the world leaders in regards to radial engines, their industry was very low precision and quality, as it was more cottage industry than true massproduction, this resulted in lots of engines whose prototypes at optimal conditions were SUPERB, once they were taken out of labconditions, or worse, put in massproduction, didn't get even remotely close to their theoretical best, or even function properly at all.
Under peacetime conditions, it wasn't a big problem, you just spent the extra time with all parts in the workshop and fixed everything up.
But in wartime, Japan effectively had to spend something like 1/4 of its total industrial capacity to do post-production "fixing" of parts, especially anything for high performance machines.
And that took a LOT of skilled manpower(and overall resources), severely limiting Japan's ability to do advanced developments once the war started.
.
"Japan struggled to make gasoline with high octane, so horsepower was always in limited supply."
And that also compounded with the problems mentioned above. Not to forget making gasoline at all. As Japan literally ran a noticeable chunk of its airforce late in the war on fuel made from the needles of coniferous trees. And that was extremely wasteful of resources as well.
Just the resources needed to come up with the ability to make aircraft fuel from such a source at all, it was a huge accomplishment, but costly.
@@DIREWOLFx75 Good comment, the difficulties experienced when trying to mass produce the Kawasaki Ha-140 copy of the DB-601 need no elaboration. I think many people downplay the difficulty of aero-engine manufacture because of Packard's massive output of their Merlin version; "If a car company can do it, how hard could it be?". Japanese pilots evaluating the captured P-51C "Evalina" were shocked that it's production quality was so far above their aircraft, with one pilot saying "It did not leak oil!" Anyway, let us be thankful Mitsubishi didn't get any further developing their J8M Shusui copy of the Me-163!
Always a pleasure to watch your work
This video makes it clear just how much depends on available power. The A6M got the maximum use out of the Sakae engine, albeit at the cost of light structure/low tolerance of battle damage. The range arguably made the A6M the first STRATEGIC escort fighter, something the Allies couldn’t match until the P-51B/C production started in 1943. Combined with a corp of elite pilots the A6M was certainly the best carrier fighter in the period 1940-1942. Unfortunately it lacked growth potential, as the Japanese aero-engine industry was at least 5 years behind the U.S. and British firms. Even by the time Japan could produce something competitive with say the R-2800, it’s reliable production was beyond Japanese capabilities at that stage of the war. (See also problems with Ki-84 landing gear, engine)
The sheer duplication of effort between the Imperial Japanese Army and the Imperial Japanese Navy frittered away what limited resources Japan had. Note, even at it’s greatest territorial extent, Japan hadn’t captured any PRODUCTION facilities worth talking about, only raw materials such as rubber, oil, but even those needed to be shipped back to the Home Islands.
Interesting in an engineering sense; but like all late war project, moot. Good job btw!
I noticed that the Mitsubishi engine (19:51) has a Kurt Tank/FW-190 style cooling fan on it! This would allow a big spinner on the prop (like the FW-190 had) which would seriously reduced the drag! And if they put the needed oil coolers were Tank put them on the "190" along with the Air Intakes for the Superchargers that would reduce drag even more....
I think that was for a Ki-83, the Reppu only had a cooling fan on the Homare powered prototype as far as I know. The J2M Raiden had one as well.
The A6M-3 originally had the clipped wings, without any folding mechanism and was called the Model 32. It was quite unpopular with its pilots as it used more fuel, loweering the range and endurance, and had a lower top speed than the A6M-2. Serial Production was limited to around 550 examples. The only benefit of the A6M-3 Model 32 was a better roll rate in combat. Mitsubishi then produced the A6M-3 Model 22 - called that to associate the A6M3 with the popular A6M2 (Model 21) - wich restored the wing tips and folding mechanism, making it visually identical to both the A6M-2 and the early A6M-5 variant which succeeded it. Later A6M-5s had the belt fed cannon, as did the Model 22 A6M3 versions. The Clipped versions (model 32) all had the Drum-fed (60RPG) like the A6M-2 models. In fact the "Standard A6M-3" (Model 22) with the restored wingtips was far more common (Over 1350 produced) than the Clipped wing type, and because it was so often camouflaged with the upper greens many A6M-3 wrecks were counted as A6M-5s, as they were externally identical - only the Manufacturer's Data Plate on the rear fuselage would ID them as A6M-3 or as A6M-5s. This led to decades of mis-information about the technical changes in the Zero.
Thank you for another educational and entertaining video.
Very good. All new information to me. I live flying the A6M2 in a simulator, and evidently the sim is pretty accurate, because it is a very easy plane to fly, as well as being super maneuverable. It would make a great sport plane, IMHO. You don't need armament or armor for that. Add a back seat, good to go!
I really like your commentary throughout especially the end. Thanks for covering this sort of unknown fighter
The Zero could outmaneuver early Allied aircraft at low speed, but in a high speed dogfight it lost this edge. The stubby little Wildcat was not only tougher and better armed, it also had a higher service ceiling than the Zero. It boiled down to choosing your tactics wisely. Once these facts were realized, the jig was up.
Indeed Wildcat had good supercharger for it's time, but that might have been somewhat detrimental as it was also heavy. Later on Americans realized that most naval aviation took place below their supercharger's peak altitude.
For a similar reason P-38 and P-47 didn't have the performance advantage against Bf 109 and Fw 190 as B-17s and B-24s didn't operate so high.
Another fatal failure of the Japanese was in their strict adherence to orders. When the order was given to "Return To Base", the Japanese would form up & do just that, and if they were bounced by American fighter aircraft, Japanese fighter pilots were not allowed to break formation to try & fight off the opposing Americans. THEY SIMPLY HAD TO FOLLOW ORDERS WITHOUT FAIL.
So in a number of situations, American fighter pilots, (some who were just flying their very first combat patrols), could just cruise in on the Japanese 6 o'clock position and leisurely shoot down the Japanese with impunity, and with no fear of retaliation. In fact, a number of "Ace In A Day" rookie pilots were made this way throughout the air war in the PTO.
If memory serves, I believe the highest single mission kill count by a rookie pilot was 12 confirmed, which left just two Japanese aircraft remaining out of 14 initially. It would have been higher, but the pilot ran out of ammunition & was getting low on fuel. I don't remember the pilot's name right off the bat, but I do remember reading an account of the incident.
@@SierraThunder Double ace in day was rare even for axis super aces. This sounds false simply because a US pilot with such score would be far better known. Perhaps it it was multiple rookie pilots?
Americans, as usual, will inevitably embellished and exaggerated their results as they won the war. When I watched Combat by Vic Morrow or John Wayne movies as a kid, I always wonder why German and Japanese soldiers were so stupid and why bullets tried their best to avoid GI's. Well, the American war in Vietnam proved how horrific & prolific the American propaganda arm & its media accomplice misinformed and disinformed reality.
@@Teh0X. He is likely referring to Capt. William Shomo, who was flying a brand new P-51 Mustang, after using overage P-40s on reconnaissance missions.
Shomo and his wingman Lt. Paul Lipscomb, encountered a Betty bomber escorted by 12 Tony fighters.
Shomo shot down the bomber and six fighters, earning the Congressional Medal of Honor while Lipscomb accounted for four and a Silver Star, making a total of 11 shot down out of 13.
The A5-M "Claude" is just so adorable, with its art deco fairings on its static landing gear, and it's 2-tone VERY 30's paint job. It's a shame to think of the part it played in bringing into being the unmentionable horrors of the "Pan-Asian Coprosperity Sphere". It's our species greatest shame that we just can't have nice things without needing to bludgeon our neighbors with those things in order to steal their adorable stuff so we can add it to our own.
I know it’s a video game but it’s all we really have to go off of. I’ve flown the A7M2 a lot in war thunder and it’s actually one of my favorite planes in the game other than the zero. From my experience it suffers from a lot of the same problems as the zero plus a new one. It still can’t catch up to allied planes (granted said allied planes are usually F8F bearcats, F7F tigercats and de havilland hornets) it’s also very big making it an easy target if you stall or aren’t paying attention.
Despite its flaws I still love the reppu, the zero and almost all Japanese props
My favorite in war thunder (that ive researched so far, i dont play alot) is the ki44, i play on ps4 so the less maneuverability is a benefit as im less jerky haha. But in il2 or cfs2 i prefer the zero or ki27, the ki43 ii is good too. I do like nearly all the japanese single engine aircraft though, cant get around the dinah or ki21 though haha
10:00 the P-40, F4F, P-38, and P-39 all scored positive kill ratios against the zero and it's other nimble Japanese brethren. The issues early on in the war stemmed from lack of pilot discipline, training, and experience. Pilots were too aggressive and didn't adhere to their training that told them NOT to turn fight anything, especially Japanese aircraft, but rather to do slashing attacks (Boom and Zoom), which is what their aircraft were designed for.
Irony is that boom and zoom was also Japanese doctrine also, I learned from postwar interviews I think with sabiro sacki
You guys really believe all that...
@@bakters backed by verified claims that have been poured over by historians for decades.
@@jeffbybee5207 in theory, but in practice Japanese fighters were designed and built for Turn and Burn. All US aircraft were designed for Boom and Zoom. Claire Chennault helped establish Boom and Zoom as US fighter doctrine in the 1930s, long before forming the AVG.
In order to fight and win as a Boom and Zoom fighter in a dogfight, you must have the faster aircraft in the matchup. Japanese never had this. the P-38, P-39, P-40, P-51, P-47, F4F, F6F, F4U, etc. Were all faster in level flight and a dive than the Japanese fighters. Thus, even if they taught boom and zoom tactics, they couldn't win a boom and zoom fight with a faster airplane.
When you come into a Boom and Zoom fight and you have the slower more maneuverable fighter, you must counter by Turn and Burn style fighting. Using superior maneuverability to try to mess up the diving fighter and pull him into a turn fight.
@@SoloRenegade Great analysis!
Well, the most crucial problem with the first used 20mm cannon was not actually the limited 60rounds per gun ammo capacity. The Spitfire Mk.Vb - or rather say the B-type wing on Spitfires - had 60 rounds per gun drum magazine as well, yet it had a much better use (if they did not freeze or jammed which were common issues). The Type 99 Mark 1 cannon was based on the Oerlikon FF design, just like the German MG FF and MG FF/M (MG FF were used up to the Bf-109E-3, MG FF/M started from the Bf-109E-4, and could fire the "mine-shell"). The cannon had two drawback features: too short barrel and that's why external ballistics were poor (huge bullet drop, curved trajectory) and low rate of fire, somewhere between 490-540 rounds per minute. Experienced Japanese pilots often returned to base with empty machine guns but carried back almost all of the cannon ammo, except if they were on a strafing run - where the cannons had a good use. In dogfights Zero pilots usually switched off the cannons and only used the two machine guns. Which being technically .303British caliber (7.7x56mmR) many cases ineffective (F4F, P-39, P-40 were tough opponents, P-38, F6F and F4U even tougher). Later Type 99 Mark 2 guns were better, longer barrel and larger - box magazine - ammo capacity were available.
Yeah, the Type 99-1 were an excellent starting point for the new idea of mass use on aircraft, but they were on the edge of obsolete already from the start. The Zero should have had the 99-2 from the moment serial production started.
Just as the 7mm's should have been replaced with heavy MGs right from the start.
And with only 4 weapons, it might have made good sense to go for something slightly more powerful like 23mm cannons instead of the historical 99-2.
Or, of course, start the opposite way and put 6 heavy MGs on it instead. It's hard to tell what would have been most functional due to all the limits for weight, size etc.. 6 might not even fit those limits...
The Zero was such a weird mix of amazing and "OMG! R U CRAZY?!?"...
You didn't mention anything about Reppu's armor and fuel tank protection. It shared a unique fuel tank protection setup with J2M:
-Fuselage fuel tanks with thick self-sealing rubber coating.
-Wing fuel tanks without any kind of self-sealing coating.
-All fuel tanks were protected with automatic CO2 fire extinguisher system.
-55mm bulletproof vertical glass in front of pilot. Mitsubishi had an odd habit to place them like this. Same with their J2M, J8M and Ki-83.
-No armor behind the pilot. Late Zeros actually had very thin seat back armor, but mostly Navy's fighters, including planned ones still didn't have seat back armor. Meanwhile Army fighters used thick armor plates to protect pilot from behind. It's an interesting difference between the two airforces.
Overall Japanese aircraft companies were only 2-3 years behind US, UK and Germany. Italians hardly developed their own high performance aircraft engines and Soviets managed with weak powered and short ranged low altitude fighters. Things advanced so awfully fast during the war time with such enormous funding. Even so there were few things were Japanese were ahead, at least on the drawing board. They were also pretty good at optimizing some of their designes for the weak engines they had, but A7M wasn't among those.
A7M was kind of like F6F in some aspects. For fighters with 2200hp engine they didn't have that amazing performance at all. They were just too specialized for carrier use. Ki-84 and F8F for example were far faster with similar power. IJN clearly went overboard with Reppu's requirements. They should have lowered those for something that could have been done with Homare 21 and maybe even asked proposals from other companies. At the end Shiden Kai and it's prototyped carrier variants were what they had needed. In 1945 only good thing about Reppu would have been the planned interceptor variants with high altitude engines and far heavier armament to fight B-29s.
"Overall Japanese aircraft companies were only 2-3 years behind US, UK and Germany."
I wouldn't say they were truly behind at all.
Japans big problem wasn't even lack of good engines, their problem was that due to their horribly poor industrial standards, their engines NEVER performed anywhere near as well as they should have, or did as prototypes. And spare parts, often had to spend as much time in a workshop on the based they were being used, as it had taken to make it in a factory, before they actually fit as they were supposed to.
(This is also why Japan postwar became such a high end nation in massproduction and high quality production, because lots of people did see this problem during the war, when it was too late to fix it, but after the war, they spent years carefully creating several industry standards for precision manufacturing, that once it started being implemented, provided a huge advantage.)
And of course, there was also the IJA and IJN coming up with superficially good requirements for new gear, but which in reality severely crippled the end product.
For example, the engine that became the standard on the Zero, Horikoshi stated in an interview that that was just supposed to be for the first batch of planes meant more for testing and introduction. He wanted to put a 1350HP engine in it before it went to full massproduction.
But IJN said no. Because the fighter would become too heavy and use too much fuel.
Considering how they still got the Sakae up to 1130HP and then managed to fit the Kinsei anyway, and it was probably the Kinsei that Horikoshi was referring to, they could literally have had that already in 1941.
"Italians hardly developed their own high performance aircraft engines and Soviets managed with weak powered and short ranged low altitude fighters."
Italy and USSR got caught at the wrong part of development cycles(Japan was dangerously close to that as well, but managed anyway because they were actually among the world leaders for radial engines at the time), while both also being unlucky with their next generation engines not working well enough and then simply not having the time to do the job either fix the problematic ones or develop new ones.
There was also the HUGE problem for USSR that they were caught entirely on the wrong side of doctrine.
They were expecting a medium-high altitude airwar with heavy bombers. And they got a low-medium altitude airwar against medium bombers and ground support attack planes. Where the German planes had their best performance, while too many of the Soviet aircraft didn't reach their best until a few thousand meters higher.
And unlike UK and USA who were also doing the Douhet whoopsie, USSR didn't get any real chance to rectify the problems caused by this until after WWII.
@@DIREWOLFx75 That's mostly true, although most of their 14-cylinder engines models didn't have big issues. Ha-33 and even Ha-32 ran reliably at their rated power at the end. It's mainly their 18-cylinder radials which needed more time and indeed improved manufacturing standards. Ha-36, which was their first 18-cylinder engine was quickly abandoned, Ha-45 was running at derated power settings and all the rest remained in development hell. To run reliably in combat and 18-cylinder radial simply needed something more advanced than a float type carburetor, which Nakajima didn't have until spring 1945. Apparently using Mitsubishi's direct injection wasn't an option for them... Also their V-engines had well known extra pains from nickel shortages.
@DIREWOLFx75 most russian aircraft actually performed better at low attitudes and fell off up high. Examples include la5 variants, yak3, and more.
@@Will_M600 Most of the ones built during the war yes.
Earlier planes, like the MiG-3 were the opposite.
And it took until late 1942 before the Yak-1 got an engine upgrade to improve its low altitude performance, while it had a clear superiority over the -109 above 5 thousand meters.
@@Teh0Xi guess another issue less recognised is the fuel. The navy had 100 octane available, the army had 92 octane, so an engine designed for running on 100 at x power level will not be able to produce that power on 92 without damaging itself, and for context, the americans had 130/150 octane, so could run more boost and more ignition timing on their engines to achieve higher power levels from an engine the same size.
A6M3 Zero's twin radial Nakajima engine was an unlicensed copy of DC-3's Pratt & Whitney 14-cylinder R-1830 Twin Wasp.
Makes sense p&w’s radial engines were boss. You could have cylinders blown off and it would still be running like a champ. Air cooled didn’t have to worry about a coolant leak. I’d take a F6F over just about every other plane from the time.
It is not a copy of R-1830.Sakae engine has 130mm bore and 150mm stroke.On the other hand,R1830 engine has 140mm bore and 140mm stroke.Nakajima company did licensed copy of Pratt & Whitney’s engine and there is a lot of elements that came from that engine in Sakae engine.But definitely Sakae engine is not a direct unlicensed copy of the R1830 engine.
@@ابوعبداللهالشيعي-ت3ص It wasn't an exact copy. As you note, stroke and bore were slightly different, as were overall dimensions and output. But those are minor details. While not a "direct copy", the basic design and operation of both engines were the same.
Zero's prop was however a direct copy of the three Hamilton-Standard blades used on DC-3.
I've found no record of Nakajuma's paying license fees to P&W, but is you have evidence to that effect, I'd appreciatre your pointing it out to me. Thanks.
Nakajima did license the British Bristol Jupiter single row radial engine, to which it later added Wright Cyclone and P&W R-1340 features. Nakajima Ha5 was a 14-cylinder, twin-row development of this line. After further evolution, to include a supercharger, the Ha219 variant grew to 18 cylinders.
Nakajima Sakae was also a twin-row 14-cylinder engine, nominally an advanced, scaled-down Ha5 derivative. But it has too many functional similarities to the P&W R-1830 Twin Wasp for coincidental convergence.
@@johntillman6068 According to some sources, Nakajima purchased the rights to manufacture the R-1690 Hornet engine and the R-1340 Wasp C in 1929. English is not my native language, so I only use Japanese literature, but it is difficult to think that Mitsubishi has purchased the manufacturing rights but Nakajima has not, so I think that Nakajima also did .I disagree that the Sakae engine is a copy of the R-1830 Twin Wasp. Of course, there was also the influence of P&W, but Nakajima received technical guidance from Curtiss-Wright, and this influence can be seen in the lubrication system of the Sakae engine and the nitride steel cylinder.
@@ابوعبداللهالشيعي-ت3ص Nakajima might have considered Sakae an in house development not requiring a license. It and its predecessors did draw on other unlicensed Western designs besides R-1830.
Ah FineMolds I love you.❤❤❤❤
any chance you could cover the KI-87's? late war "what ifs" is always fun to think about
Guess I am getting old but "fun" really should not be a part of the equation for anyone serious about history, especially the bloodiest and most horrific war in history. No matter what if you come up with the opponent gets to have their what if.
@@hoodoo2001 history is fun. get over it. stop whining. Stop acting like a sheltered child who thinks the world hasn't always been violent. I'm a combat vet, and I still thoroughly enjoy studying military history, as well as aviation history, and the history of technology.
@@hoodoo2001 war is never fun. but what i guess i could have used the word interesting instead. the idea of "what would need to happen for X plane to get into production" what would have happened if X person did Z instead of Y.
and i do find history fun, otherwise i wouldn't be here.
Saburo Sakai (WWII Ace) had high praise for the Reppu. He thought of it as a true successor to the Zero.
This goes way beyond "The Wind Rises" which sees Jiro design the Claude and the Zero.
(A Studio Ghibli movie, much recommended)
A man once said, airplanes are beautiful dreams.
Having flown a plane, even if just a lil Cessna, I'd say it checks out.
Beautification of Japan's horrible past ...
If only Miyasaki is brave enough to make "anime" that openly depicts his country's military .
@@peekaboopeekaboo1165
Nausicaa
Howl's Moving Castle
Grave of the Fireflies
The dream sequence in Porco Rosso
Which of these movies glorifies war or imperialism?
He openly criticises it.
Throughout Miysaki's oeuvre is a fascination with flight.
I hope your criticism of Hollywood's connection with the US military industrial complex is more on point than your vapid criticism of Miyasaki.
@@pencilpauli9442
Miyasaki never openly depict his nation's military's deeds abroad .
Hollywood have made movies about atrocities they committed in Vietnam .
@@peekaboopeekaboo1165
Yeah sure there have been US anti-war films.
But there are plenty of directors of war movies who have never depicted US atrocities, and glorify war.
It's ludicrous to pick out one Japanese anti- war director who is fascinated by flight to lambast.
I'm totally with your disgust at the Imperial Japanese war crimes, but not sure why Miyasaki is being singled out for not directly tackling the subject.
It's like expecting Disney to make a film about My Lai.
I’m a big fan of “light”, light cars, light motorcycles, & I guess light planes. It was very sensible idea to get the performance with lower powered engines so Japanese engineers went light to make remarkable aircraft....never had to go to war but if I did have to in any vehicle or aircraft it would immediately break my preference towards light 😮.....” getting shot at” would make me very keen on “heavy armour please”😅
7:26 For example, a 9-g turn would rip the Zero's wings off.
It's probably worth pointing out that the Zero had a low-normal amount of armor for the technological period in which it was designed. Armor on single-engine fighters was by no means universal in 1938-1940, and where it was present, was most commonly an armored seat back to protect the pilot. This wasn't unusual, but as I said, it wasn't super-common, either.
Same goes for self-sealing fuel tanks, if not more so. I'm pretty sure no one had those in 1938.
Can you do a show on the 1944 Mitsubishi Kochou fighter?
Very interesting, thanks!
This has some comical points, as "reppu" means backpack in Finnish.
And "Vittu" means?
8:19 At the time, only the Spitfire could really compete with the Zero. It wasn't as agile, but it was closer than everything else. Also, the Zero was an opponent where 8 rifle-caliber guns were more than enough to take it down.
Harsh language was enough to knock a zero down.
Did spitfire ever fight a zero?
9:55 Good video. Please allow me to make a small correction at 9:55: “poor armor” should instead be “NO armor”. Thanks!
Interesting video. I had never heard of this plane.
By the time the Reppu was ordered in production there were no more carrier to service it. At that point there were better planes in service that were not hampered by carrier service requirements.
The F6F did not "start appearing" in mid-1942. The Hellcat saw its first combat on 1 Sep 1943.
Great video, i like the subtle humour you put into your content
Could you please a video about the Nakajima G10N.
Always educational AND entertaining content.
Like all of your videos this is full of info. Thanks for taking the time and effort in making it.
choice and styleI love your videos!
bro...ima be tryn to escape the terror of oblivion by watching a vid on the A7M and this motherf....nice start😂👍
I see the MK 9 has a fan in front like on the FW190
I'm so glad I stumbled over your channel. Great story that I didn't know thinking I already knew each and every one of them.
Equally great narraiting. I like the way you're are telling a story and your voice and accent are perfect sides to a delicious menu.
Loved the video but the real what-if is: What if Japan had well trained pilots to man those late war planes?
They never had a training pipeline that produced pilots in great enough numbers, and they threw away their expirienced pilots eh.. experience by letting them fly until they got shot down.
Great commentary! (I hate the AI audio on most RUclips vids)
Jus wanna say I love watchin these videos i love learning sum i jus completed Japan for war thunder so all these videos about Japan couldt have come at a better time lol keep up the good work my g
what are feet bro measuring height tell us in kilometers
Thank you for another informative video. I would love to see more videos on the last years of WWII. Such as the KI--84 and the JM2 Raiden.
One big problem with Japanese engine power was the fuel they were losing. Because of their limited oil supply, even before the war started, they couldn't refine it to the levels the US did because they would lose too much quantity. The Germans faced the same problem, which is why German engines were built to a significantly higher displacement for the same horsepower. And both Japan and Germany pioneered water injection.
Thank Heavens they never got it together. Imagine that war dragging on and on.
Positive comment to feed the algorithm! I genuinely enjoyed this video.
Well done thank you!
17:30 do you stand by your claim the A7M was 3m taller than the A6M (You said in ALL 3 directions)?
A6M Length: 9.06m
A7M Length: 11.04m (Less than 2m longer)
A6M Width: 12m
A7M Width: 14m (2m wider)
A6M Height: 3.05m
A7M Height: 4.28m (about 1.2m taller)
your 1-2m estimate would have been accurate. 3m would add an additional 3ft in every direction, that's a LOT.
1:31 you forgot South Korea. The RoKAF still flies the phantom. They will be retired in June this year.
Wow. Comments number 42. Why would I not expect to feel the total perspective vortex on opening
The Mitsubishi A6 was inspired by a Hughes racing plane from the 1930's.
One of the problems was that Tojo was invested in Mitsubishi. Many industrial decisions by Tojo favored Mitsubishi over better alternatives.
The KI-100 was quite good too
Engineers never quit, the war ended and so did those 'ultimate' projects. Had WWII in the pacific continued the F7F and F8F would have appeared, followed by AAF flyers in the P-80. Ironic too an early prototype crashed on the day of the Hiroshima bombing.
That crash taking the life of Richard Bong.
Only 1.5 hours of endurance?
So the Zero was basically a glass cannon?
Nope, the Zero is much better described as a grade school bully.
What if Japan does not attack Pearl Harbor and only the British.
Us might not even enter the war the isolationist side prevents it or US enters war reluctantly early defeats maybe even quits with treaty at some point.
You then get this fighter made. But only worth it if Japan massively increases training process.
Would you look at that, im not the only one who loves the Phantom because of Ace combat 5 and Ace Combat 4 :D (But specially Ace combat 5 :X)
WW2 is full of examples of everything going wrong at the same time.
Please start using the Allied reporting names for Japanese aircraft!. A lot of people nowadays don't know what you're talking about!, this plane was called the Sam!. It just makes it a lot easier to research.
A Spice Girls fan as well as Heart.🙂
I like the humor.
In the tradition that Mr. BeachBlanketBingo is setting; here is my comment on your video. I once had a cat named "Zero".
The end.
The shame is that this aircraft could have been in production and at least in limited service before the allies (and natural events) began curtailing the necessary resources for it's and other aircrafts developments. No Japanese fighter, no matter how advanced and maneuverable could withstand the masses of very capable allied fighters piloted by well trained and experienced pilots nor stop bombers that astounded the Japanese in their size and range. Materially, they had already lost the war but it took two atomic bombs to convince them that they were facing enemies capable of obliterating their homeland completely. The plane obviously shows its A6M heritage.
I think no new fighter would have been able to change the mortal shortage of pilots Japan was suffering from
A6 zero was a victim of it's own success. The success made them wait too long before beginning to develop a better replacement.
The Japanese military totally refused to co-operate with each other which cause serious issues of duplication. It also complicated projects as in the Reppu which took over 4 years to develop, then production delays ment it would not see service.
great
QQ. The Japanese were fielding engines that fell far short of power parity with Allied types. It seems to me they had captured specimens of The Allies best engines to date. Why then, weren't they knocking out clones like the Russians did with the B-29/TU-4?
I literally just subscribe to you after flirting with your channel for a bit simply because you're an ace combat fan lol
😮 You missed the F-14 in your list of F-4 successors. It's such a travesty.
Lmao, nice ending. Existential excellence!!
Alrighty then. The night is dark and full of terrors. Thanks bud!
The Japanese (and Axis members' aircraft development all together) was like the pupil who didn't learn in all year, but he tries to learn the whole years' material with two weeks not to get fail on the final exam. Sorry guys, miracles just don't exist. This Reppu worth as much as giving enema to a dead man (sorry, local idioma in my country😂).
@14:40
Michael! Jim put my 18 cylinder radial engine in jello again!
**Asian Jim face**
Zero on steroids! 🛩️🤪
My Father was the head of the after-burner shop in Rammstein, Germany in 69-early 70s.
His shop was very well run and from my Mother's recollection, they never had issues with the after-burners coming out of his shop.
He and my mother met about then and started dating. He almost got court marshalled for escorting my mother home because he didn't feel it was safe for a young lady to be out after dark, walking home alone.
I like to think my dad got off for his Sterling performance in his Duty, but also because his base commander and his subordinates sympathized with my Father's sentiments concerning my Mother.
Nice story, but what does it have to do with a Japanese fighter from WWII??
As Monty Python would say, and now for something completely different.@@s.marcus3669
@@s.marcus3669 he mentions the F4 in the first part. I wasn't looking for your approval.
@@BeachTypeZaku He MENTIONS it. The subject of the video is not the F-4 Phantom and his introduction was TOTALLY superfluous.
Additionally, you DON'T mention the Phantom at all in your silly-assed comment, so stick it up YOUR afterburner, bozo...
another reason for canceling was probably also because they didn't have any carriers or trained pilots left
Very brave Japanese pilots!
Well, the A6M's lack of armor or self-sealing tanks wasn't a big deal at the time. Actually, few US aircraft had them until after we'd been fighting for a bit... so the Type 0 lacking them wasn't really a glaring omission.
Your analysis that the lack of armour and self-sealing wasnt a big problem at the time is incorrect. It was always a problem and got worse with the increased number of combat engagements. The fact that others might have had the same issues for a short period is irrelevant. The difference is that one country fixed it.
Unless there's a Multiverse!
Reppu means "back bag" in finnish
The axis never make a efficient turbo -supercharger engine like the P47 Thunderbolt system
designed by howard huges
Like the German jets, too little, too late.
Horikoshi fell quite ill in 1944