Another "different" Mitsubishi

"Loping Camshaft" (Loping_Camshaft)
09/30/2013 at 05:26 • Filed to: None

DISCUSSION (9)

Kugelblitz > Loping Camshaft
09/30/2013 at 08:35

Engine by Nakajima.

highmodulus > Loping Camshaft
09/30/2013 at 09:10

Rare "not on fire" edition, nice find.

#self sealing fuel tanks were a highly desirable option the factory did not offer.

#embarrassing WWII plane nerd joke

Loping Camshaft > highmodulus
09/30/2013 at 11:16

I wish I was knew more about WWII planes. Feel free to let your nerd flag fly.

Loping Camshaft > Kugelblitz
09/30/2013 at 11:17

So kind of like the Toyobaru of it's day then?

Kugelblitz > Loping Camshaft
09/30/2013 at 11:45

MM, the A6M5 DID have self sealing tanks. Unfortunately, early war midels fell into the hands of "tuners" who striped out everything they possibly could in the quest for lightness and maneuverability. This included armor protection, even th little bit that is behind the pilot. The planes was designed to dogfight and trying to turn with a Zero meant that it would square a few corners off and eat you for breakfast.
US pilots never really had a dogfight type plane on the level of the Zero, we just made ours tougher (the F4F Wildcat was put on steroids and made into the F6F Hellcat) and tried to be better energy fighters (Dive into the fight, shoot and climb away). Even late war, trying to get down on the deck and fight Oscars, Zeros and their ilk was pretty dicey. The Japanese had some horrifically talented fighter pilots, some of whom has hundreds of air to air kills, like Saburo Sakai. The could makes these planes dance on the head of a pin.
Fortunately for the US, the Japanese were never able to replace their pilots fast enough as their requirements were probably the strictest ones by any combatant in WWII. They eventually relaxed them but by then it was far too late, as we had simply overwhelmed them in terms of materiel & men.
Note that there were some Energy style aircraft, in particular the Ki-61 Tony which could dive with the P 40s, much to their dismay.

Kugelblitz > Loping Camshaft
09/30/2013 at 11:48

Pretty much. I am amused that my Subaru is made by the same company. Sorta like how BMW made motors for Focke-Wulf in WW2.

Loping Camshaft > Kugelblitz
09/30/2013 at 12:31

Fucking JDM tuners....

I knew we never really had anything to compete with the Zero in a dogfight, buy why? R&D or manufacturing budget stretched too thin by two theater war?

Thanks for the history lesson.

Kugelblitz > Loping Camshaft
09/30/2013 at 16:24

Hmm, whelp, in my opinion we had bagloads of r&d. We developed a humongous amount of different aircraft because, hey, 60% of the entire world's inductrial capacity was inside the US BEFORE the war. Crazy, right?

Look at it this way, fighters are defensive weapon. The Spitfire was an amzingly nimble plane that could dogfight well and even hold up against a Zero. They also could not cross the English Channel without turning around ten minutes later. This was a problem.

We were in it to win it. So the mud movers had to get in there and wreck things and kill people and they needed escorts.

Fighters - F6F, F4U, P38, P51, P47, P61 were just the ones we fielded with the F8F and the P80 a few bare months after Japan went Tango Oscar.

B17, B24, A20, A26, B29, B25 were the bombers and they were a result of our Strategic Plan, i.e. bomb until we win. Sorta worked in Europe, really worked when we finally had the A-Bomb.

Our monthly output of twin engined planes was so large, when the Abwehr spies relayed this back to Germany it was discounted as misinformation. The Germans could not believe the US made so much, so fast.

My favorite fighter is the P47 Thunderbolt.

At altitude the P47 was an amazing fighter, it could outclimb a Spitfire Mk IX and out dive ANYTHING except for one of the German jets and that is debatable even now. It had an incredible roll rate, one third more firepower than most of the other US fighters, could fly 2000 miles and eat enemies for breakfast and absorb damage that would knock down a four engined bomber. It weight seven tons, too.

The Bell Airacobra was a prewar plane. It had this amazing balance (the engine was in the center of the plane) a 37mm cannon in the nose and was pretty good below 5000 feet. Above that altitude it deserved the name "Pig".

Our plans had to fly to find their foes, so they were either carrier borne, with all the extra frame and body work for that kind of landing, or they flew far and wide so they needed to be able to get there and back. We decided somewhere that furballs below where the bombers were were not what we wanted our aircraft to do, so we made planes accordingly. That said, the P51 was likely the best plane we fielded, if only because it consistently went up against one of the harshest combat regimes in WW2, air operations over Germany.

Where it excelled.

Loping Camshaft > Kugelblitz
09/30/2013 at 16:33

I'm just curious as to why we didn't develop a dog fighter that was as maneuverable as the Zero like the "air superiority/dominance" planes that we have had almost ever since. Didn't need to because of firepower or armor? Great numbers/production capacity? Or were we just concentrating more on bombers and transports? I suppose the point of carrier planes is to protect the carrier and local fleet and to attack other fleets/ land targets. Did our ships have better defenses so that it wasn't as important to have an ultimate fighter? Hence the use of kamikazes (partially anyway)?