Combat aircraft. "Flying Dragon" as a shield for losers

2024 Author: Matthew Elmers | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:49

"Flying Dragon" … Quite deservedly this plane can be called one of the symbols of Japanese resistance to the American military machine that has gained momentum. In 1944, when American bombers regularly began to pay visits to the skies over Japanese cities, it was these aircraft that were counted on in the counterplay that had begun.

Here I will start with a very piquant moment.

What actually happened? And the following happened: the Americans captured the Mariana Islands, from which it was much more convenient to fly and bomb Japan than from the territory of China or aircraft carriers. Moreover, the main aircraft that tyrannized the Japanese, the B-29, required a decent airfield, not a deck. And then the airfield appeared.

Very quickly, the Japanese commanders realized that fighting the "sausage" of fast, flying at high altitudes, strong, well-armed (11 machine guns 12, 7 mm), and most importantly - covered by B-29 fighters is not just difficult, but disastrously difficult.

Actually, the Japanese were aware of the not very successful experience of the Luftwaffe in combating bomber formations, therefore, unlike the Germans, they decided to oppose raids on their cities with raids on American aviation bases.

Which was pretty logical.

How did the Japanese aircraft raids take place?

It was a rather difficult task. The planes took off from their airfields in the early evening and headed for Iwo Jima, where a "jump" airfield was built. 1250 kilometers. Three hours or more, depending on the wind. On Iwo Jima, the planes refueled, the crews had dinner and a little rest, then took off and began the night flight to Saipan. This is about 1160 kilometers and at least 2.5 hours of flight.

By morning, Japanese pilots flew up to the airfield on Saipan, dropped bombs and set off on their way back.

In total, depending on the wind, we have about 12 (or more) hours of flight over the Pacific at night, in fact, without any landmarks. Almost five thousand kilometers.

Why am I focusing so much on this? Because these flights were carried out by the JAAF Army Ground Aviation pilots, not the JANF Marine.

Amazing, right? But that was exactly what happened, the ground pilots did what the pilots of Japan's naval aviation that had been shattered to smithereens could no longer. And they did it successfully, the intensity of the raids on the Japanese Islands in January-February 1945 dropped sharply.

In December 1944 alone, the Americans lost more than 50 B-29 bombers on Saipan. The Japanese were just great at flying up just when the B-29s were most vulnerable, that is, just before takeoff. And in order to stop the raids, the Americans had to start an operation to capture Iwo Jima in February 1945.

Of course, the courage and training of Japanese army pilots only delayed the inevitable collapse of Japan, but the plane, which became a kind of shield that covered the hole that formed on the site of the virtually destroyed Japanese naval aviation, is worthy of our attention.

So, the last, dragon song "Mitsubishi", Ki-67, codenamed "Peggy", deservedly became one of the most famous Japanese aircraft in the last months of the war in the Pacific. Moreover, even the Americans (not to mention the Japanese) considered the Ki-67 the best bomber of the Imperial Army in World War II.

A very nice plane. No wonder, by the way, because Mitsubishi did not spare money on the training and education of its engineers in Europe and the United States. Mitsubishi had more experienced design engineers than other companies, wages were higher, and experience in developing heavy bombers was not comparable to the rest of Japan's aviation industry put together.

On the whole, Mitsubishi was doing fine, and if one does not take into account some of the successes of the Nakajima firm, then we can say that the firm was in fact the leading supplier of aircraft to both the army and the navy. For this, Mitsubishi had two independent design departments at once, army and naval.

The chief designer of the new bomber project was appointed Hisanoyo Ozawa, who worked on all serial Japanese bombers since 1930. Ozawa's assistants included two Caltech Aviation Technology graduates, Teruo Toyo and Yoshio Tsubota.

The new aircraft made its first flight on December 17, 1942. The bomber turned out to be elegant and beautiful, with almost no protruding parts, with smooth lines.

Another interesting point. For some reason, many reference books call the Ki-67 a heavy bomber. In fact, its parameters do not fit this category a little. The Ki-67, with a bomb load of 1070 kg, is a classic medium bomber.

B-25 "Mitchell" could carry up to 2722 kg of bombs, B-26 "Marauder" up to 1814 kg, He.111 up to 2000 kg.

In February 1943, the following copies joined the prototype and tests began in full. The tests gave a positive result, the aircraft was not too demanding to control in flight, reaching a speed of 537 km / h above sea level. It was a little less than what the JAAF would like, but first they decided that it was enough. The ground army aviation urgently needed a new modern bomber, as the army fought heavy battles in Burma and the Dutch East Indies.

The Ki-67, named "Hiryu" meaning "Flying Dragon", entered service with ground aviation in the summer of 1944. It was a landmark event because for the first time since 1930 the army had a better bomber than the navy.

Dragon was really good! Protected tanks, crew armor, excellent defensive armament, impressive flight characteristics … If not newcomers sat in the Ki-67, but the crews exterminated in Rabaul and New Guinea, the bomber would have been more effective. Alas…

Even the many modifications developed during the service did not help. The Ki-67 was seen as a glider towing vehicle, a torpedo bomber, and a kamikaze aircraft.

In August 1944, changes were made to the design of bombers, including the Ki-67, to be placed inside the bomb, which is triggered by a fuse placed in the nose of the aircraft.

The Hiryu modification was called Fugaku. The Special Attack Corps bombers have been redesigned with all rifle turrets removed and their mounting locations covered with plywood fairings to provide a more streamlined shape for greater speed. The crew was reduced to 2-3 people, the minimum required for navigation and radio communications. The bombs were activated automatically when they hit the target.

The torpedo bombers underwent final crew training in October 1944, but received their baptism of fire at the same time as the Fugaku during the defense of Formosa (today it is Taiwan). It so happened, it was not immediately clear where the Americans would start, from Formosa or the Philippines. But in any case, it was necessary to answer, so the half-trained squadrons were transferred to southern Formosa in order to work from there on the Americans, regardless of where they directed the strike.

It was to Luzon and southern Formosa that the strike groups of the 3rd US fleet approached and struck from the air at Formosa. Thus began the battle in the Philippine Sea, where they received the baptism of fire Ki-67.

A USN 3rd Fleet strike group approached Luzon and southern Formosa in the second week of October 1944, and conducted a series of diversionary air strikes against Okinawa. On 10 October, JNAF Air Force units of the Second Air Fleet, including two HIRYU Army Sentai, were put on alert. On October 12, American carrier-based bombers and fighters attacked Formosa and the surrounding islands, provoking an unprecedented violent response from Japanese base aircraft. The time has come, and the aerial phase of the battle in the Philippine Sea has begun.

In the course of air battles, the first victory also occurred: the heavy cruiser Canberra was hit with Ki-67 torpedoes from 703 and 708 kokutai (air regiment). The cruiser was miraculously able to be towed for repair, there was an obvious miscalculation of the Japanese, who could not finish off the ship, which was dragging another cruiser, "Uichchita", at a speed of only 4 knots.

The next day, the torpedo was received by the cruiser Houston, the namesake of the Japanese drowned in the Java Sea.

The losses of the regiments amounted to 15 vehicles.

Let's just say that the achievements were not so hot, but for the debut it turned out quite well. Two ships out of order are quite good.

Fugaku's debut was also not quite decent. The aircraft suffered heavy losses, since, after all, the usual tactics against American ship formations, protected by both air defense and fighter squadrons, are no longer suitable. But the suicide bombers were able to send destroyers Mahan and Ward to the bottom.

During the Battle of Okinawa in March 1945, the first Ki-67-1b modification appeared. The only difference compared to the first model was that a second 12.7 mm machine gun appeared in the tail mount.

By the summer of 1945, the Ki-67 had become the most important bomber in land aviation. There were modifications with a radar for searching and detecting ships, with a searchlight in the nose (a variant of a night fighter), but …

But the end of Japan, and with it the Japanese aviation, was predetermined. The air superiority of American aviation simply did not make it possible to use even such good aircraft normally. Therefore, they even had to abandon the Ki-67-1c version, with more powerful engines and a bomb load increased to 1250 kg. There was no sense.

There were only suicide planes left. A small series of Ki-167 was built, an aircraft in which a Sakura-dan cumulative termite bomb was mounted behind the pilot, which appeared thanks to the technical assistance of the German allies. "Sakura-dan" weighed 2,900 kg and had a diameter of 1.6 meters, which made it possible to fit it into the fuselage of a bomber.

History has retained evidence of the Ki-167's combat missions, but there was no information about the successful use.

The Ki-67 fast bomber was also used as a carrier for two Ki-140 gliding bombs. These were the first Japanese winged bombs in the series - "Mitsubishi Type I Glide bomb, model 1". The bombs were supposed to be launched from a distance of about 10 kilometers from the target and controlled by radio. To do this, it was necessary to equip the Ki-67 carrier with instrumentation and radio control.

The bomb was a glider with short wings and a solid-propellant rocket engine that provided 75 seconds of thrust. In addition, the bomb was equipped with stabilizing gyroscopic devices connected to the horizontal tail. The warhead weight was 800 kg.

The weapon was controlled visually by radio during the flight to its target using a control complex on board the carrier aircraft. The first I-Go-IA bomb was completed in October 1944, was tested in November, and was planned for use as a military weapon in the summer of 1945.

There was an anti-ship weapon project, an analogue of I-Go-IA, "Rikagun type I Glide bomb, model 1C", or I-Go-IC was also developed, tested and even assembled in a series of 20 pieces. To use I-Go-IC, ten "Dragons" were modified and at the time of surrender they were all ready for combat use.

There was an attempt to make a heavy fighter out of the Ki-67 in the image and likeness of the Junkers-88. Back in 1943, when Japanese intelligence received information about the B-29, they decided that something had to be done with the bomber. And when it turned out that one hundred "Superfortress" would be used during the day, a proposal was born to convert the Ki-67 into a heavy fighter armed with an army 75-mm Type 88 anti-aircraft gun in the nose.

Anticipating that at long range B-29s would appear over Japan unaccompanied by fighters, the radical idea was approved and implemented into reality. Horror was named Ki-109, it differed from the standard Ki-67 with a new nose with a gun, and the defensive armament remained from the Ki-67.

But it turned out that it does not fly. The plane turned out to be too heavy. We tried to solve the problem with the help of gunpowder accelerators, and found out empirically that the plane was practically uncontrollable during such a takeoff. Then all weapons were removed from the plane, with the exception of the 12, 7-mm machine gun in the tail turret.

By March 1945, 22 Ki-109s had been manufactured. No application and win data available.

Another version of the Ki-67 based fighter was developed at the end of 1944, it was called the Ki-112 or Experimental Convoy Fighter. The aircraft had a wooden structure, which was practical at the end of the war in the reality of aluminum deficiency.

The Ki-112 was supposed to accompany unarmed aircraft such as Sakura-dan carriers and to defend against enemy fighters with a battery of eight 12, 7-mm machine guns and one 20-mm cannon. The project was closed in the summer of 1945.

And for the most part, those of the 700-odd Ki-67s that did not die in the battles, after the surrender of Japan, were simply destroyed by the occupation forces. That is, they were simply burned.