Japanese fighters - navy, army

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Japanese navy pilots did not fly the same planes as their army brothers. Navy pilots flew Zeroes & army pilots flew KI 43's. The Tony was possibly Japans best fighter in 42. If the Military policy were different & the navy pilots had gotten Tony's what difference or effect if any would this have had? Same question also regarding the Frank etc.

 

You are correct in your commentary that Japanese Naval and Army pilots each flew different aircraft. You would be incorrect to believe that these two services would even consider using joint equipment.
The inter-service rivalry between the two was incredible. Neither would have, for a moment, thought of using the other's equipment. Where arms of a common design were shared, like in rifles, each service ensured that there were distingushing differences on the gun. The Navy put their Chrysanthmum (sp) on the breech housing of rifles while the Army had a five pointed star. This denoted whether the rifle was an "Army" rifle or a "Navy" one.
In most cases, companies that produced equipment for each were expressly forbidden from sharing materials, manpower, research or, anything else with those parts of the company working for the other service. Two engineers, one working for the Army and one for the Navy having a technical discussion was generally enough to bring termination from employment!

 

Wouldn't work, neither could operate from an aircraft carrier. Tony wasn't available until April 1943, just about the time the F6F was about to make its debut and after the F4U was already in action. Frank was a nice try, too, but too late, coming out in 1944. Even if the IJN had switched to either of these for its land based units, their pilot pool was pretty well drained.

Results of USN fighters vs these two types for the last year of the war, 1 September 1944 to 15 August 1945:

Format is US VF Type vs Japanese VF Type - US Credits to Known US Loss.

F6F vs Ki-61 - 275 to 11
F6F vs Ki-84 - 114 to 12

F4U or FG vs Ki-61 - 60 to 2
F4U or FG vs Ki-84 - 28 to 4

FM2 vs Ki-61 - 29 to 0
FM2 vs Ki-84 - 0 to 0

3 USN Types vs Ki-61 - 364 to 13
2 USN Types vs Ki-84 - 142 to 16

Regards,

Rich

 

discouraging numbers. Yes correct about Tony 43, my mistake. It could outmaneuver a Spit below 250 mph, & could outdive other Japanese planes & outroll any us fighter, harder to knock down with self sealing tanks, but with allied tactics, it didn't really matter, dive & slash. Perhaps a few japanese pilots would have survived a little longer & might've given some allied pilots a few headaches, but nothing much more than that.

wonder about performance of upgraded models of Tony, ones that overcame teething problems that is. top speed in particular as it was the only Japanese 43 vintage plane with a speed near 400. Anybody got specks on different marks of the Tony?

 

The Ki-61 came out in several models. The most significant of these was the Ki-61 I Kai(a-d). All four of these models had substancially upgraded armament and structurial strengthening that permitted higher speeds in manuvers and dives.
The last model was the Ki-61 II Kai. It had improved performance over the previous I series aircraft but was not produced in any large numbers as it went into production in September of 1944.
The Ki-100 using the Army Type 4 radial (Mitsubishi Ha 32 / 62 radial engine on the same airframe proved to be almost as good as the inline engined Ki-61 models.
As to better aircraft, the Navy's Kawanishi N1K1-J and N1K2-J Shiden and Shiden-Kai along with the Army's Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate both proved far superior in performance. The Ki-84 has been adjudged in many cases by both Allied and Japanese pilots who flew it to be superior to the P-51D Mustang in performance.
If the Ki-61 might be called the Japanese Me-109 then the Ki-84 was definitely their Fw 190D Dora. The Kawanishi model might be called their Fw-190A-8.
Also in the running are the Mitsubishi J2M Raiden and the Nakajima Ki-44 Shoki. Both of these were no slackers either.

 

I like the Frank better than the KI-100 as it went 427 or so. The George, according to Saburo Sakai went over 400, he said it was faster than the Hellcat & could outclimb the Zero. But for 43, the Tony was the best.