Nice video, but one mistake. The French interpreter who spoke Japanese and worked with the US government at the end of the war in the PACTHINTs screwed up most of the Japanese navy aircraft speeds. The Japanese army air force used Kph, but the Navy used Knots but he wrote this speed as Mph.. I spotted this error when I read through all of the PACTHINTs in the early 2000s and tried spreading this to the community. What this means is that the N1K2-J top speed was a bit over 400mph. I was originally confused because I had read the USAAC directive given to P51 pilots that the N1K2 was faster than the P51 at 15000ft or less. So, yeah, George is faster than most people realize.
I do not know of the source that you're speaking of, but there is a Japanese book that virtually all post-war scholarship gets its performance data from called "General View of Japanese Military Aircraft in The Pacific War" which compiles from numerous Japanese sources the top speeds of each aircraft. Some of the performance data is reconstructed from memory as many Japanese firms burned their documents at the end of the war. The main editor was Kazuo Baba but its authors and contributors include Hideya Ando, Tsuyoshi Ido, Chikanobu Yokomori, and many more involved in the development of such aircraft. The book remains the most important source on Japanese aircraft performance to this day. But there's one problem: Virtually all of the performance numbers in this book are slightly slower than you would expect. They use both knots and KPH. The mistake it makes is this: The Japanese used maximum continuous military power to arrive at top speed rather than War Emergency Power. WEP is around 4% faster than military speed. For example, the Japanese considered the A6M2 Zero as having a top speed of 332 MPH. However, Saburo Sakai said it made 345 MPH with "overboost". As such, it seems you can add around 4% to arrive at the WEP or Overboost speed of any Japanese aircraft. This would mean the error was in translating "continuous military speed" into "top speed". But even with that in mind, the N1K2's early models only made about 384 MPH, still probably slower than a Hellcat. Later models would have further refinements, such as a longer propeller. But how fast these were is unknown to me.
@@kannony5393 General View was written in large part sourcing from the PacThInts. It is a secondary source and of limited value. For example, the Japanese navy never felt the A6M2's top speed was 332mph. That number came from a poorly run American test of a captured Zero in '42. The aircraft was both in poor repair and the pilot was not allowed to run war emergency power.
Don't forget that the US was developing new fighters (Bearcat, Tigercat) and improvised variants of the P-51, P-47, P-38, and Corsair at the same time. The edge of the Shiden would have been short-lived. Most military-technical advantages don't last very long. The new American planes didn't get into action because the war was almost over and they just weren't worth the additional production and distribution costs. Plus, there weren't enough Shidens to be that great a threat and by then most Japanese pilots were inexperienced and poorly trained.
All very true, but it is still impressive that Japan despite its abysmal state by 1945 developed one of the best piston fighters of WW2, even if it was only for a short while. Just like the me262 is rightly remembered as a dominate paradigm shifting aircraft it was never going to be enough to save Germany at that point either.
@@-Zevin- Impressive they could build anything in 1945 really considering the lack of resources and Allied bombing, but as far as the design of the George, it's only real advantage over the F6F and F4U was the clever automatic flap system. Otherwise, the George was designed more along the lines of Western fighters - bigger, heavier, faster, better armed, and actually not as nimble as previous IJN fighters. The nimbleness of the Zero (it's main advantage) was only usable in a low speed dog fight. As the Fighting Tigers knew, at high speeds, the Zero didn't handle worth a damn while the P-40 was an excellent handler at high speed and in dives, and its airframe was robust enough to survive much higher Gs than the Japanese planes. Once the Allies started fighting to their own aircraft's advantage instead of Japans, the Zero's deadliness was greatly mitigated. It was for this reason the George was the most Western fighter Japan made.
My other source contradicts IHYLS on inexperienced pilots' ability to fly the George Kai with the automatic flaps when the whole point of automatic flaps is to relieve the pilot of workload over manual flaps, thereby assisting combat by inexperienced pilots. Allies also gave names to almost all Japanese types including Zeke, Betty, Tony and Frank. The Frank and Ki100 (which didn't get a name), were late war contemporaries of the George. The Ki100, like the Russian La5, was essentially a Tony with a radial engine; so it might still have been a Tony.
@@alan6832 In some postwar document Ki-100 is referred to as radial Tony, but it doesn't seem to have been an official designation. It simply didn't get a name. Somehow Allies were unable to identify it as a new plane and simply reported it as something else or unknown. This is likely because it was developed in just few weeks and only really deployed in Japan, thus Allies could not inspect even a wreck. It seems like the only Ki-100 ever to have been used outside Japan was the single one now sitting in a museum in UK.
This was an interesting and informative video, but I was disappointed to again hear several old bits of generally accepted knowledge now known to be incorrect. Early A6Ms lacked armour and self-sealing fuel tanks that made them vulnerable to enemy fire, but they weren't "flimsy"; structurally the airframe was quite strong, and Japanese aluminum alloys at the time were more advanced than those employed in the US. Early Pacific War fighters like the F4F gave a good accounting of themselves, too, and certainly weren't getting shot down in droves as the video implies. Fighting over Guadalcanal in 1942-1943 ended with a kill ratio of nearly 6:1 in favour of the Wildcat.
That kill ratio is not against zeros only. This often confuses people when one plane has a kill ration of 12 to 1 in the case of the zero and its opponent has a kill ratio of 1 to 6 being the f4f
I think the fragile reference is to the idea of one bullet hitting the gas tank and the plane blows up. Resulting in a lot of high quality aluminum falling into the Pacific. I was paying attention to the video were you?
Agreed. And early in the war neither the F4F, the F2A or the Spitfire had armor and self sealing tanks, so the Zero wasn't all that unusual for 1940 to late 1942.
Thank you so much for covering this aircraft it's massively underrated and one of my favorite Japanese aircraft possibly second only to the ki-61 and the A7m both of which i hope get their own videos in the future
Late war Japanese fighters were absolute monsters. If Japan still had good pilots to operate them, the story would probably be different. Not forgetting the J7W.
I love the lines of the Zero. In its day it was the best. I have a model of Saburo Sakai's Zero with its beautiful livery. My next model will be the Kate, also a beautiful looking aircraft.
A fully Operational George was sold in the early 70's from the Planes of Fame Museum to Japan. The Industrialist flew It and cared for It and on his passing..... It fell into a bad state. From what I can gather It was rescued and is now on display at the Kamikaze Museum in Japan. Such a prize .. the full story behind It is worthy of a book... !!
Has anyone wondered why the Japanese Navy's numbering scheme for aircraft designs was so similar to that used by the US Navy? For instance, carrier based fighters were "A", followed by a number that denotes the number of that type were made by a particular company, then a letter designating the company, and then another number designating the subtype. The "Claude" was the A5M (fifth Mitsubishi carrier based fighter design), the Zero was the A6M, the Raiden the J2M. The George, here, is a little odd, because it started out as a floatplane fighter (N) and became a land-based fighter (J). I suppose the N1K1-J was so similar to the original N1K they didn't name it the J1K, but the N1K1-J instead. The second iteration became the N1K2-J. As I recall, the Japanese Navy's traditions were modeled after the Royal Navy, but perhaps it was different when it came to Naval Aviation. There's a Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_military_aircraft_designation_systems The lettering scheme for types even includes the "X" prefix for experimental aircraft.
Decades ago I got to crawl all over the one on display at Pensacola. VERY INTERESTING for a mech/aerospace engineer versed in materials science and economics. In short, they did a lot on a tight budget with meager resources. The result is one of my favorite aircraft of the period.
This was a very informative video as I am interested in the more less well known Japanese aircraft. I would enjoy some similar videos on the Jack and Claude. Thanks again
You did good job researching the differences between the variants. The Shiden Kai was faster than you reported. There are a few interviews of Japanese aces online. They used this plane against B29s.
Thank you for covering this little known chapter of the Pacific war. The Shinden Kai’s (aka George) performance was a match to the Hellcat and to a degree , the Corsair. But hindered by production limitations, as well as shortage of qualified pilots, it was too little, too late. But when they were flown veterans and aces like the legendary 343rd, they proved themselves formidable against the US Navy pilots. Finding information about their encounters are very difficult to find.
Well, playing Japan on War Thunder, I've learned that the A6M has one of the first defensive countermeasures available on a fighter. You see, upon receiving enemy fire, the Zero's tail section promptly jettisons from the rest of the aircraft, confusing the enemy into thinking there are now two Zeros. 😊
I remember around 10 years ago when the Japanese tree was tiny and ended with the Ki-200. Back then, the N1K-J was THE top tier fighter of the Japanese and an absolute a beast of a plane. Truly iconic. Of course, as the tech trees grew bigger and bigger, the Shiden lost relevance and dominance. I haven't touched the game in years (and don't plan to), but seeing this video made me nostalgic of my early WT days. Pretty sure the N1K2 was still at the top of my Air RB leaderboard when I stopped playing.
@@gekko434 The N1K2-J has gotten nerfed a couple of times, don't keep your hopes up. So not only has the game moved past it, but it's simply not what it used to be.
I could be wrong, but I think I remember reading somewhere that the Zero was given priority production not just because it was easier and cheaper to build, but because it was a INJ fighter and the Navy held more political sway than the George, which I believe was an IJA project.
I believe there was a dogfight over the Kanto Plain outside Tokyo during the summer of 1945 involving a squadron of Shiden Kai (plus Zeros) and Hellcats. There were losses on both sides.
I like this video, but to give us a better perspective of the N1K series you should do a video on the Zero. The IJN realized that the Zero was o by outdated 1944 but kept the same engine/airframe combo in production for the remainder of the war. The Zero never had an engine that provided much more than 1200hp, and that really hurt the design. Even when the Japanese would add more safety features to the airframe the limited Sakea engine was kept.
@@guyfaux5010 Yes, I do agree with yor point. The choices they made in creating the Zero made it into a legend and kept the design formidable all the way through1943, but not past that point. After that point the Allies were closing in on Japan herself and the IJNAF was taking some loses. Pilots were asking for more from their government in the form of better equipment and one result was the introduction of the George. In the interim, however, Mitsubishi and Zero pilots were trying to squeeze ever more out of the zero by adding tweeks here and there while trying to keep weight down. Japanese pilots were trying to fight in these planes by omitting equipment like radios and even cannon shells. The Saeae engine was the right choice for the Zero from 1939 to mid 1943, but should have been replaced by the Kinsei 62 engine of 1560hp just before 1944 to create the A6m6. This was a very doable move and would have given their pilots a better chance to fight and survive much later in the war.
@@guyfaux5010 I can agree with your point that numerical superiority is preferred over technological advancements, but there is an argument to be made for better quality as well. To your example, thousands and thousands of Tiger tanks and Me-262s were not going to help Germany in late 1944-1945, I agree. But we should realize that Germany lost World War 2 due to bad decisions made in 1941-1942, like not finishing off the British in North Africa or Invading the USSR or declaring war on the US on a whim. These are big examples but a really important, overlooked blunder was the Germans not replacing the Me-109 during this time frame with another piston engine fighter, like the ME-309, during this time frame. This move could have given the Germans more room to introduce newer jet aircraft under more favorable conditions. As for Japan, I agree with you that Japan was doomed to fighting a defensive war after losing at Midway. The Zero was still kicking ass in the Pacific at this time and would be a real problem through 1943. It was around this time that the George was beginning to take shape and when Mitsubishi began the A6m4 program, an attempt to add more power to the Zero using a turbo charged Sakae engine. This program failed and was followed by the A6m5, which was meant as an interim solution. Mitsubishi knew that the Zero needed more power, and they had the perfect engine, the kinsei MK8P engine available. This upgrade could have been done sooner and would have stretched the ability of the Zero further. This would not have won Japan the war, but it would have given their airmen a fighting chance later in the war. I do agree with IHYLS that 6300 Georges would not have made as much of a difference, but not for the reasons he gave. The George was powered by the Nakajima Homare engine. It was powerful and compact but unreliable, and would lead to a good bit of George fighters grounded for maintenance reasons. The upgraded Zero that I propose would be better able to meet the Hellcat on equal terms, when compared to Sakae powered Zeros and still be more reliable and familiar than the George.
No soy un experto, solo un aficionado, pienso que, la ligera Célula del Cero, tal vez no habría soportado un motor de la categoría de los 2000 H.P. Pero de haber podido hacerlo, con blindaje y su reconocida agilidad, habría estado igualado a los F4U y F4F de la U.S. Navy aunque no fuese tan veloz como ellos. En "Cero un Caza Famoso" de Martín Caidin, Jiro Orikoshi, diseñador del avión, se quejaba de que la Marina se entrometia mucho en el tema de los motores, entre otras cosas.. Eso también pudo influir.. Saludos.
Why was there a picture of a Royal Observer Corp. spotter standing on a roof in London, England (St. Paul’s Cathedral in the background). I’m pretty sure that A6M Zeros never served in the European theatre….
I second that! 🙂 Although I would have wished for at least a mention of the Ki-84, which was the other top Japanese fighter that saw action in numbers in the later years of WWII.
Actually Spitfires operated in the Pacific… Mitsubishi built Junkers G.38’s derivatives (K.51) under license as the Ki-20. The Japanese also operated the He112 as the A7He1 and a locally built version of the Me163 as the Mitsubishi Shusui (which was a dedicated Kamikaze aircraft).
Given that the Kai's only significant advantage over American fighters in the late war was it's ability to turn tighter in dogfights, and Americans had been trained for years NOT to get into dogfights, and instead play to their aircraft's strengths (greater speed, heavier armament, heavier armor, usually greater numbers) by using "zoom and boom" tactics: Coming in, in a fast dive, hammering the enemy, and then zooming back up.... superior speed, altitude and superior numbers, information management and organization allowed the American pilots to decide when and where engagements took place... if outnumbered, they could just avoid the fight until reinforcements arrived.... That turning advantage wouldn't amount to anything if American pilots stuck to their training. It is telling that even given the best planes, Japan's best pilots could only "hold their own" against an average American unit in the late war.
I'd bet the number difference is likely a result of the difference in production capabilities between the companies. Nakajima was the main supplier of army fighters and various bombers for both the army and navy, Kawanishi on the other hand mainly produced modest quantities of floatplanes and flying boats before the N1K.
6:04 WW2 engine power was wild! I guess when you have pretty much an unlimited fuel budget, you don’t bother building for economy. I think today there are plenty of 170hp Cessnas buzzing around… Compare that to a 2000hp warbird! Pure insanity, I love that about these amazing old planes. The engineers were really pushing the technology hard.
The only computer game that I've ever played was Combat Flight Simulator II - The Pacific. You had your choice of a lot of great planes, but the one that I settled on was the George. I was no great pilot, but if I got in trouble I could out-turn any American plane and end up behind them. With four 20's just a short burst was enough. Great fun, great plane.
I had heard of the 'George' but never really read about its combat capabilities, especially the Kai variant. Japan's resources were getting pretty stretched by late war, and its a testament to their skills to work with what they have to produce fast and maneuverable aircraft like the George and Frank fighters which took a toll on B-29 bombers.
I believe the Allied fighter defensive maneuver is properly written as the “Thatch Weave” (not “Thach”), and is named after the technique of weaving plant fibers together to form a water-tight thatch roof. ETA: DISREGARD THE ABOVE, as I am in error. “Thach” is the inventor of the technique, as noted by ‘@mills need’ below Thanks for the great videos. I especially like the Cool Logo! : )
My favorite plane to fly in Air Warrior in the Pacific arena and also the choice of Air Warrior top ace Bogus. It can out run anything it can't out fight and out fight anything it can't out run. With 20 mm cannons, it packs a good punch. Most called them Niki in Air Warrior. They didn't even model the automatic flaps control which would make them even better. I had no problem taking out F6F, F4U, P51, P38, S9, A6M, Ki84. Very few flew Nikis so not everyone were successful with them.
They did not give US planes "a run for their money". The Japanese were fielding a relative motley group of fighters against US types that had been actively winning the war for several years. By 1944, Corsairs, Hellcats, and Mustangs were stagnating in performance a bit due to US commitment to finish off the Germans and Japanese with currently designed aircraft mass produced in significant numbers. Japanese were using what they could "cobble" together to create an air defense and were very handicapped due to fuel quality, lack of resources, ect. Not that they couldn't design effective warplanes, they could, they just could not produce them in sufficient quantity or quality. They had guns, American pilots were aggressive, often over-aggressive so there would be successes by individual Japanese aircraft against individual Americans fighting the Japanese in the Japanese performance envelope. However, the American aircraft flown properly could operate outside the Japanese performance envelopes.
F4F was, as you say, a bit slower at level, and slower at climbing, and less maneuverable. I don't know if it was slower in a dive, but it was definitely far, far tougher. And with the Thach Weave (so many people mis-spell it "thatch") and better training, I think even Wildcats could fight zeros on an at least even footing. Wildcats actually turned the tide. As good as Hellcats and Corsairs were, the Japanese were already on the run by the time they showed up.
The other factor regarding Zero Vs Kai production would be maintenance. If you have an airfield in the middle of the Pacific, or there abouts, and a new model of aircraft rolls up requiring new procedures, new schedules, new parts well that's not a good day.
The image of George Costanza flying for the Japanese imperial airforce has to be one of my favourite hypothetical scenarios. Just him smiling and waving as he circles overhead... or would that be George CAStanza?
Those interested in reading an Ohka pilot's account of flying the 'Baka Bomb' should check out the current on-line issue of 'Flight Journal'. It was written by one of the very few men who actually flew the Ohka and survived the war.
You missed a serious issue in production decisions. A process of switching assembly lines from building zeros to building Georges would have cost a considerable amount of effort, resources, and disruption. That was presumably a strong argument in favor of continuing to build zeros instead of switching production lines that had been building zeros (including suppliers that built components for zeros) over to building newer models.
The first American to be taken prisoner by the Japanese was named George. George is a really strange name to the Japanese ear, the two "Je" sounds either side of a "or". The name George became a slang name for all Americans . "The George" was too a slang name, it was originally, unofficially named "George Killer" which was shortened (the name not the aeroplane) and then officially the beautifully engineered machine was named "The George".
Badly irrelevant? "George" wasn't a name ever used by Japanese forces, it was a shorthand among American flight crews for an otherwise un-named new Japanese fighter, when it appeared. During the Pacific War, all Japanese warplanes got anglicized common names for speed and brevity in combat and ground control communications. Occasionally several Japanese types got the same name, till more familiarity with the types was gained. The same process continues among NATO forces, with short, easily distinguished names for each of the USSR/Russian/Warsaw Pact warplanes.
15:58 "not all 14 planes were shot out of the sky..." The American Navy by late 1944 did not bother repairing severely damaged carrier aircraft, as the space on the carrier could not be spared. and replacement aircraft were already on the way ... if it couldn't be made to fly quickly (and maybe repaired further elsewhere), it was stripped of anything in short supply and pushed overboard. The most important/expensive (in terms of both time and resources) part of the system was the well trained pilot ..... which American doctrine (from robust and well armored aircraft designs with self-sealing fuel tanks, to rotating experienced pilots back to the States to pass on their knowledge to new pilots, to spending much time and effort on Search and Rescue operations) did a much better job at both preserving and creating than Japanese doctrine.
Excellent remark. Add to this that US warplanes were also hit by ground fire (and not brought down by N1Ks). Unlike the Americans, this was a threat that Japanese pilots weren't exposed to over their own territory.
Making fun of the American naming system is really not a good look for you. They were designed to be short and easy to remember as the Allies had difficulties with the complex Japanese type, shi (IJN)/Ki- (IJA) and short designation systems. The IJN short letter-number-letter-number designations were the easiest to understand. The first letter identified the type of plane: A = carrier fighter; B = carrier attack bomber; C = carrier reconnaissance plane; D = carrier dive bomber; E = reconnaissance floatplane; G = land based heavy bomber; H = flying boat; J = land based fighter; N = floatplane fighter. The following number showed where it stood in line with the type, and the following letter, the manufacturer. Thus the Mitsubishi A5M (Claude) was followed by the A6M Zero. The last number showed the variant of the type. However, if an aircraft was changed to a different role, the initial code was kept and another letter added at the end to show the new role. Thus you get the A6M2-N (Rufe) when the Zero was converted to a floatplane fighter. So it was with the N1K (Rex). When it was converted to a land based fighter, it became the N1K1-J/N1K2-J. One of the best references is "Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War' by René J. Francillon. 570 pages packed with just about everything you wanted to know about not only the aircraft but the information connected to them.
There are a lot of things it is important to consider when talking about the air war in the Pacific. You've covered a lot of them but here's my 2c anyway. Even when the Japanese had the upper hand in the air cracks were starting to show. Sure they were winning mostly, but even in that position they were having problems replacing planes and more importantly air crew. The Japanese method of training air crew was slow, very slow. Losses aren't just men killed, it's men injured, captured or just missing as the Japanese were not very good at finding and rescuing downed pilots. Then there's just plain operational losses, bad landings, damaged airframes, accidents, it all adds up. By mid 44 the Marianas Turkey shoot happened, because by this time the US had plenty of experienced and or well trained pilots and more than enough aircraft that could get the job done. It was the reverse for the Japanese. They were quickly running out of everything. One thing that doesn't get mentioned much is the state of Japan's fuel supply. They were running out and they were compensating by brewing their own fuel, and it was awful, and it had a detrimental effect of aircraft performance. You also mentioned the Zero was still being made. They did make different models as the war went on, as upgraded as they could make them, but they kept making them because they were still tooled up to do so and it was the aircraft they could get out in numbers. It's really the same story for the axis air forces everywhere. They did make some great planes that in some cases had a performance edge here and there, but they were never able to get the numbers they needed to make a sufficient dent in Allied numbers. The allies didn't really have to make the best planes out there, just good enough, in numbers with well trained and supplied air forces.
Yes at 250kt the controls started to get stiff. And by 300kt they pretty much froze up. Which is why US planes were told to keep at 300Kt or better when fighting the Zero and if they fell below that speed to break off and dive to pick up their speed again.
A 12-1 kill ratio wasn't hard to achieve when Japanese pilots had 5 years of combat experience when the war "started" and their opposition was Brewster Buffalos and Fokker DXXIs. Against F4Fs that shrugged off a pair of 7.7mm (the 20mm were low velocity and only carried 60 rounds apiece) it was a whole different game.
They should have just tried to greatly strengthen the landing gear by thickening it and specialy heat treating the alloys. The biggest problem for the Japanese was their inability to convert production of Shiden to the Shiden-Kai instead.
"Kai" is actually Japanese for "modified" or "improved." Maybe the best way to refer to these planes in English would be the "Supergeorge." Or heck, wouldn't kill us to say "Shiden-kai."
How was Japan fueling their aircraft? Germany had synthetic fuels from abundant coal. US had Texas and 150 octane thanks to Doolittle's foresight. *Well produced clip, thanks for posting*
We usually don't find articles about military aviation that are impartial and non-partisan. And we all know what sustains "specialized publications" and even the mainstream press...
The advantage of the Japanese was primarily an Allied lack of experience. Attempting to turn with a Zero was never going to work, and when the Americans adjusted they're tactics, and ( hugely important ) American logistical advantage.
Total production of N1K1-J and N1K2-J was just about 1,435... not a lot of 'em. 10,000 P-38s were made.. 15,000+ F4Us, 15,000+ P-51s, etc.... Performance: Maximum speed: 571 km/h (355 mph, 308 kn) at 3,500 kg (7,717 lb) at sea level, 656 km/h (408 mph) at 6,100 m (20,000 ft) Range: 1,078 km (670 mi, 582 nmi) at 272 km/h (169 mph) at 460 m (1,500 ft), 813 km (505 mi) at 75% Vmax at 391 km/h (243 mph) at 460 m (1,500 ft) Ferry range: 1,746 km (1,085 mi, 943 nmi) maximum with drop tank at 269 km/h (167 mph) at 460 m (1,500 ft), 1,078 km (670 mi) at 75% Vmax at 381.5 km/h (237.1 mph) at 460 m (1,500 ft) Service ceiling: 12,009 m (39,400 ft) Rate of climb: 19.7 m/s (3,880 ft/min) at 3,500 kg (7,717 lb) at sea level, 4,065 ft/min at 3,500 kg (7,717 lb) at 1,798 m (5,900 ft) Time to altitude: 3,000 m (10,000 ft) in 2 minutes 36 seconds, 6,100 m (20,000 ft) in 5 minutes 36 seconds Bomb load: 550 lb. A good plane but not, repeat, not, the best in the Pacific. We had P-38, P-47, P-51, F4U, F6F for our top planes. Most could outdo those figures.
Really good documentary. While the Zero was boss in a "Dog Fight" the Japanese should have started development & deployment but they really lacked the manufacturing ability to match the USA. Thanks.
It's a bit of a shot in the dark, but an image from the attack on Pearl Harbor would be my guess. Though I don't recall seeing the image before, and haven't found it yet.
3:30 The comparison of manoeuvrability between the Zero and the F6F and F4U is completely wrong. The US planes were incapable of such manoevurability for a host of technical reasons. The Zero was probably the best dogfighter of WW2 but only at slow speed. The F6F and F4U were never designed nor operated as slow speed dogfighters. They used their speed and ability to gain altitude to their tactical advantage. Designing a plane that is difficult to build and difficult to fly when you know you are running out of good pilots, spares and is forced to fly using crap fuel, could be argued that someone is not trying to win the war!!
Once the Japanese planes were fueled with American fuel which a much higher quality, the Americans were amazed by the performance of these Japanese planes . Once again as with Germany , oil was the linchpin for the Axis powers.
Zero's lack of armor problem was mostly a myth. Even 10mm armor plate would do little vs .50 cal. Bigger problem was lack of self sealing fuel tanks. This indeed was an issue. But armor wouldn't have helped much. Zero's biggest problems were low speed and lack of good v. high (above 500 IAS) speed controllability. At If F4U or F6F kept speed high, but still in the range where Zero could theoretically turn better, the limiting factor wasn't plane's maneuvrability, but pilot's G-tolerance. In other words - Zero would win low speed fights and sustained but those were effectively avoided by much faster and better armed US planes.
17:37 shone shōn, shŏn noun Preterit and past participle of shine. verb Simple past tense and past participle of shine..... thank you for your attention 😉
Main reason that Zero was more produced was that Kawanishi factory got smaller capacity as Nakajima and Mitsubishi - als is not true that there has been completely outclassed, it has been modernised, Corsair has been superior but Hellcat heavy and got only 50 km/h higher speed as Zero 52 - Mitsubishi failed with Zero successors - Reppu and waste time for Raiden - both planed to replace of Zero - so it created opportunity for George
There was almost a dozen of great aircraft which: 1. never got into production in sufficient numbers 2. the factory was srewed up by bombings and the quality was not really great of the final product 3. the pilots were inexperienced and/or unmotivated Just right here the Series 5 Italian fighters: Reggiane Re.2005, Macchi C.205, Fiat G.55. For Japanese there was the Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate (okay, the numbers were at least something), Kawasaki Ki-100 Hien II, Kawanishi N1K Shiden series, Mitsubishi J2M Raiden,, Kawasaki Ki-102 "Randy", Mitsubishi Ki-83... and I only talked about fighters, and there were many more class of aircrafts.
Thank you for the great video. It goes wonderfully with what I am currently reading: Pacific War from Guadalcanal onwards. As I read I pick up precious pieces of the puzzle like your video. The first half of the Pacific War lasted for six months, the second half three years. Also, aircraft carriers didn't have a role in the most crucial year of 1943, during which Japanese ships, skilled pilots, and resources were depleted.
In the.last years of the war the IJN was taking 80 % losses in just flying from point A to point B with on combat involved. That is why the IJN went to kamikaze attacks. They lacked the pilots with the ability to fly advanced planes.
Chuck Yeager flew them all. When asked his favorite he immediately answered Bearcat. I'm not going to second-guess him. It's a neat plane in part because of its compromises: it had to be small enough to fly from escort carriers, and, they had realized that no fighting in the Pacific was at high altitude. So it was small and simplified for less weight and cheaper production. It didn't have as complicated a supercharger. But within its parameters, it was insanely great, especially at climb speed. My personal favorite fighter of the era, even though it wasn't ready for the war, was the Tigercat I guess. I think it's kind of a shame the naval fighters weren't considered for land duty.
Truth of the matter was good designs , but poorly made . At the beginning of 1944 the Japaneses industries were feeling the pinch of not having any raw materials. Only about a thousand being produced , Hellcats a different story 600 in March 1944 . Corsairs not quite the same but close.
Looking at head-to-head combat results is misleading if Kais were consistently flown by pilots among the best Japan had while the planes the Kais fought against were flown by a random mix of American pilots. In particular, Kai pilots could get kills against Hellcat and Corsair pilots who weren't especially talented and had little actual combat experience. If your depiction is accurate, there were far fewer opportunities for Hellcat and Corsair pilots to get kills against Kai pilots who weren't especially talented and had little or no combat experience. That is the reverse of the usual situation later in the war where advantages of American fighter planes were exacerbated by deficiencies in the skill and experience of Japanese pilots.
It's unpopular to say but I prefer the Hellcat. The Corsair was better in the fight, I'll grant. But it was a LOT more dangerous in ground handling, so the pilot survival rate was the same. And, the Corsair cost 50% more. If you just compare top speed and kill ratio, the Corsair looks like the better plane, but the US could have done the exact same job with the Hellcat a LOT more cheaply, and just as safely. War is really about production and logistics, and the Hellcat was simply better in these respects.
I agree that the F6F Hellcat was the more effective fighter overall. And contrary to what you said, the Hellcat had the superior kill/loss ratio of 19:1 vs 11:1 for the F4U Corsair. You are right that the Corsair was the faster of the two in level flight by 10-30 mph (altitude and configuration dependant ), but the Hellcat was decidingly better in a dive and could also out-turn the Corsair in most if not all situations. It was also noted by the US Navy that the Hellcat was more survivable in combat, most likely due to extra armor protection and better location of oil coolers on the F6F. .
@@darrenwhiteside1619 Yes the Hellcat could way out-turn the Corsair at lower speeds (e.g., when not G-limited) but it's not that important because Hellcats didn't fight Corsairs. They fought mostly Japanese planes, and they didn't fight them in turning battles for the most part.
Nice video, but one mistake. The French interpreter who spoke Japanese and worked with the US government at the end of the war in the PACTHINTs screwed up most of the Japanese navy aircraft speeds. The Japanese army air force used Kph, but the Navy used Knots but he wrote this speed as Mph.. I spotted this error when I read through all of the PACTHINTs in the early 2000s and tried spreading this to the community.
What this means is that the N1K2-J top speed was a bit over 400mph. I was originally confused because I had read the USAAC directive given to P51 pilots that the N1K2 was faster than the P51 at 15000ft or less. So, yeah, George is faster than most people realize.
That makes sense. I was wondering why a more advanced plane, with a more powerful engine, would be slower than earlier aircraft.
However, at most altitudes the P-51D had the edge.
Thank you, this makes a lot of sense
I do not know of the source that you're speaking of, but there is a Japanese book that virtually all post-war scholarship gets its performance data from called "General View of Japanese Military Aircraft in The Pacific War" which compiles from numerous Japanese sources the top speeds of each aircraft. Some of the performance data is reconstructed from memory as many Japanese firms burned their documents at the end of the war. The main editor was Kazuo Baba but its authors and contributors include Hideya Ando, Tsuyoshi Ido, Chikanobu Yokomori, and many more involved in the development of such aircraft. The book remains the most important source on Japanese aircraft performance to this day. But there's one problem: Virtually all of the performance numbers in this book are slightly slower than you would expect. They use both knots and KPH.
The mistake it makes is this:
The Japanese used maximum continuous military power to arrive at top speed rather than War Emergency Power. WEP is around 4% faster than military speed. For example, the Japanese considered the A6M2 Zero as having a top speed of 332 MPH. However, Saburo Sakai said it made 345 MPH with "overboost". As such, it seems you can add around 4% to arrive at the WEP or Overboost speed of any Japanese aircraft. This would mean the error was in translating "continuous military speed" into "top speed".
But even with that in mind, the N1K2's early models only made about 384 MPH, still probably slower than a Hellcat. Later models would have further refinements, such as a longer propeller. But how fast these were is unknown to me.
@@kannony5393 General View was written in large part sourcing from the PacThInts. It is a secondary source and of limited value.
For example, the Japanese navy never felt the A6M2's top speed was 332mph.
That number came from a poorly run American test of a captured Zero in '42. The aircraft was both in poor repair and the pilot was not allowed to run war emergency power.
Don't forget that the US was developing new fighters (Bearcat, Tigercat) and improvised variants of the P-51, P-47, P-38, and Corsair at the same time. The edge of the Shiden would have been short-lived. Most military-technical advantages don't last very long. The new American planes didn't get into action because the war was almost over and they just weren't worth the additional production and distribution costs. Plus, there weren't enough Shidens to be that great a threat and by then most Japanese pilots were inexperienced and poorly trained.
All very true, but it is still impressive that Japan despite its abysmal state by 1945 developed one of the best piston fighters of WW2, even if it was only for a short while. Just like the me262 is rightly remembered as a dominate paradigm shifting aircraft it was never going to be enough to save Germany at that point either.
@@-Zevin- Impressive they could build anything in 1945 really considering the lack of resources and Allied bombing, but as far as the design of the George, it's only real advantage over the F6F and F4U was the clever automatic flap system. Otherwise, the George was designed more along the lines of Western fighters - bigger, heavier, faster, better armed, and actually not as nimble as previous IJN fighters. The nimbleness of the Zero (it's main advantage) was only usable in a low speed dog fight. As the Fighting Tigers knew, at high speeds, the Zero didn't handle worth a damn while the P-40 was an excellent handler at high speed and in dives, and its airframe was robust enough to survive much higher Gs than the Japanese planes. Once the Allies started fighting to their own aircraft's advantage instead of Japans, the Zero's deadliness was greatly mitigated. It was for this reason the George was the most Western fighter Japan made.
The most Western fighter Japan made was A7M2 Reppu.
@@-Zevin-the me262 actually had a lot of problems
@@briancrawford69 Absolutely
I'd heard about the automatic flap deployment, thanks for finding a picture of what it looks like. Very clever yet simple concept.
My other source contradicts IHYLS on inexperienced pilots' ability to fly the George Kai with the automatic flaps when the whole point of automatic flaps is to relieve the pilot of workload over manual flaps, thereby assisting combat by inexperienced pilots. Allies also gave names to almost all Japanese types including Zeke, Betty, Tony and Frank. The Frank and Ki100 (which didn't get a name), were late war contemporaries of the George. The Ki100, like the Russian La5, was essentially a Tony with a radial engine; so it might still have been a Tony.
@@alan6832 In some postwar document Ki-100 is referred to as radial Tony, but it doesn't seem to have been an official designation. It simply didn't get a name. Somehow Allies were unable to identify it as a new plane and simply reported it as something else or unknown. This is likely because it was developed in just few weeks and only really deployed in Japan, thus Allies could not inspect even a wreck. It seems like the only Ki-100 ever to have been used outside Japan was the single one now sitting in a museum in UK.
Keeping a lookout for Zeros...in London : )
This was an interesting and informative video, but I was disappointed to again hear several old bits of generally accepted knowledge now known to be incorrect. Early A6Ms lacked armour and self-sealing fuel tanks that made them vulnerable to enemy fire, but they weren't "flimsy"; structurally the airframe was quite strong, and Japanese aluminum alloys at the time were more advanced than those employed in the US. Early Pacific War fighters like the F4F gave a good accounting of themselves, too, and certainly weren't getting shot down in droves as the video implies. Fighting over Guadalcanal in 1942-1943 ended with a kill ratio of nearly 6:1 in favour of the Wildcat.
That kill ratio is not against zeros only. This often confuses people when one plane has a kill ration of 12 to 1 in the case of the zero and its opponent has a kill ratio of 1 to 6 being the f4f
To an uninformed me, that thing looks a lot like a P47?
I believe the F4F had an 1:1 kill ratio against the Zero. Which is pretty decent considering the Zero was arguably the best fighter between the two.
I think the fragile reference is to the idea of one bullet hitting the gas tank and the plane blows up. Resulting in a lot of high quality aluminum falling into the Pacific. I was paying attention to the video were you?
Agreed. And early in the war neither the F4F, the F2A or the Spitfire had armor and self sealing tanks, so the Zero wasn't all that unusual for 1940 to late 1942.
They've got a George at the National United States Air Force Museum, WWII section, over by Bocks Car. Just down the path from the Memphis Belle.
Thank you so much for covering this aircraft it's massively underrated and one of my favorite Japanese aircraft possibly second only to the ki-61 and the A7m both of which i hope get their own videos in the future
Maybe a Ki84
@@patrickgriffitt6551 love that one to
Late war Japanese fighters were absolute monsters. If Japan still had good pilots to operate them, the story would probably be different. Not forgetting the J7W.
I'm honored that they decided to name the plane after me 😊
it seems kind of lame that every other fighter gets these cool names and Ally reporting names for Japanese airplanes are just Frank, Ted And Bill
I love the lines of the Zero. In its day it was the best. I have a model of Saburo Sakai's Zero with its beautiful livery. My next model will be the Kate, also a beautiful looking aircraft.
A fully Operational George was sold in the early 70's from the Planes of Fame Museum to Japan. The Industrialist flew It and cared for It and on his passing..... It fell into a bad state.
From what I can gather It was rescued and is now on display at the Kamikaze Museum in Japan. Such a prize .. the full story behind It is worthy of a book... !!
Has anyone wondered why the Japanese Navy's numbering scheme for aircraft designs was so similar to that used by the US Navy? For instance, carrier based fighters were "A", followed by a number that denotes the number of that type were made by a particular company, then a letter designating the company, and then another number designating the subtype. The "Claude" was the A5M (fifth Mitsubishi carrier based fighter design), the Zero was the A6M, the Raiden the J2M. The George, here, is a little odd, because it started out as a floatplane fighter (N) and became a land-based fighter (J). I suppose the N1K1-J was so similar to the original N1K they didn't name it the J1K, but the N1K1-J instead. The second iteration became the N1K2-J. As I recall, the Japanese Navy's traditions were modeled after the Royal Navy, but perhaps it was different when it came to Naval Aviation. There's a Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_military_aircraft_designation_systems The lettering scheme for types even includes the "X" prefix for experimental aircraft.
Decades ago I got to crawl all over the one on display at Pensacola. VERY INTERESTING for a mech/aerospace engineer versed in materials science and economics. In short, they did a lot on a tight budget with meager resources. The result is one of my favorite aircraft of the period.
This was a very informative video as I am interested in the more less well known Japanese aircraft. I would enjoy some similar videos on the Jack and Claude. Thanks again
You did good job researching the differences between the variants. The Shiden Kai was faster than you reported. There are a few interviews of Japanese aces online. They used this plane against B29s.
Thank you for covering this little known chapter of the Pacific war. The Shinden Kai’s (aka George) performance was a match to the Hellcat and to a degree , the Corsair. But hindered by production limitations, as well as shortage of qualified pilots, it was too little, too late. But when they were flown veterans and aces like the legendary 343rd, they proved themselves formidable against the US Navy pilots. Finding information about their encounters are very difficult to find.
I do love the sympathetic video narration as much as I have a high regard of Kawanishi as an excellent aircraft manufacturer of the era.
Well, playing Japan on War Thunder, I've learned that the A6M has one of the first defensive countermeasures available on a fighter. You see, upon receiving enemy fire, the Zero's tail section promptly jettisons from the rest of the aircraft, confusing the enemy into thinking there are now two Zeros.
😊
Dang! With that feature, why didn't they put guns and another pilot back there, so they could immediately enter combat as well? 😆
I remember around 10 years ago when the Japanese tree was tiny and ended with the Ki-200. Back then, the N1K-J was THE top tier fighter of the Japanese and an absolute a beast of a plane. Truly iconic. Of course, as the tech trees grew bigger and bigger, the Shiden lost relevance and dominance. I haven't touched the game in years (and don't plan to), but seeing this video made me nostalgic of my early WT days. Pretty sure the N1K2 was still at the top of my Air RB leaderboard when I stopped playing.
@@gekko434 The N1K2-J has gotten nerfed a couple of times, don't keep your hopes up. So not only has the game moved past it, but it's simply not what it used to be.
Magnífico Documental.
Saludos.
I could be wrong, but I think I remember reading somewhere that the Zero was given priority production not just because it was easier and cheaper to build, but because it was a INJ fighter and the Navy held more political sway than the George, which I believe was an IJA project.
Toho studios made a movie about the 343 and the George Fighter. The movie was released as Wings of the Pacific, also known as Attack Squadron.
I believe there was a dogfight over the Kanto Plain outside Tokyo during the summer of 1945 involving a squadron of Shiden Kai (plus Zeros) and Hellcats. There were losses on both sides.
I like this video, but to give us a better perspective of the N1K series you should do a video on the Zero. The IJN realized that the Zero was o by outdated 1944 but kept the same engine/airframe combo in production for the remainder of the war. The Zero never had an engine that provided much more than 1200hp, and that really hurt the design. Even when the Japanese would add more safety features to the airframe the limited Sakea engine was kept.
@@guyfaux5010 Yes, I do agree with yor point. The choices they made in creating the Zero made it into a legend and kept the design formidable all the way through1943, but not past that point. After that point the Allies were closing in on Japan herself and the IJNAF was taking some loses. Pilots were asking for more from their government in the form of better equipment and one result was the introduction of the George. In the interim, however, Mitsubishi and Zero pilots were trying to squeeze ever more out of the zero by adding tweeks here and there while trying to keep weight down. Japanese pilots were trying to fight in these planes by omitting equipment like radios and even cannon shells.
The Saeae engine was the right choice for the Zero from 1939 to mid 1943, but should have been replaced by the Kinsei 62 engine of 1560hp just before 1944 to create the A6m6. This was a very doable move and would have given their pilots a better chance to fight and survive much later in the war.
@@guyfaux5010 I can agree with your point that numerical superiority is preferred over technological advancements, but there is an argument to be made for better quality as well. To your example, thousands and thousands of Tiger tanks and Me-262s were not going to help Germany in late 1944-1945, I agree. But we should realize that Germany lost World War 2 due to bad decisions made in 1941-1942, like not finishing off the British in North Africa or Invading the USSR or declaring war on the US on a whim. These are big examples but a really important, overlooked blunder was the Germans not replacing the Me-109 during this time frame with another piston engine fighter, like the ME-309, during this time frame. This move could have given the Germans more room to introduce newer jet aircraft under more favorable conditions.
As for Japan, I agree with you that Japan was doomed to fighting a defensive war after losing at Midway. The Zero was still kicking ass in the Pacific at this time and would be a real problem through 1943. It was around this time that the George was beginning to take shape and when Mitsubishi began the A6m4 program, an attempt to add more power to the Zero using a turbo charged Sakae engine. This program failed and was followed by the A6m5, which was meant as an interim solution. Mitsubishi knew that the Zero needed more power, and they had the perfect engine, the kinsei MK8P engine available. This upgrade could have been done sooner and would have stretched the ability of the Zero further. This would not have won Japan the war, but it would have given their airmen a fighting chance later in the war.
I do agree with IHYLS that 6300 Georges would not have made as much of a difference, but not for the reasons he gave. The George was powered by the Nakajima Homare engine. It was powerful and compact but unreliable, and would lead to a good bit of George fighters grounded for maintenance reasons. The upgraded Zero that I propose would be better able to meet the Hellcat on equal terms, when compared to Sakae powered Zeros and still be more reliable and familiar than the George.
No soy un experto, solo un aficionado, pienso que, la ligera Célula del Cero, tal vez no habría soportado un motor de la categoría de los 2000 H.P. Pero de haber podido hacerlo, con blindaje y su reconocida agilidad, habría estado igualado a los F4U y F4F de la U.S. Navy aunque no fuese tan veloz como ellos.
En "Cero un Caza Famoso" de Martín Caidin, Jiro Orikoshi, diseñador del avión, se quejaba de que la Marina se entrometia mucho en el tema de los motores, entre otras cosas.. Eso también pudo influir..
Saludos.
@@AngelRail-mi4cqif yak 3 can take almost 1700hp then so can the zero
Why was there a picture of a Royal Observer Corp. spotter standing on a roof in London, England (St. Paul’s Cathedral in the background). I’m pretty sure that A6M Zeros never served in the European theatre….
Really excellent video!
I second that! 🙂
Although I would have wished for at least a mention of the Ki-84, which was the other top Japanese fighter that saw action in numbers in the later years of WWII.
Shiden or Shiden-kai sounds way better and cooler than "George".
ａｎｄ, by the way, 改 (read as kai) means "revision". So, Shiden-kai means revised Shiden (Strong wind).
Exactly, and the US won't play that game. That's why we won't call the Su-75 the "Checkmate," instead the NATO reporting name will be the Femboy.
@@mogaman28 Actually, Shiden means "Purple/Violet Lightning".
The "Strong Wind" is its original seaplane fighter form, the Kyofuu.
@@karthus006 You're right, I stand corrected. 👍
The high altitude Spitfire and Junkers Ju86 must have had amazing range to get out that far. Time 1:50.
That's very interesting story of propably the highest interception of ww2
@@PunkinsSan The link to late war Japanese fighter development in the Pacific/S.E. Asia is ….
Actually Spitfires operated in the Pacific…
Mitsubishi built Junkers G.38’s derivatives (K.51) under license as the Ki-20. The Japanese also operated the He112 as the A7He1 and a locally built version of the Me163 as the Mitsubishi Shusui (which was a dedicated Kamikaze aircraft).
@@allangibson8494 How Nazi Germany got the designs to Imperial Japan is worthy of telling in its own right.
Given that the Kai's only significant advantage over American fighters in the late war was it's ability to turn tighter in dogfights, and Americans had been trained for years NOT to get into dogfights, and instead play to their aircraft's strengths (greater speed, heavier armament, heavier armor, usually greater numbers) by using "zoom and boom" tactics: Coming in, in a fast dive, hammering the enemy, and then zooming back up.... superior speed, altitude and superior numbers, information management and organization allowed the American pilots to decide when and where engagements took place... if outnumbered, they could just avoid the fight until reinforcements arrived.... That turning advantage wouldn't amount to anything if American pilots stuck to their training. It is telling that even given the best planes, Japan's best pilots could only "hold their own" against an average American unit in the late war.
The Ki-84 was probably better. Plus they produced over 3500, so they would have made more of an impact. Still, very cool plane!
I'd bet the number difference is likely a result of the difference in production capabilities between the companies. Nakajima was the main supplier of army fighters and various bombers for both the army and navy, Kawanishi on the other hand mainly produced modest quantities of floatplanes and flying boats before the N1K.
From the makers of the big flying boat, a real hotrod fighter. But too little and too late.
looks a more beautiful aircraft than the Zero. So unique, so Japanese.
6:04 WW2 engine power was wild!
I guess when you have pretty much an unlimited fuel budget, you don’t bother building for economy.
I think today there are plenty of 170hp Cessnas buzzing around… Compare that to a 2000hp warbird! Pure insanity, I love that about these amazing old planes. The engineers were really pushing the technology hard.
The only computer game that I've ever played was Combat Flight Simulator II - The Pacific. You had your choice of a lot of great planes, but the one that I settled on was the George. I was no great pilot, but if I got in trouble I could out-turn any American plane and end up behind them. With four 20's just a short burst was enough. Great fun, great plane.
I had heard of the 'George' but never really read about its combat capabilities, especially the Kai variant. Japan's resources were getting pretty stretched by late war, and its a testament to their skills to work with what they have to produce fast and maneuverable aircraft like the George and Frank fighters which took a toll on B-29 bombers.
frank was a badass perpetrator
Excellent vid dude.
I believe the Allied fighter defensive maneuver is properly written as the “Thatch Weave” (not “Thach”), and is named after the technique of weaving plant fibers together to form a water-tight thatch roof.
ETA: DISREGARD THE ABOVE, as I am in error. “Thach” is the inventor of the technique, as noted by ‘@mills need’ below
Thanks for the great videos. I especially like the Cool Logo! : )
It's named after naval aviator John S. Thach.
@@millsnerd I stand humbly corrected. Thank you.
Jimmy Thach, guy. If you didn't know the source of the maneuver, you can be forgiven because you thought it was related to textile manufacture.
The N1K2 Shiden Kai reminds me of the 1956 Get Rodan song when JSDAF jets pursue Rodan 1956
Great video
I shall fly it and I shall love it and I shall call it George.
My favorite plane to fly in Air Warrior in the Pacific arena and also the choice of Air Warrior top ace Bogus. It can out run anything it can't out fight and out fight anything it can't out run. With 20 mm cannons, it packs a good punch. Most called them Niki in Air Warrior. They didn't even model the automatic flaps control which would make them even better. I had no problem taking out F6F, F4U, P51, P38, S9, A6M, Ki84. Very few flew Nikis so not everyone were successful with them.
They did not give US planes "a run for their money". The Japanese were fielding a relative motley group of fighters against US types that had been actively winning the war for several years. By 1944, Corsairs, Hellcats, and Mustangs were stagnating in performance a bit due to US commitment to finish off the Germans and Japanese with currently designed aircraft mass produced in significant numbers. Japanese were using what they could "cobble" together to create an air defense and were very handicapped due to fuel quality, lack of resources, ect. Not that they couldn't design effective warplanes, they could, they just could not produce them in sufficient quantity or quality. They had guns, American pilots were aggressive, often over-aggressive so there would be successes by individual Japanese aircraft against individual Americans fighting the Japanese in the Japanese performance envelope. However, the American aircraft flown properly could operate outside the Japanese performance envelopes.
Yes, the U.S. produced many more F6Fs and F4Us, and it also produced quite a few P-38s, P-47s, and P-51s.
F4F was, as you say, a bit slower at level, and slower at climbing, and less maneuverable. I don't know if it was slower in a dive, but it was definitely far, far tougher. And with the Thach Weave (so many people mis-spell it "thatch") and better training, I think even Wildcats could fight zeros on an at least even footing. Wildcats actually turned the tide. As good as Hellcats and Corsairs were, the Japanese were already on the run by the time they showed up.
The other factor regarding Zero Vs Kai production would be maintenance. If you have an airfield in the middle of the Pacific, or there abouts, and a new model of aircraft rolls up requiring new procedures, new schedules, new parts well that's not a good day.
The image of George Costanza flying for the Japanese imperial airforce has to be one of my favourite hypothetical scenarios.
Just him smiling and waving as he circles overhead...
or would that be George CAStanza?
My boy Ki-84 has sometning to say about which one is best...
Those interested in reading an Ohka pilot's account of flying the 'Baka Bomb' should check out the current on-line issue of 'Flight Journal'. It was written by one of the very few men who actually flew the Ohka and survived the war.
You missed a serious issue in production decisions. A process of switching assembly lines from building zeros to building Georges would have cost a considerable amount of effort, resources, and disruption. That was presumably a strong argument in favor of continuing to build zeros instead of switching production lines that had been building zeros (including suppliers that built components for zeros) over to building newer models.
The first American to be taken prisoner by the Japanese was named George. George is a really strange name to the Japanese ear, the two "Je" sounds either side of a "or". The name George became a slang name for all Americans . "The George" was too a slang name, it was originally, unofficially named "George Killer" which was shortened (the name not the aeroplane) and then officially the beautifully engineered machine was named "The George".
If a Mexican had been captured then the plane would have been called Jorge.
Badly irrelevant? "George" wasn't a name ever used by Japanese forces, it was a shorthand among American flight crews for an otherwise un-named new Japanese fighter, when it appeared. During the Pacific War, all Japanese warplanes got anglicized common names for speed and brevity in combat and ground control communications. Occasionally several Japanese types got the same name, till more familiarity with the types was gained. The same process continues among NATO forces, with short, easily distinguished names for each of the USSR/Russian/Warsaw Pact warplanes.
15:58 "not all 14 planes were shot out of the sky..." The American Navy by late 1944 did not bother repairing severely damaged carrier aircraft, as the space on the carrier could not be spared. and replacement aircraft were already on the way ... if it couldn't be made to fly quickly (and maybe repaired further elsewhere), it was stripped of anything in short supply and pushed overboard. The most important/expensive (in terms of both time and resources) part of the system was the well trained pilot ..... which American doctrine (from robust and well armored aircraft designs with self-sealing fuel tanks, to rotating experienced pilots back to the States to pass on their knowledge to new pilots, to spending much time and effort on Search and Rescue operations) did a much better job at both preserving and creating than Japanese doctrine.
Excellent remark. Add to this that US warplanes were also hit by ground fire (and not brought down by N1Ks). Unlike the Americans, this was a threat that Japanese pilots weren't exposed to over their own territory.
Making fun of the American naming system is really not a good look for you. They were designed to be short and easy to remember as the Allies had difficulties with the complex Japanese type, shi (IJN)/Ki- (IJA) and short designation systems. The IJN short letter-number-letter-number designations were the easiest to understand. The first letter identified the type of plane: A = carrier fighter; B = carrier attack bomber; C = carrier reconnaissance plane; D = carrier dive bomber; E = reconnaissance floatplane; G = land based heavy bomber; H = flying boat; J = land based fighter; N = floatplane fighter. The following number showed where it stood in line with the type, and the following letter, the manufacturer. Thus the Mitsubishi A5M (Claude) was followed by the A6M Zero. The last number showed the variant of the type. However, if an aircraft was changed to a different role, the initial code was kept and another letter added at the end to show the new role. Thus you get the A6M2-N (Rufe) when the Zero was converted to a floatplane fighter. So it was with the N1K (Rex). When it was converted to a land based fighter, it became the N1K1-J/N1K2-J. One of the best references is "Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War' by René J. Francillon. 570 pages packed with just about everything you wanted to know about not only the aircraft but the information connected to them.
There are a lot of things it is important to consider when talking about the air war in the Pacific. You've covered a lot of them but here's my 2c anyway.
Even when the Japanese had the upper hand in the air cracks were starting to show. Sure they were winning mostly, but even in that position they were having problems replacing planes and more importantly air crew. The Japanese method of training air crew was slow, very slow. Losses aren't just men killed, it's men injured, captured or just missing as the Japanese were not very good at finding and rescuing downed pilots. Then there's just plain operational losses, bad landings, damaged airframes, accidents, it all adds up.
By mid 44 the Marianas Turkey shoot happened, because by this time the US had plenty of experienced and or well trained pilots and more than enough aircraft that could get the job done. It was the reverse for the Japanese. They were quickly running out of everything. One thing that doesn't get mentioned much is the state of Japan's fuel supply. They were running out and they were compensating by brewing their own fuel, and it was awful, and it had a detrimental effect of aircraft performance.
You also mentioned the Zero was still being made. They did make different models as the war went on, as upgraded as they could make them, but they kept making them because they were still tooled up to do so and it was the aircraft they could get out in numbers.
It's really the same story for the axis air forces everywhere. They did make some great planes that in some cases had a performance edge here and there, but they were never able to get the numbers they needed to make a sufficient dent in Allied numbers. The allies didn't really have to make the best planes out there, just good enough, in numbers with well trained and supplied air forces.
I never knew of the "George" I have actually criticized the Japanese for beginning the war with the zero and ending it with the zero.
The Zero was also very poor at maneuvering when at high speeds due to not having hydraulic boost for its rudder and ailerons.
Yes at 250kt the controls started to get stiff. And by 300kt they pretty much froze up. Which is why US planes were told to keep at 300Kt or better when fighting the Zero and if they fell below that speed to break off and dive to pick up their speed again.
A 12-1 kill ratio wasn't hard to achieve when Japanese pilots had 5 years of combat experience when the war "started" and their opposition was Brewster Buffalos and Fokker DXXIs. Against F4Fs that shrugged off a pair of 7.7mm (the 20mm were low velocity and only carried 60 rounds apiece) it was a whole different game.
When I saw "A plane called George," I was immediately reminded of a 1950's TV show from Britain called, "A show called Fred." Weird, ain't I?
There's a kai in the naval aviation museum
I belive that by the time period you're discussing George vs. Zero production, Zero's too had armor.
how much should we believe, with zero source material?
They should have just tried to greatly strengthen the landing gear by thickening it and specialy heat treating the alloys. The biggest problem for the Japanese was their inability to convert production of Shiden to the Shiden-Kai instead.
"Kai" is actually Japanese for "modified" or "improved." Maybe the best way to refer to these planes in English would be the "Supergeorge." Or heck, wouldn't kill us to say "Shiden-kai."
A most beautiful bird 🦅 to the eye 👁️ 💜💜
How was Japan fueling their aircraft?
Germany had synthetic fuels from abundant coal. US had Texas and 150 octane thanks to Doolittle's foresight. *Well produced clip, thanks for posting*
They had stockpiled and rationed long before things went sour.
They didn't have a whole lot, but they had enough to do what they did and a bit more.
Also the Japanese flew gas in motorized gliders and made gas out of pine stumps collected by school children
We usually don't find articles about military aviation that are impartial and non-partisan. And we all know what sustains "specialized publications" and even the mainstream press...
The advantage of the Japanese was primarily an Allied lack of experience. Attempting to turn with a Zero was never going to work, and when the Americans adjusted they're tactics, and ( hugely important ) American logistical advantage.
This yahoo is getting better all the time... not biased is planely remarkable
Total production of N1K1-J and N1K2-J was just about 1,435... not a lot of 'em. 10,000 P-38s were made.. 15,000+ F4Us, 15,000+ P-51s, etc....
Performance:
Maximum speed: 571 km/h (355 mph, 308 kn) at 3,500 kg (7,717 lb) at sea level, 656 km/h (408 mph) at 6,100 m (20,000 ft)
Range: 1,078 km (670 mi, 582 nmi) at 272 km/h (169 mph) at 460 m (1,500 ft), 813 km (505 mi) at 75% Vmax at 391 km/h (243 mph) at 460 m (1,500 ft)
Ferry range: 1,746 km (1,085 mi, 943 nmi) maximum with drop tank at 269 km/h (167 mph) at 460 m (1,500 ft), 1,078 km (670 mi) at 75% Vmax at 381.5 km/h (237.1 mph) at 460 m (1,500 ft)
Service ceiling: 12,009 m (39,400 ft)
Rate of climb: 19.7 m/s (3,880 ft/min) at 3,500 kg (7,717 lb) at sea level, 4,065 ft/min at 3,500 kg (7,717 lb) at 1,798 m (5,900 ft)
Time to altitude: 3,000 m (10,000 ft) in 2 minutes 36 seconds, 6,100 m (20,000 ft) in 5 minutes 36 seconds
Bomb load: 550 lb.
A good plane but not, repeat, not, the best in the Pacific. We had P-38, P-47, P-51, F4U, F6F for our top planes. Most could outdo those figures.
No comment on errors: it’s a decent try.
One thing I didn’t know was that the “ George” came from a seaplane design, just like the “Spitfire” did.
I saw it at the big museum at Dulles airport. Quite the place to see.
Its a good looking plane - rugged.
And the Kawasaki KH 1 Hein ( Swallow)....Tony..... with the licence-built Daimler Benz DB engine???
Les Griffiths
Really good documentary. While the Zero was boss in a "Dog Fight" the Japanese should have started development & deployment but they really lacked the manufacturing ability to match the USA. Thanks.
Good job they didn't have them early days. Things could have worked out a bit different. ?
Quality stuff as normal. 👊💛👍
Hi, Great video! What is the Picture of the Battleship/Cruiser being bombed at beginning of the video? Thanks,
It's a bit of a shot in the dark, but an image from the attack on Pearl Harbor would be my guess. Though I don't recall seeing the image before, and haven't found it yet.
3:30 The comparison of manoeuvrability between the Zero and the F6F and F4U is completely wrong. The US planes were incapable of such manoevurability for a host of technical reasons. The Zero was probably the best dogfighter of WW2 but only at slow speed. The F6F and F4U were never designed nor operated as slow speed dogfighters. They used their speed and ability to gain altitude to their tactical advantage.
Designing a plane that is difficult to build and difficult to fly when you know you are running out of good pilots, spares and is forced to fly using crap fuel, could be argued that someone is not trying to win the war!!
Congrats on 15k 🎉🎉🎉
George was came very late in the war, unsurprisingly
Once the Japanese planes were fueled with American fuel which a much higher quality, the Americans were amazed by the performance of these Japanese planes . Once again as with Germany , oil was the linchpin for the Axis powers.
Zero's lack of armor problem was mostly a myth. Even 10mm armor plate would do little vs .50 cal.
Bigger problem was lack of self sealing fuel tanks. This indeed was an issue. But armor wouldn't have helped much.
Zero's biggest problems were low speed and lack of good v. high (above 500 IAS) speed controllability. At If F4U or F6F kept speed high, but still in the range where Zero could theoretically turn better, the limiting factor wasn't plane's maneuvrability, but pilot's G-tolerance. In other words - Zero would win low speed fights and sustained but those were effectively avoided by much faster and better armed US planes.
17:37 shone
shōn, shŏn
noun
Preterit and past participle of shine.
verb
Simple past tense and past participle of shine..... thank you for your attention 😉
Main reason that Zero was more produced was that Kawanishi factory got smaller capacity as Nakajima and Mitsubishi - als is not true that there has been completely outclassed, it has been modernised, Corsair has been superior but Hellcat heavy and got only 50 km/h higher speed as Zero 52 - Mitsubishi failed with Zero successors - Reppu and waste time for Raiden - both planed to replace of Zero - so it created opportunity for George
Zeroes couldn't dive at high speed and would lose control authority and pull to the right....
3:48 Ish, the height of the water colomn! That boat is not small...
There was almost a dozen of great aircraft which:
1. never got into production in sufficient numbers
2. the factory was srewed up by bombings and the quality was not really great of the final product
3. the pilots were inexperienced and/or unmotivated
Just right here the Series 5 Italian fighters: Reggiane Re.2005, Macchi C.205, Fiat G.55. For Japanese there was the Nakajima Ki-84 Hayate (okay, the numbers were at least something), Kawasaki Ki-100 Hien II, Kawanishi N1K Shiden series, Mitsubishi J2M Raiden,, Kawasaki Ki-102 "Randy", Mitsubishi Ki-83... and I only talked about fighters, and there were many more class of aircrafts.
Thank you for the great video. It goes wonderfully with what I am currently reading: Pacific War from Guadalcanal onwards. As I read I pick up precious pieces of the puzzle like your video. The first half of the Pacific War lasted for six months, the second half three years. Also, aircraft carriers didn't have a role in the most crucial year of 1943, during which Japanese ships, skilled pilots, and resources were depleted.
Looks alot like a Jug...8:02
In the.last years of the war the IJN was taking 80 % losses in just flying from point A to point B with on combat involved. That is why the IJN went to kamikaze attacks. They lacked the pilots with the ability to fly advanced planes.
Their experienced pilots were sleeping with the fishes by then. 🐟 🐠
I'll go with the corsair or hellcat amd bearcat, even though it didn't really make it into the war
Chuck Yeager flew them all. When asked his favorite he immediately answered Bearcat. I'm not going to second-guess him. It's a neat plane in part because of its compromises: it had to be small enough to fly from escort carriers, and, they had realized that no fighting in the Pacific was at high altitude. So it was small and simplified for less weight and cheaper production. It didn't have as complicated a supercharger. But within its parameters, it was insanely great, especially at climb speed. My personal favorite fighter of the era, even though it wasn't ready for the war, was the Tigercat I guess. I think it's kind of a shame the naval fighters weren't considered for land duty.
This plane looks like a Japanese version of the P-47.
Everytime I read about the Frank, it says the Frank was the best. Same for George. So which one?
Yes🤪
Truth of the matter was good designs , but poorly made . At the beginning of 1944 the Japaneses industries were feeling the pinch of not having any raw materials. Only about a thousand being produced , Hellcats a different story 600 in March 1944 . Corsairs not quite the same but close.
Hiroshima is a city in Kure Prefecture, not the other way around. Hiroshima is famous for being the first atomic target in history.
You are incorrect. Hiroshima city is located in Hiroshima Prefecture. Kure is a small city on Hiroshima Bay. I lived in Hiroshima Ken for a year.
Looking at head-to-head combat results is misleading if Kais were consistently flown by pilots among the best Japan had while the planes the Kais fought against were flown by a random mix of American pilots. In particular, Kai pilots could get kills against Hellcat and Corsair pilots who weren't especially talented and had little actual combat experience. If your depiction is accurate, there were far fewer opportunities for Hellcat and Corsair pilots to get kills against Kai pilots who weren't especially talented and had little or no combat experience. That is the reverse of the usual situation later in the war where advantages of American fighter planes were exacerbated by deficiencies in the skill and experience of Japanese pilots.
Let's be Frank about George: he's no Zero. : )
An Okinawa based Marine F4U squadron tangled with a squadron of N1K2-Js. The Marines came out significantly better.
Quality of the pilots, not the aircraft.
Lol learn more about history, late war Japan did not have trained pilot yet experienced ones
At that point, our guys were WAY more experienced than the Japanese.
At that point, didnt the Japs have lots of quality control issues?
@stevehicks8944
So....just like the beginning when the Zero was God?
Did the Marines hug them, love them and take them home with them?
There are other books on this airplane and the Kawanishi industries?
The 'George ' was my favorite Japanese fighter. It looked great and fought well. The F4u Corsair was still better.
It's unpopular to say but I prefer the Hellcat. The Corsair was better in the fight, I'll grant. But it was a LOT more dangerous in ground handling, so the pilot survival rate was the same. And, the Corsair cost 50% more. If you just compare top speed and kill ratio, the Corsair looks like the better plane, but the US could have done the exact same job with the Hellcat a LOT more cheaply, and just as safely. War is really about production and logistics, and the Hellcat was simply better in these respects.
I agree that the F6F Hellcat was the more effective fighter overall. And contrary to what you said, the Hellcat had the superior kill/loss ratio of 19:1 vs 11:1 for the F4U Corsair. You are right that the Corsair was the faster of the two in level flight by 10-30 mph (altitude and configuration dependant ), but the Hellcat was decidingly better in a dive and could also out-turn the Corsair in most if not all situations. It was also noted by the US Navy that the Hellcat was more survivable in combat, most likely due to extra armor protection and better location of oil coolers on the F6F. .
@@darrenwhiteside1619 Yes the Hellcat could way out-turn the Corsair at lower speeds (e.g., when not G-limited) but it's not that important because Hellcats didn't fight Corsairs. They fought mostly Japanese planes, and they didn't fight them in turning battles for the most part.
Looks like Kawanishi made a P47 equivalent.
1:50 that royal observer corp guy must have had very good eyesight if he could see a Zero or any Japanese aircraft from central London.
Since were talking phase of war, by 1943 P 51s were in the area. How well did they do against it?
In 1943, all P-51’s were going to the ETO
@@petersouthernboy6327 ? Late 43 weren’t we flying bombing missions over Japan , long range and they had cover ?
@@morganlove3576 No, P-51’s weren’t flying cover until Saipan and Iwo Jima were taken.
@@petersouthernboy6327 The reason I ask , I saw an article on a Japanese fighter pilot that shot down a P 51 .
The Japanese engineers were excellent, second to none, apparently.