ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf
i may know a little about planes.. since then i designed a few [;)]
dinah was well suited to being a torpedo plane (it was very small and had a high speed with small engines)
but they converted it into a fighter instead (low climb rate makes a poor interceptor)
need to understand that any plane can perform any function, just not particularly well
japanese were in a state of panic and tried using the wrong designs for the wrong purposes
(Ki-67 peggy as a fighter with the 75mm gun [8|])
(D4Y judy as a fighter [8|])
(german Ju-88 as a fighter [8|])
axis bmbr planes took the classic approach
2 engines
several small defensive guns
low-medium speed
RAF was ahead of everyone else, with 4-engined heavy designs or high speed 2-engined designs
high speed Dinah would be a lot more effective against CAP since (even with a torpedo attached)
it would still be faster than the F4F-4
So much fail in this quoted posting.[:-]
First off if you have designed aircraft then a couple of questions:
1. What is the drag coefficent of the standard IJAAF Torpedo?
a. How would that affect the Ki-46 Shiki's overall top speed and what would be your proposed fix that would not adversely affect both weight nor major redesign for a different set of engines?
b. How about the hanging of the torpedo that wouldn't affect center of gravity of the aircraft, stability, roll rate, yaw rate, climb rate and overall character of the airframe?
2. What was Ki-46 originally ordered for and how best would that primary mission been achieved with the aircraft designed the way it was? Is there room for improvement without requiring a major tooling upgrade in the plants that are currently building the Ki-46, to achieve this mythical torpedo bomber mission that you want the IJAAF to fly?
3. How could you achieve the same amount of high speed, long range for the aircraft to fly a standard Hi-Low-Hi mission profile that a torpedo bomber typically flies again without inducing a major redesign of the aircraft or mandating a new engine design that isn't even in production? Or if it is in production how do you plan on add the engine to the airframe and not adversely affect the traits already built into the aircraft of long loiter time and high speed?
4. How do you plan on designing a mechanism into the airframe to slow the aircraft down fast enough to successfully delivery the weapon and again not be overly complex for maintenance, add weight, or affect overal flight character of the airframe?
Tactically
1. Name the total number of IJAAF units that are currently trained as of 08DEC1941 in torpedo attack.
2. Do you understand that go like a bat out of heck is good for a bomber, but to be successful in deliever of a torpedo you need to slow the aircraft down and not impart too much kenetic energy into the torpedo to cause it either skip off the top of the water or dive deep and never surface in time to be successful in striking the target?
3. For the land war in China and the expected attacks into the Western colonies of Malay Pennusila and Dutch East Indies how many potential targets do you percieve that we in the IJAAF would strike compared to the better trained IJNAF units currently in French Indo-China, Taiwain, Marshalls, Carolinas and all the rest of our bases in our own co-prosperity sphere?
4. How many torpedoes does the IJAAF have on stock at this moment and how to you propose to pre-position them to the forward army airbases so they could be used to attack enemy shipping?
5. Since ‚È‚µ (Keine, „N„u„„, Geen) of our pilots and crews are trained in torpedo attack, how do you propose to achieve this training to bring in proficency prior to our strike south on 08DEC1941?
Just because an airplane on paper looks like it might have the favorable stats to be something, doesn't mean it will be a winner at that additional mission. Remember what the Ki-46 Shiki was designed for and who it was designed for? The IJAAF, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force; and it was designed to do long range high altitutde aerial recon of targets for IJAAF and IJA units. Additionally they didn't want the aircraft to be intercepted by any of the current generation of fighters that existed at that time and something that could fly a serious long time or long distance. That mandated the high speed and high altitude requirement (which to achieve the higher speeds mandated turbochargers in the later models with some improved engines) from the get go by the IJAAF. Also, just like the US Navy and the US Army were having fights about who was supposed to defend the coast lines; the IJAAF and IJNAF were having the same fights. So why would if the IJA expected to be using its aircraft and itself in China to carve a larger empire for itself, would it need torpedo bombers? Even more so when the only naval targets were river patrol boats and the few heavy Western Naval units typically only made it as far inland sometimes was Hankow.
By most people's agreement the listing of good multi-engined torpedo bombers should look like this:
1. Beaufighter TF.X
2. SM.79 Spariverio.
That is about it every thing else from the Beaufort down to even the Mosquito were considered stop gap and except for a few success with the Beauforts, most ended up preforming like the
B-26's of the 38th Bombardment Group at Midway. Flying a mission in an aircraft that wasn't designed for and using a stop-gapped series of tools to carry a weapon. In turn the things that made that aircraft effective in one mission (high speed interdiction bomber) were nullified by the modifications to carry a torpedo.
As to the statement that the Brits were first and ahead of everyone with the idea of a 4 engine heavy bomber, please get a hold of the
Boeing Corporation and let them
know all of thier history is wrong.
Oh and high speed versus CAP tell that to the Regina Aeronautica crews who flew the SM.79 into the teeth of Allied Air Power during the Anizo Landings trying to do both torpedo and level bombing attacks. Remember you need to slow down to drop a torpedo or it will have been a wasted mission.
Take my word for it. You never want to be involved in an “International Incident”.
