Tuesday 12 May 2020

Mitsubishi Ki-46, part three

The Mitsubishi Ki-46 was introduced by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF) in Manchukuo and China. A total of seven units were equipped with it. Sometimes, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) also employed the type to perform certain reconnaissance missions over the Northern shores Australia and New Guinea.
The IJAAF used this aircraft in the reconnaissance role in unauthorised missions over British Malaysia during the months prior to the bombardment of Pearl Harbor. Later, during 1942 it was used for high-altitude reconnaissance missions over Burma, Indochina, Thailand and the Indian Ocean. The British Royal Air Force regarded the Ki-46 as an aircraft very difficult to counter, with very few successful interceptions. On 25th September 1944 Flying Officer Wittridge shot down a Ki-46 using a personally modified Supermarine Spitfire Mk.VIII. He had removed two machine guns and the seat armour and polished wing leading edges to gain extra speed. The American Top Ace of the World War II, Richard I Bong, flying a Lockheed P-38 Lightning shot down a Ki-46 over the coast of Papua New Guinea in late 1942.
During the latest stages of the war, in 1944-1945 the Ki-46 was modified as a high altitude interceptor with two 20mm cannons in the nose and one 37mm in an upwards-and-forwards position, copying Luftwaffe's Schräge Musik night fighter guns. These were used to shot down the Boeing B-29 Superfortress over the metropolitan Japanese islands. However, it lacked stability for sustained shooting of the 37mm cannon, had just a thin layer of armour plating, it had no self-sealing fuel tanks and was very slow to climb.
It was also assigned to whole 'Sentai' (Wings/Groups) and 'Chutaicho' (junior operational commands) in the IJAAF during the Pacific War.
Some of them were captured by the Allied, repaired and test flown. It seems that one of them was sent to the Soviet NII VVS (Aerotechnical Institute of the Soviet Air Force) for testing, making it the only Japanese aircraft to be sent to the VVS.










Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Ki-46
2. https://www.valka.cz/Micubisi-Ki-46-Sin-Sintei-Dinah-t28814 (translated when needed)
3. Bunrin Do - Famous Airplanes of the World 38 - Mitsubishi Ki-46 (translated)
3a: Translated captions can be found at: http://www.arawasi.jp/Dinahtrans.html

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