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I assumed it was obvious that I was talking about a carrier fighter. It's like comparing the armament of a heavy figther to a single engine ground one, they are different beasts. So let me state once agaoin 2x13mm and 2x20mm which was excellent armament (FOR A CARRIER FIGHTER AS THIS IS A CARRIER FIGHTER)
Yes, it was obvious that you were talking about a carrier fighter, no it was not obvious in the slightest that you were talking about it purely in comparison to contemporary carrier fighters. Even with that in mind 2x13mm and 2x20mm was still far from excellent in terms of firepower.
It was almost the same as the A6M5b Zero which was already in service at that time and slightly weaker than the A6M5c, roughly equal to that of the standard Corsair, Hellcat (2x 20mm will make bigger holes in enemy aircraft but 4x .50cal will make more holes and punch through armour better (Purely in terms of bullets/shells 4x .50 calibres are putting a heavier weight of projectiles out in the same amount of time) and Seafire and weaker than the night-fighter version of the Hellcat and Firefly (Although obviously the performance of the latter two would be inferior) and even then I personally would not regard the Firefly's 4x20mm as representing excellent firepower. The Reppu in its initial configuration had a fairly standard level of firepower compared to contemporary carrier fighters, fairly decent but I certainly wouldn't say excellent.
That's without considering that the Type 99 cannon which was basically a Japanese MG-FF was an inferior air to air combat weapon compared to the German Mg151/20, Soviet ShVAK and the British Hispano MkVs which all had higher muzzle velocities and rates of fire.
As for carriers, in the battle of the Philippine sea (which happened in mid 1944) *nine* Japanese carriers took part. Zuikaku didn't get sunk 'till October. And had the factory not gotten blown to peices, they would have had reppus by early-mid 1944.
That seems unlikely. From the Wikipedia page on the A7M:
With the larger, more powerful engine, wing loading became an issue. The Navy requested at most 150 kg/m², but wanted 130 kg/m² which complicated design considerations further. With the NK9 it could achieve 150 kg/m², but with the less power it would not meet the specifications for maximum speed. With the MK9 the engineers concluded it could fulfill the requirements; however, production of the MK9 was delayed compared to the NK9, and the Japanese Navy instructed Mitsubishi to use the NK9.
Work on the 17-Shi was further delayed by factories prioritizing A6M and Mitsubishi G4M production as well as further work on A6M variants and addressing Raiden issues. As a result, the 17-Shi, which became the A7M1, officially flew for the first time on 6 May 1944, four years after development started. The aircraft demonstrated excellent handling and maneuverability, but was underpowered as Mitsubishi engineers feared, and with a top speed similar to the A6M5 Zero.[2] It was a disappointment, and the Navy ordered development to stop on 30 July 1944, but Mitsubishi obtained permission for development to continue using the Ha-43 engine, flying with the completed Ha-43 on 13 October 1944. The A7M2 now achieved a top speed of 628 km/h (339 kn; 390 mph), while climb and other areas of performance surpassed the Zero, leading the Navy to change its mind and adopt the craft.[3] The A7M2 was also equipped with automatic combat flaps, used earlier on the Kawanishi N1K-J, significantly improving maneuverability.
By the time of the Phillipine Sea they still had not finished developing the final production variant and it seems like differing priorities and waiting on the development of a sufficiently powerful engine delayed the introduction of the type rather than Allied bombing, at least from what I've been able to find. At the time Zuikaku was being sunk, the final development version of the Reppu was only twelve days old and the type still in pre-production. There's no mention in the admittedly fairly brief page about damage to the factory delaying production or development to the point that the type could have been in action in mid-1944 (The only reference to production delays caused by bombing weren't until March '45), perhaps you can link me to a reference on that? With a fairly cursory search all I've found was a reference to the engine factory being hit but that only reduced the supply of the engines already in production rather than delay development of either plane or engine. So, like late model Zeroes the most significant likely use of the A7M would have been in defence of the home islands where it would have been going up to a large extent against land based fighters and bombers.
In any case it seems somewhat odd to me to consider carrier aircraft's armaments as special cases, for those few nations that possessed aircraft carriers their carrier based planes rarely lagged behind their ground based counterparts in terms of armament. Wildcats were similarly armed to early P-40s, Fulmars to Spitfires and Hurricanes, Fireflies to Tempests and Typhoons (And better than their Spitfire contemporaries), Hellcats and Corsairs to later P-40s and Mustangs (Admittedly behind the P-47, but significantly outgunning the earlier B/C Mustangs) and in the case of the Zero its armament was far superior to its Army counterpart, the Ki-43.
Secondly, it's not like carrier fighters operated in a total vacuum and it was far from unheard of for carrier fighters to encounter land based aircraft, especially in the case of Japan in the closing phases of the war, so to me at least it makes sense to compare the A7M as a single seat, single engine fighter to other single seat, single engine fighters. In comparison to single engine, single seat fighters as a whole it's firepower was realistically pretty middle of the road, even compared strictly to other carrier fighters it was again fairly standard, roughly on a par with the majority whilst being weaker than a lot of the others. (I am aware that I am slightly unfairly comparing it to the Firefly in here as it was a single engine twin seater)
Look, I seem to have touched a bit of a nerve here which was far from my intent. The Reppu looks like it had a lot of potential.
This message was edited 17 times. Last update was at 2018/04/20 20:10:50
PBY Catalina. Why? Grandpa had a high enough opinion of them to volunteer to be a waist gunner when they asked for volunteers abroad his ship due to high casualties. Despite being sawn in half by Japanese AA during a Black Cat mission, the plane made it all the way back to the ship before breaking in half on landing.
Fate is in heaven, armor is on the chest, accomplishment is in the feet. - Nagao Kagetora
godardc wrote: Good idea ! The Saab Grippen looks a lot like a French Rafale (or is it the other way around ?).
The two I really like are the Me 262 and the F-86 Sabre !
Me 262
F-86
These ^^^, but I'll add the Spitfire and the Corsair to my list as well.
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts."
I like the Me262, the Gloster Meteor, and those early jests with straight wings. They've got the same smooth curves as the SPitfire or P-51, without a propeller spoiling the lines.
AndrewGPaul wrote: I like the Me262, the Gloster Meteor, and those early jests with straight wings. They've got the same smooth curves as the SPitfire or P-51, without a propeller spoiling the lines.
Talking of which, the de Havilland Sea Vixen:
I may have a new favorite aircraft by looks alone. Need to look up its performance stats...
I'll give my love to the plane that did all the heavy lifting during the Battle of Britian
I got to see one of these fly when I visited Duxford in the 90s. It was awesome.
Best thing about the Hurricane was a quote I read somewhere (might have been in the manual of microsoft combat flight simulator way back ) about how you fight in them. Was something along the lines of: "Wait until the enemy fills your whole cockpit before you pull the trigger".
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Okay, I already posted, but I wanted to show some more favourites:
My favourite bomber, the Tupolev Tu-160. It is big, it is fast, and it has a rotary launcher which launches thermonuclear missiles. It can carry enough payload to level a small country.
Late cold war, the F-14. No, not because of Top Gun which I only got round to watching a few years ago, looking at 3-views side by side F-14s always put me in the mind of what an F-15 would like if it hit the gym hard and took protein supplements. Probably with runners up being the F-4 and Panavia Tornado.
) about how you fight in them. Was something along the lines of: "Wait until the enemy fills your whole cockpit before you pull the trigger".
