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Beaufighter vs. Ki-45 (Read 136 times)
Mar 20th, 2005 at 4:55am

denishc   Offline
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 Sometime ago I asked the question if P-38s ever had encounters with the Ki-45 or Me-110.  The idea of "heavy" fighters going at it in a dogfight intrigued me.  Recently I read of RAAF Beaufighters tangling with the Ki-45.
 
 On October 9th 1943 six RAAF Beaufighters of No 31 Sqn, led by Sqn Ldr Reginald "Butch" Gordon, were on an armed reconnaissance over Selaroe Island.  Over the target Gordon's Beaufighter IC was intercepted by a lone Ki-45 that attacked his aircraft from the port rear and pass throught to his starboard front.  Gordon turned his Beaufighter toward the Japanese fighter and closed on the "Nick".  The Ki-45 pilot maneuvered his aircraft to allow the rear gunner to fire on the closing Beaufighter, hitting his attacker on "the starboard mainplane and shooting the starboard engine exhaust ring off."  At a range of 25 yards Gordon opened fire.  The Ki-45 began to disintegrate and crashed into the sea.

 Gordon continued the mission, but as he left the island his aircraft was attacked by another "Nick".  Once again the attacking Ki-45 struck from the port rear hitting Gordon's Beaufighter in the port engine and starboard aileron as it passed across.  The Ki-45 then turned and attacked the formation ahead of Gordon's aircraft.  Throwing both of the Beaufighter's engines wide open Gordon went after the attacking "Nick".  At 350 yards Gordon opened fire on the Ki-45 and it "started to burn from the port wing root.  Still burning, it lost height and crashed into the sea."

 Gordon nursed his damaged Beaufighter back to Australia but had to "belly in" when the aircraft suffered an engine failure.  Over 100 cannon shell and bullet holes were counted in the Bueafighter's fuselage and the aircraft was scrapped.

 Then, on December 16th 1943, while on a shipping interdiction flight off the north coast of Timor, Sqn Ldr Gordon attacked a flight of four Ki-45s.  He managed to shoot down one "Nick" and damaged another.

 Between his encounters with the Ki-45s Sqn Ldr Gordon shot down a "Rufe" floatplane on November 21 1943.  He became an ace on January 4 1944 with his fifth and final victory when he downed a G4M "Betty" bomber just south of Cape Male.  Gordon was to become the only RAAF Beaufighter pilot to become an ace in the Pacific theater.

 Sadly Sqn Ldr "Butch" Gordon was killed in a non-combat related flying accident on February 27th 1944.

 Its easy to imagine a lone pilot in a single engined aircraft darting about the sky becoming an ace but hard to invision that an aircraft as ungainly as the Beaufighter of being an "ace maker".      
 
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Reply #1 - Mar 20th, 2005 at 5:43am
Amplifier   Ex Member

 
Quote:
  Its easy to imagine a lone pilot in a single engined aircraft darting about the sky becoming an ace but hard to invision that an aircraft as ungainly as the Beaufighter of being an "ace maker".      


Ever heard of night fighters? Those guys flew aircraft like the Me 110, Beau and Ki-45 and a great number of them were aces.
 
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Reply #2 - Mar 20th, 2005 at 6:24am
Flt.Lt.Andrew   Ex Member

 
I suggest trying to fly a Beau, theyre quite spritley and very manouverable.

The Jap planes weren't of a decenet construction anyway, so its easy to imagine cannon ripping into it...

Intruiging post by the way....

A.
 
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Reply #3 - Mar 20th, 2005 at 7:19am
Amplifier   Ex Member

 
If the Zero had had a decent armament and armor, the air superiority would not have switched sides before the end of '44.
 
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Reply #4 - Mar 20th, 2005 at 6:35pm

Felix/FFDS   Offline
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Quote:
If the Zero had had a decent armament and armor, the air superiority would not have switched sides before the end of '44.


But then it would not have been a "Zero" ...   In that sense, it had a decent punch - two cannon and two guns, but the design philosophy at the time was range and maneouverability vs armor protection (added weight, which meant less range/ less maneouverability)

At the time, the expected enemy was still flying biplanes, and the monoplanes facing the Japanese weren't that good.  By Japanese standards, the sundry Buffaloes, P-36s, (even a few P-26s) weren't a match for the A5M, let alone the A6M (Okay, so the first kill of a Japanese aircraft during the Pearl Harbor attacks was a P-36 shooting down a Zeke ... )

Now, once the design philosophy of the Japanese changed, there were some good designs (Ki-100, etc) that would have seriously challeneged the US airplanes 1v1, but it was a case of too little, too late, and the Japanese lost the numbers game.
 

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Reply #5 - Mar 21st, 2005 at 1:49am

denishc   Offline
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  Very well put Felix.  I was gonna say something similar, but you beat me to the punch.
 
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Reply #6 - Mar 21st, 2005 at 7:32am

Felix/FFDS   Offline
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Quote:
 Very well put Felix.  I was gonna say something similar, but you beat me to the punch.


Thanks.  THis thread put me in a philosophical mode.  When deciding which aircraft is "better", I try to see what were the conditions surrounding it's development.

Case in point, the Germans could have had an excellent strategic bomber, but the death of the LW technical director prevented further real development when the "strike hard and fast" crowd took over (UDet & Co.).

No one doubts that the Spitfire was an excellent defensive fighter, but as an offensive fighter escort, it didn't have the range that the Mustang had.  Which one was actually the "better" fighter will be argued for ages to come.

IN a straight dogfight, the Zeke could hold it's own (Sakai survived a 16v1 against Hellcats,even if neither side scored a kill), but ultimately, the heavier armor and numbers, numbers, numbers, overwhelmed the Zekes (not to mention quite a number of good Allied pilots and the dwindling number of well-trained pilots on the Japanese side.

As to the Beaufighter vs Ki-45, the robustness of the Beaufighter is more than a testament that the designers go it right on this one.
 

Felix/FFDS...
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Reply #7 - Mar 21st, 2005 at 10:08am
Amplifier   Ex Member

 
Quote:
IN a straight dogfight, the Zeke could hold it's own (Sakai survived a 16v1 against Hellcats,even if neither side scored a kill), but ultimately, the heavier armor and numbers, numbers, numbers, overwhelmed the Zekes (not to mention quite a number of good Allied pilots and the dwindling number of well-trained pilots on the Japanese side.


Wasn't that because many japanese pilots refused to wear a parachute?
 
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Reply #8 - Mar 21st, 2005 at 10:30am

Hagar   Offline
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Wasn't that because many japanese pilots refused to wear a parachute?

You could be correct but I've never seen that mentioned before. It doesn't seem very practical to me as experienced fighter pilots would be more difficult to replace than the aircraft.

This might have been true for Kamikaze pilots as they wouldn't need one.

PS. You have to face facts that the Zero was fast & highly manoeuvrable mainly due to its light construction. This was helped by the lack of armour protection for the pilot & self-sealing fuel tanks used on the Allied aircraft. Apparently the latter also caused it to catch fire easily when hit. All these things add weight & it would have been far less effective with these items fitted.
 

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Reply #9 - Mar 21st, 2005 at 11:19am

Felix/FFDS   Offline
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Quote:
You could be correct but I've never seen that mentioned before. It doesn't seem very practical to me as experienced fighter pilots would be more difficult to replace than the aircraft.

This might have been true for Kamikaze pilots as they wouldn't need one.


Again, one must realize the prevalent mentality of the time and place.  The highly trained Imperial Japanese Naval aviators were inspired by the samurai/bushido code, so that death in battle was not to be shunned.  Sakai mentions that they flew without parachutes, until late in the war when they were ordered to wear them - again - they IJN command realizing that they needed their experienced pilots much more than the code.  Sakai writes that they would frequently take off and slip off the parachute straps as 'too confining'.

 

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Reply #10 - Mar 21st, 2005 at 11:00pm

denishc   Offline
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Quote:
In a straight dogfight, the Zeke could hold it's own (Sakai survived a 16v1 against Hellcats, even if neither side scored a kill).........


 The amazing thing about this encounter is that when Sakai landed back at his base his crewchief couldn't find a single bullet hole in Sakai's Zero!!!  Quite a testament to Sakai's flying ability with so many gunning after him at one time.

 
 
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Reply #11 - Mar 21st, 2005 at 11:42pm

denishc   Offline
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Quote:
..... but ultimately, the heavier armor and numbers, numbers, numbers, overwhelmed the Zekes (not to mention quite a number of good Allied pilots and the dwindling number of well-trained pilots on the Japanese side.


  First of all pilot training in the IJN before the war was very stringent, to the point of brutality.  Many cadets, that would have been good pilots by U.S. standards, were washed out becouse they couldn't "make the cut".  This left, at the start of the war, a small but elite core of men to make up the fighter pilots of the IJN.  As the war continued, and the need for pilots became greater, this style of pilot training could not be retained as it hindered the number of pilots produced.

  Secondly some credit must be given to the F6F, it was an easy aircraft fly with no bad habits.  Its said that the F6F made a mediocre pilot look good and a good pilot look great.    
 
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Reply #12 - Mar 22nd, 2005 at 7:06am

Felix/FFDS   Offline
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Quote:
 Secondly some credit must be given to the F6F, it was an easy aircraft fly with no bad habits.  Its said that the F6F made a mediocre pilot look good and a good pilot look great.    



<Grin> But a bad pilot is a bad pilot ... I keep getting shot down in them, and by them! </Grin>

In all seriousness, though, there's no denying that the F6F was a good plane.
 

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Reply #13 - Mar 28th, 2005 at 8:25am

Jester   Offline
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So which of the "night fighters" had the most victories? Just throwing a question out there since I've not even thought about it until now.  Smiley

John
 

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Reply #14 - Mar 28th, 2005 at 9:08am

Felix/FFDS   Offline
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So which of the "night fighters" had the most victories? Just throwing a question out there since I've not even thought about it until now.  Smiley

John


Pilot? or Aircraft?

Without doing any research, I would venture to say that it would have been the Me-110, due to sheer numbers and opportunities...
 

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