Mitsubishi A7M Reppu / SAM

Tom Barron, e-mail, 04.07.2012 08:52 The Japanese lost this war before it even began. When they attacked Pearl Harbor their embassy in Washington had received a top secret signal that they were to drop off a declaration of war at the US State department. The signal was so highly classified that they could not disclose it to anyone without the right clearance. So the diplomas had to type up the declaration of war themselves. None of them could type worth a damn, and when you are doing something as historical as declaring your country's leaders had decided to go to war, well, everything had to be just so, letter perfect, and no erasures allowed! So they typed and tried and tried again and this little farce went on for so long, that by the time the ambassador had clean copy to present and got his top hat and hauled his ass over to talk to Corny Hull, well, by that time the carrier strike force was already doing their thing in Hawaii, and the Japanese, 'ah, so, we decided we would rather fight you than put up with your imperialist demands that we give up what we gained by force of arms just on your arrogant say so! En garde!' and immediately followed up by a killing blow to the US Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor. That 'we declared war on you honorably' just before the guns went bang might have cut some ice as far as their 'limited objectives' war goals were, and perhaps this would have resulted in some negotiations in mid 42 happening, but that undeclared war attack really screwed the pooch there for the Japanese. They were the Yellow Peril and America was just as racist as were the Japanese and the Germans. That attitude went through one hell of a change after they took Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Java, and the Zero was doing combat ranges of nine hundred miles away from their bases. They had extremely well trained pilots, but they were only graduating a hundred Naval Aviators a year. At Midway they lost three hundred pilots. They had their heads up their butts with 'we know..' stuff that simply was not so. The American's were fat and cowardly and didn't have the back bone for a long prolonged fight, just as the Japanese were near sighted buck toothed short little little gardeners who were only clever at copying more advance western designs. (How many of you know about which plane(s)the Zero was supposedly based on?) America caught one hell of a break when she got to read the Japanese codes. The Japanese were simply too arrogant about their own superiority. Sakai, the great Japanese ace, was one of seventy five selected out of fifteen hundred for pilot training, and of that group, only twenty five won their wings. The Japanese military was the most brutal of all of the armies and navies of the twentieth century, and I think you would have to go back to Sparta to find as military a culture. That brutal selection process chose their commanders and they followed a medieval of warfare where the worst dishonor one could have was to surrender in combat. They treated their captives in so bad a way that the only way that America would have negotiated is if they did not hear about the Bataan Death March. The eastern and western codes were two different things entirely. Succor the wounded? Just kill them so they don't slow you down! The idea that a lack of skill with a type writer might have effected how World War II went in the Pacific War sounds ludicrous, but there it is. The Japanese military were hell bent on fighting to the very last man standing,and they simply would not listen. If a plant manager told a military officer that due to lack of materials or skilled labor they could not deliver the fighters, he'd be beaten until hospitalized. (That happened at Mitsubishi, by the way.) The atomic bomb, horrible as that weapon was and is, did save a lot more lives that most people realize even now. Does anyone remember those 'really dumb' balloons that Japan sent over on the jet stream that set off a few forest fires in Washington and Oregon way late in the war? One of those weapons that only someone clutching at straws and living in a day dream would even bother with, and how dumb could they get, right? Well, the forest fires were reported in the press, and that allowed the Japanese to figure out where their balloons were winding up. In China, they had been testing biological weapons and once they had the range, guess what the real payload of those silly balloons was? We now have a policy of equating biological and chemical weapons as being the equivalent of nuclear weapons and it's the stated policy of the United States that if someone attacked us with biological warfare, they get nukes in return. Speaking of nukes, Hanford is in Washington state, and I image that if a plague got started, it would have screwed up production of the atomic bomb. You also have the naval yards there where ships would pull in for long yard periods and men would take leave and head out for all parts of the country. Gee, if only we'd ... reply

kildlawyrs, e-mail, 14.05.2012 06:50 Any one who honestly believes that this fighter could have changed the war's outcome in any meaningful way, should ask themselves, "Where would America's military power have been six months after Hiroshima?" As with the Germans, with the Japanese it was a classic case of , Too little, too late. reply

Bush Pilot, e-mail, 09.05.2012 18:29 The Japanese gambled it all on a short war? Let's consider how unlikely a negotiated surrender could be expected to actually happen. 1. Japanese undeclared war attack on US at Pearl Harbor. 2. Japanese torture /slaughter hundreds of thousands of Chinese. 3. Japanese torture /execute thousands of civilians /captured enemy prisoners. Conclusion: Nothing is going to stop the sleeping giant and it's allies from crushing these merciless warmongers, regardless of which fighter was developed and put into action whenever and with hot shot pilots or not, etc. developed by Japan. WWII era Japanese officers could give lessons on how to motivate your enemy to do anything to beat you and never be willing to negotiate. reply

Ron, e-mail, 21.03.2012 09:05 That MK9A 2200 hp motor could have given other Japanese fighters some much needed speed while the war was still on. At least the IJNAF. Can you imagine a 400 mph Zero in 1944, or a Shiden-Kai with 2200 hp instead of the unreliable Homare, or in place of the Raiden's unreliable 1800 hp Kasei 23. I think the Army Ki 100 was too slow with the 1500 hp Mitsubishi 62 engine, almost as slow as the A6M8. So if Kawasaki could stomach a 1500 hp Mitsubishi navy motor, what about the 2200 hp one! can you imagine letting all Japanese fighters test that engine in 1943-44. No more unreliable J2M3, Ki 61-II, N1K1 /2, and of course Ki 84! They could use the extra power too (especially the Ki43). The A6M5 could have been well armored and sturdy with that bad boy under the hood and fool everyone and in quantity. As it was the A6M5 still had what? 1130 hp in 1944-45, while the Reppu engine waited and waited and missed out. Mitsubishi should have demonstrated their MK9A and K engines and quit with the 1130 hp motor already. Let the Navy authorities see the light. 1942-3 was gone. The US wasn't accommodating the A6M5 at this late date. The most numerous fighter of Japan was being relegated to suicide missions. They were fairly good at it too. As soon as Horikoshi locked horns with the Navy over the Reppu, he should have let loose with a tried and true Zero with real strength and hp! Just as a stop gap at least. Maybe they would have said no, but I doubt it. Even the smaller MK9K with 2000 hp would have brought the A6M5b up to world class performance in spring 1944. Think of 5,000 of those running loose. The Zero with armor and high velocity armament (plus a new 13.2 mm MG to compliment the other 3 weapons). Thicker skin to raise dive speed to 460 mph. This 5b version deserved more than 1130 hp. The Reppu was supposed to be ready by now but nooo! So, demonstrate a Zero special! And climax the show with a Raiden special! Corsairs and Hellcats, Lightnings and Mustangs, and MK VIII spitfires would have their hands full. Don't keep making 5,000 obsolete A6M5 /6 /7s. If the Navy pilots miss the low hp, let them fly old Oscars and Nates. reply

Ron, e-mail, 19.03.2012 03:39 Jiro Horikoshi had to be one frustrated designer! The Japanese Navy was farsighted enough to issue a 16-Shi specification in 1940 to replace the Zero with the Reppu but withdrew it, then revived it in April 1942 to a 17-Shi spec! There goes a year or so right off the bat! Next Jiro insisted on the 2200 hp MK9A or B engine being developed for the necessary performance, but the Navy 'elected to postpone its engine selection'. In September the Navy instructed Mitsubishi to install the 2000 hp NK9K instead! The A7M1 was the result in April 1944 complete with hydraulically folding wings for carrier stowage (what carriers?). As a result of its poor performance May 6 1944, as Horikoshi warned, it was suspended by the Navy. Finally they listened and authorized his MK9A installation. After a redesign for this larger engine, the A7M2 flew October 13 1944. At last the Navy found a successor to the A6M Zero! But by now nothing but misfortune befell the program; earthquakes, B-29 bomb raids, test crashes, US fighter sweeps. Unnecessary delays from the start. It should have been in service long before. Even with the 2000 hp engine the A7M1 in 1943 combat could have been in place of the prolific A6M5 altogether. 357 mph was better than 351. Then, in place of the 348 mph A6M6 Zero, the A7M2 with the more powerful engine reaching 390 mph would have rivaled the army's fleet-footed Nakajima Hayate. The Japanese Navy was its own enemy as if the USA wasn't enough. Guess they thought they were better engineers than Jiro Horikoshi and his team at Mitsubishi. reply

Klaatu, e-mail, 13.08.2011 02:30 They say that a company ought to begin designing their next fighter by the time the current one is being introduced into squadron service. Consequently, if the Zero went into service in 1940, then that's when Mitsubishi ought to have begun working on it's replacement, the Reppu. However, they didn't begin work on it until 1942, and the first prototype didn't fly until half way through 1944. Under those circumstances, it really wouldn't have made any difference how good the plane turned out to be, it was inevitable that it was going to be a case of too little and too late. reply

bombardier, e-mail, 24.05.2011 20:57 Had it been built in numbers it would have been much harder for the Allies to win the war reply

Ben Beekmasn, e-mail, 26.02.2011 04:26 I agree with those who say the war's outcome would have been the same whether the Japanese used the A7M Reppu, the Nakajima Ki-84, the Kawasaki Ki-100, the Mitsubishi J2-M3 or any other advanced airplane in quantity. The United States was at the same time also developing more powerful, faster, longer-ranged etc. aircraft which would overcome anything they met in combat as did the Hellcat and the Corsair. And with the huge manufacturing capacity of the Americans, a small country like Japan having the geographical size of California wouldn't have a chance at winning a protracted conflict. Indeed, the Japanese were well aware they couldn't win a long war. Their strategy from the beginning was to grab so much territory at the outset that the Allies would see the futility of trying to win it all back and would ask for a negotiated peace. The negotiations would result in Japan returning those territories they didn't really need (as in the Phillipines) but acquiring other territories that were rich in oil and natural resources (such as in the Dutch East Indies). Top Japanese militarists must have been astonished when it became apparent that the U.S. and England /Australia intended to pursue a long, costly, war to recover everything the Japanese had taken. Those Japanese Generals and Admirals who had spent time in the West, in London, Paris, Washington etc., must have known by mid-1942 that it was a war they couldn't possibly win. The militaristic spirit of "bushido" that these older upper-level officers had by than so thoroughly inculcated in the lower officer ranks made it impossible to stop their own war machine. The "youngsters" wanted to fight on regardless of the number of casualties. That is, until the atomic bombs came along and put an end to all arguments. reply

joel, e-mail, 10.12.2010 07:12 anyone who thinks that this aircraft would have changed history is dillusional. It would have expedited the new generatation of American aircraft like the F8F and the F80 if the A7M would have been produced in great numbers. I doubt the timeline would have changed much. The Focke-Wolfe 190 was still probably a better airplane. reply

Dominic, 04.10.2010 05:44 Guys, remember that the Ki-84 "Hayate" was equal to the Hellcat and Corsair in all respects, they just never got to fight at full potential due to a lack of skilled pilots and horrible fuel. Same with the Kawanishi N1K-J Shiden. The A7M, if piloted by pilots with skill equal to their American counterparts, would've laid waste to anything the Allies could've put in the air in 1945. Period. reply

MAXWELL POKU, e-mail, 30.06.2010 10:19 THIS IS AN INTERNET FLAUD. THESE PEOPLE ARE HERE JUST TO TAKE YOUR MONEY AND RUN. PLEASE DON'T FALL FOR THESE STUPID STORIES. THEY ARE NOT TRUE. reply

alb, e-mail, 15.05.2010 03:22 I think that Jiro Horikoshi scaled the A6M up to adapt the 18 cylinder engine to good effect. reply

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