The "Super-Zero" That Never Made It: Mitsubishi A7M Reppu 

When they didn't even share common hardware, that has to really complicate logistics. IIRC, they did not start cooperating on equipment and standardization until late 1943 or 1944.

Lol

The Americans were an annoying distraction in the IJA/IJN war

i remember this book on the Marines taking the islands like Solomons, and there was an entire chapter on Guadalcanal where the US Navy intercepted the exchange between the IJN and Imperial Army on who will pick up their soldiers during the retreat and it was just insults thrown at each other. I know Nimitz and MacArthur didnt like each other but they had the professionalism to work with each other.

When I was earning my pilots license one of my instructor pilot was a former Navy F4 Phantom pilot. One time I ask him how he liked the phantom jet. His answer “a piece of $/-/ ; T” complementary with a look of hatred into the past.

The Japanese Navy's naming scheme for its aircraft was remarkably like the one used by the US Navy.

@@iskandartaib Except that Japan's system incorporated the manufacturer of the plane, similar to Germany, France, and Italy. That would have been awkward with the U.S., where multiple companies sometimes built the same plane.

@@pacificostudios The American system DID incorporate the manufacturer. I will need to go look up the details but Wildcats built by Grumman were F4Fs while those made by (can't remember off the top of my head) were FM2s.

@@iskandartaib You're right, the second letter designated the manufacturer in the U.S. Navy. FM2 was an improved version of the F4F, that happened to be built by General Motors. The F4F followed the FF, F2F, and F3F bi-planes, and was superior to the Brewster F2A, the tragically famous Brewster Buffalo. I'm not sure how you get F from "Grumman" and A from "Brewster," or U from "Vought" or Y from "Consolidated," J from "North American" and H from "McDonnell-Douglas," but apparently the Navy picked a different letter whenever one had been used already. "M" was used for Martin and "C" was used for Curtiss, and "N" was used for Naval Aircraft Factory, when the Government built airplanes for itself during WWI.

Indeed Wildcat had good supercharger for it's time, but that might have been somewhat detrimental as it was also heavy. Later on Americans realized that most naval aviation took place below their supercharger's peak altitude. For a similar reason P-38 and P-47 didn't have the performance advantage against Bf 109 and Fw 190 as B-17s and B-24s didn't operate so high.

Another fatal failure of the Japanese was in their strict adherence to orders. When the order was given to "Return To Base", the Japanese would form up & do just that, and if they were bounced by American fighter aircraft, Japanese fighter pilots were not allowed to break formation to try & fight off the opposing Americans. THEY SIMPLY HAD TO FOLLOW ORDERS WITHOUT FAIL. So in a number of situations, American fighter pilots, (some who were just flying their very first combat patrols), could just cruise in on the Japanese 6 o'clock position and leisurely shoot down the Japanese with impunity, and with no fear of retaliation. In fact, a number of "Ace In A Day" rookie pilots were made this way throughout the air war in the PTO. If memory serves, I believe the highest single mission kill count by a rookie pilot was 12 confirmed, which left just two Japanese aircraft remaining out of 14 initially. It would have been higher, but the pilot ran out of ammunition & was getting low on fuel. I don't remember the pilot's name right off the bat, but I do remember reading an account of the incident.

@@SierraThunder Double ace in day was rare even for axis super aces. This sounds false simply because a US pilot with such score would be far better known. Perhaps it it was multiple rookie pilots?

Americans, as usual, will inevitably embellished and exaggerated their results as they won the war. When I watched Combat by Vic Morrow or John Wayne movies as a kid, I always wonder why German and Japanese soldiers were so stupid and why bullets tried their best to avoid GI's. Well, the American war in Vietnam proved how horrific & prolific the American propaganda arm & its media accomplice misinformed and disinformed reality.

​​​@@Teh0X. He is likely referring to Capt. William Shomo, who was flying a brand new P-51 Mustang, after using overage P-40s on reconnaissance missions. Shomo and his wingman Lt. Paul Lipscomb, encountered a Betty bomber escorted by 12 Tony fighters. Shomo shot down the bomber and six fighters, earning the Congressional Medal of Honor while Lipscomb accounted for four and a Silver Star, making a total of 11 shot down out of 13.

McNamara was an ass

The chosen one?😁

This made me chuckle 😊

I thought it went from Zero to Hiro

Touche' (smile)

The Japanese had some decent engineers (not enough) but no resources to speak of. Technically they could have "matched" the allies in practical engineering and produced better aircraft earlier but no resources make for a moot point.

While I agree in general often the stat of max speed at 20k feet over-estimates the performance of American ww2 fighters versus those from other countries. as an example ki-84s could out-climb & out-speed many American fighters at low to medium altitudes. The Fw-190 could out-speed many western fighters at low altitude and out roll them all. There was definitely a technical gap widening between the US and especially Japan. this was a product of limited resources being spread too thinly or on obsolescent aircraft and wartime blockade/ bombing.

@@garydownes2111 : The Axis had too small of an industrial base and lost much of that as the war took its toll. Germany made record numbers of planes in 1944 but it meant using slave labor and making deep compromises in fabrication and materials. That was not sustainable. They tried to make up the difference in advanced technology but were never more than a few months ahead of the Allies. And the effort devoured much capacity needed for basic needs that got ignored. Meanwhile the Allies were arming, feeding and supporting armies from Greenland, to Australia and in every time zone on earth.

@@charlesjames1442 German aircraft development was a joke. They were approving all kinds of harebrained schemes based on rivalries and self-interest and the management of those programs was ridiculous. Britain could have produced a jet fighter to at least match the 262 in performance, with more reliability and manoeuverability if they were in desperation mode, but they didn't need to. The 262 was an experimental dead end as were many of the duds Germany produced.

@@nerdyali4154 262 was absolutely not a dead end. It helped develop many of the post-war jet fighters.

"Overall Japanese aircraft companies were only 2-3 years behind US, UK and Germany." I wouldn't say they were truly behind at all. Japans big problem wasn't even lack of good engines, their problem was that due to their horribly poor industrial standards, their engines NEVER performed anywhere near as well as they should have, or did as prototypes. And spare parts, often had to spend as much time in a workshop on the based they were being used, as it had taken to make it in a factory, before they actually fit as they were supposed to. (This is also why Japan postwar became such a high end nation in massproduction and high quality production, because lots of people did see this problem during the war, when it was too late to fix it, but after the war, they spent years carefully creating several industry standards for precision manufacturing, that once it started being implemented, provided a huge advantage.) And of course, there was also the IJA and IJN coming up with superficially good requirements for new gear, but which in reality severely crippled the end product. For example, the engine that became the standard on the Zero, Horikoshi stated in an interview that that was just supposed to be for the first batch of planes meant more for testing and introduction. He wanted to put a 1350HP engine in it before it went to full massproduction. But IJN said no. Because the fighter would become too heavy and use too much fuel. Considering how they still got the Sakae up to 1130HP and then managed to fit the Kinsei anyway, and it was probably the Kinsei that Horikoshi was referring to, they could literally have had that already in 1941. "Italians hardly developed their own high performance aircraft engines and Soviets managed with weak powered and short ranged low altitude fighters." Italy and USSR got caught at the wrong part of development cycles(Japan was dangerously close to that as well, but managed anyway because they were actually among the world leaders for radial engines at the time), while both also being unlucky with their next generation engines not working well enough and then simply not having the time to do the job either fix the problematic ones or develop new ones. There was also the HUGE problem for USSR that they were caught entirely on the wrong side of doctrine. They were expecting a medium-high altitude airwar with heavy bombers. And they got a low-medium altitude airwar against medium bombers and ground support attack planes. Where the German planes had their best performance, while too many of the Soviet aircraft didn't reach their best until a few thousand meters higher. And unlike UK and USA who were also doing the Douhet whoopsie, USSR didn't get any real chance to rectify the problems caused by this until after WWII.

@@DIREWOLFx75 That's mostly true, although most of their 14-cylinder engines models didn't have big issues. Ha-33 and even Ha-32 ran reliably at their rated power at the end. It's mainly their 18-cylinder radials which needed more time and indeed improved manufacturing standards. Ha-36, which was their first 18-cylinder engine was quickly abandoned, Ha-45 was running at derated power settings and all the rest remained in development hell. To run reliably in combat and 18-cylinder radial simply needed something more advanced than a float type carburetor, which Nakajima didn't have until spring 1945. Apparently using Mitsubishi's direct injection wasn't an option for them... Also their V-engines had well known extra pains from nickel shortages.

Yeah, the Type 99-1 were an excellent starting point for the new idea of mass use on aircraft, but they were on the edge of obsolete already from the start. The Zero should have had the 99-2 from the moment serial production started. Just as the 7mm's should have been replaced with heavy MGs right from the start. And with only 4 weapons, it might have made good sense to go for something slightly more powerful like 23mm cannons instead of the historical 99-2. Or, of course, start the opposite way and put 6 heavy MGs on it instead. It's hard to tell what would have been most functional due to all the limits for weight, size etc.. 6 might not even fit those limits... The Zero was such a weird mix of amazing and "OMG! R U CRAZY?!?"...

Makes sense p&w’s radial engines were boss. You could have cylinders blown off and it would still be running like a champ. Air cooled didn’t have to worry about a coolant leak. I’d take a F6F over just about every other plane from the time.

It is not a copy of R-1830.Sakae engine has 130mm bore and 150mm stroke.On the other hand,R1830 engine has 140mm bore and 140mm stroke.Nakajima company did licensed copy of Pratt & Whitney’s engine and there is a lot of elements that came from that engine in Sakae engine.But definitely Sakae engine is not a direct unlicensed copy of the R1830 engine.

​@@user-bd4ds2ln1z It wasn't an exact copy. As you note, stroke and bore were slightly different, as were overall dimensions and output. But those are minor details. While not a "direct copy", the basic design and operation of both engines were the same. Zero's prop was however a direct copy of the three Hamilton-Standard blades used on DC-3. I've found no record of Nakajuma's paying license fees to P&W, but is you have evidence to that effect, I'd appreciatre your pointing it out to me. Thanks. Nakajima did license the British Bristol Jupiter single row radial engine, to which it later added Wright Cyclone and P&W R-1340 features. Nakajima Ha5 was a 14-cylinder, twin-row development of this line. After further evolution, to include a supercharger, the Ha219 variant grew to 18 cylinders. Nakajima Sakae was also a twin-row 14-cylinder engine, nominally an advanced, scaled-down Ha5 derivative. But it has too many functional similarities to the P&W R-1830 Twin Wasp for coincidental convergence.

@@johntillman6068 According to some sources, Nakajima purchased the rights to manufacture the R-1690 Hornet engine and the R-1340 Wasp C in 1929. English is not my native language, so I only use Japanese literature, but it is difficult to think that Mitsubishi has purchased the manufacturing rights but Nakajima has not, so I think that Nakajima also did .I disagree that the Sakae engine is a copy of the R-1830 Twin Wasp. Of course, there was also the influence of P&W, but Nakajima received technical guidance from Curtiss-Wright, and this influence can be seen in the lubrication system of the Sakae engine and the nitride steel cylinder.

@@user-bd4ds2ln1z Nakajima might have considered Sakae an in house development not requiring a license. It and its predecessors did draw on other unlicensed Western designs besides R-1830.

The Zero's development potential was limited, it's a plane who's inherent design just cannot be improved much. Even then, the A6M8 was much more powerful than the original.

@@ThatZenoGuy It probably reinforces the view that the Japanese must have thought the war was going to be short and the quality of the replacement wasn't going to be an issue.

@@TheSideband Nope, that has very little to do with it. It was a simple matter of technology and design decisions around the plane. Japan struggled to make gasoline with high octane, so horsepower was always in limited supply. Meaning they had to slap bigger engines on planes to make them faster. Zero was simply not big enough to handle a larger engine without massive redesigns. Soooooooo it never got a much bigger engine until the very end of the war.

"You know what always amazes me. The Germans upgraded the Me109 and FW190 comprehensively over the duration of the war. You would have thought these aircraft had limitations of how far they could be improved and yet in terms of performance they were broadly competitive with the allied aircraft towards the end of the war." Oh, but it gets better when you look closer. Remember, the Me-109 is an aircraft from 1935. And yet it competed VERY well against aircraft designed as late as 1942 even some from 1943. The 190 was a much better plane on raw advantages, but it was also effectively half a decade newer and pretty much from the same timeframe as the Zero. "It probably reinforces the view that the Japanese must have thought the war was going to be short and the quality of the replacement wasn't going to be an issue." Absolutely not. They just didn't have the resources to easily achieve the nextgeneration aircraft they wanted. Their single biggest problem was that while they were among the world leaders in regards to radial engines, their industry was very low precision and quality, as it was more cottage industry than true massproduction, this resulted in lots of engines whose prototypes at optimal conditions were SUPERB, once they were taken out of labconditions, or worse, put in massproduction, didn't get even remotely close to their theoretical best, or even function properly at all. Under peacetime conditions, it wasn't a big problem, you just spent the extra time with all parts in the workshop and fixed everything up. But in wartime, Japan effectively had to spend something like 1/4 of its total industrial capacity to do post-production "fixing" of parts, especially anything for high performance machines. And that took a LOT of skilled manpower(and overall resources), severely limiting Japan's ability to do advanced developments once the war started. . "Japan struggled to make gasoline with high octane, so horsepower was always in limited supply." And that also compounded with the problems mentioned above. Not to forget making gasoline at all. As Japan literally ran a noticeable chunk of its airforce late in the war on fuel made from the needles of coniferous trees. And that was extremely wasteful of resources as well. Just the resources needed to come up with the ability to make aircraft fuel from such a source at all, it was a huge accomplishment, but costly.

@@DIREWOLFx75 Good comment, the difficulties experienced when trying to mass produce the Kawasaki Ha-140 copy of the DB-601 need no elaboration. I think many people downplay the difficulty of aero-engine manufacture because of Packard's massive output of their Merlin version; "If a car company can do it, how hard could it be?". Japanese pilots evaluating the captured P-51C "Evalina" were shocked that it's production quality was so far above their aircraft, with one pilot saying "It did not leak oil!" Anyway, let us be thankful Mitsubishi didn't get any further developing their J8M Shusui copy of the Me-163!

And "Vittu" means?

A man once said, airplanes are beautiful dreams. Having flown a plane, even if just a lil Cessna, I'd say it checks out.

Beautification of Japan's horrible past ... If only Miyasaki is brave enough to make "anime" that openly depicts his country's military .

@@peekaboopeekaboo1165 Nausicaa Howl's Moving Castle Grave of the Fireflies The dream sequence in Porco Rosso Which of these movies glorifies war or imperialism? He openly criticises it. Throughout Miysaki's oeuvre is a fascination with flight. I hope your criticism of Hollywood's connection with the US military industrial complex is more on point than your vapid criticism of Miyasaki.

@@pencilpauli9442 Miyasaki never openly depict his nation's military's deeds abroad . Hollywood have made movies about atrocities they committed in Vietnam .

@@peekaboopeekaboo1165 Yeah sure there have been US anti-war films. But there are plenty of directors of war movies who have never depicted US atrocities, and glorify war. It's ludicrous to pick out one Japanese anti- war director who is fascinated by flight to lambast. I'm totally with your disgust at the Imperial Japanese war crimes, but not sure why Miyasaki is being singled out for not directly tackling the subject. It's like expecting Disney to make a film about My Lai.

Guess I am getting old but "fun" really should not be a part of the equation for anyone serious about history, especially the bloodiest and most horrific war in history. No matter what if you come up with the opponent gets to have their what if.

@@hoodoo2001 history is fun. get over it. stop whining. Stop acting like a sheltered child who thinks the world hasn't always been violent. I'm a combat vet, and I still thoroughly enjoy studying military history, as well as aviation history, and the history of technology.

@@hoodoo2001 war is never fun. but what i guess i could have used the word interesting instead. the idea of "what would need to happen for X plane to get into production" what would have happened if X person did Z instead of Y. and i do find history fun, otherwise i wouldn't be here.

Exactly. The allies won because they destroyed the means for the Axis to prosecute the war. That and Russian willingness to sacrifice millions to hammer the German army.

Irony is that boom and zoom was also Japanese doctrine also, I learned from postwar interviews I think with sabiro sacki

You guys really believe all that...

@@bakters backed by verified claims that have been poured over by historians for decades.

@@jeffbybee5207 in theory, but in practice Japanese fighters were designed and built for Turn and Burn. All US aircraft were designed for Boom and Zoom. Claire Chennault helped establish Boom and Zoom as US fighter doctrine in the 1930s, long before forming the AVG. In order to fight and win as a Boom and Zoom fighter in a dogfight, you must have the faster aircraft in the matchup. Japanese never had this. the P-38, P-39, P-40, P-51, P-47, F4F, F6F, F4U, etc. Were all faster in level flight and a dive than the Japanese fighters. Thus, even if they taught boom and zoom tactics, they couldn't win a boom and zoom fight with a faster airplane. When you come into a Boom and Zoom fight and you have the slower more maneuverable fighter, you must counter by Turn and Burn style fighting. Using superior maneuverability to try to mess up the diving fighter and pull him into a turn fight.

Nope, the Zero is much better described as a grade school bully.

Nice story, but what does it have to do with a Japanese fighter from WWII??

​As Monty Python would say, and now for something completely different.​@@s.marcus3669

@@s.marcus3669 he mentions the F4 in the first part. I wasn't looking for your approval.

@@BeachTypeZaku He MENTIONS it. The subject of the video is not the F-4 Phantom and his introduction was TOTALLY superfluous. Additionally, you DON'T mention the Phantom at all in your silly-assed comment, so stick it up YOUR afterburner, bozo...

Your analysis that the lack of armour and self-sealing wasnt a big problem at the time is incorrect. It was always a problem and got worse with the increased number of combat engagements. The fact that others might have had the same issues for a short period is irrelevant. The difference is that one country fixed it.

If it hardly did, it was due to depleted reserves of experienced/properly trained pilots - Japan being unable to supply ever new waves of competent flyers. No matter how good a new fighter, a Reppu or a Hayate (and they were under-developed, under-engineered because of hasty process), a novice pilot wouldn't be capable of making a good use of them.

@@greg-warsaw4708 Very true.

And if the horsepower isn't enough they could always slap one or two turbo-supercharger since they didn't shy away from that either. And maybe this way it could even have some attention on survivability Case in point: radial engine is a no-go at 1945

The superiority of axis engineering that led to them not having good planes and being stuck with the zero until the end, even when hopelessly outclassed?

Ignoring, of course, the fact that production is a vital aspect of any engineering, but especially military, and they sucked at it...

Dont forget one of the strongest earthquakes in the japan history that destroyed a lot of aircraft factories.

You also need pilots to fly the planes and by 1943 the Japanese were running low with good ones and new pilots were not getting the training they used to give.

​@@amogusenjoyer Don't you see the happy face? I am making a joke at the legion of Axis enthusiasts (especially Nazi enthusiasts called Wehraboos) who constantly fantasize the AXIS winning due to their basic "superiority".