Japan's "Giant" Attacker Had A Giant Problem: Aichi B7A Ryusei
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- čas přidán 26. 07. 2024
- In this video, we take a look at the Aichi B7A Ryusei, a Japanese carrier-based Torpedo and Dive bomber from World War II that was the largest and heaviest attack aircraft in the Imperial Japanese Navy's arsenal. We first talk about the growth and evolution of Japanese carriers, from their tiniest carriers built just after World War I to their carriers that rivaled Allied carriers in WW2. We then talk about the effective size limits on carrier based planes due to how carriers are designed, and how a new breed of Japanese carrier led to that size limit increasing, which then led to the B7A Ryusei.
We then talk about the performance and overall size of the B7A, being faster, heavier, and larger than the planes it would be replacing, like the Nakajima B5N, B6N, and Yokosuka D4Y, while also being as good, if not better, than the Mitsubishi A6M Zero. We talk about the very slow development process of the B7A due to engine development issues and how, when actually ready for production, the B7A had no carriers from which to operate. We end by talking about Japanese carrier losses, the attempt to use the B7A from land-based sites, and how the B7A was one of the most unfortunate planes of WW2.
The design engineers responsible for the overall frame (the whole airplane) did a good job. It was not their fault that their country's aircraft carriers sunk to the bottom of the sea, or if the engine delivered by the supplier was not up to the expectations. It is the responsibility of the design engineer to create a product fit for feasible assembly, but that does not mean that their factory will produce the thing in great numbers.
This plane is such a beast, while at the same time very fast and maneuverable.
the japanise did design some surprisingly good planes... just not enough of them
Too big for carriers to carry many of them, though.
@@anzaca1 good point 😊👍🏽
The Hosho was a contemporary of the USS Langley and HMS Hermes. All three had the primary value of being platforms for learning how to operate airplanes from and aircraft carrier. By late 1944 Japan had given up on aircraft carriers. The Japanese were not even repairing damaged carriers. They lacked the ships, fuel, and most importantly skilled pilots needed
This is unironically my favorite Japanese naval aircraft.
Same :)
I really like the Ryusey but I still prefer the Ki-61, but I know both are very different in purpose.
That Homare radial made for great fighters like the Ki-100, N1K1/2, and Ki-84.
My top three favorite fighters in the Pacific War, and I was a USAF pilot. 😆
Ki 100s used the Mitsubishi Kinsei 1970 cubic inch radial not the Nakajima Homare 2187 cubic inch radial, 1500 hp on take off for the Mitsubishi vs ~2000hp for the Nakajima
Aichi was smart to use a gull wing with a huge propeller, akin to a Corsair.
7:00 Akagi had 2 elevators at the time of its launch when it had 3 flight decks. After a reconstruction in the 30s it had 3.
A very good video that you made here and I think I can answer some of your mysteries about why they didn't make as many aircraft.
Production of the production model (the Type-11:１１型) started in April of 1944, during this time Japan was still trying to rebuild their navel taskforce air group (the Kidou butai air groups.)
So priorities were made for Jill and Judy's so they could be used for the upcoming battles while the Grace, it was only after the battle of the Marianna's that orders were given to ramp up production for the new navel task force they planned to recreate again.
However around this time the first B29 raids began and the factory was damaged, slowing production and right around there, the earth quake (東南海地震: the 1944 Tounan sea earth quake) hit, slowing it even more.
So basically the slow production was due to high command low priority, loss of production grounds right when they were given the full production order by the B29 and the earthquake that destroyed their factory yet a second time.
It was tragedy after tragedy and the fact that they made 114 by wars end is honesty a miracle.
Also, one problem which I personally found a bit confusing, yes the size of the carrier was one issue but reading the Japanese reports, not because of what you pointed out, the Grace had folding wings, and the navy had plans to use nearly every aircraft carriers they had to launch it, even the Shinyo and the Unyou, both were light carriers were candidates for launching this aircraft.
Also the main backbone idea for the Graces use were with the Unryu class, the Unryu, the Katsuragi and the Amagi, the only two carriers the Grace actually did test runs were, the Unryu & the Shinano, so I really don't think elevator size was ever the main issue. (All the Japanese sources also mention the elevator weight thing but a lot of them don't think this story is true since apparently its rarely mentioned in Japanese navel sources and most main sources are from Western literature after the war.)
The bigger issue, from what I can read, had more to do with the weight.
The Type-3 arresting gear was the only type that could safely stop the Grace when it came down to land on the carriers and only 7 carriers had these (Shinano, Taiho, Unryu, Amagi, Katsuragi, Shinyo and Unyou. and by December of 44, only 2 carriers remain that could safely land the aircraft, the Katsuragi and the Amagi.
And by then the Japanese scrapped their carrier air group since they didn't have the fuel needed to move the fleet.
The Drachinifel channel has an excellent video on Japanese aircraft carriers.
The moment you said they wanted this TORPEDO BOMBER to be as maneuverable as a ZERO, I started pitying the poor designers...
All the Sake in the world wouldnt help with that insanity
Imperial Japanese Navy we want some of this we want two of those we want three of those we want five of that
Designers you've got to be fucking kidding me
And somehow they can deliver some of these insane requirements
@@ZaHandle exactly... I'm genuinely impressed.
I adore this aircraft and with those inverted gull wings it makes an excellent twin to the A7M reppu fighter it's a shame neither got to show off their potential really
Actually I learned a few things from this video. First, I have never seen any major history about this plane. Thank you for providing some well needed information. Second fact was you have a Albino placostamus. Third fact your placostamus has social anxiety. Please keep up the outstanding work.
keep up the good work
Such a magnificent machine, one of my favourites and come to think about it, the title sums it up perfectly
The Ryuusei is a really pretty machine. One of my favorite Japanese Aircraft from World War 2
Best Airplane channel ive been to and learning stuff i never knew about these planes i thank thee
The "Taiho" was not really actually sunk by the torpedo. What sank her was her poorly trained, under-manned crew, who had very few experienced firefighter and damage control ratings and officers - The fire SHOULD have been brought under control, starved of oxygen and put out quickly - Several US Carriers (both Fleet and Light) had strikes in fuel main storage and recovered easily, needing repair, yes, but not sinking like the "Taiho". Her crew's situation basically 'gifted' the kill to the Sub....
Thanks a lot, I have in my 1/72 scale collection a B7N with the fin number E-251 (sorry, don't know how to turn the "E" to face left), but never knew the true potential of the Ryusei until I saw your video! Keep up the great work. Greetings from Poland (almost midnight and almost 30 degrees C!)
The E to the left is the japanese katakana character "YO"
The Grace was an excellent aircraft, but only a small number were built before the end of the war, & these all flew from land based airstrips, as there were no carriers left to fly them from.
5:22 a WW2 military history channel is the last place I expected to see this reference 😂
Very well done, thanks for the great information and analysis.
In the 4 P-51s at 2:16, the two nearest planes were early series model Ds. They lacked the additional
vertical surface area gained by dorsal fillets on the vertical tail. These early model Ds were not as
stable as desired when carrying underwing fuel tanks or underwing ordinance.
Enjoying your videos, well done.
New favorite channel
Patrick's building photo(aka Aichi Factory 1944) really made me LOL and think of my own building style...
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....immediately thought of Yul Brynner in "The King and I"...😂
Albacore: Hey best buddy.
Taihou: Ahhhhh.
I love these little insights into author's life at the end of the video!
Very well done. Thank you.
To out fly the zero? Were the Japanese thinking of making it a carrier based “Zerstorer”?
I love that Shigeo Koilke Hasegawa kit box art. Got my 1/48 Ryusei on my WW2 Shelf of Shame.
Koike 😊
Love seeing more Japanese, especially IJN, aircraft on this channel!
Nice picture of Kotzebue, Alaska.
Hi. Thankyou for a very interesting video.
Moral of the Story is don't order the large Artisanal Torpedo Bomber from the menu....
Another Great video. WOW, a plane that could do multiple rolls well, not many of those. Although the Kate did an excellent job as torp bmber during the war.
I'm re-reading the book from Nakajima-Inoguchi-Pineau team's "Kamikaze". I read it back in the seventies but it's still in my library. It's a 1956 book but, with all its weak spots, it shows the huge limits in which the IJN forces had to fight in. Even a formidable plane like the B7N, if available in june '44, wouldn't have changed the outcome of the Marianas Battle. Those experienced pilots were long gone, and the Turkey Shoot wouldn't have been much different. A sad story made short.
@Riccardo_Silva ITSEMURHALENTÄJÄT = The title 4 the book in FINNISH 🇫🇮 Google it w authors names to see a beautiful dust jacket, late 50 s style. I got it, gimme your e if no luck. Myself read it 1973 @ preteens. Also: Burke Davis : KUOLEMA AMIRAALILLE (= Death to the admiral. = Yamamoto).
Always love your sense of humour ;)
Very thoughtful, interesting presentation. Good back-history on carrier and elevator size, to help us understand and appreciate the B7A. Good comparisons, all around. Especially liked the comparative GDP graph. It did predict well what would happen when Japan tried to produce enough B7As, soon enough to matter. They should have just decided to skip the war and trade with their neighbors. Look how well they've done since then. Teachable moment for all of us.
Japan's attempt at a British idea of an multi-role attack plane.
It should be noted that the loss of Taijo was caused by the damage control people who allowed gasolene fumes to permeate a large portion of the ship to air it out. These fumes, much like what happened to Lexington, found a spark and Taijo "erupted like Mt. Fuji."
There’s a size limit on everything, at a certain point you get a black hole. Not sure if there are size limitations on those though.
I got a model of this plane which still needs built. Just pretty cool looking plane :)
well, it was nicer looking than anything blackburn ever designed
Blackburn Skua is beautiful 😢
@@copter2000 😂😂😂👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
@@scottessery100👍👍👍🇬🇧from🇯🇵
To be fair, Blackburn did redeem themselves slightly right at the end. I think the Buccaneer is pretty.
@@adamrodaway1074The B7A was a better beast than the SB2C and might have been better than the TBY Seawolf.
I like watching your videos, more for your narration than the aircraft!
The Taiho didn't sink, it was ordered onto an underwater operation by the Imperial Japanese Special Forces division.
Don't compare the ww2 Axis powers(Maybe except Italy) to the modern Russian military?They were the most competent and powerful enemies we ever faced in human history
Even the IJN at its worst could still probably rek their Russian/Soviet contemporaries
@@erikvan9582 "Don't compare the ww2 Axis powers(Maybe except Italy) to the modern Russian military?They were the most competent and powerful enemies we ever faced in human history"
And fall 2023, a USA nation ranker raised the Russian military to best in the world.
And early 2024, documents from French military leaked that among other things says that Russian military is the new gold standard for everyone else to wish they could equal.
Based on Ukraine and US sources only, if Ukraine had taken zero casualties, right now, they SHOULD at absolute minimum have over 3.5 million troops in the field.
The last estimate done by a US neutral source said they had 300-400 thousand troops.
You think the other 3+ millions took a vacation or something?
Russian casualties, based on a western propaganda site created solely for the reason of screaming out loud about it, are around 58 thousand KIA and similar to twice the same WIAs(and those numbers MAY be somewhat exaggerated).
And Russia spent the entire 2022 AND half of 2023 fighting at numerical inferiority.
September 2022, when Ukraine bragged about their unstoppable million man army, Russia had between 60 and 65 thousand troops fighting Ukraine, plus around 50-80 thousand DPR/LPR troops and 5-15 thousand PMC and allied forces.
December 2022, Zalushny in an interview stated that Ukraine military had REBUILT it back to 700 thousand, but that only 200 thousand of those were combat capable/trained.
Kherson offensive.
55 thousand Ukraine troops attacked.
6 thousand Russian troops defended with support of another 2 thousand.
3 weeks later, Russian troops had taken about 250 casualties.
The Ukraine force was completely wiped out. 31 thousand KIAs.
That's the battle where Ukraine troops were coached by CIA, because they "knew" that Russian troops were so disorganised that all they had to do was to overwhelm them with numbers and they would collapse.
Kharkov/Oskil offensive.
10 thousand Ukraine troops attacked supported by another 10 thousand.
ZERO Russian troops defending as they had evacuated the area 2 weeks beforehand. About 500 Roskvadria/2 companies was present as they volunteered to stay behind to protect civillians that had been slow to evacuate. Roskvadria is basically MPs/civil defense/militia.
Several Russian recon platoons moved around ahead of the Ukraine troops, calling in airstrikes and artillery barrages, as well as putting laser tags on point targets for precision munitions.
When the Ukraine force reached Liman, they were down to 7 thousand troops. Russia decided to break their advance there for a while and an improvised unit of 500 troops were sent into the town.
2 weeks later, the attacking force was down to less than 6 thousand troops(and their supporting units had lost almost as much) and had lost several dozen armored vehicles.
The Russian troops then left the town. Everyone who went to the town were still capable of leaving on their own. They had dozens of injured but zero KIAs and noone that couldn't walk on their own.
Total Ukraine casualties, roughly 4 thousand each of KIAs and WIAs.
.
You probably need to start looking outside the western propaganda bubble.
Because they're lying to absurd degrees.
Because when the west talks about "to the last Ukrainian", they MEAN exactly that. They're going sacrifice the entire Ukraine population for the sake of trying to destroy Russia.
Which, several politicians in the last year have openly admitted(Angela Merkel, Grant Schapps etc), was the plan from well before 2014.
@@DIREWOLFx75Yeah bro, I don’t believe any of that.
@@BrownSofaGamer And yet the truth remains the truth.
Reality doesn't care if you believe it or not.
It will still smack you down just as merrily.
And most of what i wrote, you can verify, some you can even easily verify as it even made western mainstream news.
I first knew of this plane after playing Azur Lane. It was depicted as an aim-target focused torpedo bomber meaning the squadron doesnt do parallel torp launch lines like the Allied TBs such as Avenger and Barracuda, but rather intersecting ones.
TY-Such a fine design, so familiar is just a bit too late to influence any outcomes.
8:58 On your statement on elevator size perception. What were their weight capacities? And did the 14x14 have extensions? Center of gravity is more of a concern on external elevators than whether part of it overhangs seaward on its movement as long as its adequately secured.
Been really enjoying this channel. Big like and subscribe from me. Thank you.
Do by chance get your top/side/front pictures from the Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft? Greatest book ever!
Interesting to compare to the Douglas Skypirate and Destroyer from the same period. Great size and complexity with a lot of power (R-4360), but the A1 Skyraider made more operational sense.
A real beast!
ty
Interesting design but it arrived too late to be decisive and at the same time there was a shortage of experienced aircrews.
This plane would have been a handful for USN fighters. It's where the US was going with the Douglas AD Skyraider.
I have buildt the Hasagawa kit ;-)
Why didn't he mention that the B7A had folding wings, as seen in the line drawing at 11:09? Both the B5N and the B6N also had folding wings, but not the D4Y as its span fit the elevators. This brings me to another nit to pick . He keeps using the term 'width' when he should be using the term 'wingspan' or simply 'span'. 'Width' refers to the fuselage, not the wings.
If this isn't a stupid question ; considering how many meanings an uses and entirely different characters are covered by "shi" which one applies to this aircraft & 16-Shi requirement?
Is it just formal speech or is it one of the other uses.. (thought I'd ask as I can't see the character to tell when its just the romanji) & I don't know jack squat about the Japaanese Navy commissioning process in world war two.
Note for your future scripts. You only need one quantifier in a sentence, so you don't need to start a sentence with "however," and end it with "though." One or the other is sufficient.
I always wondered about the sailors on the IJN Akagi and others, regarding their bedrolls. When they were off duty an it was time for bed, did they just go grab theirs off the island or did they have to wait for permission and sleep on the deck without a blanket?
They slept with their officers. The officers like enlisted sailors, especially if they were young. They really didn’t like women.
@@georgeburns7251 Really?
Why did the Japanese commission a light carrier anyways? Did their other ships not have lamps at all?
Four forces affecting flying: lift, thrust, weight and drag.
Dude. You so have to watch community! 🙂
Just one thing: Find a real Cool Logo, please! Thank you for your vids, they're a treat to me!!! ❤
All this talk of engines got me thinking. So often in WW2 tanks had power packs that were just two smaller engines wedded together to give more horsepower, was there ever a case of something similar when it came to aircraft? Where two engines were just fused together as one unit to give more power? Or was the ability to mount multiple propellers with their own engines able to negate the need for such a thing?
I know that was tried a couple times, I think the Germans tried to put some into production.
The added weight and complexity of the gearbox was a problem for the German designs, and the engines in close proximity interfering with each other's cooling was a severe problem...
I don't know who else tried it... I hope we get a video about it!
@@AnimeSunglasses the British tried some engines which were basically 2 V engines combined into an X layout, and had similar problems.
I feel like the HE 177 tried this, suffered engine fires if i remember correctly
With radials, the answer is to double up on rows of cylinders, hence the Wasp and Double Wasp. However, once you get past two rows cooling becomes a major problem with aircooled engines. The Double Wasp produced about 1800kW and was a very successful design.
@@Turnipstalk They used the wasp major but only because they had to. It was a maintenance nightmare but there really wasn't much choice. It was it or something even worse.
It seems to me like the only aircraft that has any cause to be any larger than a 747 is a dedicated tanker.
Great video.I
It's not really fair to compare the Ryusei to Shiden and Hayate. Those two couldn't carry a crew of two or large torpedo.
Entry level ww2 avaition history vids.
Interesting aircraft. Does anyone know why the Japanese have painted their leading edges in chrome yellow?
I always wondered why carriers did not use a ramp ( in the deck, not at the end for "jump starts" ) instead of relatively slow and bulky elevators. The ramp ofc would have to have powered continually moving chains ( as conveyor belts) to move the plane up and the orientation of the plane after it is up must be figured out ( maybe with a 2 stage chainsystem first pulling the plane straight and after a switch toward starboard or port to allow the plane to roll to the catapult loop. I think it would not use more space than elevators ( you can use the underside of the ramp for storage and if you put the chain system through the whole hangar deck you could get rid of the small tractors usually used for pulling the planes from A to B. It would also need an cover lid to protect the ramp when not in use and a similar system with returning chains to pull the plane down for repair/rearm/maintenance. Thoughts ?
If I understand your idea correctly, I think the main problem would be the amount of space the ramp would take up in the ship. and elevator takes a relatively small amount of space of the deck of the ship, while a ramp would most likely take up at least half a deck of the ship. I guess you could put in on the side, but ultimately its cheaper, less material intensive, and space saving to go with an elevator.
@@FacepalmVideoss I would have thought it takes less space since you don´t have to spare the whole space the elevator platform needs on both levels, but ok this entirely depends on the incline angle of the ramp ( and maybe a greater opening in the upper deck ?). And as I said you could still use the space beneath the ramp for storage/machinery. But in the end I don´t know, I was a measly chemist and not an engineer ^^
The ramp would probably have to be half the length of the flight deck, so yeah, very prohibitively inefficient
@@AnimeSunglasses I became curious enough and did a rough sketch with two equal "carriers" one with a "conveyor tunnel" at 45° going up and enough space to simply place the copypaste F-18 at the aft of the carrier where the regular elevator would place the aircraft and the Conveyor takes roughly 2,5 times he length from below ( start of conveyor incline) to the top ( starting position) compared to elevator. It seems however to take far less actual interior volume than the cube of the elevator. If I could only show it here on YT, sigh. If we assume that no space is really wasted ( except for the elevator cube space and the flatter 45°tunnel ) and used for stuff you would actually save some m³. Now for a brutal incline of 45° you´d need a "transport shoe" clamping to the landing gear and hooking into the chain, but for the start catapult you have to do something similar
Hey. How about using feet & inches.
1:40 Kotzebue airport, Alaska USA.
No mention of the Allied code name: Grace
i do like the Japanese an italian paint schemes
Only saw the first series of "Community."
IJN land based not unheard of. That's what they were on the Islands that we kept having to invade. Ya know!
What was it with the late war Axis having projects that were far to large to be feasable
Desperation
It also served the purpose of keeping the engineering staff and other vital personnel from getting drafted. It also allowed the companies to get a big payout before the war ended
The Ryusei was a monster for a Japanese design. Much bigger than an Avenger.
Avenger was longer and had a bigger wingspan and weighed more.
First thing i thought, "That looks like a big "Kate"
The fate of the Taihō was a graphic lesson on the inadequacies of IJN damage control. The Taihō was built ostensibly as a carrier that could receive damage and continue fighting. The Japanese had high hopes for it. When that single torpedo hit, it cracked the avgas tanks in the area of the forward elevator and caused gas to mix with water in the elevator well. The crew's response was to open all hangar doors and hatches, increasing the spread of vapor fumes. The damage control officer turned on all the fans throughout the ship turning it into a floating bomb. A little over six hours after being hit, there was a huge explosion that buckled the flight deck upwards, blew out the sides of the hangar, ruptured the hull and caused a loss of power. The ship became a raging inferno and sank with a third of its crew of 1751. I realize this is not about the B7A Ryusei (Shooting Star), but shows why even the few B7As built had no decks to land on.
You're welcome. See ya next time cobber. Hooroo.
Did anyone else laugh at the request for Zeroesque manoeuvrability?
"engines"
That is incorrect.
Japan had some of the best AND biggest radial engines in the world in the 1930s and 1940s.
They just sucked at making them work properly outside of prototypes.
The fact that Japan also didn't USE some of their better engines until late in the war, or in a few cases even at all, was not because of technical issues but because of arbitrary restrictions. The original intent for the Zero for example was that the engine it started massproduction with, was only supposed to be a temporary measure while upgrading to a 1350HP engine for the serial production model, literally almost 50% stronger. But that would have made it use more fuel and made the plane heavier, so the IJN said no thank you.
USSR and Italy however, they had roughly the same problem while it was completely different from Japan, just slightly different in timing from each other.
Both nations got caught by war just at the worst part of development cycles.
Both had some engines with excellent potential coming up in the 1930s, that ended up being duds for various reasons, which basically meant that their next generation of engines for the early part of the war never happened.
Italy solved it by getting German engines to make up for it.
USSR solved it by making lighter aircraft while waiting for their NEXT generation of new engines were getting developed.
USSR and Italy basically rolled natural 1s twice in a row at the worst possible time.
While Japan was simply still adjusting to becoming an industrial nation and was still effectively a cottage industry nation, extremely unsuitable for largescale, especially distributed, mass production.
"complete"
The Shinano was NOT complete.
It was heading for final outfitting when it was sunk.
Cool vid, unlucky aircraft ahaha
Why didn't the Japanese take the aichi seiran approach to every carrier or submarine plane?Wouldn't this increase the number of aircraft capable of being carried on an aircraft carrier?
Japan’s aircraft carriers have been described as “eggshells armed with hammers.”
Give your Ancistrus (Bristle Nose Pleco) a slice of Zucchini or Cucumber every few days, they will thank you.
Couldn't watch the vid. 3 minutes of the "Why" before the "what"... ungood. Shame. The B7N is right up there w/ the B6N, C6N & all D4Y birds. Unlongwind a little bit. 😉
How would this plane have compared to the Avengers?
So a Japanese TBF Avenger?
if lift plus thrust = weight × drag , well , anything will fly .. - the flying nun . 😊
2:36 I really don't see what M4A4 Sherman tanks have do with aircraft power plants - singularly two variants of M4 used a Continental Air Cooled Radial R-795 but those in the photo used a 30 cylinder type cobbled together from five 6 cylinder truck engines, proving a marked lack of production capacity, although a marked ingenuity to overcome the production bottle necks by ingenious lateral thinking, for example the roughly 12 to 15000 production run of the Chrysler Multibank 30 cylinder fitted to the above Shermans, although it would be patently useless as an alternative aero engine.
Im suprised nobody has done a video on this aircraft, pretty much all correct minus a dew minor details but eh.
Also I love the Donald Glover comparison. She had so much potential and missed it all.
I do still wonder how much impact she would make if lets say she entered service in late 1942 for example.
More for the Japanese side. Since the speed and overall versatility might give the crew some ideas. I don't think the Ryusei (shooting star) is as agile as a zero but she could hold her own in an aerial engagement.
At 22 minutes “overall impact in this role was limited”
I have a feeling that when they encountered P51s from Iwo Jima, or F6Fs from the USN fast carriers, each of these Japanese airplanes made a big impact right at the terminus of their flight !
And about 14 or 15 thousand punds on a single engine p47
Almost looks like a Japanese Avenger.
Drachinifel of Aircraft, what is your wisdom
Cute fish
F4u had a gross weight over 14000lbs
I hope those us ships helped the innocent japanese sailors out of the water instead of killing them