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The Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu (屠龍, "Dragonslayer") is a two-seat, twin-engine heavy fighter used by the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II. The army gave it the designation Template:Nihongo; the Allied reporting name was "Nick". Originally serving as a long-range escort-fighter, the design — as with most heavy fighters of the period — fell prey to smaller, lighter, more agile single-engine fighters. As such, the Ki-45 instead served as a day and nighttime interceptor and strike fighter.
Design and developmentEdit
In response to the rapid emergence in Europe of twin-engine heavy fighters such as the Messerschmitt Bf 110, the army ordered development of a twin-engine, two-seat fighter in 1937, and assigned the proposal by Kawasaki Shipbuilding the designation of Ki-38. This only went as far as a mock up, but by December of that year the army ordered a working prototype as the Ki-45, which first flew in January 1939. Results from the test flights, however, did not meet the army's expectations. The Ha-20 Otsu engine was underpowered and failure-prone, while the airframe suffered from nacelle stall.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>
The Ki-45 did not enter service, but the army, insistent on having a working twin-engine fighter, ordered Kawasaki to continue development. Kawasaki responded by replacing the engines with the proven Nakajima Ha-25. Flight tests were promising.<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>
In October 1940, the army ordered continued improvements such as switching to Template:Cvt Mitsubishi Ha-102 engines. This craft, designated Ki-45 Kai, was completed in September 1941 and was officially adopted for use by the army in February 1942 as the "Type 2 two-seat fighter".
The prototype of a single-seat fighter variant, the Ki-45 II, was also built; development continued under the designation Ki-96.
Operational historyEdit
The Ki-45 was initially used as a long-range, bomber escort. The 84th Independent Flight Wing (Dokuritsu Hikō Chutai) used them in June 1942 in attacks on Guilin, where they encountered, but were no match for, Curtiss P-40s flown by the Flying Tigers. In September of the same year, they met P-40s over Hanoi with similar results. It became clear that the Ki-45 could not hold its own against single-engine fighters in aerial combat.
It was subsequently deployed in several theaters in the roles of interception, attack (anti-ground as well as anti-shipping), and fleet defense. Its greatest strength turned out to be as an anti-bomber interceptor, as was the case with the Bf 110 in Europe. In New Guinea, the IJAAF used the aircraft in an anti-ship role, where the Ki-45 was heavily armed with one Template:Cvt and two Template:Cvt cannons and could carry two Template:Cvt bombs on hard points under the wings. 1,675 Ki-45s of all versions were produced during the War.
The first production type (Ko) was armed with two Template:Cvt Ho-103 machine gun in the nose, a single Type 97 Template:Cvt cannon in the belly offset to the right, and a trainable Template:Cvt machine gun in the rear cabin; this was followed by the Otsu with the lower Template:Cvt cannon replaced by a Template:Cvt Type 94 tank gun, to counter B-17 Flying Fortress bombers. While the firepower was devastating, manual reloading meant that typically only two rounds could be fired on each gunnery pass. The next type (Hei) restored the Template:Cvt cannon, and this time placed an automatic Template:Cvt gun in the nose. A later addition in the Tei type were twin obliquely-firing Template:Cvt Ho-5 cannons behind the cockpit and often propulsive exhaust stacks.
Soon after entering service, the Ki-45 was assigned to home defense, and several were dispatched against the Doolittle raid, though they did not see action. The craft's heavy armament proved to be effective against the B-29 Superfortress raids, which started in June 1944. However, its performance was insufficient to counter B-29s flying at Template:Cvt. Modifications, such as reduction of fuel and ordnance, were attempted to raise performance, to little avail, and, in the end, the aircraft were used effectively in aerial ramming attacks.
They were also used in kamikaze attacks, such as the attack on Template:USS on 2 April 1945 off Okinawa. The commanding officer and 54 crew were killed when a Toryu clipped the stacks from astern and rammed the bridge. A second Toryu hit the foredeck, opening a Template:Cvt hole in the deck. The ensuing fires demolished the ship, and, after the surviving crew was rescued by fellow fast transports, destroyer escort Template:USS and destroyer-transport Template:USS, the ship was towed out to sea and scuttled.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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In 1945, the forward and upward-firing guns showed some results with the commencement of nighttime bombing raids, but the lack of radar was a considerable handicap. By the spring of 1945, the advent of American carrier-based fighters and Iwo Jima-based P-51s and P-47s escorting B-29s over the skies of Japan brought the Ki-45's career to an end.
The next version, the Kawasaki Ki-45 KAId, was developed specifically as a night fighter, which was supposed to be equipped with centimetric radar in the nose; due to production difficulties, this did not occur. The aircraft took part in night defense of the Home Islands and equipped four sentais from the autumn of 1944 to the war's end. They obtained notable successes, and one Ki-45 sentai claimed 150 victories, including eight USAAF B-29 Superfortresses in their first combat.
The Ki-45 was to be replaced in the ground-attack role by the Ki-102 but was not wholly supplanted by the war's end.
Three Ki-45s fell into communist Chinese hands after World War II. Unlike most captured Japanese aircraft, which were employed in the training role, the three Ki-45s were assigned to the 1st Squadron of the Combat Flying Group in March 1949 and were used in combat missions. These aircraft were retired in the early 1950s.
VariantsEdit
There is sometimes a confusion in the different subtypes. The information below is based on Japanese work, not on usual 'western' data. Even the NASM claims that the Ki-45 on display is a hei (c) type whereas Japanese press would read it is a tei (d) type nightfighter version with dorsal armament.
- Ki-45
- Prototype aircraft
- KI-45 Type 1
- Modified operative models
- Ki-45 KAI
- Prototype aircraft
- Ki-45 KAI
- Pre-series aircraft
- Ki-45 KAIa (ko/甲)
- Toryu: Two-seat fighter Type 2 of the army (Mark A) initial model of series, one Template:Cvt Ho-3 in ventral position, two Ho-103 Template:Cvt in the nose and a flexible Template:Cvt in the back position
- Ki-45 KAIb (otsu/乙)
- retrofit version based on the KAIa, Template:Cvt belly cannon replaced by a 37 mm Type 94 anti-tank gun
- Ki-45 KAIc (hei/丙)
- Mark C version against naval objectives, one Template:Cvt Ho-203 automatic cannon in the nose, one Template:Cvt machine gun in the back position.
- Ki-45 KAId (tei/丁)
- Mark D, a modified Model B, night fighter version, equipped with one Template:Cvt Ho-203 cannon in nose and two fixed Template:Cvt Ho-5 cannons in a Schräge Musik-style dorsal frontal position, and one Template:Cvt Type 98 machine gun in the back position
- Ki-45 II
- Single-seat fighter prototype; later re-designated Ki-96
Total production: 1,691<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> or 1,701<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb</ref> units.
OperatorsEdit
- Imperial Japanese Army Air Force<ref>Template:Harvnb</ref>
- No. 25 Dokuritsu Hikō Chutai IJAAF
- No. 71 Dokuritsu Hikō Chutai IJAAF
- No. 84 Dokuritsu Hikō Chutai IJAAF
- No. 4 Hikō Sentai IJAAF
- No. 5 Hikō Sentai IJAAF
- No. 13 Hikō Sentai IJAAF
- No. 16 Hikō Sentai IJAAF
- No. 21 Hikō Sentai IJAAF
- No. 27 Hikō Sentai IJAAF
- No. 45 Hikō Sentai IJAAF
- No. 53 Hikō Sentai IJAAF
- No. 65 Hikō Sentai IJAAF
- No. 70 Hikō Sentai IJAAF
- Akeno Army Fighter Training School
Surviving aircraftEdit
Only one Ki-45 KAIc remains today. It was one of about 145 Japanese aircraft brought to the United States aboard the USS Barnes for evaluation after World War II. It underwent an overhaul at Middletown Air Depot, Pennsylvania, and was test-flown at Wright Field, Ohio, and Naval Air Station Anacostia in Washington, D.C.. The United States Army Air Forces donated the Toryu to the Smithsonian Institution in June 1946. The fuselage of this Ki-45 is currently on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, alongside other Japanese aircraft such as a Nakajima J1N, Kyushu J7W Shinden and Aichi M6A, with the rest of the aircraft is in storage at the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration, and Storage Facility.<ref name="Kawasaki Ki-45 Kai Hei (Mod. C) Type 2 Toryu (Dragon Killer)NICK">Template:Citation</ref>
Specifications (Ki-45 KAIc)Edit
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
- Notes
- Bibliography
- "Army Type 2 two-seat fighter Toryu". Famous Airplanes of the World #21. Tokyo: Bunrindo, 1990. Template:ISBN.
- Template:Cite book (new edition 1987 by Putnam Aeronautical Books, Template:ISBN.)
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
External linksEdit
Template:Kawasaki aircraft Template:Japanese Army Aircraft Designation System Template:Imperial Japanese Army aircraft names Template:Allied reporting names Template:Authority control