Post by Diarist on Dec 8, 2017 17:48:04 GMT 1
The Mitsubishi G3M (九六式陸上攻撃機 Kyūroku-shiki rikujō kōgeki-ki: Type 96 land-based attack aircraft "Rikko"; Allied reporting name "Nell") is a Japanese bomber and transport aircraft used by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS).
Design and development
The G3M has its origins in a specification submitted to the Mitsubishi company from the Imperial Japanese Navy requesting a heavy bomber aircraft with a range figure unprecedented at the time. This principally stemmed from Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's influence in the Naval High Commission. The requirement for payload was also unprecedented in Japanese military aviation history, though necessary to accommodate the aerial torpedo envisaged to combat the armoured battleships of the Allies in the geographical broadness of the Pacific front. The speed requirement submitted by the naval department was again also unprecedented, not only in Japanese but also in international heavy bomber aviation, where in relation to the envisaged Japanese battlegrounds of China and the Pacific, the bomber would need to not only cover long distances, but necessarily have exceptional speed to strike distant targets with a minimum attack time. Thus the G3M was an embodiment of Japanese military aircraft design in the brief period leading to the Pacific War, with powerful offensive armament (in this case in the form of bombs and torpedoes) and range and speed emphasised over protection and defensive capabilities.
The G3M was originally designed without any form of defensive weaponry, with its high-altitude performance being regarded as sufficient to evade enemy anti-aircraft guns and its high speed in combination with the planned high performance Mitsubishi A5M fighter envisaged as an armed escort considered sufficient to counter any enemy fighters. Even in the low-speed, low-level role of torpedo bomber, the superior fighter escort – combined with the G3M's high speed – was considered sufficient against any form of ship-based AA guns or carrier-based fighters. The lightweight structure and complete lack of defensive machine guns and the additional crew necessary to operate them (features in the early prototype design) were considered essential to maintain the speed and high-altitude performance of the G3M with a heavy payload. Even after the modified final prototype, which did include three defensive machine gun emplacements, the G3M kept its lightweight structure and lacked any form of defensive armour or self-sealing fuel tanks, as these were considered to retard speed and altitude.
The bombsight used in the G3M was primitive compared to the mechanisms used in the G3M's contemporaries such as the B-17 Flying Fortress and Heinkel He 111. Aside from the limited precision necessary in its naval role as a long-range torpedo bomber against Allied naval fleets, the G3M frequently operated with other G3M units in massive "wave" formations, this became a numerical strategy to eliminate the need for singular precision-based bombing.
The G3M flew for first time in 1935, taking off from a Nagasaki airfield belonging to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and landing at Haneda Airport on the outskirts of Tokyo.
Source: Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_G3M