Mark VII
Posts: 1838
Joined: 8/11/2003 From: Brentwood,TN Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Brady p.94 "On 21st March K711 suxcedded in launching 18 aircraft on the first Jinrai sortie, with 15 of the rikko carrying Ohka to give the weapon it's combat debut" The were all shot down before reaching the launch point. K711 had been atack at ait's base by Carrier launched planes before this sorti and had taken considerable losses in Rikko before this soritie occured as a result of both these actions this unit was disbanded. Their was howeaver another unit that had been trained and equiped to use the Ohka at this time ready to go... "Leaving K708 to take over as the operational hikotai. The later unit would subsequently undertake a number of small scale sorties, primarly at night, priour to the wars end." Suporting these Night operations were: "Also Flying from Kyusho was K704, which was controled by 706 Ku, while 801 Kokutai operated reconnaissance Hikotai 703. Formerly K703, the later unit had been redesignated on 15th March 1945. T707 and 709 were also assigned to 801 Ku, and they preformed mainly night patroles and mine laying operations. From Taiwan, K702 under 765 Ku control, flew small number of mishions, as did a provishional unit Know as Atack (special) Hikotai 701. Again part of 765 Ku, 701 was equiped with Type 1 aircraft..." "K708 flew it's next Jinrai sorti on the afternoon of 12 Aprial with 8 rikko, which suxcedded in launching six Ohka. One of them sank the destroyer USS Mannert L Abele in the only confirmed Ohka sinking of the war...." After this sortie two more were made in daylight both were intercepted two early to launch, after this the unit switched back to Night atacks , Ocashionaly some daylight sorties were undertaken, but right up to the end of the war Ohka sorties were the last being flow on the 14th of Augast 1945. Several ships were damaged By Ohkas including the BB West Virginia. Given that these did manage to hit their targets, both in daylight and at night, and considering the small number actualy launched, and that nowhear have i sean a referance for one shot down..after Launch, I should think they worked well enough, the main problem being the deleavery means... this would of been rectified to a degree in later models, which were to be carried by P1Y's with about double the range, and even greater as evidanced by the list of model types above, their was even to be a shore launched vershion and a sub launced vershion. Sources: Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific war by Francillon, and Mitsubishi Type 1 Rikko "Betty" units of WW2 by Osamu Tagaya. Brady: you have great facts and resources to back those facts up with. You can even write an OK sentence, but why can't you spell? The above message is not that bad but I have seen worse. Your stuff is difficult to read, sometimes to the point of not getting the point of your message. There are days that if you are having a bad "spelling" day, I stop reading your posts after the first sentence since its like trying to read Klingon. Maybe someone has a Star Trek like "universal translator" that can be tuned to BradySpeak! Please use a spell checker or something! I am only kidding here, but did some grizzly bears raise you in the mountains of Oregon?
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