MXY-7 Ohka "Baka" @·AIRCRAFTUBE

  • Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka
    Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka
  • Under a G4M2e of the 721st Kokutai Under a G4M2e of the 721st Kokutai
    Under a G4M2e of the 721st Kokutai
  • Stand-by aircrews in front of<br>an Ohka-carrying G4M2e (1945) Stand-by aircrews in front of<br>an Ohka-carrying G4M2e (1945)
    Stand-by aircrews in front of
    an Ohka-carrying G4M2e (1945)
  • An Ohka released by a G4M An Ohka released by a G4M
    An Ohka released by a G4M
  • At Konoike airfield (Ibaraki),<br>August 1945 At Konoike airfield (Ibaraki),<br>August 1945
    At Konoike airfield (Ibaraki),
    August 1945
  • In a hangar (1945) In a hangar (1945)
    In a hangar (1945)
  • Model 11 I-18 captured at Yontan<br>(Okinawa, April 1945) Model 11 I-18 captured at Yontan<br>(Okinawa, April 1945)
    Model 11 I-18 captured at Yontan
    (Okinawa, April 1945)
  • I-18 at Yontan (Okinawa, 1945) I-18 at Yontan (Okinawa, 1945)
    I-18 at Yontan (Okinawa, 1945)
  • I-18 at the Planes of Fame Air Museum<br>(Chino, California) I-18 at the Planes of Fame Air Museum<br>(Chino, California)
    I-18 at the Planes of Fame Air Museum
    (Chino, California)
  • Model 11 replica at the Yushukan (Tokyo) Model 11 replica at the Yushukan (Tokyo)
    Model 11 replica at the Yushukan (Tokyo)
  • Model 22, sole survivor<br>(Udvar-Hazy Center) Model 22, sole survivor<br>(Udvar-Hazy Center)
    Model 22, sole survivor
    (Udvar-Hazy Center)
  • Model 22 Model 22
    Model 22
  • K-2 two-seat trainer<br>(Model 43 K-1 Kai) K-2 two-seat trainer<br>(Model 43 K-1 Kai)
    K-2 two-seat trainer
    (Model 43 K-1 Kai)

Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka

The Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka (Japanese for "cherry blossom") was a rocket-powered, human-guided flying bomb built by the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal (Dai-Ichi Kaigun Koku Gijitsusho, or Kugisho) and used by the Imperial Japanese Navy against Allied warships during the last months of World War II. It was the only aircraft of the war designed from the outset for suicide attacks (tokko, better known in the West as kamikaze) to reach operational service. Allied servicemen nicknamed it the "Baka bomb", baka being a Japanese word for "fool" or "idiot".

The Ohka was little more than a 1,200 kg warhead fitted with short wooden wings, a cockpit and three solid-fuel rocket motors. Because its range was only about 37 km, it had to be carried close to its target under a Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bomber, and the slow, overloaded mother aircraft proved an easy prey for American fighters. Of the roughly 850 Ohkas built, only the Model 11 saw combat, from March 1945, mainly off Okinawa.

Design and development

The idea of a manned rocket bomb came from Ensign Mitsuo Ohta, a transport pilot of the 405th Kokutai, who began working on it in 1943. Before approaching his superiors, he sought help from the Aeronautical Research Institute of the University of Tokyo, whose staff helped him draw up preliminary plans and test a scale model in a wind tunnel. Involving civilian engineers before the Navy was probably a breach of protocol, but it was overlooked. The authorities only took an interest in 1944, when Japan's situation in the Pacific had become desperate.

Ohta submitted his proposal on 5 August 1944, and on 16 August the Naval General Staff ordered the Yokosuka arsenal to develop it. The project, kept secret and initially built only in military establishments, received the code name "Marudai", partly derived from the first character of Ohta's name. The design team was led by Lieutenant Commander Masao Yamana, with engineers Tadanao Mitsugi and Rokuro Hattori, while Kyuichiro Washizu was responsible for the performance calculations. The first prototype and ten production-standard aircraft, designated Model 11, were completed in less than a month, by the end of September 1944.

The aircraft was designed to be cheap, simple to build by unskilled labour and to use as few strategic materials as possible. The cigar-shaped fuselage, built of light alloy, carried the warhead in the nose and the cockpit roughly halfway back, under a plexiglas canopy. The short wings and the tailplane, fitted with two small vertical fins at its tips, were made of plywood. Instrumentation was reduced to the bare minimum: airspeed indicator, altimeter, compass and an inclinometer, plus a selector switch to fire the rockets and a handle to arm the fuses of the warhead. Three Navy Type 4 Mark 1 Model 20 solid-fuel rocket motors were housed in the tail. Each delivered about 2.6 kN (588 lbf) of thrust for 8 to 10 seconds, and they could be fired together or one after the other.

Testing began in October 1944 with unmanned, unpowered drops over Sagami Bay, followed by manned gliding flights. The first successful powered flight took place on 19 November 1944. The Navy had however already ordered full-scale production before the end of the trials. Between September 1944 and March 1945, 155 Model 11s were built at Yokosuka and about 600 at the Kasumigaura Naval Air Arsenal, while subcontractors, including Nakajima, produced wings and tail sections to speed up deliveries.

The usual carrier was the G4M2e Model 24J (Tei), a Betty modified with its bomb bay doors removed so that the Ohka could be hung under the fuselage. The extra weight made the bomber even slower and less manoeuvrable. The Ohka pilot travelled in the bomber and climbed into his aircraft through the bomb bay shortly before reaching the target area. Released some 30 to 35 km from the enemy ships, the Ohka first glided towards its target, then the pilot fired the rockets for the final run. It reached about 650 km/h in level flight and over 900 km/h in the final dive, a speed that made it almost impossible to intercept.

Operational history

The Ohka was assigned to the 721st Kokutai, known as the Jinrai Butai ("Thunder Gods Corps"), formed in October 1944 and based at Konoike, in Ibaraki prefecture, before moving to Kyushu. Its pilots, all volunteers, trained on K-1 gliders and on Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters. The first attempts to deploy the Ohka ended in disaster before any combat: the giant aircraft carrier Shinano was sunk by the submarine USS Archerfish on 29 November 1944 with 50 Ohkas on board, and the carrier Unryu, carrying 30 Ohkas to the Philippines, was sunk by USS Redfish on 19 December 1944.

On 21 March 1945, Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki, commander of the 5th Air Fleet, launched the first Ohka attack against the US Navy's Task Force 58 cruising off Kyushu. Eighteen G4Ms of the 721st Kokutai, sixteen of them carrying an Ohka, took off from Kanoya under the command of Lieutenant Commander Goro Nonaka, with a fighter escort much weaker than planned. Intercepted by Grumman F6F Hellcats well before reaching the American ships, all the bombers were shot down or forced to jettison their Ohkas. About 160 men died, including Nonaka and the 15 Ohka pilots.

The Ohka was then mainly used against the American ships supporting the invasion of Okinawa, which began on 1 April 1945. On 12 April, the destroyer USS Mannert L. Abele (DD-733), already hit by a kamikaze, was struck by an Ohka that broke her in two; she sank within minutes, the first ship ever sunk by a manned rocket bomb. The same day, the destroyer USS Stanly (DD-478) was hit and the destroyer-minesweeper USS Jeffers (DMS-27) was damaged by a near miss. On 4 May, the minelayer USS Shea (DM-30) was badly damaged and the minesweeper USS Gayety (AM-239) was damaged by a near miss, while on 11 May the destroyer USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774) was so badly damaged that she was never repaired.

Overall, seven American ships were damaged or sunk by Ohkas: three sunk or damaged beyond repair, and three others seriously damaged. Of the roughly 300 Ohkas available for the Okinawa campaign, 74 actually took part in operations, and 56 of them were destroyed together with their mother aircraft or during the attack. American analysts concluded that the weapon had a limited impact, since no capital ship was hit, thanks to the defensive tactics adopted by the fleet, starting with destroying the carrier aircraft before release. Several Model 11s captured intact at Yontan airfield on Okinawa on 1 April 1945 were sent to the United States for evaluation and used in war bond drives.

The Ohka pilots of the Jinrai Butai are commemorated in Japan at Ohka Park in Kashima (on the site of the former Konoike airfield), at the Ohka monument in Kanoya, at the Kencho-ji temple in Kamakura and at the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo.

Variants

  • MXY-7 : Unpowered glider prototypes; ten built.
  • Navy Suicide Attacker Ohka Model 11 : The only operational version, powered by three Type 4 Mark 1 Model 20 rocket motors and armed with a 1,200 kg warhead. 755 built (155 at Yokosuka, 600 at Kasumigaura).
  • Ohka Model 21 : Experimental version combining the airframe and rockets of the Model 11 with steel wings built by Nakajima. One built.
  • Ohka Model 22 : Version designed to increase range, powered by an Ishikawajima Tsu-11 motorjet (a Campini-type engine in which a small piston engine drove a compressor). With a shorter wingspan and a 600 kg warhead, it was to be carried by the faster Yokosuka P1Y Ginga bomber. 50 airframes were built at Yokosuka, but very few engines were delivered; the first flight took place in June 1945 and ended in a crash when the auxiliary rockets fired prematurely. It never saw combat.
  • Ohka Model 33 : Enlarged version with an Ishikawajima Ne-20 turbojet and an 800 kg warhead, intended to be carried by the four-engined Nakajima G8N Renzan bomber. Cancelled.
  • Ohka Model 43A Ko : Version with folding wings, to be catapulted from submarines. Not built.
  • Ohka Model 43B Otsu : Similar version, to be launched by catapult from caves or coastal sites for the defence of the home islands. Not built.
  • Ohka Model 53 : Ne-20-powered version to be towed like a glider by a bomber and released near the target. Not built.
  • Ohka K-1 : Unpowered training glider, with water ballast replacing the warhead and rockets, flaps and a landing skid. The ballast was dumped before landing, which still took place at around 210 km/h. 45 built.
  • Ohka Model 43 K-1 Kai Wakazakura ("Young Cherry") : Two-seat trainer (also known as K-2) for the Model 43 pilots, with a second cockpit in place of the warhead and a single rocket motor. Two built.
  • "Suzuka-24" : Alleged interceptor version with a fuel tank and two 20 mm cannons to attack B-29s; its existence is uncertain.

Operators

  • Japan : Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (721st Kokutai "Jinrai Butai").

Surviving aircraft

  • India : Model 11 at the Indian Air Force Museum, Palam (New Delhi).
  • Japan :
    • Model 11 at Iruma Air Base (Saitama).
    • Ohka at the Kawaguchiko Motor Museum (Yamanashi).
    • Replica of the Model 11 at the Yushukan museum of the Yasukuni shrine (Tokyo).
    • Model 11 at the Usa Peace Museum (Oita).
    • Replicas at Ohka Park, Kashima, and in Kamisu Central Park (Ibaraki).
  • United Kingdom :
    • Model 11 at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton.
    • Model 11 at the Imperial War Museum, London.
    • Model 11 at the RAF Museum (London and Cosford). The Cosford aircraft, "1046" (BAPC.99), is one of four brought to Britain for evaluation in 1945.
    • Model 11 at the Science and Industry Museum, Manchester.
  • United States :
    • Model 11 at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, Triangle (Virginia).
    • Model 11 "I-18", captured at Yontan, at the Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino (California).
    • Model 11 at the Yanks Air Museum, Chino (California).
    • Model 22, the only survivor of this version, at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum (Virginia).
    • Model 43 K-1 Kai two-seat trainer, on loan from the National Air and Space Museum to the Pima Air & Space Museum, Tucson (Arizona).
    • K-1 trainer at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton (Ohio).
    • K-1 trainer at the National Museum of the U.S. Navy, Washington.

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This text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Source : Article Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka of Wikipedia ( authors )

Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka

  • Role : Kamikaze (piloted suicide) anti-ship flying bomb.
  • Manufacturer : Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal (Kugisho).
  • Designers : Mitsuo Ohta (concept), Masao Yamana (development team).
  • First flight : October 1944 (glider), 19 November 1944 (powered).
  • Introduction : March 1945.
  • Retired : 1945.
  • Status : retired.
  • Primary user :
    • Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (721st Kokutai).
  • Produced : 1944 to 1945.
  • Number built : 852 (all versions).
  • Carrier aircraft :
    • Mitsubishi G4M (Model 11).
    • Yokosuka P1Y Ginga (planned for the Model 22).

    Specifications (Model 11)

  • Crew: one.
  • Length: 6.07 m (19 ft 11 in).
  • Wingspan: 5.12 m (16 ft 10 in).
  • Height: 1.16 m (3 ft 10 in).
  • Wing area: 6.0 m² (65 sq ft).
  • Empty weight: 440 kg (970 lb).
  • Gross weight: 2,140 kg (4,718 lb).
  • Powerplant: Three Navy Type 4 Mark 1 Model 20 solid-fuel rocket motors.
  • Thrust: 2.62 kN (588 lbf) each, for 8 to 10 seconds.
  • Maximum speed: 648 km/h (403 mph, 350 kts) at 3,500 m (11,480 ft).
  • Diving speed: 926 km/h (575 mph, 500 kts).
  • Range: 37 km (23 mi, 20 nmi).
  • Wing loading: 356.7 kg/m² (73.1 lb/sq ft).
  • Armament: 1,200 kg (2,646 lb) warhead.

— — — = = — — —

This text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Source : Article Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka of Wikipedia ( authors )
Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka "Baka" : Your comments on this subject
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