Mitsubishi G3M Nell

Le chapitre sur ce bombardier chez Wikipedia. In english :

-------------------------------------


The Mitsubishi G3M (九六式陸上攻撃機: Type 96 Land-based Attack Aircraft; Allied reporting name "'Nell") was a [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] used during [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], mostly against the Chinese.


Design and development


The bomber had a crew of five, and had its first flight in July 1935. The aircraft was armed with three 7.7 mm (.303 in) [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

Maximum speed was 348 km/h (216 mph) and had a range of over 3,541 km (2,200 mi).

The G3M was also designed to carry an 800 kg (1,760 lb) [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] for anti-ship attacks.

The G3M has its origins in a specification submitted to the Mitsubishi company from the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]
requesting a [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] aircraft with chiefly a range figure unprecedented at the time.

This stemmed from principally [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]'s influence in the Naval High Commission of the necessity of a long-range heavy bomber capable of encompassing the enormous ranges of the arenas where Imperial Japan sought to
conquer in the years to come, including those outlined in the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] - namely China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Isles and vast Far East Russia.

The requirement for payload was also unprecedented in Japanese military aviation history, though necessary to
accommodate the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] envisaged to combat the armoured [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] of the Allies in the geographical
broadness of the Pacific front.

The speed requirement submitted by the Naval Department was also unprecedented in not only Japanese but also 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 lengthy range, but necessarily feature the 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 [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], with great offensive armament (in this case in the form of bombs/torpedoes), range and speed emphasised over
protection and defensive capabilities.

In terms of the latter, the G3M was originally designed as a model without any form of defensive weaponry or machine guns, but purely as a bomber craft, with its high-altitude performance being regarded sufficient to evade enemy [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]
guns and its high speed in combination with the planned high performance [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] envisaged as an armed escort being considered sufficient to counter any form of enemy fighters.

Even in the low-speed, low-level role of torpedo bomber, the envisagement of superior fighter escort - combined with the G3M's high speed - was considered sufficient against any form of ship-based flak guns or carrier-based fighters.

The lightweight structure and complete lack of defensive machine guns and thus the additional crew necessary to operate them (features in the early [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] design) were naturally considered essential to maintain the speed and high-altitude performance of the G3M with a heavy payload.

Even after the modified final prototype, which included defensive machine gun emplacements, the G3M kept its lightweight structure and lacked any form of [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] or [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], as these were considered to retard speed and altitude.

This trait in Japanese bomber/fighter design manifested in its successor, the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], which was so heavily designed to accommodate fuel and bombing armament for long-range strikes at the expense of defence, its vulnerability to fighters and ground/surface gunfire earned it the unofficial nickname of "one shot lighter" by Allied fighter pilots, and "Hamaki"
("[flying] cigar") by its own Japanese crews.

The [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] used in the G3M was primitive compared to the mechanisms used in the G3M's contemporaries such as the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].

Aside from the limited precision necessary in its naval role as a long-range [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] against Allied naval fleets, the G3M frequently operated with other G3M units in massive 'wave' formations;
thus, this became a numerical strategy to eliminate the opposed need for singular precision-based bombing, this alternative tactic resulting in horrendous damage and death figures to civilians and civilian population centres from the aerial bombing campaigns against metropolitan targets in China and the Allied Asia-Pacific region.

Later the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] redesigned the G3M into the improved G3M3 (Model 23) with more powerful engines and increased fuel capacity.

This version was only manufactured by Nakajima, being the most rapidly produced in wartime.
This version entered service in 1941, and was maintained in service for two years, and later used in 1943 alongside the G3M2s for long-range maritime reconnaissance with radar due to its excellent long-range performance.

Other G3M derivations were the [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] versions, G3M-L and L3Y.

Merci

[Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir cette image]