First off the Ki-44-Ia that saw service in 1941 was vastly different than the -IIb. Probably because it had almost 200 HP more than the -Ia. Again only 9 of the first 10 aircraft were avialable for the evaluation Chutai. And they were sent to China in May 1942.
The pre-production aircraft was 7 along with 3 prototypes. So 9 aircraft were evaluated in China.
Of the 1225 Ki-44s built 1167 were built between Nov. 1942 and Dec. 1944. That means approximately 100 units had been produced before 1943. I would hardly call that early war.
Here is a direct quote from the book "Shoki was disliked by Service pilots because of its high landing speed and comparitive lack of manoeuvrability."
Have you seen the wings on the Shoki? I doubt the plane could get out of its own way.
Another quote out of the book "The Ki-44 was restricted against snap rolls, spins, stalls and inverted flight at high speeds, and pilot protection and self-sealing fuel tanks were found ineffective against the standard Allied 0.5 in machine-guns."
At least the Ki-84 could turn, and had effective armor and self sealing tanks. Yes towards the end of the war the engines became unreliable as did almost everything in Japan at that time. I don't think that engine reliability is modeled however. Also the Ki-84 enjoyed a 16mph advantage over the Shoki.
Spritle
[This message has been edited by Spritle (edited 10-05-2000).]
