KI-67 Update?

[lyric1]

Well since Photobucket has disabled all of my links and locked the account because I am not paying $400.00 annually for that.
So all of the imagery I have posted is basically lost.

I have found some colour video of the rear gun of a Hiryu maybe KI-109 or possibly KI-67.

http://arawasi-wildeagles.blogspot.com/

The dome blister on the rear has been removed permanently as the examples I had posted before in black and white.









 

[lyric1]

I think a little explanation is needed. The green arc defines the tail cone. The blue is the pivot point. The black block object is the extents of the gun (grossly). The red line is the maximum extent of the traverse in the tail cone slot. I did this in the side view, because it is better than the majority of the top views I saw (as far as the details we are concerned with). If you swing the gun to the stops it is 65 degrees, but I cut it short just a tad because it looked to me that the gun would be meeting interference with the airframe structure. That may also be why in the photo with the man outside holding the barrel that it does not meet the stop.

It's still better than the 40 degrees in the book, which I can only speculate as to why that is.

(Image removed from quote.)

Based off this photo I think your about right on the mark. This tail gun could possibly push up higher to reach your 62 degrees. Also it looks as if the Japanese simplified the rear gun quite a bit. No rear dome the belt feed has changed sides and I think this lower lip extension is to stop the the flexible ammo chute from flopping around in the wind.

Maybe this design is a better option for an updated version?

[DaveBB]

That plane has had its dorsal turret removed.  Why?

[lyric1]

That plane has had its dorsal turret removed.  Why?

This plane was a conventional bomber to begin with. As things were going badly with the Japanese towards wars end they started to modify aircraft into Kamikaze flying bombs. This aircraft was in process of that change but was not completed. Dorsal turret was taken out & plywood sealed off the hole. Waist gunners positions were eliminated. Nose gun removed & a pole was placed in front of the aircraft that acted as a trigger when it impacted its target the rest of the aircraft was packed full of explosives.

Few more pictures of sister aircraft in process as well.





This is what it would have looked like when finished.

 

[lyric1]

This is what it would have looked like when finished.

(Image removed from quote.)

Found a Japanese video showing quite a bit of detail of this type of aircraft.

10 minute 40 second mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmVtaP83FTY