Torpedo
Aircraft
- 'Kate'Nakajima B5N - Allied reporting-name
'Kate' - was the sole shipboard torpedo-bomber of the Japanese Navy at
the start of the Pacific War. It was by then quite old, having been designed
to meet a specification of 1935, and was already judged to be obsolescent.
However, when first put into production it had been a very advanced aircraft,
and in war it out-performed any Allied shipborne torpedo-plane until the
arrival of the Grumman Avenger in mid-1942. In particular it was greatly
superior to the Douglas TBD Devastator - the carrier-borne torpedo-plane
of the US Fleet at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the decisive Battle
of Midway.
played the main role
in sinking the carrier Lexington at Coral Sea, Yorktown at
Midway, and Hornet at the Battle of Santa Cruz in October 1942.
Along with the destruction of the carrier Wasp by a Japanese submarine
during the Guadalcanal campaign these were the major blows to the American
carrier forces in the early phase of the Pacific War. These exploits
supplemented the Kate's success in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor
on December 7 1941, in which 40 B5N2s armed with torpedoes - and
103 B5N2s armed with bombs - inflicted enormous damage on the US Battle
Fleet.
Total production of the B5N was 1,149 units. By the time of the Marianas campaign it had been largely replaced by its successor - the Nakajima B6N Tenzan - but at the huge air-sea Battle of the Philippine Sea there were 17 Kates in Admiral Ozawa's Mobile Fleet, aboard the ships of Carrier Division Three.
Origin: Nakajima-Nikoki KK
Type: (B5N1) Three-seat carrier-based bomber - (B5N2) Three-seat carrier-based torpedo-bomber
Dimensions: Span 50' 11" - Length 33' 10" - Height 12' 2"
Weights
(B5N1) 4,645 lb empty, 8,047 lb loaded
(B5N2) 5,024 lb empty, 8,378 lb loaded (normal), 9,039 lb loaded
(maximum).
Engine
(B5N1) One 770 hp Nakajima Hikari 3 9-Cylinder radial
(B5N1 Model 12 ) 970 hp or 985 hp Sakae 11 14-Cylinder 2-row
radial
(B5N2) 1,115 hp Sakae 21 radial
Performance
Maximum speed (B5N1) 217 mph - (B5N2) 235 mph
Initial climb: 1,378 feet per minute
Service ceiling: Approx 25,000 feet
Range: (B5N1) 683 miles (B6N2 with normal load) 609
miles.
Armament
(B5N1) One 7.7 mm machine-gun, manually-aimed, in
rear cockpit
Underwing racks for two 250 kg bombs or six 60 kg bombs
(B5N2) Twin 7.7 mm machine-guns, manually-aimed,
in rear cockpit
plus (?) two 7.7 mm machine-guns, fixed, above forward
fuselage (?)
(These two forward-firing guns are given in Bill Gunston's
'Combat Aircraft of World War Two'
but they are not referred to in other sources)
Fuselage rack for one 800 kg (18-inch) torpedo or three 250 kg
bombs
Nakajima
B6N Tenzan 'Jill' torpedo aircraft - the B5N's successor
The Story of the Torpedo Bomber - book by Peter C. Smith
TBF/TBM Avenger - US shipborne torpedo-bomber
Aircraft of the Pacific War - Index
The Battle of the Philippine Sea
E-mail -
odyssey@dircon.co.uk
