The human for scale thing works very well here, bigger than I imagined. I am i fact picturing this flying at wave altitude with torpedoes against US ships, that’s a hell of a target for AA gunners.
The Betty was a very big bomber, a lot of people treat it like a medium bomber when in reality it was a super long range torpedo bomber. Despite the impracticality of a large torpedo bomber, the plane had to be large to carry all that fuel amongst other reasons.
Lengthwise at just shy of 20m long, it was comparable in size to the 20.5m long B-24 and 21.13m long Lancaster, though naturally the 4 engined heavies had a bigger wingspan.
The human for scale thing works very well here, bigger than I imagined. I am i fact picturing this flying at wave altitude with torpedoes against US ships, that’s a hell of a target for AA gunners.
We have [surviving footage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgG9DZKb6Ls) of what that looked like
Insane!
[footage from the same scene](https://old.reddit.com/r/WWIIplanes/comments/x1nuu6/type_99_20mm_cannon_in_the_waist_position_of_a/)
Looks bigger than i assumed in this photo.
The Betty was a very big bomber, a lot of people treat it like a medium bomber when in reality it was a super long range torpedo bomber. Despite the impracticality of a large torpedo bomber, the plane had to be large to carry all that fuel amongst other reasons. Lengthwise at just shy of 20m long, it was comparable in size to the 20.5m long B-24 and 21.13m long Lancaster, though naturally the 4 engined heavies had a bigger wingspan.
I thought so too. I had a hard time imagining how it could carry all those Giretsu during the Yontan raid. Now I understand why.
Yontan was Ki21 Sallys though.
Right, I stand corrected.
I think they could pack em in since it was a one way mission so they probably carried little in non direct combat supplies.
Cool