Ki-84 vs P-51
Airplanes armament and equipment
2 x 12.7mm Ho-103 machine guns in fuselage nose 2 x 20mm Ho-5 cannons in wings 2 x 551lb bombs under wings |
4 x 20mm long-barrel Hispano-Suiza cannons in wings, 2 x 12.7mm machine guns in nose 4 x 12.7mm machine guns in wings P-51D: 6 x .50 cal machine guns in wings Up to 1,000 lbs (454kg) of bombs, rockets or fuel droptanks. |
Wow. Its amazing that so many acft of WW2 were “superior” ( on paper) to the P-51 mustang, YET got out performed by the Mustang! Spitfire IX ? Short range slower speed. Ditto the FW 190 D. And the Ki 84 in the pacific? In the hands of a veteran against novice P-51 drivers , victory for the Ki 84.”BUT” against. Guys like Preddy or Gentile? Flaming japanese junk! No matter who’s arguing, the reality is that the P-51 is the best of WW2!
In tests Ki-84 Hayate easily compared with its foes the p-47n thunderbolt,p-51d mustang,f6f5 hellcat,p-38l lightning up to 20000ft its real weakness was its high altitude performance.
Also talking about aces like Hiroyoshi Nishizawa (80+ kills) or Tetsuzō Iwamoto (80+ kills) would also blow any of those american fatboys to blown scrap!
P-51 was good fighter,but not exceptional poor manoeuvrability,bad low altitude performance, heavy and weak design especially its liquid cooled engine couldn’t take the beating like an air cooled radial Ki-84.