Comments by "William Cox" (@WildBillCox13) on "The A6M Naval Carrier Fighter - Homegrown or Copy?" video.

  1. The Japanese "copy ninja" designs, the J8 and Kikka, were essentially German looking airframes filled with Japanese guts. My understanding is that the submarines carrying German technology exchange hardcopy were sunk in transit. One (I-29) dropped off some paperwork in Saipan before heading toward the Home Islands . . . and was sunk en route. So the concepts of things like the Tiger tank, the Me-163 and 262, arrived in Japan as textual fragments and no hardcopy examples were delivered. The turbojet and rocket motors used for J8 and Kikka were Japanese. They (IJN designers) knew about the German designs, and, knowing they existed, reverse engineered the CONCEPTS, not the hardware. I very much appreciate the nod to Von Braun. After all, if you're accusing the Japanese kettle of being black, your American pot had better be rostfrei.
    13
  2. Liked and shared.
    1