Night Fighter
The D4Y was faster than the A6M Zero and some were employed as D4Y2-S night fighters against Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers late in the war. The night fighter conversions were made at the 11th Naval Aviation Arsenal at Hiro. Each D4Y2-S had bomb equipment removed and a 20 mm Type 99 cannon with its barrel slanted up and forwards (similar to the German Schräge Musik armament fitment) installed in the rear cockpit. Additionally some examples also carried two or four 10 cm air-to-air rockets under the wings. However, the lack of radar for night interceptions, low climb rate and the B-29's high ceiling limited the D4Y2-S effectiveness as a night fighter. Little is known of their operations.
Read more about this topic: Yokosuka D4Y
Famous quotes containing the words night and/or fighter:
“This night has been so strange that it seemed
As if the hair stood up on my head.
From going-down of the sun I have dreamed
That women laughing, or timid or wild,
In rustle of lace or silken stuff,
Climbed up my creaking stair.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“A pleasant smell of frying sausages
Attacks the sense, along with an old, mostly invisible
Photograph of what seems to be girls lounging around
An old fighter bomber, circa 1942 vintage.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)