Originally Posted by
Larry R.
From my reading (primarily the excellent Osprey reference book), the Japanese wanted their combat planes to be as light as possible so they could fly fast and with a long range. On the Betty there were no heavy gun turrets, machine guns were the Japanese version of the British Lewis (a single crew member operated both waist gun on early Bettys). However the tail gun was a 20mm. No self sealing fuel tanks; in fact, the wing skin served as the fuel tank walls. No armor protection for the cockpit. And there were no bomb bay doors (there were bomb bay covers which the ground crew could install to make the plane a bit more streamlined when it flew recce missions). One might think of the Betty as a "bare bones" design.
As vulnerable to enemy attack as the Betty was, it was effective, especially as a torpedo bomber.
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