Originally Posted by
Ernie P.
You nailed it! Congratulations, Sir; and you are now up. What gave you the answer? Thanks; Ernie P.
Question: What warbird do I describe?
Clues:
1: This aircraft came to life in the latter stages of WWII.
2: It was intended to be used in combat.
3. But, although it did see combat in a very limited role, it was never used as intended.
4. It was being held in reserve; awaiting a battle that never happened.
5. Even more so, it was the weapon to be carried by this aircraft that was being held in reserve.
6. The aircraft was to be produced in three different versions.
7. A fighter; ground attack; and a night fighter.
8. The night fighter version failed to materialize because the necessary radar units could not be produced in time.
9. And the day fighter version didn’t go anywhere because heavy day fighters had already been shown to perform poorly when faced with enemy single engine fighters.
10. So, in the end, only the ground attack version was produced in any quantity.
11. And even then, only a few hundred of the ground attack version could be produced.
12.It was being held in reserve; awaiting a battle that never happened.
13. Still, great hope was placed in the ground attack version and the new and untried weapon it was to carry.
Actually, a couple of things did:
Clue 4, "
It was being held in reserve; awaiting a battle that never happened" and Clue 12, "It was being held in reserve; awaiting a battle that never happened". Don't know if you noticed but the two clues were identical. Never the less, these had to point to a Japanese plane since every other remaining participant was against them at that time. The Japanese would have fought to the last person before surrendering and were training civilians to fight the Allies with whatever they had. They had to be preparing for an attack on the home islands that would have happened eventually if not for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Clue 11, "And even then, only a few hundred of the ground attack version could be produced". This had to be a Kawasaki since everyone else was pretty much building single engine fighters, with the Ki-102 being the only one to be built in more than a few test samples.
Give me a day or two to come up with something for a quiz
Last edited by Hydro Junkie; 03-26-2019 at 12:20 AM.