Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka

1944


MANNED FLYING BOMB	Virtual Aircraft Museum / Japan / Yokosuka

It was during the summer of 1944 when, faced with overwhelming and fast-increasing Allied strength in the Pacific theatre, the Japanese naval staff first seriously entertained the concept of employing suicide tactics to defeat enemy attacks, and it was Ensign Mitsuo Ohta who first produced a rough design for a piloted flying bomb, a design which was assigned to Yokosuka for detailed completion. The resulting device was a small, mainly wooden aircraft with three solid-propellant rockets in the rear fuselage and a 1200kg explosive warhead in the nose. Carried aloft in the bomb bay of a modified Mitsubishi G4M bomber and flown towards the target area, the Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka (cherry blossom) bomb would be released, its rockets fired and then flown directly to impact on a selected target; the pilot was sealed into his cockpit before take-off. Initial powered flights started at Sagami in October 1944, followed by unmanned, powered flights the next month. Production was put in hand, and a total of 755 Ohkas was built before March 1945 when production ended. The weapon was first employed by the 721st Kokutai on 21 March 1945, but the carrier aircraft were intercepted and forced to release their flying bombs too early. On 1 April the US battleship West Virginia and three transport vessels were hit and damaged by Ohkas. Limited success attended other suicide attacks by Ohkas, but the transport aircraft proved fatally vulnerable in the presence of powerful American defences and the Japanese suicide tactic was never a serious threat to Allied operations in the Pacific, for all its macabre implications.

FACTS AND FIGURES

� The Okha 11 was armed with a 1200kg (26451b) high-explosive warhead in the nose. Later versions had smaller warheads.

� Cockpit instrumentation consisted of only four instruments: a compass, an airspeed indicator, an altimeter and an inclinometer for turn indication.

� The Ohka was built by unskilled workers using as much non-strategic material as possible. The fuselage was a standard aluminium structure, but the wings were made of moulded plywood covered in fabric.

� The later Model 22 had a turbojet engine with a small auxiliary piston engine acting as a gas generator. The only test flight of the Model 22 ended in an (unintentional) crash.

Specification

MODEL	MXY7 Model 11
CREW	1
ENGINE	3 x Type 4 Mk.I Model 20, 800kg
WEIGHTS
Take-off weight	2140 kg	4718 lb
Empty weight	440 kg	970 lb
DIMENSIONS
Wingspan	5.12 m	17 ft 10 in
Length	6.06 m	20 ft 11 in
Height	1.16 m	4 ft 10 in
Wing area	6.0 m²	64.58 sq ft
PERFORMANCE
Max. speed	650 km/h	404 mph
Range	40 km	25 miles
ARMAMENT	1200kg of explosives

Comments

Fukoku Kyohei, e-mail, 25.12.2016 00:08

I would have used the Ohka suicide aircraft on land targets, suck as on airfields on the Marianas Islands where the B-29 bombers where pounding the homeland.

Kelly Graham, e-mail, 11.08.2014 01:33

I have read up on them some and they would probably be a good RC platform, if the wings and control surfaces were scaled up a bit. Just my thoughts.

Keke, e-mail, 08.04.2014 17:28

This rocket can go really fast

Timespanr, e-mail, 13.01.2013 20:21

The full name of this item is
MXY-7 Model 22 Ōka - Baka Kugishoa , a Kamakazi Special Attack Glide Bomb w RATO (Rocket Assist)
without to proceeding comments, the pilots of these birds
were Kamakazi Suicide Pilot who knew and under stood what they were doing would cause their death. They also under stood why they were doing the Kamakazi Suicide act, it was for COUNTRY, their country, and in a country, right or wrong, where it is a practiced tradition, it was not uncommon at all.
In spite of ALL of the American beliefs, much of which is founded on smoke and mirrors, it sometime is good to come to some understanding of hoe other societies have lived for thousands of years (Muslims 1,434, Japan over 2,000, China over 6,500 and about same for India?)

Mark, e-mail, 20.09.2012 17:35

Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka

�� Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka �� . �� , �� . �� Mitsubishi G4M. �� - �� Betty� - �� Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, �� -�� .

�� Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka �� Type 4 Model 1 Mark 20 �� , �� . �� 20 �� , � �� Mitsubishi G4M, �� Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, �� -��. �� , �� -��.

�� 850 �� Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka �� , �� Model 11 �� . �� 6 �� . �� 440 ��, �� 2.150 ��. �� 1.200 �� (TNT) �� 800 km /h. � �� 20 �� , �� Mitsubishi G4M �� -��, �� . �� , �� Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka. �� Mitsubishi G4M �� , �� 400 km /h.

�� 21 �� 1945, �� 16 Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka �� Mitsubishi G4M �� , �� USS Hornet, USS Bennington, USS Wasp �� USS Belleau Wood. � �� Grumman F6F Hellcat, �� 16 Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka �� , �� 70 �� . �� .

�� 1� �� 1945, �� Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka �� USS West Virginia �� 16�� , �� .

�� 12 �� 1945, �� 9 Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka �� Mitsubishi G4M �� Okinawa. �� USS Mannert L. Abele �� Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka �� , �� USS Stanley �� Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, �� . ��, �� USS Jeffers �� Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, 45 �� , �� . �� 7 Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka �� Mitsubishi G4M �� .

�� 1945 �� USS Shea, �� USS Gayety �� USS Hugh W. Hadley.

�� Ohka� �� . �� :

�� . �� , �� Ohka �� ݻ.

�� Ohka� �� , �� Yasukuni Shrine, �� .

nicholas bourgeois, e-mail, 30.08.2012 21:50

they had the poilt sealed in the aircraft because they didn`t want them bailing out. also, they had a motor so they could change course if needed.

Barry, 20.06.2012 18:22

When powered by the Ne20 turbojet in place of the rocket motors this plane was hopelessly underpowered. The first turbojet used had a 4 cylinder piston engine to drive the compressor, just consider the power to weight ratio problems there. When they tried the Ne 20 alone it was not a lot better. The turbo jet powered model was developed into a trainer. Just imagine that conversation; instructor to pupil."This is where as the fuel runs out you aim at the enemy ship". Pupil to instructor "Have you ever done it?" "What are you mad?"

keith, e-mail, 08.12.2010 02:44

shorten this thing up and put a set of yves rossy, jet wings on this and you would have one heck of a jet boat /plane or ground effect boat,or tunnel drive from a jet ski or it could be a good wet or dry sub

GRAHAM, e-mail, 11.10.2010 23:53

This aircraft was also known as a BAKA BOMB. In 1945 at Okinawa one of them landed on Yontan Air field, apparently the teen age kid didn't feel like dying for the emporer When the American forces found him he was chained in the cockpit. This attributed to the Marines on our ship who went ashore and talked to the guys who found him.

noah h.ferguson, e-mail, 20.08.2010 04:09

these pilots have alot of guts to use the ohka.jeez kamakazie only for crazy people like me alrights fuckers

Horn E., 25.01.2010 21:48

It's cool

Rob H, e-mail, 18.10.2009 06:57

would be a great project to build and fly as a homebuilt with a microturbo engine, and retractable u /c

Michael, 19.02.2009 03:30

en.wikipedia.org /wiki /Ohka

Sgt.KAR98, 25.07.2008 02:26

BTW,what�s the difference of these two Ohkas?

Aero-Fox, 31.03.2008 01:06

Good question. Quite simply, it didn't have the maneuverability or endurance. The motorjet engine it would have used would have been too slow to be much of a threat, though it may have increased range. Anyway, it didn't have maneuverability because the control surfaces were utterly tiny.
What I see it being used for, though, is a point-defence interceptor. Simply put some cannons in place of the warhead and give it larger tail surfaces, and send it up like an Me 163 (using RATO bottles to take off and an Ne-20 turbojet for flight). It could have ditched in the ocean to land and been a coastal-defence unit.

Sgt.KAR98, 10.12.2007 01:43

That plane had an engine.Why it wasn�t used as a jet fighter?

mort_faucheur, 19.08.2007 08:30

I'll have to look up the attack by Okhas on the USS West Virginia et. al., that's a fascinating irony of history, IIRC. Wasn't the USS West Virginia severely damaged at Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec. 1941?
What a fascinating little craft is the diminutive Cherry Blossom; it's essentially a piloted suicide version of the German V-1 Fiesler 103 in airframe, but minus the German pulse-jet motor.

Robert W. Horn, e-mail, 25.02.2007 17:06

Noting that warheads such as that carried by the Ohka were intended to defeat heavily armoured warships, and thus neccessitating commitment of a significant portion of warhead weight to a heavy armour-piercing casing, i have often wondered just how much of that 1,200kg was actually HE, as opposed to AP steel? Also, the fact that the W.Va, though hit was not sunk, nor even badly damaged, makes one wonder just how effective modern cruise missiles, all sporting much smaller warheads than Ohka, can actually be, as witnessed by the USS Stark, even though the smallest class of vessel in the U.S. Navy, still handily surviving being struck by an Iraqi-launched Exocet missilesome years back? Makes one think there might just be a very good use for mini-nukes (> 0.1kt) as anti-ship warheads! RWH

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