Скачать или смотреть The Fatal Design Flaw That Shocked American Engineers in 1945

January 31, 1945 — at Clark Air Base in the Philippines, American engineers inspected a captured Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” bomber and uncovered something that completely changed their understanding of Japanese aircraft design. Inside the bomber, they found fuel tanks with no armor, no self-sealing system, and no fire suppression — just thin aluminum separating thousands of liters of fuel from enemy gunfire.

This wasn’t a design flaw or a wartime shortcut. It was a deliberate engineering choice. Japanese designers believed that extreme range mattered more than protection, creating an aircraft capable of flying over 3,700 miles — farther than any Allied bomber in 1941. The Betty proved its power early in the war, destroying HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse in just 90 minutes — the first time capital ships were sunk solely by aircraft while defending themselves. It also devastated Clark Field on December 8, 1941, wiping out American air power in the Philippines.

But the same design that gave the Betty its range also made it one of the most dangerous aircraft to fly. During the Guadalcanal campaign, 18 of 23 Betty bombers were shot down in a single mission — 120 men killed. The aircraft’s unprotected fuel tanks turned even minor hits into fireballs, earning grim nicknames like “Flying Lighter” and “One-Shot Zippo.”

This is the story of how Japanese engineers built a bomber that was both revolutionary and fatally flawed — a machine that could strike deep across the Pacific, yet doomed its own crews in the process. From the sinking of British warships to the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto and the deadly Ohka kamikaze missions, discover how the Betty became Japan’s most important bomber — and one of the most tragic symbols of a design philosophy that valued performance over survival.

#MitsubishiG4M #BettyBomber #WW2Aircraft #JapaneseAviation #ImperialJapaneseNavy #PacificWar #WWIIHistory #AviationHistory #Warbirds #MilitaryAviation