Hobby Boss Aircraft 1/72 Japanese A5M2 Kit

The Mitsubishi A5M, Japanese Navy designation was "Type 96" was a carrier-based fighter aircraft. It was the world's first monoplane shipboard fighter and the direct ancestor of the famous Mitsubishi A6M 'Zero'. The Allied reporting name was Claude.

In 1934, the Imperial Japanese Navy prepared a specification for an advanced fighter, requiring a maximum speed of 220-mph at 9,840 ft and able to climb to 16,400 ft in 6.5 minutes. This 1934 specification produced designs from both Mitsubishi and Nakajima.

Mitsubishi assigned the task of designing the new fighter to a team led by Jiro Horikoshi (later responsible for the famous A6M Zero). The resulting design, designated Ka-14 by Mitsubishi, was an all-metal low-wing fighter, with a thin elliptical inverted gull wing and a fixed undercarriage, which was chosen as the increase in performance arising from use of a retractable undercarriage was not felt to justify the extra weight. The first prototype, powered by a 600-hp Nakajima Kotobuki 5 radial engine, flew on 4 February 1935. The aircraft far exceeded the requirements of the specification, with a maximum speed of 279-mph being reached. The second prototype was fitted with a revised, “un-gulled” wing, and after various changes to maximize maneuverability and reduce drag, was ordered into production as the A5M.

The aircraft entered service in early 1937, soon seeing action in pitched aerial battles at the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The A5M's most competitive adversary in the air was the Polikarpov I-16, a fast and heavily armed fighter flown by both Chinese Air Force regulars and Soviet volunteers

104 A5M aircraft were modified to accommodate a two-seater cockpit. This version, used for pilot training, was dubbed the A5M4-K. K version planes continued to be used for pilot training long after standard A5Ms left front-line service.

Some A5Ms remained in service at the end of 1941 when the United States entered World War II in the Pacific. US intelligence sources believed the A5M still served as Japan's primary Navy fighter, when in fact the A6M 'Zero' had replaced it on first-line aircraft carriers and with the Tainan K?k?tai in Taiwan. Other Japanese carriers and air groups continued to use the A5M until production of the Zero caught up with demand. The last combat actions with the A5M as a fighter took place at the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7 May 1942, when two A5Ms and four A6Ms of the Japanese carrier Sh?h? fought against US planes that sank their carrier.

In the closing months of the war most remaining A5M airframes were used for kamikaze attacks.