Upgrading to Ki-45KAIa in RHS

[el cid again]

All RHS scenarios start you with 15 Ki-45a - which is short for Ki-45KAIa - because that number of preproduction aircraft existed. But there is no new unit using the type until 10/42 or so.

IF you want to use the preproduction aircraft (with all the attendent issues of very limited replacements) you can upgrade the 71st Independent Chutai to use this aircraft. This is similar to a chutai that can use the Ki-44 early and did IRL - again with the problem that you have no replacements except occasionally (if production is on at a plant - which in RHS may NOT be set to expand - before a type date has occurred - you get one per cent chance of a replacement at that plant).

[Mike Solli]

That's interesting.  Is that supposed to represent prototype aircraft being assembled?

[el cid again]

No - already assembled. However - being modified in some cases. The plane went through a protracted development period. In this case it was not a lack of engines (the usual issue) but airframe issues. One problem (if I remember correctly) was that remote controlled unmanned guns for defense didn't work as intended - and they replaced these (there were two different mini turrets if I remember right) with a single manned station. There were other issues - including changing requirements. This aircraft led to an entire series of twin engine aircraft - not all fighter bombers - some of them in the RHS plane set - and it became (in spite of not being designed for the role) the principle Army night fighter. Anyway - the first version to service was a fighter bomber variant - and the planes existed - in essentially this format - so you can use them - but only in strictly historical scenarios. For some reason the enhanced scenarios have a different upgrade path defined for this independent chutai - and so they must wait for the actual Ki-45 units before using the planes.

Note that pre production is POST prototype - it is a limited production run made for various testing purposes - and one of the things Japan did at this stage was issue to an independent company for operational testing. The most famous case involves the Ki-44 fighter. There are other aircraft that exist in some numbers but are not yet ready for mass production - notably the Ki-49 bomber. In strictly historical scenarios these may be issued to Ki-21 units. In EOS some units actually start with them issued - but may need to convert back to Ki-21s or other level bombers due to attrition and lack of replacements.