The Terrible Fighter Saved By "Strange Music": Nakajima J1N Gekko

Video Description

In this video, we take a look at the Nakajima J1N Gekko, a Japanese heavy fighter, night fighter, and bomber interceptor from World War II. We first talk about aircraft weaponry, both where and why the guns are installed on the plane, and how that impacts a plane's offensive potential. We then talk about the largely German armament concept known as "Schrage Musik", also known as Weird Music, Strange Music, or Jazz Music, and how it worked well against enemy bombers. We then start talking about Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and how they needed a long range escort fighter, which resulted in the Nakajima J1N design. We talk about how the initial design was terrible, incapable of serving as a fighter, and how it was rejected as a result. We then talk about the brief and boring career of the J1N as a recon plane, and how the idea of one Japanese commander in the Solomon/New Guinea Campaign(s) brought the Schrage Musik concept to the J1N. We talk about how this revitalized the J1N, and we end by talking about why it's revitalization didn't have much of an effect on the Pacific War as a whole.