Nakajima Ki-58

The Nakajima Ki-58 was a long range escort fighter that Nakajima built from its Ki-49 Donryu heavy bomber for the Imperial Japanese Army. The Army had no fighter with enough range to escort bombers, and the Mitsubishi Ki-21 was suffering heavy losses over China, so Nakajima designed the Ki-58 to fly beside the formations of the Ki-49 and give them extra protection. It carried five flexible 20 mm Ho-I cannon and three 12.7 mm Ho-103 machine guns, some of them in a ventral gondola that replaced the bomb bay, and it used two Nakajima Ha-109 engines. Three prototypes were constructed between December 1940 and March 1941, but the type never entered service, because the Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa entered service with the range to escort the bombers instead.