Mitsubishi G3M

Mitsubishi G3M
Role	Medium bomber
Manufacturer	Mitsubishi
Designer	Kiro Honjo
First flight	July 1935
Introduction	1935
Retired	1945
Primary user	Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service
Number built	1,048

The Mitsubishi G3M (九六式陸上攻撃機 Kyūroku-shiki rikujō kōgeki-ki: Type 96 land-based attack aircraft "Rikko"; Allied reporting name "Nell") was a Japanese bomber and transport aircraft used by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) during World War II.

The G3M has its origins in a specification submitted to the Mitsubishi company from the Imperial Japanese Navy requesting a heavy bomber aircraft with a range figure unprecedented at the time. This principally stemmed from Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's influence in the Naval High Commission on the necessity of a heavy bomber capable of encompassing the enormous ranges of the arenas where Imperial Japan sought to conquer in the years to come, including those outlined in the expansionist Tanaka Memorial – namely China, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Isles and the vast far east of the Soviet Union. The requirement for payload was also unprecedented in Japanese military aviation history, though necessary to accommodate the aerial torpedo envisaged to combat the armoured battleships of the Allies in the geographical broadness of the Pacific front. The speed requirement submitted by the naval department was again also unprecedented, not only in Japanese but also in international heavy bomber aviation, where in relation to the envisaged Japanese battlegrounds of China and the Pacific, the bomber would need to not only cover long distances, but necessarily have exceptional speed to strike distant targets with a minimum attack time. Thus the G3M was an embodiment of Japanese military aircraft design in the brief period leading to the Pacific War, with powerful offensive armament (in this case in the form of bombs and torpedoes) and range and speed emphasised over protection and defensive capabilities.

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