The was a Japanese bomber and transport aircraft used by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (IJNAS) during World War II. The Yokosuka L3Y (Allied reporting name "Tina"), was a transport variant of the aircraft manufactured by the Yokosuka Naval Air Technical Arsenal. The G3M bomber saw extensive use in the Pacific War. Attacks by G3M and G4M bombers resulted in the sinking of the Royal Navy battleship and battlecruiser , the first time capital ships actively defending themselves were sunk solely by air power while in the open sea. In order to maintain the speed and high-altitude performance of the G3M with a heavy payload, it lacked any form of defensive armour or self-sealing fuel tanks. This trait was maintained in the G3M's successor the G4M. The vulnerability of these bombers to fighters and surface gunfire earned them the unofficial nickname of "one shot lighter" or "the flying lighter" by Allied fighter pilots. Design and development The G3M has its origins in a specification submitted to the Mitsubishi company from the Imperial Japanese Navy requesting a bomber aircraft with a range unprecedented at the time. This principally stemmed from Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's influence in the Naval High Commission. The bomber was to have the capacity to accommodate an aerial torpedo capable of sinking an armoured battleship. The speed requirement submitted by the naval department was again also unprecedented, not only in Japanese but also in international 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. The G3M was originally designed without any form of defensive weaponry, with its high-altitude performance being regarded as sufficient to evade enemy anti-aircraft guns and its high speed in combination with the planned high performance Mitsubishi A5M fighter envisaged as an armed escort considered sufficient to counter any enemy fighters. Even in the low-speed, low-level role of torpedo bomber, the superior fighter escort – combined with the G3M's high speed – was considered sufficient against any form of ship-based AA