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At Pearl Harbor the 129 'Vals' launched from six carriers and struck at Army and Navy airfields as well as the U.S. warships. In the subsequent Japanese carrier sweep of the Pacific the 'Vals' were highly effective; in the Indian Ocean on April 5, 1942, an attack of fifty-three 'Vals' sank two British heavy cruisers in just nineteen minutes - every bomb released at the radically maneuvering warships was a hit or near miss. By mid-1944 the 'Vals' were largely replaced in the dive bomber role by the D4Y 'Judy' bomber and the A6M Zero fighter-bombers; at the start of the June 1944 battle of the Marianas the nine Japanese carriers had only twenty-seven 'Vals' compared to ninety-nine 'Judy' dive bombers. Further, the 'Val's' effectiveness deteriorated as naval pilot quality declined after mid-1942. The 'Val' was the latest in a long line of Aichi dive bombers based extensively on the German Heinkel designs. The D3A1 version entered production in 1937; it was replaced on the production lines in 1942 by the improved D3A2, with a total of 1,294 of the two models being produced when the lines closed in 1944. The dive bomber was a low-wing aircraft with a fixed undercarriage fitted with the distinctive "spats."
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