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Description
The Japanese Me-163 rocket interceptor: the Mitsubishi J8M "Shiyusui" or in Japanese ロケット局地戦闘機：秋水.
This interceptor seemed to be a rather simple plane, just the Japanese version of the German Me-163 and for the most part that seems to be the case however once you look into it deeper, it would seem that this aircraft had more history then you'd think.

First things first is it's name 秋水 which comes from a poem made by navy second lieutenant Okano katsutoshi (岡野勝敏) called "秋水（利剣）三尺露を払う" which basically means "a sharp sword can cut dew 190cm (about 3 shaku) away" unlike other military planes, this name was against regulations but it was decided regardless which considering the imperial military doctrine, it was beyond unusual. Another unusual bit was the fact that both navy and army air forces were working on this project.

December 26th 1944, Pilot: Captain Toyohiko Inuzuka (犬塚豊彦) flew the MXY8 "Akigusa" (秋草) Glider which was the official training glider for the J8M. This test flight proved the concept of the rocket interceptor was feasible and on July 7th 1945, the first official rocket powered flight was commenced in Oppama airfield.

4:55 pm. Captain Inukuza in the cockpit as the rocket, a KR10 Walter-Antrieb ignites, the aircraft accelerated and took off after 220 meters, dropped it's landing gear 10 meters in the air then took a sharp 45 degree climb, all seemed well until the craft hit an altitude of 350 meters, as the rocket flames turned black and the plane started roaring, its engine had stopped.
Captain Inuzuka tried to get the rocket engine running but fails and decides to turn back to base. The plane crash lands after skipping a few times off of the Takatori river, fire fighters extinguished the flames and Captain Inukazu was saved but sadly passed away the next day due to his skull being fractured as a result of the crash.
The reason for the engine fail was due to the fuel tanks not being stored in a right way for a rocket fighter and due to the fact that it only carried 1/3 of it's carrying capacity which resulted in the stalling of the aircraft.

After this incident a second prototype was sent to the 70th air squadron with Major Yoshitsugu Aramaki (荒蒔義次) to be the second test pilot, however with the first prototype destroyed, mainly it's engine being destroyed the Major was only able to fly the MXY8 "Akigusa" to train before the war ended, with no other KR10 engines finished for testing when the war ended.

30mm Ho-155-II Autocannon x2 (rate of fire 450 rounds per minute. muzzle velocity: 750 meters per second)

Much like everything, once the robots took control of the imperial military high command, they immediately made changes, some were faster then others and this particular plane was one of the slower ones to show it's change.
The main reason for this was due to the robots policy of no kamikaze missions, every kamikaze related programs were shut down or turned into other projects which had some army and navy commanders up in arms, showing resistance even though they were simulated MPCs.
However due to other changes such as how the home island air defenses were handled, by January 15th 1945, there were nearly 100 pilots who had 120 hours of flight time using the MXY8.
The KR10 Walter-Antrieb was, thanks to the fact that the Ooka Human bomb and the Kaiten manned torpedo was scrapped, able to reach further development, abiling them to fully produce the KR10 engine by May of 1945.
This helping to supply the 70th air defense squadron (第七〇防衛航空戦隊) of the JADF (Japanese Air Defense Force) with 25 completed J8M "Shiyusui" Interceptors.
The 70th squadron had mostly NPC pilots with a handful of FLUFUs, each designated as element leaders within the 70th squadron. They first saw combat in April of 1945 when a raid by U.S. navy planes, attacked a near by port in their home base of Kashiwa airfield in Chiba prefecture.
They were armed with A6M Type-52 "Zero" fighters and N1K1-J "George" interceptors, their first combat was that of a hard one, with 25 planes shot down for 30 planes lost, one of the planes being piloted by an ace robot, who was wounded and out of service until August of 1945.
With the threat of allied bombing and with their noses bloodied with the baptism of fire, squadron commander created a plan and tactics that incorporated the new rocket interceptors, the plans were very simple, the rocket planes were most vulnerable when flying unpowered, thus the none rocket fighters would be tasked in protecting them while they returned to base.
This tactic worked at first, for the whole month of June, Every B-29 raid was met with at least six "Shiyusui" attacking the bombers with both 30 mm auto-cannons and rocket bomb prototypes which was given to the unit for battlefield testing.

I hope you enjoy and like always please share your thoughts in the comments down below ^w^

Description
The Japanese Me-163 rocket interceptor: the Mitsubishi J8M "Shiyusui" or in Japanese ロケット局地戦闘機：秋水.
This interceptor seemed to be a rather simple plane, just the Japanese version of the German Me-163 and for the most part that seems to be the case however once you look into it deeper, it would seem that this aircraft had more history then you'd think.

First things first is it's name 秋水 which comes from a poem made by navy second lieutenant Okano katsutoshi (岡野勝敏) called "秋水（利剣）三尺露を払う" which basically means "a sharp sword can cut dew 190cm (about 3 shaku) away" unlike other military planes, this name was against regulations but it was decided regardless which considering the imperial military doctrine, it was beyond unusual. Another unusual bit was the fact that both navy and army air forces were working on this project.

December 26th 1944, Pilot: Captain Toyohiko Inuzuka (犬塚豊彦) flew the MXY8 "Akigusa" (秋草) Glider which was the official training glider for the J8M. This test flight proved the concept of the rocket interceptor was feasible and on July 7th 1945, the first official rocket powered flight was commenced in Oppama airfield.

4:55 pm. Captain Inukuza in the cockpit as the rocket, a KR10 Walter-Antrieb ignites, the aircraft accelerated and took off after 220 meters, dropped it's landing gear 10 meters in the air then took a sharp 45 degree climb, all seemed well until the craft hit an altitude of 350 meters, as the rocket flames turned black and the plane started roaring, its engine had stopped.
Captain Inuzuka tried to get the rocket engine running but fails and decides to turn back to base. The plane crash lands after skipping a few times off of the Takatori river, fire fighters extinguished the flames and Captain Inukazu was saved but sadly passed away the next day due to his skull being fractured as a result of the crash.
The reason for the engine fail was due to the fuel tanks not being stored in a right way for a rocket fighter and due to the fact that it only carried 1/3 of it's carrying capacity which resulted in the stalling of the aircraft.

After this incident a second prototype was sent to the 70th air squadron with Major Yoshitsugu Aramaki (荒蒔義次) to be the second test pilot, however with the first prototype destroyed, mainly it's engine being destroyed the Major was only able to fly the MXY8 "Akigusa" to train before the war ended, with no other KR10 engines finished for testing when the war ended.

30mm Ho-155-II Autocannon x2 (rate of fire 450 rounds per minute. muzzle velocity: 750 meters per second)

Much like everything, once the robots took control of the imperial military high command, they immediately made changes, some were faster then others and this particular plane was one of the slower ones to show it's change.
The main reason for this was due to the robots policy of no kamikaze missions, every kamikaze related programs were shut down or turned into other projects which had some army and navy commanders up in arms, showing resistance even though they were simulated MPCs.
However due to other changes such as how the home island air defenses were handled, by January 15th 1945, there were nearly 100 pilots who had 120 hours of flight time using the MXY8.
The KR10 Walter-Antrieb was, thanks to the fact that the Ooka Human bomb and the Kaiten manned torpedo was scrapped, able to reach further development, abiling them to fully produce the KR10 engine by May of 1945.
This helping to supply the 70th air defense squadron (第七〇防衛航空戦隊) of the JADF (Japanese Air Defense Force) with 25 completed J8M "Shiyusui" Interceptors.
The 70th squadron had mostly NPC pilots with a handful of FLUFUs, each designated as element leaders within the 70th squadron. They first saw combat in April of 1945 when a raid by U.S. navy planes, attacked a near by port in their home base of Kashiwa airfield in Chiba prefecture.
They were armed with A6M Type-52 "Zero" fighters and N1K1-J "George" interceptors, their first combat was that of a hard one, with 25 planes shot down for 30 planes lost, one of the planes being piloted by an ace robot, who was wounded and out of service until August of 1945.
With the threat of allied bombing and with their noses bloodied with the baptism of fire, squadron commander created a plan and tactics that incorporated the new rocket interceptors, the plans were very simple, the rocket planes were most vulnerable when flying unpowered, thus the none rocket fighters would be tasked in protecting them while they returned to base.
This tactic worked at first, for the whole month of June, Every B-29 raid was met with at least six "Shiyusui" attacking the bombers with both 30 mm auto-cannons and rocket bomb prototypes which was given to the unit for battlefield testing.

I hope you enjoy and like always please share your thoughts in the comments down below ^w^