The Kawasaki Ki-45 Toryu (屠龍, "Dragonslayer") is a two-seat, twin-engine heavy fighter used by the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II.

The army gave it the designation "Type 2 Two-Seat Fighter" (二式複座戦闘機, Ni-shiki fukuza sentōki); the Allied reporting name was "Nick".

[2] The Ki-45 did not enter service, but the army, insistent on having a working twin-engine fighter, ordered Kawasaki to continue development.

This craft, designated Ki-45 Kai, was completed in September 1941 and was officially adopted for use by the army in February 1942 as the "Type 2 two-seat fighter".

The 84th Independent Flight Wing (Dokuritsu Hikō Chutai) used them in June 1942 in attacks on Guilin, where they encountered, but were no match for, Curtiss P-40s flown by the Flying Tigers.

Modifications, such as reduction of fuel and ordnance, were attempted to raise performance, to little avail, and, in the end, the aircraft were used effectively in aerial ramming attacks.

[5] In 1945, the forward and upward-firing guns showed some results with the commencement of nighttime bombing raids, but the lack of radar was a considerable handicap.

By the spring of 1945, the advent of American carrier-based fighters and Iwo Jima-based P-51s and P-47s escorting B-29s over the skies of Japan brought the Ki-45's career to an end.

The next version, the Kawasaki Ki-45 KAId, was developed specifically as a night fighter, which was supposed to be equipped with centimetric radar in the nose; due to production difficulties, this did not occur.

The aircraft took part in night defense of the Home Islands and equipped four sentais from the autumn of 1944 to the war's end.

It was one of about 145 Japanese aircraft brought to the United States aboard the USS Barnes for evaluation after World War II.