This is a look at Cannon/real-shatter damage from the other perspective, not that aircraft are inherrently doing too much damage, but that damage being magnified due to the limited damage models are resulting in unrealistic outcomes (i.e ripping wings off)
There is a lot of talk at the moment for Cannons doing “too much damage” but I just dont think this the full story. Cannons should do a lot of damage. Most can easily punch a 20-30cm holes into an airframe:
This was weapons fire from a 20mm cannon from a Bf-109 and the resulting blast can send a large amount of shrapnel damage through the fuselage, damaging critical systems and even wounded the pilot in the legs.
“On the 18th he landed back at Westhampnett minus flaps and with one burst tyre after his Spitfire, X4110, was severely damaged in combat with Me109’s over Ford. Urie was wounded in both legs.” - Battle of Britain London Monument - S/Ldr. J D Urie
Now this spitifre was able to make an emergency landing, but the damage was severe enough to right off the entire airframe.
Now in War thunder, that probably would have blown off his tail and been a kill. That obviously didnt happen in real life, but we can conclude that this damage would have been enough to severely impact the airframes combat performance and resulted in a heavy landing and as the airframe was written off, could be considered a “kill”
Now the question, what should we have in game?
The simple damage model we have now that results in a kill being a kill?
or more advanced damage models that result in slow deaths or maybe even non-deaths due to repairs?
Im not sure what the answer is, but I think we need a more advanced damage model, with smaller segments for the main body of aircraft, as well as the wings. Meaning damage is more localised. Components such as control veins to be more vulnerable to fire and other sub-systems to be damagable.
If a fighter took multiple rounds to the wing, espeically HE 20mm rounds such as those shown above then it should:
- Affect aero-dynamic lift
- Disable any wing mounted guns
- Disable the flaps
- Disable the aileron
- Damage any wing mounted radiator
- Damage/set fire to fuel tanks located in the wings
- Disable/damage landing gear
- Maybe even compromise the wing enough that High-G strain causes the wing to fail.
At the moment, the wing would just fall off in WT. But would this damage still result in an aircraft crashing, or just being too crippled to keep fighting? I dont know, but the result is the same.
This change would benefit not just fighters, but bombers and high tier aircraft as well. By making the damage model more advanced and capable, maybe we would see more “realistic” damage from the new and greatly improved damage models for the Cannons on many aircraft.