I recommend to analyze the battle summaries in the inbox of the UI of war thunder.
Most people assume that hits, crits and severe damage would be separate things, they aren’t. So single hit can create a fire, which might result in a crit and often in a severe damage.
So whilst having flown the IT P-47 D-30, the UK P-47 and the US P-47 D-28 for combined ~ 900 matches the 2 hits for a fighter kill are a long term observation. AP-IT rules 😎
As evidence for my claim: My last match (replay link) in the D-28 granted me a kill with 2 hits on a 109 - whilst adding a severe damage. The P-63 i hit earlier with 2 hits created a fire with a delayed crit followed by a delayed severe damage (BnZ attacks btw).
Whilst flying the 3.3 Hellcat it looks like the “hit to kill” threshold is around 3-4 for a fighter thanks to early war belts with just a fraction of AP-IT in the belt.
Same as with the A-20 G which i use as heavy fighter (my goal is to ace the plane like the 4 others mentioned before) - but with having just ~ 200 matches combined with the Hellcat this estimation is not really reliable.
Except I do that (on occasion, not every time) and the game already tells you when you get a pilot snipe. I’d say at minimum 40% of my kills in the P-47 are pilot snipes, and it really shouldn’t be that high if .50 cals did good damage.
I don’t question your observations - i just presented mine.
So it just depends on individual perceptions.
About a year ago i saw a thread in which a Do 217 pilot complained that he got pilot sniped by a P-47 sitting more than 1 km dead behind him - the bullet penetrated the back of the plane and flew through the whole aircraft until the pilot was hit…
That’s still a niche scenario, though, and not unique to .50 cals. Plus having to hit pilot snipes (a much smaller target than literally any part of the airframe) is a lot harder.
I don’t see how the K4 is 5.7 BR. Its got the same gun every other 109 uses since 4.0 BR. For GRB its just one bomb and the flight model is not really convincing. This single 20mm cannon was good as long as mineshells were better than the rest, but now its clearly lacking.
There are enemy planes at the same BR with far more 20mm guns, using superior shells and better FM as well. Planes which also carry alot more ground ordnance for GRB purposes.
For the 109 family is just almost zero progression. One 20mm (MGs generally do nothing) and one bomb.
You should swap it for the 20mm MG151, its better than the 30mm. I don’t like the 30mm MK108 with its anemic 4mm pen, even worse ballistic, rof and less ammo.
the k4 is one of my favorite planes and is balanced at 5.7, you have an amazing climb and engine retention as well as finally good top end speed, the only problem is 5.7s like the yak3u. And yeah mg151s are ass but if you crit someone you just need to make another pass, if you’re taking the gun pods, stop they ruin performance
I use it mainly as suicide drone in GRB. Thx to SC500 this makes most sense. Everything else can be done better with other planes. Well, I never coped with that Mineshell HE and ballistics nerf. I still remember how great 109’s were with that MG151 engine cannon. When I see how meh 109’s firepower has become, It just makes no fun to play anymore.
But 5.7 u either meet 5.0s which in this case u will have slight advantage but only 1 like speed against Yaks and turn vs 190s, but almost never both and u will always have a tough time. I just get so many kills stolen after MG151 crits that I really hate it. I got sth like more assists than kills at one point.
yak3u is actually much faster below 12k feet, it can cruise at 380mph at sea level oh and it also out turns anything besides a zero, seriously, how is this thing 5.7
I was referring to the lesser YAKs that u see on down tier. But yes they are near super nice. Although I find it funny how Yak 3U to others is like 190A to D.
Indeed :) But this one is too good to waste it as suicider. You can mount the big bomb, a bunch of Panzerblitz rockets and you have enough guns+ammo to efficiently strafe lights.
If the RB BR’s are similar to Sim then the 109 and 190’s are fine. Yes the Yak3U is a menace but fight him up high and let him suffocate. This goes for almost all Russian aircraft. If you fight down low you fight his fight.
So u are limited to boom and zoom essentially, and u could barely do that, Yak3s are faster than 109s at same tier and much more manoeuvrable than 190s at the same tier. Often more firepower than both as well.
This is super hard to do when the Yak-3U out climbs and still has better sustained performance against most 109’s. This could only really work in isolated cases where you can 1v1 him freely without outside variables in play.