I’m reading a book about the Fw 190, and it’s interesting because, to combat heavy bombers, the Germans generally used Bf 109s to engage the escorts while the Fw 190s attacked the bombers, often trying to tie them down from above and head-on to try and destroy the pilots’ fuselages. They also mention that to destroy Il-2 Sturmovich bombers, German pilots generally attacked them in the same way to bring them down, with the Fw 190s being primarily responsible for this task. This indicates that aircraft of a certain size could withstand considerable damage, requiring heavy armament or an experienced pilot to know where to shoot to bring them down.
It’s clear that the damage from aircraft guns is somewhat exaggerated, as evidenced by how, as the war progressed, the Germans increasingly armed their aircraft with Mk108s to engage heavily armed enemies, while the MG151s were used to combat other fighters.
It would be interesting if they either reduced the damage from the cannons or increased the aircraft’s durability, but above all, if serious hits had a significant impact on the aircraft’s mobility and speed. In my opinion, ARBs should have cannons with realistic damage and accuracy to encourage closer combat, without enemy markings to allow for surprise attacks (as was common in real life), without the ability to hear the enemy aircraft’s engine (for the same reason as before), with aircraft damage accurately affecting performance by making the aircraft slower and less maneuverable, and also so that if a heavily damaged aircraft returns to the airfield, it can be repaired but counts as a loss for the aircraft that caused so much damage (if the match ends before it does, it will count as a loss).
