Cannons doing too much damge

[iegaatdao]

@PercussionCap

Yes, like placement, ammo count, accuracy, belt composition, tracers…

Placement and ammo count varies from aircraft to aircraft.
Belt composition was made to balance weaker explosive fillers, there’s a reason the ShVAK, B-20 and Type 99 have full explosive belts while other cannons do not.
Accuracy differences are only really felt by defensive mounts or stock weapons.

@PercussionCap

Except when they don’t because the control surfaces will eat them, or you just detach a stabilizer. I’ve shown several times that having AP greatly reduces your kill time in very common situations.

And you tell me you can’t keep your position of advantage after blowing off the control surfaces of an aircraft.

Even if I can just, cut the tail or wings? rudders are thin and the moment the enemy even dares to move it’s nose end up exposing a “true” wing section and have it fall off?

AND ABOVE ALL ELSE, how many times do you stick on an enemy’s tail? 1 clue, rare, because currently you smite them in the deflection shot and not even by pilots snipes most of the time, just amputation.

@PercussionCap

Who is firing one single FI-T shell? These are automatic cannons. MG151/15 has this damage pattern and doesn’t struggle at all.

And what’s the point you want to make here?

@PercussionCap

Think about what? The only reason the MiG-15 had a 37mm was to better shoot down american nuclear bombers. That’s the N-37D you mentioned.

So now explain the NS-23 with less firerate and ammo, why didn’t they mount the B-20? are soviets engineers stupid?

@PercussionCap

75% HE is more than enough. You know, for someone who claimed players like me were unable or unwilling to get in a position to shoot an enemy more than once, you sure seem to struggle more with non-full HE belts.
I have used fighters with NS-23s and they were fantastic guns, with the only demerit being relatively slow shells.

25% of null damage on a deflection vs B-20’s 100% of at least a fully blacked out wing
600rpm vs 750rpm (B-20M)

@PercussionCap

Hornets, Ki-83, P-38s are accuracy by volume since when? And those are probably the most well-regarded heavy fighters.
Even the Mosquitos can be quite competent.

I mean all of these “firepower oriented” aircraft are simply avoided in headons (Except P-38 since it is kind of the middle line since it has 1 cannon and 4 50cals (or 8 if you use pods)), the opporunity the extra nose mounted cannons of these aircraft opened are the same ones 1 aircraft with 1 nose mounted cannon would exploit with the same amount of sucess.

Deflection shots? Our hornet with it’s 4 20mils landed 6 shells on the aircraft, it came down, but the La-7 did the same manouver with 2 anemia filled cannons and still split the plane in half in 2 shells, same did our 109 1 20mm cannon and 1 round.

What about our Kikka and 229? oh no! 500 and 450 Rpm made the enemy aircraft fly in between bullets, buddy if only 1 bullet landed! Maybe if we had 20mil we would have dunked on that enemy plane thanks to better firerate!

@PercussionCap

abysmal vantablack coal planes only held up by firepower lol

Because they only needed 1-2 20mils to make the job, why mount 4? why mount 50cals? why mount 13mm?
1 full yellow belt of anemia and these aircraft would have been in a far better position.

@PercussionCap

You keep two B-20s regardless of which armament setup you choose.

And those 2 B-20s does all the work, you could have a mod to removed all armament but those 2 and you wouldn’t feel a difference.
Yak-9P is a perfect example of cranking damage too much it starts to eat at the “firepower upgrades”.

@PercussionCap

The MK108 has no reason to be there because it will just miss. It could literally atomize any enemy on the first shot regardless of where you hit them, and 20mm cannons would still be more useful.

Land a 30mil on the farthest point of the wing tip, it falls off
Land a 20mil on the farthest point of the wing tip, it falls off

Land a 30mil on the farthest point of the tail, it falls off
Land a 20mil on the farthest point of the tail, roll the dice for a 10% chance to leave it black but not destroy it, it falls off

@PercussionCap

So like the MG151/15 does right now? Which I’ve shown is extremely deadly.

So you mean we can improve realism of shell types with taking away damage? Looks like a middle point, surely percu would agree since I said it a lot times!

But noooooo
Why?

Spoiler

@PercussionCap

Because we’d be changing cannons again, adding an opportunity for gaijin to break damage on some of them again, just for nothing to actually change and having to listen to complaints about cannon damage again.

That’s your entire reason?

gaijin is incompetent, instead of nagging it and trying to make it improve let’s sulk and sink the game further!

Sorry guys we can’t reform map objectives, bomber gameplay issues, missile tracking issues or basically any ARB improvement or suggestion because gaijin can’t code.

[PercussionCap]

@iegaatdao

Placement and ammo count varies from aircraft to aircraft.

To a degree. Hispanos and Oerlikons cannot be synchronized, so they will be mounted in wings only except in twin engine fighters like J1N or P-38.

MG151s, ShVAKs, Ho-5s, can all be synchronized and will be mounted in the nose much more often.

Ammo count also depends on cannon. Some can only take drum magazines and your ammo load will be greatly reduced.

@iegaatdao

AND ABOVE ALL ELSE, how many times do you stick on an enemy’s tail? 1 clue, rare, because currently you smite them in the deflection shot and not even by pilots snipes most of the time, just amputation.

I do it quite often. Wasting ammo by shooting from far away is not a good practice.

@iegaatdao

are soviets stupid?

Yes.

@iegaatdao

25% of null damage on a deflection vs B-20’s 100% of at least a fully blacked out wing
600rpm vs 750rpm (B-20M)

Then hit them twice. NS-23s are great. The vast majority of my targets went down in a single hit (from at least three guns).

@iegaatdao

the opporunity the extra nose mounted cannons of these aircraft opened are the same ones 1 aircraft with 1 nose mounted cannon would exploit with the same amount of sucess.

All three of these will easily be the highest aircraft in the lobby, and can attack pretty much anyone with impunity. No single engine fighter has the same opportunity to deal damage.

@iegaatdao

Our hornet with it’s 4 20mils landed 6 shells on the aircraft, it came down, but the La-7 did the same manouver

La-7 does what now? It’s at half the altitude of the Hornet.

@iegaatdao

Because they only needed 1-2 20mils to make the job, why mount 4?

Why do you think 190 A-8 is higher BR than A-5/U2?

@iegaatdao

Land a 20mil on the farthest point of the wing tip, it falls off

This is not guaranteed.

@iegaatdao

So you mean we can improve realism of shell types with taking away damage? Looks like a middle point, surely percu would agree since I said it a lot times!

Nah, because next you’d all complain that an “anemia shell” can cause damage to the fuselage while hitting the middle of the wing, and therefore needs to be nerfed.

As FeetPics said, this thread was started when cannons were at their worst damage in years, so their “realistic” (according to survivorship bias claims) damage must be EVEN LOWER.

@iegaatdao

gaijin is incompetent, instead of nagging it and trying to make it improve let’s sulk and sink the game further!

Sink the game further by… enabling all nations to play the game on a relatively even playing field? Instead of two nations having good guns and the rest sitting behind someone unloading a dozen shells for a red wing?

[FeetPics]

@iegaatdao

That’s your entire reason?

gaijin is incompetent, instead of nagging it and trying to make it improve let’s sulk and sink the game further!

Sorry guys we can’t reform map objectives, bomber gameplay issues, missile tracking issues or basically any ARB improvement or suggestion because gaijin can’t code.

Gaijin has never modeled damage in a fashion that is realistic enough for the OP or any of the common posters in this thread.

The closest that they have came is when HE ammo was bugged and did basically no damage. This was after a patch where Gaijin somehow caused missiles to do no damage…and when they fixed it…they completely screwed cannons for the next 2-3 months.

Even if we reverted damage back to similar levels to what it was 3 years ago…the exact same people would be complaining that MG.151 does too much damage and also by relation that ShVAK etc do too much damage.

Even if we reverted damage back to what it was 5 years ago where ShVAK was considered super buggy due to fragmentation doing basically no damage…the people in the thread would just shift their focus to “over-performing US .50 cals” and the like.

Or they would still choose to hyper focus on the time that they still got 1 shot by ShVAK due to God tier damage roll and cry about how unrealistic it is. Or cry about everything getting down-tiered because the average player can’t individually unscrew the correct bolts with ShVAK cannon in the right sequence.

[Loofah]

@PercussionCap

Hornets, Ki-83, P-38s are accuracy by volume since when? And those are probably the most well-regarded heavy fighters.
Even the Mosquitos can be quite competent.

P-38 doesn’t fly like a heavy fighter BTW.
It has similar maneuvrability to Bf 109.
Hornet is essentialy Ta-152C3, only actually good, because it outperforms almost everything it encounters 6.3 or lower with sole exception of P-51H.
They are regarded because of performance. Their armanent is OK/good, but nothing mind blowing at their BRs.
Their main disadvantage is the size, they are easier to hit and fold just as fast as Bf 109.
Ki-83 is plenty meh.

Anyway, I honestly don’t even understand where does this NEED for everything to 1-shot even come from. It’s not a norm in computer games. It’s not a norm in flight games, including sims. It’s not realistic.
But somehow WT is this super special game, that, if by any chance ever has anything but 1-shotting guns, will crumble into oblivion.
Because horrible and monothematic weapon design is so damn important.
I’d rather have fantasy guns with historical names, the “what if they designed a shell specifically for WT” kind of affair so I wouldn’t get annoyed they are 100% unrealistic.
F.e. make MK108 fire 4 20mm (or 5-6 15mm? The possibilities are endless) shells in a shotgun like pattern. Then you have low muzzle velocity (make it 580m/s so it’s better adjusted to WT insane maneuvrability maybe, but lower ROF so the gun feels like automatic shotgun) , but god damn, the fire density. Unrealistic? Yes. Just like real sh*tter. But also very fun.
Since we’re at it, why not slap MG213 onto Me-262, so it actually has ANY reason to exist at 7.0? Unrealistic? A bit. The gun existed, the plane could carry it. Still more realistic than 30mm being basically outperformed by Shvak in damage per second or Berezin UB taking off wings with short bursts.

[PercussionCap]

@Loofah

P-38 doesn’t fly like a heavy fighter BTW.
It has similar maneuvrability to Bf 109.

A P-38L is ~7 metric tons at a typical WT load. The initial criteria was just “Larger sized aircraft such as heavy fighters”, and the P-38 is massive.

@Loofah

Hornet is essentialy Ta-152C3, only actually good, because it outperforms almost everything it encounters 6.3 or lower with sole exception of P-51H.
[…]
Ki-83 is plenty meh.

Ki-83 is right up there with Hornet in performance. They are very similar.

@Loofah

They are regarded because of performance. Their armanent is OK/good, but nothing mind blowing at their BRs.
Their main disadvantage is the size, they are easier to hit and fold just as fast as Bf 109.

…Performance in speed and climb that single engine fighters cannot really match.

@Loofah

Anyway, I honestly don’t even understand where does this NEED for everything to 1-shot even come from.

Except they don’t oneshot. We’ve established this already.

@Loofah

But somehow WT is this super special game, that, if by any chance ever has anything but 1-shotting guns, will crumble into oblivion.

Which has never been the point, but go off.

[Loofah]

@PercussionCap

-83 is right up there with Hornet in performance. They are very similar.

Had to quit reading after that, because Whornet is like 70km/h faster at every alt.

Edit: OK, continued reading.
For me 20mm cannons one shot left and right. Of course it’s not 100% reliable and I usually hit more than once. Don’t know where your assumption these guns don’t one shot comes from. The only one that’s not really one shotting is Hoe-5 due to cursed shell type that makes it worse than FI-T pound for pound.

[PercussionCap]

@Loofah

because Whornet is like 70km/h faster at every alt.

Did you know there are stats other than top speed? Did you know there are aircraft that can do things other than passively running away?

Ki-83 climbs about as well, loses less power with altitude, and turns noticeably better.

@Loofah

Don’t know where your assumption these guns don’t one shot comes from.

“oneshot” means a single hit. By far the most common setup is two guns, so most of the time it’s two hits at least. Even in the J1N (single Type 99-2) facing near reserve aircraft, a single hit was pretty much never enough.

@Loofah

The only one that’s not really one shotting is Hoe-5 due to cursed shell type that makes it worse than FI-T pound for pound.

And do you see Ho-5s struggling to get kills? I don’t.

[Loofah]

@PercussionCap

so most of the time it’s two hits at least.

I very often hit only one of 2. When I hit with 2 guns, people just lose both wings.

@PercussionCap

Did you know there are stats other than top speed? Did you know there are aircraft that can do things other than passively running away?

Hornet is better armed (I mean, belts suck, but guns have great range and with 4 ever SAPI starts to deal some damage? and has better engine management, and more speed is super important, because once Ki-83 gets fast, it starts to lose energy, because it can’t sustain high speed.
Tirn rate I see different advantages in different circumstances.
Overal Whornet is waaaay faster and somewhat better armed, Ki-83 may climb a bit better, either will be way above its enemies, but it’s the Hornet that can move down to lower alt and have a speed advantage over almost anything.

[PercussionCap]

@Loofah

and more speed is super important, because once Ki-83 gets fast, it starts to lose energy, because it can’t sustain high speed.

Go up.

@Loofah

For me 20mm cannons one shot left and right.

By the way this was “one shot” from your magical mineshells

[Omarb13legends]

Maybe so, but it completely jeopradizes the purpose of different caliber varieties. If 2 20mms from a ki43 is supposed to nuke your plane because you made a mistake, then that same principle would have to apply to every caliber of choice, regardless of how many they have.

Players want to be rewarded for putting guns on target and lack patience, which is something players of the IL-2 series of games don’t have a problem with. They spend the time fighting the dogfight, but don’t get mad when their weapon caliber, amount and type, don’t instantly nuke the plane in front of it.

Lowewring damage doesn’t hurt variety, it presents strengths and weaknesses just like they are presented in all nations aircraft types.

Another example is people complaining about how American aircraft focus on speed rather than dogfighting. Boom and zooming and playing “pasively” most consider not fun or intuitive, but that’s just how the plane was designed to work, so naturally fast aircraft in the past have gotten nerfs for that. Then players whwo attempt to dogfight in planes not meant to against planes that can (japaense aircraft) get punished.

This principle would have to be consistently applied to all aspects of the game, not just limited flight preformance. Every plane should turn like a zero so it’s more “fun” if we’re to go your route and the core value of the game being “realistic” to a degree is lost.

That realism most certainly should not be lost to weapons, especially since in Air RB, they are super easy to aim and consistently keep on target thanks to mouse aim, providing aspects you wouldn’t even see in 1st person and allowing for much longer range shots than you’d actually take in cockpit view. So you’d expect weapons to not instantly nuke someone for allowing a much easier time to aim.

Not to mention in SIM battles it’s even more of a joke since damage models and weapon damage are still exactly the same. The only reason I’d see someone playing that is if they want fast TTK in a SIM envrionment for whatever reason…

Might as well go play IL-2 1946, which has a way better weapon balance and damage model for a 2 decade old game and still has about every plane you want for free lol

[iegaatdao]

@PercussionCap

Go up.

Incredible help Percu, let me glue myself to the ceiling while I lose piles of tickets via groundpound and get reported for passive behaviour.

@PercussionCap

By the way this was “one shot” from your magical mineshells

Look! is the mg151/20 dealing the damage it is supposed to do, little fragmentation but an improved structural damage compared to other 20mils, it looks like the round landed very far from any fuel tanks or sparts to deal damage to them, I suppose thats a downside that came with it too.

Let me guess, took it while it still had that legacy formula that had a random chance to nullify damage? We also never called it magical, it is simply unique in construction compared to other shells and it simply deals damage in a different way.

I sure hope every other cannon behaves differently instead of a 30mm Mine round, because of a petty fit by people who can’t differentiate 2 numbers on a statcard and simply look into a plane’s x-ray model.

[iegaatdao]

@Zargleblyte

Lowering damage hurts variety and you fall back into whoever has the best AP wins (Usually Allies, who also have better performance)

The fun part is that axis are the least affected ones, with Japan being the only one hit very hard for their Type 99s with 6g and ho-5 with 7g (which also deal less damage on average for some reason).
mg151/20 will just blow your wing in 3-4 shots, Italians don’t have a native 20mm for aircraft so it’s the same for them.

They do benefit that 30mils will make sense since the upside of “one-shots” isn’t just given away for everyone.

Even USSR can see some benefit since the NS-23 will make sense, now it is just a slower firing B-20 with a 25% chance of the AP shell to screw you over, only quality it has is the lower drop thanks to increased mass and better inertia.

P-39s and P-63s will benefit from that 37mil more because the P-400 actually has better firepower thanks to the hispano 404 currently.

[FeetPics]

@Omarb13legends

Players want to be rewarded for putting guns on target and lack patience, which is something players of the IL-2 series of games don’t have a problem with. They spend the time fighting the dogfight, but don’t get mad when their weapon caliber, amount and type, don’t instantly nuke the plane in front of it.

This actually isn’t really the case. There are plenty of IL-2 players that have problems with the way the game handles damage and the basic lack of it in many cases.

One of the things that Il-2 Korea is being praised for in relation to Il-2 Great Battles is comparative increase in how effective guns are at dealing damage.

In Great Battles “fighting the fight” practically necessitates a tracking shot from the tail. This de-facto means that most dogfights turn into rate fights and whatever plane is the better turning fighter will win. This just means that LF IX Spitfire or Yak-1B happen to be the easiest and most foolproof planes on the Berloga dogfight server. This is especially true because both of those planes have exceptionally low stall speeds once they deploy flaps as well; the ability to helicopter in the vertical is just as present in that game as it is in WarThunder.

[PercussionCap]

@iegaatdao

let me glue myself to the ceiling while I lose piles of tickets via groundpound and get reported for passive behaviour.

Do you understand how energy fighting works?

@iegaatdao

Let me guess, took it while it still had that legacy formula that had a random chance to nullify damage?

That was… a few minutes ago.

This is a TRAINER that took a head-on against a cannon Bearcat. That’s a minimum of two hits from what are currently the best prop 20mms in the game. Suddenly, the thing that happens “all the time” doesn’t happen! Ain’t that funny?

@iegaatdao

with Japan being the only one hit very hard for their Type 99s with 6g

If you use the worse belt. Non-tracer HEF has far more.

[Omarb13legends]

@FeetPics

There are plenty of IL-2 players that have problems with the way the game handles damage and the basic lack of it in many cases.

Quite true and yes Korea is currently being praised for it’s damage modeling.

But watching .50 cals tear off a bf109s wing with relative ease on a deflection shot leaves much to be desired, not to mention alongside how fragile bombers are.

[Loofah]

@PercussionCap

By the way this was “one shot” from your magical mineshells

Well, perfectly normal, just like my 30mm shells doing jack shit or Sherman getting direct hit with 500kg bomb and only losing drive sprocket, because why the hell not.

Sometimes damage is just bugged. Can you replicate that shot with protection analysis?

Jets can tank multiple 30mm, they have like 3 times the HP pool of props, so of course they survive.

[iegaatdao]

@PercussionCap

If you use the worse belt. Non-tracer HEF has far more.

Oh if only the belt that contains the round that can parallel the hispano’s filler wasn’t in the same belt as 2/5 aphe rounds, which reminder, need to connect with some form with a module in order to detonate, If only those 11g of TNT didn’t go overkill on damage as 6g deal the same amount of damage.

They don’t even provide better ballistics, you are just crippling yourself.

Current system makes even rounds in the cannon just completely outclass each other.

The best round for A2A is a thickcased FI-T round with 6g of TNT and a belt entirely composed of it.

@PercussionCap

Do you understand how energy fighting works?

I know most ARB pilots are kind of dumb, but no one will bother to climb into your alt, you will need to come down eventually unless you want to be mass reported for passive behaviour, maybe if 2-3 20mm stray shells didn’t instantly split your plane in 2 pieces it would be more bearable, since even pulling off a stall shot won’t reward you well if you land it and said suicidal behaviour won’t be rewarded.

[iegaatdao]

@PercussionCap

That was… a few minutes ago.

This is a TRAINER that took a head-on against a cannon Bearcat. That’s a minimum of two hits from what are currently the best prop 20mms in the game. Suddenly, the thing that happens “all the time” doesn’t happen! Ain’t that funny?

Wow the nose of the aircraft is indestructible and the wing root survived 1 20mm explosive shell? Blasphemy!
You know what’s funny, if cannons actually fragmentated the bearcat would have taken the L-39 down with him (he wasn’t surviving vs 2x 23mil cannons with 3400rpm anyway, he played dumb and he died, stupidity doesn’t reward very well most cases.)

current system still makes you lose kill oportunities

[PercussionCap]

@Loofah

Sometimes damage is just bugged. Can you replicate that shot with protection analysis?

@Loofah

Jets can tank multiple 30mm, they have like 3 times the HP pool of props, so of course they survive.

Certainly not this one. It is an unarmored trainer.

@iegaatdao

Oh if only the belt that contains the round that can parallel the hispano’s filler wasn’t in the same belt as 2/5 aphe rounds

Maybe you should do what you criticize extensively and start looking harder for the yellow shells

@iegaatdao

The best round for A2A is a thickcased FI-T round with 6g of TNT and a belt entirely composed of it.

And again, you can’t choose which shells you get in any one belt. If they have FI-T or HEF-T, you’re forced to use those and can’t change it for a shell you like more.

To illustrate this, these are the MG FF/M’s belts.




There is an FI-T shell - it is used as filler in the Air Targets belt (in the middle of a lot of HEI) and none in any other belt, not even Tracers; they also seem to have broken it again since it’s back to producing 1-3 fragments on detonation with poor damage.
Universal uses an IT shell for the tracer element instead of FI-T, despite already having APHE, and the IT itself having horrible penetration.
Stealth is the most consistent, but it includes an AP-I shell for some reason instead of the far more useful APHE, another HEI shell, or just nothing at all.

Further example with the Type 5:

We have HEF, HEF-I, HEF-T, and APHE available. HEF obviously has the most explosive filler. The optimal air targets belt would therefore be 3 HEF shells + 1 HEF-T to serve as tracer. If you look closely, this is not even close to being an option. You have to either lose all HEF (Tracers), lose tracers (Stealth), or dilute your ammo pool with HEF-I and APHE (Default, Universal) which at this caliber is just unnecessary.

So no, for the vast majority of cannons you do not have a choice.

---

You also can’t change the cannons on each plane, and those span many BRs. So why should they do far less damage? It would just be a return to the terrible old days where only two nations got to play the game on even terms.

@iegaatdao

but no one will bother to climb into your alt, you will need to come down eventually

And you will do so with a massive energy advantage, allowing you to push down any enemy into the loving embrace of your team’s cannons, which after the last buff to fragment count will all do noticeable and immediate damage.

@iegaatdao

maybe if 2-3 20mm stray shells didn’t instantly split your plane in 2 pieces it would be more bearable

Don’t get hit. If I could do that in a Mosquito, you can do it in one of the highest performance props in the game.

@iegaatdao

and the wing root survived 1 20mm explosive shell?

Yeah, the thing you guys keep saying never happens, happened again.

@iegaatdao

if cannons actually fragmentated the bearcat would have taken the L-39 down with him

The title of this thread is “cannons doing too much damage”. So clearly I should have gotten away even harder with getting hit by four cannons in my unarmored trainer.

[Loofah]

@PercussionCap

Certainly not this one. It is an unarmored trainer.

Armor has nothing to do with it. F.e F-89D used to turn very light yellow when hit in certain spots by M-geschoss, but orange/red when hit with post real-shatter Shvak. Nowadays both work roughly the same, although M-geschoss is slightly weaker.
F84 can tank 30mm just fine. I had SK60B fly through a ton of shells and survive too.
Even 262 is way more difficult to down with 20mm, although it is one of the weakest (HP wise) jets in game, along with Yak-15

EDIT: Well, I guess the protection analysis 30mm is a different beast from in-game 30mm which routinely fails to kill or deal serious damage.

And regarding the plane with red wingroot - apparently it has more HP than Do-335 middle of the wing or guns/landing gear is absorbing damage. Also is the result reliable? Because as shown by my Do-335, there’s quite a bit of variety between shots.

I can’t see where the hell that plane got shot, which certainly doesn’t help. Protection analysis normally shows the point of entry, so it seems quite weird. Could you make a screenshot showing the point of impact, so I can test Shvak etc.
I’m not saying real shtter 1-shots everything, f.e. bombers get 3-shot.
I’m saying it routinely 1-shots with a wing/tail shot (not exactly with wingroot shot in some cases) and it’s a perfectly normal outcome.
The problem with real shtter is too much damage, and alnost same damage for every gun (with Shvak hitting slightly harder than the rest and Hoe-5 being 1 outlier). This also means that Gaijin can just give Fw 190 D9 same module HP as Spitfire and A6M5 and nobody would notice.
Apparently in some cases they handed out way more. I remember Ta-152H and G56 used to be very resistant to damage at one point, although Ta flies like an absolute ass, if even 2 .50 cal bullets strike the outer 1/3 of the wing, which makes it a horrible interceptor (get nicked, and you have to RTB, while Yak-3U can dogfight without wingtip).