I mean, who really can say, right? It never got off the ground even in a clean configuration. The decal is right, it really is the power of belief that makes this thing go in game.
And honestly I’m fine with that. So many fake things still in other trees, let the USAF have a couple too. Even in the US trees, the air-mode-only naval SAMs that can hit ships bother me much more.
And if Gaijin’s line they’ve chosen to draw is “a full prototype did exist” for air/ground, this does qualify. Inarguably. It’s just funny in this case the full prototype that was built could never get off the ground so its flight model here has to be 100% guess work.
I do agree - implementing a plane that could not fly seems not bothering most of the guys. I described my mixed feelings (no from immersion, yes because of being an interesting concept) in the original suggestion thread a year ago:
Next:
I hope that gaijin will add a more reasonable (=higher) BR. Just check the projected/calculated flight performance data in the suggestion (see my last quote) - the plane is fast like hell (low AND high) and should end up with 6 x 0.50 cals at around 5.7 in Air RB.
So assuming the 5.0 BR of the P-51 D-30 would be correct (same with P-38K ) the way faster pancake has to be higher…
On the other hand putting it at a lower BR on purpose like the F4U-4B, F2G or most prominent the P-51 H-5 seems also possible - as their BRs are tailored to fight rather overtiered mostly actual WW 2 fighters from JP, UK and GER in infinite (partial) downtier loops.
The Tiger II 105 that exists in the game is the product of Gaijin combining three separate programmes which sought to introduce modifications to the Tiger II. These being the 105mm gun, the rangefinder, and the new engine.
It is worth noting that these modifications were evaluated separately, not as one package. The gun was IIRC rejected very early on, because the lower RoF and need for a second loader were considered unacceptable. Also, the turret would have needed a redesign to accommodate a second loader.
In any case, the XF5U in-game is currently in a very similar position. It would have needed serious work in order to fly at all (!). It is carrying .50s (proposed). It can carry bombs (proposed). This is literally the Tiger II 105 of the air.
To be fair, it’s not that she couldn’t get off the ground, it’s that her program was canceled before her first flight, which was progressively and constantly delayed several times. There was the prior prototype and proof of concept that was built and went through flight testing beforehand flew quite well and i expect Gaijin will use some of the flight data from that proof of concept prototype to produce the flight model for the Flapjack.
The biggest stretches are the armaments that were never fitted to the prototype for testing production configurations. So unless the XF5U’s prototype was fitted with internal ballast to imitate the weight of the machine guns or cannons, we don’t have much to go off of for it’s capabilities, and I’m not sure the prototype was intended to be able to carry bombs till the production model was introduced.
I honestly would have be fine with the XF5U-1 being guns only and playing an interceptor role.
I was asking because the way I see it, theres slight difference between, say, Chieftain 900 recieving the proposed chobham armor package instead of structural steel vismod it has on the dev server (or X5FU being in flyable config);
and things like KT 105, which, while proposed modifications to existing vehicle, they were added as entirely separate vehicle.
It might be weird and I might not be making lot of sense, I just think theres difference between these two “modifications”.
Originally I wanted to say that XF5U would require some minor tweaks to be workable when compared to KT 105, but more I think about it, the opposite is probably true.
The point is that there is something a bit arbitrary about what constitutes a “separate vehicle”. In WT we do not play individual vehicles so much as models. In reality maybe a Pz IV F2 is damaged in the field, goes back for refurbishing, it’s upgraded to Pz IV H standard; in WT they are two entirely separate playable entities. Normally upgunning works the same way, the T-34-100 is a separate playable unit of T-34, and so on.
But we also have the counter example of the TOG II, likely because of its event status.
In any case, changing a gun and redesigning a turret around it is definitely a bigger change to a tank than adding a chobham armour package. But with the XF5U the devs are being very permissive, let’s say. Which I like. I just don’t see why we have to continue doing this song and dance where we pretend that WT vehicles are all 100% pure-bred real OGs when the reality of player interest, content addition, and balance is paving the way more and more to “what if” designs.
It was also proposed to have a radar in that nose dome and it did take off on accident during taxi trials but they landed it shortly after and called it a hop
I don’t think it should be a game but since they are adding it I’m definitely going to get it because it looks cool