With the least MEC this fighter will never overheat. In the meantime, it has great firepower (even though it had already been strong enough, they buffed it last update). It has completely biased power-to-weight ratio, broken climb rate. And it’s a usual Japanese fighter with overwhelming dogfight capability. So how is Ki-44-II hei not at the BR of 4.7 or even 5.0? Just because some players know nothing about the least of MEC?
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Have you ever tried not dogfighting a japanese plane?
At that BR you have planes that can go twice as fast as the Ki-44, gl catching up a Do-335 or a P-47 that isn´t braindead
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Have you ever tried flying any BnZ fighters?
Ki-44-II hei outclimbs all fighters at BR 2.7-4.3, except for some other fighters that are as broken, like VL Pyörremyrsky, Wyvern S4 and XP-50 (air spawn).
Had you learned anything other than crawling on the deck below 2km altitude, you’d have noticed how broken Ki-44-II hei is.
The Ki-44-II is a formidable plane at it’s BR, but it has it’s flaws.
Overheating is a small one, since it only affects the plane in automatic engine control, but that’s what most players use. MEC is an easy fix for that though.
It’s speed is also very slow at low altitudes and barely adequate at higher altitudes, the acceleration and climb means that it can catch some planes though if they are unaware and get too slow.
It also has terrible dive acceleration and below average energy retention so a prolonged turn fight it loses a lot of speed and becomes very slow. At which speeds it then starts to turn worse than a lot of planes at the BR.
Yak-3. P-51, FW190A, 109F/G, MC.C205, F4U, P-38, P-47 etc are all perfectly capable of dealing with the Ki-44-II since they are much faster and can easily deal with it once they get it on the deck or higher up.
There is just as much skill involved in killing a P-47D with a Ki-44-II than the other way around. A somewhat decent 47D pilot will likely never give the 44 a firing solution.
I know you might think it’s the most broken, yet it’s maybe slightly above average in it’s own bracket. There are some much worse offenders at the same BR, and there are honestly enough planes at 3.7-4.0BR that justify the Ki-44-II being at 3.7BR.
Also the Ki-44-II gets extremely sluggish above 5500m. At 7km you are extremely handicapped, especially against US planes.
Maybe cool down a little as well, I know the first reply was pretty passive aggressive but it doesn’t help if this spirals out of control into name calling and just ends up getting closed. If you want to have a decent discussion about it, I am happy to listen.
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Its climb rate is only great at low altitude, by just 5km its losing power badly. Its energy retention is also quite bad.
And it’s rip speed is quite high, at 850kph.
Did you ever tested it’s climb rate? At below 1km altitude, Ki-44-II hei can maintain the climb rate of over 30m/s. Between 1km and 4km, the number is 25m/s. Guess how much energy it can accumulate. How far do you have to run away from a Ki-44-II hei? It is especially the case with some fighters with low rip speed.
It loses a lot of speed. Then it regains altitude advantage in a minute. Had Japanese and Chinese players not focused their minds on entering furballs brainlessly, they would have noticed that Ki-44-II hei could climb above all opponents(except for some other broken fighters like XP-50) and wipe out enemies layer by layer. Sure you lose a lot speed in dogfight. But you don’t have to enter a furball to reach 5 kills. Fighters like Bf109G-6 perform poorly in dogfights, but they are still good planes.
Btw, similar descriptions could go for Spitfire LF MkIX as well. Good climb rate, bad energy retention, bad dive acceleration… And I’m pretty sure many would consider Spitfire LF MkIX as biased. The problem is, unlike Yak-9U or Yak-3U, these planes are more difficult to run away from (due to the combination of rip speed and climb rate). To avoid them, more position and energy is needed to sacrifice, more than enough to allow Spitfire or Ki-44 to secure a victory. And in a 16vs16 match, Yak-9U, Yak-3U, Spitfire LF MkIX and Ki-44-II hei could simply change their target after you run away. The climbing BnZ fighters in your team are either driven away or killed. Utilizing their energy advantage as well as their maneuverability, your opponents simply have to turkey hunt. You run away, return, and you are already in a 3vs11 match. And that is the end, almost nothing you can do now.
I might conclude this as “certain aircraft force you to engage in furball at lower altitudes”.
In a 6vs6 match, I wouldn’t really consider Spitfire LF MkIX as biased, now that with tactics my Bf109G-6 can still outclimb him before losing too many teammates or tickets(only a few players would expect an opposing Bf109 at 6500m altitude). The problem is that most matches in this game are 16vs16 matches. Certain aircraft could easily reduce enemies’ number to an extent that they simply secure the win in such matches. It is much more difficult to win in 4v11 situation than in 2v6 situation. It’s snowball effect.
And another thing. I’m so surprised that you people talk about difficulty of “killing a P-47D”. I’ve come across so many players that sre frightened by the on-paper top speed and horsepower of American fighters, however, P-47D and P-51D are neither good at acceleration nor at climb rate (due to their poor power-to weight ratio). And their maneuverablity is limited. If they climb, it should be fairly easily to kill them or drive them away, now that the energy gap between you and them is huge. If they don’t climb, then they just sacrifice the position. If there is an experienced P-51 player who knows how to side climb, just kill all his teammates. I’d expect you to complain about XP-50 or Wyvern S4 (especially the latter one), that would be reasonable. A Wyvern S4 can out climb everyone in the lobby as well as outrun everyone, and its acceleration is better than anyone else in the lobby. But that is definitely not the case for P-47D. Guess I’ll check your service records later to see why this would happen.
5km is about as high as you have to get to merge with alt advantage.
And since the fights quickly move down, Ki-44-II greatly benefits from the ability to go back up very quickly.
It suffers relatively little from compression, it’s also fairly small, which makes it a difficult target. Can’t remember if it can do some nasty dodges using rudder+roll, but most likely yes.
The armament slaps hard, allowing it to 1-pass-kill most opponents.
The speed is not great. But Bf 109 F4 is not really faster since on most maps it’ll be doing 100% radiators by the time yu engage each other.
Fw 190 A4 overheats like crazy too and will be waaay lower. A5 has this nice brick flight model, it can be dangerous if it stays fast and never commits. But Ki-44-II can perform some insane dodges at high speed and relatively quickly regain lost energy due to excellent power to weight.
I’d see this plane at 4.3
Vs Eremin’s Yak-3 (which also deserves 4.3) it is slower, but better in climb, soviet armanent is better (Shvak is basically a hammer of gods nowadays) but not by much and ammo count is lower, and Ki-44-II can out-turn Yak if needed, it also vastly outdives it thanks to way higher rip speed.
Current situation is J2M2 with 1-shot wonders that Type 99 Mk 2 became at 4.3 - simply ridiculous. J2M2 went to 5.0, Ki-44-II can go to 4.3.
And yeah, Do-335 is way, way faster. But it also overheats to the ridiculous extent and is a boat, however, I hate facing properly flown Do-335. These are super-rare, though.
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I agree with most of your statements, but not this line. After the adjustment of Ho-103’s belt, it’s safe to say that Ki-44-II hei’s armament is as good as or better than most props at this BR(take the ammo count into consideration). Shvak’s ballistic changes drastically outside 500 meters, and to be honest, I do find Bf109G-6 performing better than Yak-9U in BnZ with mg151&mg131 armament due to this characteristic of Shvak. And Ho-103 is also a hammer of gods now, probably caused by its rate of fire and the number of guns. Last, just as you mentioned, Ho-103 has more ammo.
In my recollection, Ho-103 models the Italian Breda 12.7mm machine gun. I don’t see the reason why It is so much better than the original Italian guns.
Shvak outranges MG151/20 by a ridiculous amount actually.
It’s so damn easier to hit with it at longer range. There’s no “500m ballistic shift” as far as I’m concerned.
As you can probably tell from my profile, I have a bit of experience at prop BRs in ARB.
Anyway, I consider Shvak absolutely and utterly devastating, and obly Type 99 Mk2 is comparable. Both can demolish your plane in 1 hit. MG151/20 requires a few, unless lucky.
Ki-44-II MGs are excellent, but they require a tiny bit longer clobbering for the desired effect and I’d take them over Bf 109 G6 armanent any day.
That’s completely wrong. Ho-103 is an upsized Browning M1919, since the Breda-SAFAT was considered far too heavy.
Often not high enough and the power drop is so bad above 4km that other fighters will quickly catch up. It’s also much slower than people realize.
Crazy how the soviets need a 1944 fighter to match a 1942 one
The Yak-3 is faster at all altitudes and has much better speed retention, that’s a pretty good set of advantages.
All the J2Ms are overtiered, 5.0 is too much for a plane with such poor performance at altitude and firepower.
After the various FM nerfs, the 190s are also all overtiered.
The Yak-3 has lower climb rate than Ki-44-II hei at all altitude. The Yak-3 is worse in dogfight at all altitude.
By “poor performance at altitude and firepower”,you mean you mean excellent climb rate and maneuverability? Quote from War Thunder wiki, “Featuring two 20 mm Type 99 Model 1 cannons and two 20 mm Type 99 Model 2 cannons with plenty of ammunition, the J2M3 is capable of destroying all kinds of aircraft.” You call this “poor firepower”?
You really had the audacity to say all these without feeling ashamed. You should be a politician, not a War Thunder player.
Well, I guess that differs on every individual’s own gameplay… Anyway, that doesn’t change many about the performance of Ki-44-II hei.
5.0 is J2M2 with 2 Mk 2s.
The thing is, I’ve tested them and they rohtinely 1-shot planes. I took a wing off P-47 with a single shell pn several occasions.
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Yep. That’s average Type 99-2. They do as much damage as Shvak and is more effective beyond 600m. The rate of fire is slower, but that allows you to spray more. Just like Shvak, Type 99-2 has full FI-T belt. I’ve flown B7A2 in many matches， it has 2 Type 99-2 with 200 rounds each. Really devastating. Especially, Hispano ANM and Type 99-2 are better at killing bombers than Shvak.
The Breda-Safat weighs 26.5kg (intodruced in 1936), the Ho-103 23kg (introduced in 1941). The Breda is heavily influenced by the Browning but is slightly different while the Ho-103 is a straight up copy.
Allegedly the the Breda-Safat was more efficent when hooked up with a synchronizer and considering that 90% of Italian fighters primarely used Breda-Safats to fire through the prop from the mid 30s onwards, I would consider it somewhat believable.
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If you simply turnfight him sure, but a well played Yak 3 can abuse its UFO flight model to easily out-energy a Ki-44-II.
Excellent climb rate in the first 2000m, after that it’s the same as every other somewhat lightweight fighter. Its maneuverability is about the same as a Yak3, with worse agility, worse retention, and a very low top speed - doesn’t even break 600kph.
Ah yes, the War Thunder wiki, a resource notably filled with misinformation, straight up lies, or completely outdated. Also the J2M2 only gets two 20mm cannons, with poor rate of fire, and very spread out in the wings.
I’ll leave you with this absolute gem from the wiki:
“You should familiarise the shape of those that you [Ki-43-1] should not turn with: the Spitfires”
Low rate of fire, very far out in the wings, half the ammo capacity per gun of all the other ‘heavy’ Type 99-2 fighters. Can’t say I’m a fan.
The Breda was rejected for its weight regardless, and pretty much every army fighter had Ho-103s firing through the propeller. Sometimes with up to halved rate of fire, but those complaints seem to only affect a few models.
Yet with uni belt, as long as you lans a HEF shell (not HEF-T) - it’s very often a 1-shot. The range is great too.
And the wings are not that big. 500m convergence means in the 300-700m range you’ll be hitting with both cannons more often than not.
When I used to play J2M2 in its glory days (post buff, but before going up) it was blowing things up left and right and I felt sorry for Bf 109 G6.
Nowadays it’s in a bad spot. But not because it’s that bad, it can dogfight basically everything, the problem stems from WT being a solo game, where teammates will deliberately avoid helping you and go for bots instead, or just fly past you and enemy on your tail due to having 70IQ at best.
And with a plane that compresses badly, carrying is kinda annoying, as enemy can drag you down and only once you both slow down J2M2 can clap them. But then it’s low and it’s slower than other 5.0 aircraft, so good luck catching anyone and avoiding getting outnumbered.
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IMO Ki-44-II can break 600 in level flight no problem. At least I remember that happening. And if I remember right, it should outturn Yak-3 by a bit.
Don’t know about getting out-energyd. If starting from equal alt, Yak-3 has to really perform some feats to avoid getting shot. But I may remember it wrong. Will play Ki-44-II tomorrow and try to kill some Yaks. The fact I hate them will surely help.
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Ain’t that the fuckin truth.
I used to run 500m, but have had better results with 400m. I tend to get very close before shooting, and often saw my tracers passing on either side of whatever I was shooting at.
The J2M2 can dogfight anything it sees and as you say, it really only holds advantages at low speed, but it’s top speed is lower than the Ki-44-II despite having quite a bit more power, and is much slower than pretty much all its enemies. What other 5.0 that isn’t a Zero, can’t break 600kph in a straight line at any altitude?
With the J2M3 i’ve carried once or twice (trading .7BR for double the ammo on the useful guns makes it much more comfortable to use knowing I don’t really have to worry about trigger discipline), but IMO it really doesn’t belong at the same BR as the usual suspects, the Yak-3U and LF mk9. And they still haven’t moved those up…
I only really play the J2Ms in Ground RB where their short legs aren’t a downside, air rb with little altitude performance + low top speed + bad compression isn’t a great experience.
If the statcard is right, 605kph tops in level flight. I haven’t actually tested it out yet to see if that’s true or not - plenty of others that I have often weren’t, like the 190 D9 that couldn’t even get close, or the Ki-94-II that went 40kph faster and became the fastest prop fighter in existence.
Realest shit I read today.
If the Yak has speed to play with, even on equal energy, they can get really crafty and quickly get you slow, or just straight up outspeed you easily.
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