ShVAKs have better range, better damage, higher velocity, the belt is 100% HE. They are somewhat comparable to Ho-5s (but better) and the difference between otherwise identical planes that trade a pair of Ho-103s for Ho-5s is at least one BR step, if not more.
See: Ki-61-I Otsu to Tei or Ki-84 Ko to Otsu
Climb rate charts like those I provided are superior to both since they display the actual performance achieved. By just looking at the p/w charts I don’t think anyone would have said the J2M5 outclimbs the Ki-44-II.
I was strictly talking about climb rate. The yak 3u has a less powerful engine than a p47 but the latter doesn’t outclimb or out run the former. For every case of an inconsistent narrative Power to Weight ratio presents, absolute power will present 10x more. You have to pair reserve planes with the best post war props as these guys have been doing (very unhonest) to finally find inconsistency. I could compare the yak3u to any US prop to debunk the claim that absolute power means anything in this discussion.
True. Climb rate charts are better, than both power to weight and absolute power. But absolute power is by far the least meaningful chart when it comes to climb rate. If I could use climb charts I would have but I don’t know how to, it’s as simple as that.
You have more ammo with the Japanese 50s, it’s up to personal preference but carrying in the K44 is easy to do with only one take off due to its plentiful ammo count. The 4 combined 50s from my experience regularly one-shot planes. They act more like 20mms than 50s tbh. Also, ki44s higher volume (like area) and higher ammo count makes it better at firing targets farther away since you can afford to waste ammo in head ons or making planes react so they bleed speed. At this point tho it’s personal taste but most of the buddies ik would prefer the Ki44s arms.
You have to keep it fast and the nose authority is okay so I find it way less ammo efficient than my darling Ki-43-1. The premium Ki-44-II with 12.7s only in the nose is even worse about this and it’s a pain to get kills quickly.
Way shorter ranged than 20mms, and they do way less damage too. Saved by volume of fire but it’s still not great. All the planes that traded these 12.7s for 20mms are much higher in BR than the original model.
I like them but they have their downsides and comparing BRs of planes with alternative armaments makes this obvious.
I dunno. I just can’t agree thet have worse range. From my experience that just isn’t the case. Shvaks are an absolute pain to use with targets beyond… Like 700m and I prefer the 50s at that range. And theyve changed the guns damaged. The brs don’t reflect how effective their guns are, Japanese 50s doing a lot of damage is a relatively new thing. Shvaks used to be bad, but now they are amazing, but none of the brs of Soviet planes changed to reflect that. Using BR isn’t a good argument, gun damage is as inconsistent as turbulent flow.
Even so, there was a time where they weren’t as busted was the point. Could be 2-3 years, the game has been out for a decade. To me real shatter is a new thing, I just remember a time when hispanos took 50 rounds to down a bf109, still engraved dispite it being years since that was the case.
Major Ho-103 fix happened in late 2021 or early 2022. After that Ki-44-II Hei went up from 2.7 to 3.7 very quickly. This was fully expected as it had amazing flight performance already, but with the salt and pepper spraying guns one needed hundreds of hits on average to down an enemy. Think I guessed 4.0 or 4.3 myself, while someone else was serious about 5.0.
In my view it’s only slightly worse than J2M2, which climbed up to 5.0, so 4.3 or 4.7 would make sense. That would also mean moving it up to rank III, which is probably holding it down.
They got 2 ace players, squad up with La-9 and Yak-3U against me, but despite this I am able to gain so many kills. The Ki-44 just has so much climb that it out-climb yak-3u in some altitude, and could out-turn ki-84 with flaps been used, the guns were almost 4x20mm class except when they hit yaks. The speed of this thing was enough to catch anything with the altitude it had gained, and the elevator does not compress. The only thing to stop this monster is the poor stalling characterstic.
I don’t see any reason for this thing to stay at 3.0 BR while ki-84 been placed at 5.0-6.0. Thought BR in SB is quite broken anyway.
I remember you are professional pilot with who hard to fight on any plane. So I don’t know how much Ki-44 helped here but it is strong plane, hard to argue with it
It was my first match with ki-44 in air SB, I would say if I was piloting F6F-5, I could only gain half amount of kills while suffering a lot from Yak-3U.
And yes this plane was not popular in SB, I saw lot people just made themselves killed in a spin. It’s a monster long been forgot.
I was 1v2 even 1v3 yak3u and la9, flown by two ace players squad, but still this 3.0 plane held on. This thing is way better than N1K2 at 6.3 and possibly ki84 except for level flight speed.
When comparing with ki84:
Ki44 has better climb rate.
Better roll rate. Better dive speed limit.
Better elevator authority, doesn’t compress at high speed.
Better turn radius, with better flap effectiveness. With flap this thing outturn a ki100/ki61tei.
Speed about equal to the N1K2,J2M3 and ki61ii.
…while bleeding less speed in a turn and being far more stable. The Ki-84 also isn’t far behind at all while being faster, better armed, and better protected; it is pretty much on-par with the Ki-44-II even with Instructor limits which make it fly on rails:
Even the already-very-agile Ki-61-I Otsu is held back here, and the Ki-44-II is reaching its limit of stability far sooner than the other two. This is important as in sim there is obviously no instructor to prevent you from making mistakes. Ki-44-II has very good flaps but they come with their own limitations and bring a large speed bleed penalty.
None of these are fast planes. Especially not the N1K2-J and J2M3, which are very draggy and their BRs are a result of their extremely effective armament, able to destroy aircraft in just a few shots and do it from very far away.
Here’s a poor Hornet Mk3 who was caught in front of my J6K (6.3) after failing to kill a friendly bomber. You can barely see him, however hitting him was trivial - line up the gunsight, give minimal lead, fire. The damage was so significant that even an extremely fast plane such as the Hornet mk3 immediately started losing speed badly and getting closer to fire again didn’t take very long.
A Ki-44-II wouldn’t have been able to do any of this. It would be too slow, losing power badly at these altitudes, with guns that are too short ranged. Even a J2M3 would be too slow; the N1K2-J and Ki-84 Otsu stand the best chance out of the aircraft mentioned thanks to their speed and hard hitting guns, both necessary to damage the Hornet enough to keep it from using its speed before it runs away.
And like the Hornet, pretty much anything up at 6.0 is gonna be outpacing japanese props.
I think they changed the fm. I reference my slightly old files. I see it is 2030kg now. The In-flight weight value you get from the tools is actually not the in-game data. The tool directly references the page (There is an URL of the github page in the specifuc tool’s website.) to use the reference data, to calculate the weight by its own. So it’s not a direct porting of the in-game flight condition. I might be wrong as I’m talking about of my memory, how things used to be. I’m currently outside and referencing GitHub - lucasvmx/WarThunder-localhost-documentation: Repository dedicated to provide a full documentation to war thunder localhost:8111 api
The Localhost ported data might not show the whole weight of the aircraft.
Ammo weight in this game is weird. Especially for gunpods. The ammo weight is only cared about the projectle, Gaijin doesn’t care about the spent cartridges. The cartridge and the propellant combined typically weighs about the projectle. Other airceaft include the weight for radios. Ki-44 being 2030kg (Including the 4 50 cals.) is an utter joke, a very bad one. Ki-102 as an example, uses the fm 98% identical to the ki-96 except for the parts value and the 1 Ton heavier weight. The source of empty weight is not archived, or at least not accessible online. They always improvise the data for empty weight by substracting Fuel. Ki-102 is heavily armored, the engine nacelle is more streamlined to improve the aerodynamics. The cannopy is extended to accommodate the extra crew, and the protruding 56mm cannon muzzle obviously generates drag. But Gaijin doesn’t care. Gaijin doesn’t care any of that. The weight is feasible, though 600Kg armor. 57mm weighs 150kg, the need for mass balance would be a thing with such extensive CoG movement otherwise. There is a lot of questions regarding the FM and classification of the current ki-102 otsu.
I think it doesn’t change the situation if they rolled a dice to decide 100Kg weight gain or reduction.
Ki-44 is just overperforming. Just like its nose mounted guns. I read in a community website that P-39 loses around 55% of its fire rate due to the propeller synchronization. So does the Ho-103. Usually the loss in fire rate is about 15%. Some exceptions are Japanese guns, they lose the rate significantly. As musch as Ho-5 is overpwrforming with its 900Rpm. It’s a recent event that they even bothered to fix the Ho-203 fire rate, obviously using the report of American technician mistaking ho-204 for ho-203. They patched it. There are so many problems with the game itself yet.
1, Control stiffness at high speed is too naive.
2, The guns are overperforming in general. Just about the damage. Nose mounted gun fire rate is just a tip of the inaccuracy.
3, The increase in drag from just taking one bullet is excess if they are trying to reflect the reality.
4, Aircraft with damaged structure should have lesser G-torelance before failure, and the rip speed should be way lower than the fixed standard.
5, Wing guns are too accurate. The structural strength directly affect the accuracy when consecutively fired.
6, Losing consciousness is too less punishing. Irl losing consciousness meant a death, unless a specific countermeasures are taken. Like automatic lever force appliance, or natural pitch up worsened in high speed. Damaged pilots apply less force, but they don’t bleed, and the G-tolerance seems to stay the same.
All of that specifically targeted at the Japanese props, changes the game balance drastically. Though, diving to escape Japanese props would be more risky for both sides. The increase in drag from taking 3 7.7mm ap is a literal joke. It’s affecting the speed too much obviously. You remember the last April fools event? The biplane felt worse in that category. the wings are borderline flat plates, yet the wanky FM exaggerate the drag even further. Despite them already producing enough turbulence to the point some holes won’t change a thing.
Irl issues should be in this game because it adds the flavour.
Yeah there must so much wrong with the correct weight of aircraft’s.
I reported the missing weight of MG 151 wing gun pods in the past which just included the weight of the guns while the MG 151/20 gun pods came in at 200kg.
I recently started to spade the Kikka and noticed how the additional gun only adds the weight of the gun, but not the ammo.
The damage system in WT is just very disappointing.
In the past HE damage was at least realistic compared to the performance of AP but now there’s no point to even use AP for any caliber.
Why try to go through a pilots armor plate when an HE round is just going to rip of the tail for an instant kill.
Even 12.7mm AP needs at least two hits to kill a pilot and more when it first goes through the armor, while the same number of hits with HE will also take out the plane and you don’t need to hit a specific part.
On the other hand AP will also rip wings and tails off, just needs more shots in general but the damage scales with caliber and penetration, to the point where it doesn’t make any difference anymore, if you get hit by 57mm AP or HE.
Incendiary rounds are completely useless over API or HE and damage to fuel tanks is practically non existent other than catching on fire.
