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.
The gun synchronizer used in P-39 and P-63 was a different type to those used in other American planes. It’s been a while since I read about it, but the details should be somewhere. Anyway those other types didn’t have as significant fire rate drop. I don’t think it was said why Bell used them. Perhaps the propeller axel took space from wrong spot or something.
About Japanese gun synchronizers I have never seen any real data. One book says something like “as low as 400rpm”, without noting where it is from. Also it’s about the lowest they think it could get. Unfortunately that 400rpm is taken as an absolute truth by some as it’s also in Wikipedia.
If the drop was so significant, there would likely be clear mentions about it in Japanese documents, pilot stories and US reports. In one American report there is a short mention about Ki-84s synchronizer. It was something along the lines “excellent” or “effective”. Nothing about issues. All IJA single engine fighters fired through propeller arc, so it would have made sense for them to develop very good synchronizers.
Synchronizers are truly the biggest mystery of all aircraft systems 🤔
Practically no real data available.
I think the general consensus is that synchronizers reduced RoF by roughly 25%.
While my personal biases view is that the electrically fired MG 151 only was slowed by 5-10%.
Christian Koll writes in his book that the B-20 cannon had a RoF of 750-850 RPM and 600 while synchronized.
I don’t think it would be any different with the ShVAK.
Ki-44 is very powerful but the fucked up rudder that likes to swing out a lot during dives and high speeds is enough to make me dislike it. Although “weaker”, I prefer the Ki-61’s much easier flying performance.
I’d like to share a source that offers a detailed explanation of the firing rate of propeller-synchronized machine guns. The original publication is a German aviation technology journal, which describes how the Rheinmetall 7.9mm machine gun was synchronized with a two-bladed propeller. Please note that my interpretation might not be entirely accurate, as my knowledge of German is limited, and some of the material is based on old Japanese text and technical terminology.
According to the source, the firing rate of a propeller-synchronized machine gun is mainly determined by two factors: trigger actuation time and cam delay. In wire-type synchronization gear systems, the trigger actuation time is approximately 0.017 seconds. This delay helps explain why synchronized machine guns often experience about a 25% reduction in their rate of fire.
A machine gun with a firing rate of 1200 rounds per minute fires one round every 0.05 seconds. However, with a synchronization gear that introduces a 0.017-second delay, one round can be fired every 0.067 seconds, reducing the rate to 895 rounds per minute.
The cam delay explains why the rate of fire varies depending on the propeller’s rotational speed. A synchronized machine gun set to fire at 900 rounds per minute achieves peak efficiency when the propeller rotates at 450, 900, 1350, 1800, or 2250 revolutions per minute.
Source: “Journal of the Society of Ordnance and Explosives.” Published by the Internal Section of the Department of Ordnance and the Society of Ordnance and Explosives, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo Imperial University. 1938. pp. 625-626
Original source: Luftwissen, Bd. 4 (1937), Nr. 12.
From what I can tell, this is for a machine gun that can fire at 1200 rounds per minute.
But because of that “Steuerungszeit” which introduces a delay to fire the gun the maximum RoF can only be 900 RPM.
The delay comes from the fact that the gun is basically fired in single shots and the delay is the result of the time it takes from wanting to fire the gun to mechanically firing the gun.
Then there’s the “Wartezeit”, which decreases at higher RPM of the prop.
That’s because the slower the prop, the longer it stays in that danger zone, where the MG might hit the the prop.
If the prop is spinning at 900 RPM and the gun is going to fire at 900 RPM, once the gun is able to fire, it’s now synced with the prop and as long as there is no change to either system, the gun can fire without any additional delay, resulting in the highest possible RoF. Same for 450, 1350, 1800, 2250.
Which indicates that his was for a two bladed prop.
An electrical system and ammunition probably allows to greatly reduce the Steuerungszeit to fire the gun.
Thus reducing the maximum RoF only slightly.
No, to 900, because the gun isn’t firing full auto but basically single shots.
So instead of the mechanism running at full speed, every trigger pull is activated by the the synchronizer system which induces a short delay and prevents the gun from firing at it’s full RPM.
Well, if the prop RPM matches the firing rate of the gun, it can always fire without delay.
But slight changes and you are back of having short firing pauses inbetween the shots.
So the 900 RPM will never be reached practically.
The best way to increase the RoF would be to reduce the Steuerungszeit, as the delay is very short when the prob spins at high RPM and only has a minor effect on the actual RoF.
Ye I agree with that. 400 RPM would be the lowest possible.
One thing to note is that Japan used 30% safety margin for the mechanically synchronized nose cannons.
Ki-43-I with its 2 blade props would have higher rate. Ki-43-II & Ki-43-III would be having a lower fire rate due to the 3 blade props. Ki-84 would be the lowest firing with its Ho-103.
One thing about them is that the nose mounted army cannons use HE, so they had to put extra measures, like the engine armor on Ki-61-I tei.
What is considered is that Ho-103 in this game has the constant 900RPM regardless of the installation, no way it’s right. And the whopping 950 RPM for Ho-5, literally double that of nose mounted Ho-5 in 4 bladed configuration.
By using Logitech G hub. I recently tried modelling the correct fire rate for the guns. By putting 10 milliseconds push-pull delay and a variable span between the cycle.
Ki-43-I with 700RPM, Ki-43-II with 600RPM, Ki-84 with 400RPM seemed reasonable to me. Though it’s based on my broad guessing.
Type 97 7.7mm machine guns on naval aircraft are also stated to have a rate of around 600 - 700RPM.
Despite the non-constant fire rate, having that much variance on the fire rate means it’s actually affected by the propeller’s condition more than the inconsistency. Firing 1000 rounds and the luck would be almost certainly negated, so the cause for that 100RPM difference is the props. Not specifically the number of the blades but the revolution per minute.
About P-39, yeah it’s a total exception from any other installation methods.
I read somewhere that prototype hurricane used hydro… what is that, sonic pulse thing…? To sync the guns. That’s pretty cool. Mg151 and Mg131 have the Electrical primer for the ammo, and most other guns of German heritage used Electric signals to time the firing. So they are less affected by the mechanical delay per shot. That’s why Mg131 still has the high fire rate in the cowl mounted configuration, and MG 151 is able to be fired through propellers even though they are mounted in the wing roots. This is to just inform the players visiting here, not trying to correct anyone. I think having these things modelled in this game would be pretty cool. Though the gun firing sounds are specific to that fire rate of the guns and they can’t really be optimized for different fire rate, since all the “Loop” audio files are in the length of that specific time span between each firing. M4 37mm cannons and alike use singular file for both single fire and automatic, and these sounds play fine in automatic firing, so all guns with variable fire rate can be formatted that way. If they are to make a change, that is.
Japanese 50 cals and 20mm utilize HE rounds of high filler contents, so that even for 50 cals they needed extra safety margin with the already aging mechanical synchronization system. That’s what I’m guessing as the explanation for such low fire rate in the nose.
Aw shucks, it’s really weird that others can’t see the pre-edited post. I just changed the line “can’t optimized” to “can’t be optimized” since that’s the correct way of saying things. That’s all.