Ah yes, a slow Japanese plane that can turn real good should be higher. As someone else said, “have you tried not fighting a Japanese fighter?”
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The Ki-44 isn’t particular slow. It’s in fact faster than a large portion of 3.7 planes.
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Just played this stock to spaded. the FM is generally wonky, I had to fight its roll and you can easily over-roll if you even do some slight rudder. Some shots that I could’ve done on other planes are hard to do on this thing because of its weird roll-rudder tendencies.
Overheats fast so MEC is needed, the 12.7mm’s somehow rip to planes more than the f#@%king 20mm’s of the germans. Engine power drops off at 4.1km though, not that bad but it still has some oomph to it at 5km. It’s easily 4.3 material. I guess the only thing holding it back in Gaijin’s eyes is the armament and how newbies tend to play it.
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Actually doesn’t turn that well, a 109 E-4 could beat it in a dogfight. But it’s pretty nice.
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I know only two things about Jap planes (not American ones with a red circle): they are slow and they can turn.
There was speculation on whether Ma-102 was actually put into service. The round was said prone to self-detonate and was restricted from being fired when the barrel temp was above 200 degrees C. Seeing so many Ma-102 in the Air Targets belts just looks weird.
The WarThunder does tend to give some weight figure just for displaying, for example the weight of the aircraft MG that you can see in the X-ray mode, which wasn’t actually used in aircraft weight definition, and neither was the necessary property in the weapon definition. There seems to be a weight breakdown definition in the blkx FM file for every aircraft. Yes, these lines are in ki-44hei.blkx seems to be a little weird. The pilot only weighs 17kg instead of 90kg in other aircraft, the engine mass of 600kg does not match the listed 720kg Ha-109. Perhaps the real weight was defined from these lines?
Adding up all values, this gives me an empty weight for ki-44hei 1840kg instead of 2090kg listed. I checked other FM file and this mass breakdown should sum up to equal to the empty weight. If this is true, then Ki-44 is indeed 300kg lighter in game.
However there is also a property AdvancedMass, which is turned off for the ki-44. Could this variable decide whether the game uses pre-defined empty mass figure, or the mass breakdown figure?
They produced a ton of Ma-102 and someone posted a Japanese ammo belt configuration containing it.
The round is heat sensitive but not that much.
The round is fired at just around 800m/s compared to US .50cal M23, which was particular plagued from self-ignition, being fired at over 1000m/s.
In a synchronized gun the RoF would also be lower than the AN/M2.
Which actually made me wonder why they had both Ma-102 and Ma-103.
My guess was that the Ma-103 was used when the gun was likely to overheat, for example in wing or flexible mounts, where the RoF was substantially higher.
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There is no doubt that the Ma-102 was used in actual warfare.
However, it is true that there was a fear of self-destruction at temperatures above 200°C.
According to the documents in my possession, it is written that the use of bullets above 150°C is prohibited, and it seems that Ma-103 was used after the number of bullets that reached 150°C or higher.
(The specific number of bullets is unknown.)
For reference, it says that “Ma-101” (IAI) included in 7.7mm also self-destructs as well, so after 150 rounds, Ball was used instead of Ma-101.
Up to 150 rounds: AP, Ma-101, I
After 150 rounds: AP, Ball, I
(the T is not included because the I actually served a tracer function)
Related Reports
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/UzZkoYN22gBW
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/TkLvnmrqHqPZ
Source
- 佐山二郎, 「日本陸軍航空武器」, 光人社NF文庫, 2021-1-24
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I haven’t heard that before. Samples of all 12.7mm rounds were captured and examined before war ended. At least one book also lists the usual recommended belt loadout. It was practically the same for all IJA aircraft guns: Special Incendiary / HE / AP-T. Sometimes AP-T was supplemented or replaced with HE-T if such excisted for the specific gun.
“Rough estimate”, but this is likely the best there is. Likely the demand was to produce equal amount of those four rounds. Not the faintest idea why snail dropped the fuzed HE round from Ho-103.
Average weight of a 110cm (5’4"). That’s obviously the early test of anime girl pilot models. About high time for them to start selling those.
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Thanks, I heard that they may put ma-102 at the start of the sequence, and then ma-103, looks like a true story.
It’s quite interesting to see the development of HE round in US 50cals. The contemporary US design FA-T1 and FA-T2 resemble some features just like the Ma-103 and Ma-102. The latter just failed the cook-off test, with the round prone to self-detonate after 100 rounds burst.
As for M23, I think it should withstands more in the hot barrel, as a contemporary design to be used in the field, the round should have past “cook-off” test. The combat records showed 1000-2000 rounds be fired in a single mission without trouble.
It was also mentioned that the use of M23 round will decrease the cyclic rate of AN/M2 MG by 50 rps.
In short bursts.
The AN/M2 is a closed bolt gun.
So there’s always a round in the chamber, absorbing barrel heat, „cooking“.
As long as you fire short burst with enough cooling intervals you can fire your whole ammunition supply.
I assume this from P-47s since P-51s only carried 1880 rounds.
The heat sensitivity was obviously a problem, in addition to general heating up the barrel more than other rounds, due to being fired at over 1000m/s.
Barrel heat reduces accuracy and when the rounds end up self-igniting, you are dealing with accuracy issues as well a reduction in firing power.
It’s unlikely the round would have been used in M3s, as that would have just amplify the problem.
The explosive round is practically identical in construction to the M1 Incendiary.
The problem with this test is that it says a bullet was placed in the chamber after a burst.
But what about cooling?
Obviously an aircraft mounted gun is cooled by the airflow.
I don’t see how an M1 Incendiary wouldn’t cook-off under the same condition on the ground.
I don’t think that Tetryl would ignite earlier than flash powder when exposed to heat.
It’s kinda how they concluded that US self-sealing fuel tanks could survive even getting shot by .50cal bullets, yet they shot the tank directly and not with a bullet first impacting the duralumin skin of an aircraft, which would lead to bullet tumbling and much larger holes.
In later tests they found out that even holes from 20mm rounds could be sealed, when the round pierced the tank, but when a .50cal impacted the tank sideways it would rip the rubber apart, resulting in worse sealing.
So what I’m trying to say is that unless a test is carried out in the right condition, it’s not particular conclusive.
They said the standard M1 Inc could withstand the “cook-off” test, while the lead core version of it failed in the test.
Could it be that the Tetryl caused the failure? The explosive said to be ignited above 180 degree C.
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Must be the case 🤔
No wait, it says the round has a detonator.
Maybe that’s the issue.
Detonators are generally more sensitive than the explosive they carry.
Which makes me wonder, if the Berezin UB had the same problems with its explosive ammunition.
Bullets in copper jackets are much better at conducting heat than steel shells 🤔
So that tubular dowel in the M1 probably also served as a layer of insulation, which the M23 lacked.
On the other hand the Soviet MDZ also has a steel tube on the inside.
So probably no issues with self-ignition.
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It completely slipped away from me that I have to substract the projectile mass from the whole cartridge weight. Ki-44’s guns + spent cartridge + belt weight is 120kg, not 140kg. Not much of a difference though. I don’t think gaijin cares about the cartridge weight in the first place, though.
I was thinking back to this… shouldn’t it be the other way around? With a 4-blade prop, the synchronizer would try to fire the guns more often as it’d have more ‘gaps’ to do so, while with a 2-blade prop it’d be only twice per rotation - half as often.
I’m not sure about that.
Someone?
As far as the Ki-84 is concerned, the synchronized gun firing timing appears to be twice per propeller revolution.
The above figure shows the “Synchronous Cam Advancement Device” of the Ki-84.
The cam mountains are depicted in two.
This is only the case for the Ki-84 and does not apply to other 4-blade airframes.
It is not definite that there are two cam mountains with two blades, and with three blades, there will either be one or three cam mountains.
The answer is “it depends on the aircraft”.
Well, it doesn’t matter that much since the speed of the propeller is often much higher than the gun’s rate of fire to begin with.
In the case of the Ki-84, a reduction ratio of 0.5 for 3000 rpm results in 1500 rpm; in the case of the Ki-44-II, a reduction ratio of 0.6875 for 2650 rpm results in 1822 rpm.
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