While I despise CAS in general, pure strike fighter that cannot as effectively defend itself and is vulnerable to SPAA is less of a problem than a multi-role aircraft that can and will.
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Played a bit of 5.3 recently and in downtiers while there were Yak-3s, there were also other CAS getting as many frags.
Though that’s not really relevant as that’s largely a skill citation.
Moving American planes up would be difficult. All but a select few are already outclassed by practically every nation in terms of low altitude dogfighting.
The only things American planes have going for them is very powerful A2G loadouts, which become almost entirely useless if there’s enemy planes.
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It got moved up to 4.7 now (good change)
I think 5.0 or maybe 5.3 would be reasonable though.
Its flight performance starts to become an issue beyond that… and it’s definitely worse than the Yak-9UT, so it should be at least 0.7 BR lower in my opinion.
Yak-9UT is pretty reasonable at 6.0, though it could possibly go to 6.3.
F2G is spammed because it’s bad?
Or the F4u?
Actually, I’ve found the 12.7 mm on the Yak-9K to be excellent, I get a fire after two or three shots generally, it’s really good. And 10+ kill Yak-9Ks are not rare, it doesn’t take very much skill at all.
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This would be the best option imo, especially as there is no proof of the APHE ever being operationally used (especially not on tanks lol, given that the Yak-9K was a bomber interceptor).
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The idea behind the 45mm was indeed to take out a bomber in a single shot from long range and was developed specifically by Stalins request for such gun.
While the NS-37 was intended as a tank buster, which didn’t turn out very successful.
The gun was too powerful for the IL-2 to handle and on the Yak-9T the recoil probably made accurate follow up shots difficult. The IL-2 also suffered accuracy issues due to the uneven firing time of the guns.
For air combat the gun was too heavy and the RoF wasn’t ideal, hence the N-37.
But like the NS-37 the NS-45 was also tried on the IL-2 but of course the result was worse than the NS-37 so it wasn’t put into service.
But I think, putting it on the IL-2, the intend was there for the gun to also be used in a ground attack or tank busting role.
While an APCR round was developed, the NS-37 already could use the 37mm APCR developed for the 37mm AA gun.
However the APCR was apparently never used as ammunition for planes.
And the reason is probably that APCR limits your targets basically to tanks while the round is overkill for lighter armored vehicles.
Combined with the subpar accuracy, it was probably determined that it wasn’t worth using.
And since the IL-2 already could drop PTAB cluster bombs, the need for a large cannon to attack tanks was probably a low priority when you instead can have a fighter doing fighter things.
So even though AP rounds were developed, it seems unlikely that they were ever used with the Yak-9K.
While it makes perfect sense for all the aircraft that were designed as ground attack aircraft, where you can also have a mixed belt of AP and HE or just APCR for attacking tanks.
On the Su-8, four cannons would probably had the effect of increased accuracy and number of rounds in the air to be effective in this role.
So personally I think it makes the most sense:
- To remove all AP rounds from the Yak-9K
- Only have a 50:50 APHE:HE mix on other aircraft for ground attack
- Keep the pure APCR belt for ground attack aircraft
So the Yak-9K can be a fighter that specializes in attacking bombers, while the ground attack aircraft can attack ground targets with AP and APCR.
Even though at the moment APHE completely blows APCR out of the water in penetration and damage.
But maybe that wouldn’t even be necessary, if the recoil actually affected the plane in any way.
Right now there’s practically no noticable recoil that affects the plane in any way other than slowing it down like every other gun. It’s like shooting BBs.
That’s probably the main issue here. The recoil force is immense but it has no affect on the planes orientation, allowing rapid accurate shots even with Sim controls.
The NS-45 is in the ballpark of a 40mm Bofors, which is mounted to 8.5t or heavier trucks, which are still shook by the recoil.
But mounted in a 3.5t aircraft, the NS-45 seems to have no recoil at all.
Even if the muzzle break reduced the recoil by 30-50%, the weight difference would still mean a noticable effect.
4 Likes
No, just remove it’s dubiously historical APHE. It wasn’t an issue before, and it wouldn’t be an issue now if it just had AP.
That’s a great way to make a plane quite bad overall, since it isn’t stellar in air RB, and would now be bad in GRB.
It’s wild how it has less recoil than some smaller cannons. And don’t forget about it’s laser accuracy, which is better than some rank V 20mms.
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Due to the overperformance of the 45mm APHE CAS, the Rank III queue now takes an incredibly long time, as 80–90% of players are queuing as the USSR. Peak balance game!
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What does this mean
You know how the SU-33 is so damn annoying? It’s the same for the YaK-9K. The Su-33 can effortlessly get kills in top-tier just the way the YaK-9K can in low tier. that’s what I meant.
Mate my Panther A got killed by a YaK TWICE.
So should I change it?
You are, that MG is a hammer of god.
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TBH, it takes two (2) 12.7mm guns for me to bring down four (4) Rank 2-3 Japanese fighters.
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It may be inconsistent, but HE bullets absolutely wreck people. Aiming is difficult for me because I’m used to horrible ballistics of MG151/20. It’s an excellent gun but it has to be used in short bursts.
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It’s getting to the point where teaming against USSR in GRB in that BR bracket makes me quit the match and use another country while waiting for the crew lock to end. That plane ruins matches. Only things that come even close in destructive and disruptive potential are the AD-4 with the 56pcs Mighty Mice and the F4U-7 with the 114pcs SNEBs. Weapon systems which take much more skill to use in significantly more sluggish airframes. (Particularly when loaded with said rocket pods.) On planes that are two full BR points higher. How Gaijin ever thought this was balanced is beyond me. Was there playtesting?
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I’m hoping to see MK103 APHE in the future, revenge would be hilarious, though soviet SPAAs are a lot better at shooting down planes (2 14,5mm MG HE bullets will absolutely kill you, and single 25mm shell is a death sentence and the range on these things is insane) and Dornieur is nowhere near as good.
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