Originally posted by 68ROX
If it gets AH modeled to what this says, this plane will be a lot of people's new favorite ride....
T
On the other hand, I bet the gun may become an issue for those hoping to dogfight with her. The US 37mm M4 has a muzzle velocity of only 610mps, about 30% less than the Russians' N37 (in the Yak 9T) 37mm at 900mps and not much better than the Bf 109K's Mk103 30mm with 510 mps.
What's worse, the rate of fire reeks like a cesspool on a hot day. The German 30mm rate is 7 rounds per second; the Russian N37 is 4 rounds per second; the P-39's American M4 is 2.5 rounds per second. So the round moves slowly and fires even more slowly...meaning getting hits will likely be harder in the P39 than it is with the 30mm armed K4. There's going to be a lot more space between rounds for targets to fly through, even when you have the deflection lob just right.
On top of that, the other guns have dramatically different ballistics -- you'll get the four 50s of the P51 or the FM2, matched up with a tater gun that you pretty much have to load shell by shell. you'll almost have to choose whether to fire primaries or secondaries, because if you fire both one set is GOING to miss.
And don't underestimate the performance hit the bird will take from those gun pods, hanging way out on the wing and adding drag. So I suspect the Q will be seeing more action in ground support strafing.
All I'm saying is that I don't think it will end up as a "Favorite ride" any more often than, say, the G2. It's gunna get used, and it will be fun to learn to exploit its quirks. But it will take a pretty skilled pilot to make her sing, and to get that watermelon lobber to hit the target.
Regardless, big
's to HTC. They remembered the close vote and came out with a really interesting next bird for us to play with! I can't wait...especially as FSO flier!
