soviet planes and 4.1x...

[Pursuivant]

Wasn't the Lagg-3 armed with VYA-23 the plane where the pilot was able to substitute guns for brakes?

The story I heard was that the plane's brakes failed on landing, so the pilot improvised by shooting his guns. The recoil was sufficient to slow the plane before he ran out of runway.

The story sounds too good to be true, but it could be real. Certainly, in IL-2 the VYA-23 is absolutely deadly as a bomber killer. For dogfighting, not so much, since the rate of fire is slow and the bullet trajectory and/or speed is very different from other weapons.