Ki-27 too durable & strange behavior

[Pursuivant]

I did extensive testing of the DM for all the planes in the game last winter.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=229446

The "bouncing" when a flyable plane is destroyed on the ground isn't unique to the Ki-27, and is a common bug on many of the earlier plane models.

I believe that the "hook" that destroys a particular part of the plane also gives that part - or the remaining portions of the plane - a "push" so that the breaking part or destroyed plane will spin or flutter realistically as it falls.

On the ground, those effects are unrealistic since they make broken parts seem to explode or fly around for no good reason.

I've also pointed out that the Ki-27 has some DM errors which prevent certain parts of the plane from breaking when they should.


As to the durability of the Ki-27, I'd argue that the airframe durability of most planes in the game is UNDERmodeled, especially for early war lightly built planes like the A5M and the A6M2.

Early war Japanese fighter and attack aircraft were lightly built, but they were still fully aerobatic warplanes, which means that they were probably stressed to about +6G positive, -3G negative, and had some capacity for control surfaces, wings, etc. to survive overspeed dives.

Currently, it just takes 3-4 .50 caliber bullets to break the wings on some Japanese planes.

Think about that. Just 3-4 1-inch (2.5 cm) wide holes in a metal structure that is square yards/meters in size and masses hundreds of kilos/pounds will cause the entire structure to fail. The premise is just ridiculous unless several of those 3-4 bullets hit the wing spar and the plane then subsequently pulls a sustained high-G maneuver.

Realistically, what should happen is that airframe damage won't cause a plane to fail outright, but will weaken the plane's ability to pull Gs. Straining a damaged airframe further weakens it, potentially creating a negative feedback loop.

In any case, the plane will break when damage to the plane pulls Gs beyond its current G capacity. It will fall apart in the air if damage is sufficient to reduce the plane's capacity to sustain Gs below 1 G and/or air pressure on the leading edges of the wings and stabilizers.

For fuel systems, I think that the game has it right for unarmored fuel tanks, although realistically the first bullet - unless it is an explosive - isn't going to start a fuel tank fire. (First bullet starts a leak, allowing gasoline to flow from the tank and start vaporizing in air. The next bullet which causes a spark or explosion will ignite the gasoline vapor, starting the fire.)

So, in that respect the Ki-27 is about right.


My guess is that Japanese planes had a reputation for falling apart in the air because they were lightly-built maneuver fighters. Severe damage to the wing would make the plane break the next time it pulled a high G turn.

Second, if you look at gun camera footage of Japanese planes, you'll notice that wings fall off when there's a fuel explosion in the wing tanks. It's also possible, at least for the A6M series, that a lucky hit into the ammo trays might ignite the 20mm cannon shells causing them to explode.