P-39 performance after engine damage

[TinyTim]

I've noticed all too often (online) that a damaged P-39, which shows no visible external damage, but starts trailing smoke due to received hits, suffers no noticeable instant performance drop, as well as no gradually increasing performance degradation with time after receiving damage. After a 109 or a P-51 engines would looong have stopped after the "broken wheelcart" sound that we all know, P-39 still runs like new. I'm not claiming it happens always - just claiming it happens often.

I know very well any kind of supporting material should be presented, however I don't have any. I can't check the code of the game myself, plus it's a hard thing to test and confirm in game environment. The only thing I can offer is "I feel" based on online play experiences.

As only one of numerous examples: A few weeks ago I witnessed a smoke-trailing P-39 staying in combat at medium to high altitudes about half an hour after the smoke started, with no obvious performance drop or degradation.

Since the Aircobra presents one of the pillars among the fighters (imagine russian front or early pacific without it), I've decided to post this here anyway, hoping anyone could look into this. Especially on Pacific it can happen quite often that the Aircobra receives just a few bullets from lightly armed Japanese planes which cause no external damage, but do cause smoking. Combining this to long ranges, it's kind of a fun breaker if the plane returns to a base 300km away like nothing happened.