Polikarpov I-16

[Soviet Ace]

Originally Posted by Gilly

Does Russia still have nukes? Thought most were decaying in Murmansk! Would be a waste mind as it's me and about 30,000 sheep!!!!

And on engines didn't the i16 run an M22 engine, derived from a Bristol engine and the type 24 featured in the game was a Shvetsov engined version I belive?

I dunno, Russia's got nukes all over the place. Hidden here and there, supposedly destroyed and gotten rid of. But who knows, I can't give away Soviet secrets.

And to answer your question, the prototype I-16 up to the I-16 Type 4 had the Russian licensed version of the Bristol Jupiter, that was the M22. But the M22 had some faults (Couldn't stand up to the Russian Winters), so they went to the M25 (which the I-15bis was also powered with, because the I-15 was powered by an American Pratt&Whitney or an earlier Wright engine? (Can't remember off hand. But it was getting up there in age and reliability, so they changed to the Wright R-1820.) Anyway, so the Type 5 I-16 (which was used mainly in the Spanish Civil War) had the Wright R-1820 or the Russian licensed M25. Up until the prototype I-16 (which became the I-16 Type 18 ) all I-16s had the M25. After that, they got the better powered M62 which was another Cyclone but Russian licensed, and then finished at the M63. (Which the M62 and M63 are the exact same engine, just designated differently for some reason that I don't know of.) So the I-16 in BoP is powered with the M63 designation, but could be a M62 as well... depending on how technical and deep you want to get on the whole thing.