Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant
Remember, the Ki-27 also had unarmored fuel tanks located right at the wing root. So, wing failure might have been the result of a fuel tank explosion rather than collapse of the wing spar.
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Actually, looking at my DM spreadsheet notes, I see that I recorded the Ki-27 as having fuel tanks where it was impossible to start a fuel leak, but incredibly easy to set on fire or explode. This includes the wing tanks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant
You will discover that just 1-2 .50 caliber bullets are enough to knock off most control surfaces, and that 3-5 bullets are sufficient to break many other parts of the airframe. There are road signs which stand up better against bullets!
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Again, checking my DM notes, I was mistaken here. A problem with the Ki-27 is that you CAN'T knock off most of its control surfaces. Instead, it's easier to knock off the entire wing or stabilizer.
Also, it's impossible to break the rear fuselage using .50 caliber bullets, unlike for the Ki-43 or A6M2, and the damage modeling for the engine just seems "weird" - in some cases its easy to make the engine fail, in other cases, it's hard. This might be because there is some vital system just behind the engine that I wasn't able to detect by looking at cutaway drawings.
But, my point about the incredible in-game vulnerability of the early war Japanese planes to airframe damage still stands.
Yes, early war Japanese planes were very lightly built. But, a Japanese plane standing on the ground in-game will fall apart after a ridiculously small amount of damage scattered across a very large area.
For example, compare the number of .50 caliber bullet hits required to trigger damage textures or breaking parts in a plane like the Ki-27, Ki-43, A6M2, D3A2 or B5N1 - especially for large parts like the wings or fuselage - to a Google image search for "bullet holes in traffic signs". You'll notice that the traffic sign holds up much better!
In the case of the D3A1, the rear fuselage light damage textures actually show more bullet holes than it takes bullets to trigger them! And this for a Dive bomber presumably stressed to handle 6-9G encountered from pull-out from a steep dive!
I think that the fragility of these planes, and the relative fragility of all planes in the game to airframe damage, is an unrealistic simplification.
Realistically, it's airframe damage + stress which breaks an airframe. Each hole you make in the airframe, especially if you keep on making holes in one place, reduces the airframe's ability to avoid fatally flexing or collapsing when the plane pulls Gs or encounters wind resistance.
Current damage models don't seem to model this.
At the very least, planes sitting on the ground should be more resistant to airframe damage.