Recent content by mack8

IJAAF could have asked the Ki-51 to be a divebomber, maybe with a Kinsei/Ha-112 engine. Probably could have been made to carry a 500 kg bomb for short distances, though a 250kg one and 2x 50 kg would have been more common imo. IJNAF of course had the superb D4Y, only needs a Kinsei radial and be...

Italians yeah, it boggles the mind they wasted all that effort to build the pathetic SM.85 and 86, and others. Instead of that a 1000 HP Piaggio powered single engine plane could have been designed, and actually be available by 1939. But a lot of things need to be fixed for this to happen and to...

Well, i guess the romanians would have been better off designing the IAR-47 as an all metal divebomber from the start, rather than adapting the IAR-81 for that role. The engine is there, 1000 HP IAR K-14, but in a perfect world Jumo-211 would have been better. MIGHT possibly be able to carry a...

I'm almost certain that the aircraft in question was a Ki-43, not an A6M. Reall the allied pilots were seeing Zeros everywhere, though of course Ki-43 and A6M havin a similar configuration would make it difficult to tell which is which in the heat of combat. The combat above having taken place...

Very interesting comparison. But isn't the Bf-109C rpg supposed to be 2x 500 rpg for the cowl guns and 2x 420 rpg for the wing guns, so the total would be 1840 rounds?

Very interesting thread. A FOUR time increase in losses to heavy flak sound devastating. Are there examples of german proximity fuses that were the most feasible/got closest to production? One can theorize that even if the german fuses were not as good as the allied ones and only increase losses...

Well since this topic is on Hs-123 i went with that scenario. The basic consideration also being that in a world war, rather than having those engines rotting in depots beter have them powering an airframe, any airframe that can actually contribute something to the war effort, even if Hs-123 or...

The numbers re BMW-132/Jumo-211 come from the Vajda/Dancey book on german WW2 aircraft production. There are some exact figures there, i just rounded them up. For this scenario, another use for the extra Hs-123 would be for the night harassment units, which OTL used a motley collection of...

I recall reading that by wars end there were as many as 3000 BMW-132 engines sitting in depots. So with that in mind it seems that 1000 or even 1500 extra Hs-123s can be had easily while leaving plenty of spare engines. But the question is would the extra Hs-123 production interfere with other...

I must admit, i don't understand what the Spitfire Mk III or FW-190 have to do with the topic at hand. And what's so special with the Mk III anyway, the thing is a slightly better Mk V, and as we've seen the Mk V was more or less humiliated by Ki-43s or Zeros.

Interestingly, come to think of it the IJN carrier situation re the USN might actually be better by mid-1942, with Shoho and Junyo operational, Hiyo and Ryuho joining soon, and modern planes aboard. And couple of CVEs, though not sure what the USN situation would be re CVEs. Hornet is also...

Also generally more modern planes in carrier and landbased units, replacing older A5M, G3M, older floatplanes etc. Shoho and Junyo have full airgroups of modern planes. As for ships, if the war starts later would the 1941 emergency program be adopted in the first place? Maybe, but later, as...

Just wanted to thank WBK for the tremendous effort to compile all this info. And of course hope you will feel better soon. Ki-43 is one of those underrated planes of the war. It was a much more dangerous opponent that the basic stats would imply. It's biggest fault was that there weren't more...

Well what we think the germans should do in regards to the CR and what they will actually do are two different things. DB at least kept pushing the CR up even on B4. But at least in this TL since they don't have C3 fuel they can't go to really CRs such as the 8.5 of late DB-605 (and probably...

Well, glad i'm stuck with you Tomo.:) Ok so going the conservative route, if we say this B4 DB-601N remains at 1.35 ata, then we shave 75 PS and we say 1100 PS TO, 1100 PS at rated altitude with around 1175 PS at 2000 metres or so, does this sound realistic enough? And possibly, like the...