What if the Bugatti 100p became a fighter? (3 Viewers)

[tomo pauk]

He 100 was too small.

Fom the American or British perspective - yes.
From the 'continental' European perspective - no.

Very good for performance. Not so good at being an effective fighter, especially after the summer of 1940 when protected fuel tanks and armor came into fashion.
He 100 didn't have enough volume to put in things like fuel, guns/ammo and cooling system/s. It had very low drag, in large part because they used a lot of volume spreading the cooling system/s all over the place in the plane.
This makes it very hard to figure out what a 1941 or 1942 version would have looked like or performed.

Remodel it so it has a fixed radiator, semi burried in the place of the retractable aux radiator. Frees awful lot of internal volume, both in the wings and in fuselage. Use the freed volume for fuel/guns/ammo. Two 300L drop tanks for extra range.

Putting cannon in small wings is hard. You can do it by redoing the spar/s and adding lumps and bumps of various sizes but then the drag goes to hell. You can use pods but again the drag goes to hell.

Cannon-armed Spitfires and Bf 109E have had the lumps above or under the wings. Nobody complained for the few mph lost.

Going to protected tanks is a problem, a lot depends on the degree of protection actually wanted. CO2 systems or exhaust gas are light weight and can reduce fires, they don't do anything for getting the plane home when it is leaking fuel at more than a trickle. Using coatings on wing tanks means decreasing the volume of the tanks if they fit in the same space.
He 100 tanks were behind the main spar in an increasing thinner part of the wing. Adding tanks further outboard gets diminishing returns and may hinder roll response.

With oil cooling system removed from the better part of fuselage, there should be enough volume to add the fuselage fuel tank; nothing special, talk ~200L, it will still a lot of mileage to the sleek aircraft with the engines of modest consumption.

It is possible to put 20mm guns in the wings of He 100 but what has to be sacrificed to do it? Wing root like Fw 190 but in smaller wing? Lumps and bumps?

The MG FF will not work in that position. The MG 151 should, as weill as a motor gun with the DB 601N.
MG FF will need to go in the outer wing position until the DB 601N is around.

Outside the prop arc but that means the gun breeches are right in the middle of the existing fuel tank/s. They can be moved but wing guns and fuel further out in the wings is going to hurt roll response.

MG FF was a very light gun anyway. Questioning the rate of roll with it installed is making a mountain from the mole hill.