Were props with large cannons useful historically?

[wastoid]

Airplanes like the Ki-109(75mm), Mosquito FB Mk XVIII(57mm), Hs 129 B-3(75mm) and PBJ-1H(75mm) in my experience are pretty awful to play in War Thunder.

Sometimes I'll get lucky enough to be left alone in RB to plink away at some tanks to get a chance to spade these awful planes.

However that has got me asking myself the question, were these airplanes any good in real life?
Did any of them excel at taking out heavy bombers,tanks,ships or submarines?
Or were they just as awful in actual combat?

[underarmhornet5]

I am also interested in this.

I don't think it would of been very effective against tanks but probably trains or large convoys of vehicals. Just because it would be easy to hit something. All though at that point to would be more effective to drop a bomb.

[AttackerCat]

There is a really good account, I can't remember it offhand but I'll try to find it. The 75mm B-26 variants (army too, not just the naval ones) were useful against shipping and pillboxes/enemy concentrations.

The 57mm Mossie also was pretty much designed for anti-ship work like transports and small patrol craft. In that role they were pretty successful, the Mossie was one of the main anti-shipping strike planes for the UK.

[Slyke]

The 37 mm Stukas were fairly lethal if I remember correctly. But then again, those aren't particularly big cannons.

[Eftwyrd]

the mossie with a 57mm was primarily intended to pierce the pressure hull of surfaced uboats preventing them from submerging (contrary to popular belief uboats primarily operated on the surface only submerging for combat).

to quote wikipedia on the particular variant:

The effect of the new weapon was demonstrated on 10 March 1944 when Mk XVIIIs from 248 Squadron (escorted by four Mk VIs) engaged a German convoy of one U-boat and four destroyers, protected by 10 Ju 88s. Three of the Ju 88s were shot down. Pilot Tony Phillips destroyed one Ju 88 with four shells, one of which tore an engine off the Ju 88. The U-boat was damaged. On 25 March, U-976 was sunk by Molins-equipped Mosquitos.[181] On 10 June, U-821 was abandoned in the face of intense air attack from No. 248 Squadron, and was later sunk by a Liberator of No. 206 Squadron.[182] On 5 April 1945 Mosquitos with Molins attacked five German surface ships in the Kattegat and again demonstrated their value by setting them all on fire and sinking them.[183][184] A German Sperrbrecher ("minefield breaker") was lost with all hands, with some 200 bodies being recovered by Swedish vessels.[183] Some 900 German soldiers died in total.[183] On 9 April, German U-boats U-804, U-843 and U-1065 were spotted in formation heading for Norway. All were sunk with rockets.[183][185] U-251 and U-2359 followed on 19 April and 2 May 1945, also sunk by rockets

EDIT: and as to their use ingame personally ive sunk a pr35 with my pbj1H though i dont really recommend it as being effective, it only worked because he was distracted and the pr35 relies on multipurpose main guns with no secondary aa armament.

[Scheneighnay]

the Ki-109 was barely used because it came at the very end of the war, but like most other people said, most big-gun planes were used in naval roles, which doesn't usually translate in game.

Though I have killed 3 landing craft in 1 shot with the P108's 102mm HE

[B.D.Godde]

引用自 Scheneighnay：

Though I have killed 3 landing craft in 1 shot with the P108's 102mm HE

wait wot

[Scheneighnay]

引用自 theGoddes：

引用自 Scheneighnay：

Though I have killed 3 landing craft in 1 shot with the P108's 102mm HE

wait wot

that's what I thought, it was like shooting bombs.

more than likely was compounding splash damage though, since the first few shots were "hits" that didn't kill anything, then everything after that was just annihilating multiple landing craft in each shot

[Wales Grey]

引用自 wastoid：

Airplanes like the Ki-109(75mm), Mosquito FB Mk XVIII(57mm), Hs 129 B-3(75mm) and PBJ-1H(75mm) in my experience are pretty awful to play in War Thunder.

Sometimes I'll get lucky enough to be left alone in RB to plink away at some tanks to get a chance to spade these awful planes.

However that has got me asking myself the question, were these airplanes any good in real life?
Did any of them excel at taking out heavy bombers,tanks,ships or submarines?
Or were they just as awful in actual combat?

I'm hardly a military aviation history expert, but you can broadly classify "large-calibre guns on airplanes in WW2" into two categories:

1. Things to shoot at other airplanes
2. Things to shoot at ground targets

The former are mostly seen on Axis aircraft, because they had the biggest problems with bombers blowing all of their stuff up. A Luftwaffe report found that 30mm cannon requires around 4 good hits (less than a quarter of the ammunition expended by a 20mm gun) to reliably down a bomber, which is a lot less materiel you need to spend on defense. The Allied powers played around a little bit with big anti-air guns on planes (Yak-9K/T, P-39/-63, etc.) but the common issues of low ammunition and low rates of fire really kept them from being useful against fighters. The M2 and Hispano were more than sufficient for the threats of "infrequent medium bombers but sometimes fighters too".

The latter are in an odd spot. Their penetration is usually "okay" enough to penetrate/explode most medium-light vehicles, but War Thunder really lacks targets that would be good to engage with cannons. There's a similar sort of situation here where the Axis really try to make it work (Stuka G, Hs129, etc.), and the Allies mostly play around a bit before dropping the idea outside select special units (the biggest exception to this is the IL-2).

As a rule, War Thunder's air combat is very heavy on fighter-versus-fighter combat, and this distortion really makes dedicated attack planes something of a novelty. You can get some decent mileage out of an attacker in combined arms fights, but you really need to avoid enemy fighters (a dicey proposition when both sides aren't fighting in a shoebox at best).

[Scheneighnay]

引用自 a cybertruck full of gbu-39s：

引用自 wastoid：

Airplanes like the Ki-109(75mm), Mosquito FB Mk XVIII(57mm), Hs 129 B-3(75mm) and PBJ-1H(75mm) in my experience are pretty awful to play in War Thunder.

Sometimes I'll get lucky enough to be left alone in RB to plink away at some tanks to get a chance to spade these awful planes.

However that has got me asking myself the question, were these airplanes any good in real life?
Did any of them excel at taking out heavy bombers,tanks,ships or submarines?
Or were they just as awful in actual combat?

I'm hardly a military aviation history expert, but you can broadly classify "large-calibre guns on airplanes in WW2" into two categories:

1. Things to shoot at other airplanes
2. Things to shoot at ground targets

The former are mostly seen on Axis aircraft, because they had the biggest problems with bombers blowing all of their stuff up. A Luftwaffe report found that 30mm cannon requires around 4 good hits (less than a quarter of the ammunition expended by a 20mm gun) to reliably down a bomber, which is a lot less materiel you need to spend on defense. The Allied powers played around a little bit with big anti-air guns on planes (Yak-9K/T, P-39/-63, etc.) but the common issues of low ammunition and low rates of fire really kept them from being useful against fighters. The M2 and Hispano were more than sufficient for the threats of "infrequent medium bombers but sometimes fighters too".

The latter are in an odd spot. Their penetration is usually "okay" enough to penetrate/explode most medium-light vehicles, but War Thunder really lacks targets that would be good to engage with cannons. There's a similar sort of situation here where the Axis really try to make it work (Stuka G, Hs129, etc.), and the Allies mostly play around a bit before dropping the idea outside select special units (the biggest exception to this is the IL-2).

As a rule, War Thunder's air combat is very heavy on fighter-versus-fighter combat, and this distortion really makes dedicated attack planes something of a novelty. You can get some decent mileage out of an attacker in combined arms fights, but you really need to avoid enemy fighters (a dicey proposition when both sides aren't fighting in a shoebox at best).

On the air-to-air cannons, they also tended to be put on poor planes for some reason.

Both the P-39 and Ki-109 couldn't really operate at the altitude they needed to to use their cannons against bombers.

[Wales Grey]

引用自 Scheneighnay：

Both the P-39 and Ki-109 couldn't really operate at the altitude they needed to to use their cannons against bombers.

The former is mostly understandable, the P-39 is actually a midwar (american pov) aircraft (1941) that had been designed earlier in 1938, when everyone was still trying to figure out how to use aircraft.

The Ki-109 is a converted late-war "Oh Crap We Need To Shoot Down Those Bombers" aircraft, and there were a total of 24 (including the two prototypes) aircraft produced. It was also originally intended to be a night fighter, which explains the lower operational ceiling. It's... really not an aircraft that should be in the mainline Japanese tree.

[Scheneighnay]

引用自 Mirage：

In game the Hs 129s are just too slow and heavy in my opinion, maybe upgraded they're better but that's difficult to do.. they require a lot of time in the air to be effective and kill targets and have to fly very predictable flight paths which makes it easy for SPAA to shoot you down, which is easy enough with their size and lack of speed.

I've spaded both. The B-2 with a 30mm gun pod is way more effective than the B-3 in air RB because it kills tanks just as fast but is easier to hit with.
In theory the B-3 is better in ground RB because of the pen, but like you say it's too heavy to actually be of any use.
I've found that just taking a Ju 87G and making a high-altitude vertical dive to fire into the roof of a tank is more effective and harder to shoot down.

[The Wiggly Armed Man]

引用自 Scheneighnay：

the Ki-109 was barely used because it came at the very end of the war, but like most other people said, most big-gun planes were used in naval roles, which doesn't usually translate in game.

Though I have killed 3 landing craft in 1 shot with the P108's 102mm HE

The Ki-109 was an interceptor meant to shoot down bombers, the Ki-102 was the attacker made for ships.

[Illusionyary]

"Rudolf-Heinz Ruffer (7 January 1920 – 16 July 1944) was a German Luftwaffe Ground attack ace and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross during World War II. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership and was bestowed upon him after the destruction of 72 Soviet tanks. On 16 July 1944, his aircraft was hit by Soviet flak over Poland while attacking Soviet armoured formations. The machine exploded and he was killed instantly. At the time of his death he had recorded 80 tank kills, placing him highly on the list of the most successful aerial tank-killers of World War II and in the history of aerial warfare. Ruffer flew the Junkers Ju 87, dive-bomber, but achieved substantial success in the Henschel Hs 129; the aircraft in which he was killed."

The Duck certainly had some use, but it was very limited. Probably more successful than any of the others though. The B-3 is great fun to fly in tank RB once you learn the gun velocity, the B-2 works well in air RB with 30mm HVAP for side shooting medium tanks.

The Ki-109 wasn't even a ground attack aircraft, it was meant to intercept and destroy bombers.

[Scheneighnay]

引用自 Shovel Knight：

引用自 Scheneighnay：

the Ki-109 was barely used because it came at the very end of the war, but like most other people said, most big-gun planes were used in naval roles, which doesn't usually translate in game.

Though I have killed 3 landing craft in 1 shot with the P108's 102mm HE

The Ki-109 was an interceptor meant to shoot down bombers, the Ki-102 was the attacker made for ships.

Didn't mean to imply that it was

[wastoid]

Thanks for all the replies, definitely gave me a better understanding of this type of aircraft.