Currently we have German 20mm quadruple cannon in the Pacific campaign. Not only does this detract from the immersive experience, but the ability to fire large amounts of HE shells also undermines balance especially in Pacific maps. It can destroy small houses and wipe out inside of wooden houses easily even if engineers build sandbags.
Therefore, I suggest to replace them with 13mm-class AA guns, not 20mm-class AA guns. Mostly they don’t have HEs, and protection of both are limited so it will not be “overpowered” gun.
Browning M2 (twin mount, water-cooled)
photo source
Browning M2 is a famous 12.7mm caliber heavy machine gun used by US forces etc. used since 1920s. US arms factories turned out a little less than 2 million M2 guns in all versions between 1941 and 1945. Water-cooled jacket variant was used for anti-air missions.
In game, it have enough firepower to shoot down aircrafts, but it is difficult to destroy some obstacles due to it does not have HE shell. However, it have good armor penetration.
Type Ho (Hotchkiss) 13mm AA autocannon (ホ式十三粍高射機関砲)
photo source (book, link to amazon)
Overview by IJA
Hotchkiss 13mm AA autocannon is Japanese AA gun developed by French arms manufacture Hotchkiss. In the comparsion, it was superior to British Vickers 12.7mm and adopted by Japanese army in 1934. (in other hand, navy adopted both Hotchkiss 13.2mm and Vickers 12.7mm)
In game, performance is similar to Browning M2.
Note: Please do not confuse with Naval Type 93 13mm machine gun. Japanese navy also adopted licensed production model of Hotchkiss’s 13.2mm AA gun as “Type 93 13mm machine gun”. It had single, twin and quadruple mounts. However, army’s one was import and only twin mount was exist.
Specification
| US Browning M2 |
Japan Hotchkiss |
|
|---|---|---|
| Cartridge | 12.7x99mm .50 BMG |
13.2x99mm Type 92 |
| Rate of fire | 450-600 rounds/min | 450 rounds/min |
| Penetration | 26mm at 500m (WarTunder’s data) |
20mm at 250m (Japanese army’s data) |
| Feed | Belt-feed | 30-rounds magazine |
