The Kikka In War Thunder : A Basic Review

the nakajima kika was japan's first jet aircraft and it's available in war thunder let's take a look [Music] the kika was the result of an on-again off-again on-again project by japan to produce not only their first jet engines but their first jet-powered aircraft after exchanging information with their german allies back in 1942 the japanese set about designing an aircraft that ended up having a bit of an outward similarity to the german me262 and it might be easy to assume it was a copy but in fact the basic design principles of a long fuselage with low mounted wings and twin engine pods was fairly common among you know early jet aircraft projects and the general layout of the kika was likely influenced by what the japanese had learned about the me262 project but it was far from a copy the kiko was smaller lighter had much less firepower had an entirely different wing design and its internal structure was totally different this was its own aircraft now japan's jet engine program originally produced a small motor jet engine for it called the su-11 but those engines ended up not producing anywhere near the intended power which delayed the kika project quite a bit after a new axial flow turbojet was produced which was based loosely on information again obtained from germany the kika project was restarted and the work began to put the finishing touches on the new aircraft the first prototype of the kika flew only once eight days before the end of the war and it ended up being damaged in an aborted takeoff on its second flight and the entire project was halted before repairs were finished or before the second prototype was ready in total about 20 or so airframes were in various stages of construction when the work stopped the ne-20 jet engine was generally the weakest of the first generation of axial flow turbo jets but importantly it worked and it proved that the japanese aviation industry was capable of producing modern turbo jets like the kika work on the engines was stopped when the war ended what we get in war thunder is simply called the kika a jet fighter in rank 5 at battle rating 7.0 when this plane was first introduced to the game they had called it the kitsuka but later changed it back to the kika after a lot of players complained about the translation the aircraft is very much a first generation jet and it doesn't have any radar or anything like that and in fact when you unlock it the plane only has one 30 millimeter cannon once you unlock the otsu mod you get a second 30 millimeter type 5 cannon mounted in the nose now these cannons aren't great they have a very low cyclic rate which can make them pretty difficult to aim and the ammo belts you get for it are pretty limited the full tracer belt generally ends up being the best option for attacking aircraft since it has explosive ammo and every shot is going to have the same ballistics a huge limiting factor is that the kika only gets 50 rounds of ammo per gun which can seriously limit your overall kill counts even if you rely on careful sniping and conserving your ammo for external weapons the kika can carry a bomb it can take either a 500 or an 800 kilogram bomb which isn't exactly a heavy load of weapons but it gives the plane a bit more utility than if its only weapons were 100 rounds of ammo from hard to shoot cannons there isn't any ballistics computer or anything like that so just like most of the other early jets you're just blind bombing the flight performance of the kika is about what you'd expect from a first generation world war ii jet fighter the acceleration is slow but its top end speed is decent compared to props if you can get up to altitude and if you have a few minutes just fly in a straight line it retains energy decently enough in horizontal maneuvers but its performance in a vertical climb depends heavily on your angle of attack it rolls well in most situations which can help in dive attacks you know adjusting for aim as your target maneuvers down below you but its overall maneuverability is barely average and you're gonna be out turned in dog fights by most opponents unless your air combat maneuvering is just absolutely flawless a critically important detail is that its acceleration is bad which i mentioned but it's actually worse than a lot of prop fighters and it ends up flying up against so out in matches it can seem like prop aircraft are outrunning you or running you down even if you think you've already gotten up to speed since it just takes so long for the kika to make up that last difference to get up to its maximum the plane has combat flaps and can safely use them a bit over 500 kilometers an hour but just be mindful of the additional energy bleed when they're deployed also the kika can overdrive its engines to 106 percent but they'll overheat very quickly if you keep them spun up like that for more than about 30 seconds at a time another important detail the kika gets raito pods whenever it does a runway takeoff however the pods block the landing gear from retracting so unfortunately you do actually have to use them on takeoff and you can't take them with you for a quick speed boost like some other planes can ah well flying the kika into air battles can be a bit difficult the first thing to say is that the stock grind is absolutely awful with just one cannon and 50 rounds of ammo just awful once you get the second cannon equipped it gets a bit easier but it's still quite difficult to be effective in air combat due to the limited ammo and the low cyclic rate of the guns i tended to have the most success using the tracer belt and firing very short carefully aimed bursts you can see it in the clips here where i was generally far more effective shooting at anything smaller than a bomber by taking quick snipe shots rather than firing more traditional one or two second bursts one of the big things i find with the kika in air battles is that my kills get stolen like a lot now i don't mean intentional kill steals where someone comes in to be a jerk i mean that since i have to line up very carefully aimed shots it leaves plenty of time while i'm chasing someone for somebody else with more ammo or better guns to just fly by and fire hose my target half a second before i'm zeroed in if you find something like that happening to you in the kika it's not just you and your teammates probably aren't trying to you know grief you or anything also the kika doesn't take battle damage very well so even a few unlucky hits from low caliber machine guns can be enough to send you down if you fly out with the bomb you get the opportunity to dump it on a base or some ground targets before going into air combat but just keep in mind that the flight performance of the kika is already kind of marginal and with a huge bomb weighing the plane down it gets even worse so be careful now speaking of huge chunky bombs something the kika can actually do okay at is close air support if you keep its speed up it's not super difficult to evade interception and fire from the ground will be almost a non-factor at this battle rating the larger bomb it gets has a huge blast radius so if you practice aiming with it it won't be too difficult to knock out targets the catch is that it only gets one bomb so you have to go land after every drop visually the kika looks a bit like a few of the other early jets with you know the slender fuselage the low mounted wings and the engine pods about a third of the way out i think it's an okay looking plane but you don't get any interesting paint jobs or anything like that for it lending the kika is easy but you don't get a drag shoot or anything and its brakes aren't terribly effective so you end up needing a pretty long landing run make sure to touch down near the end of the runway if possible the cockpit is another mixed bag the all-around visibility is just outstanding even the view directly backwards is basically unobstructed with no pilot seat in the way but all you get to aim with is a simple post rod gun sight right out of world war one i didn't even get one hit on a target flying this out in vr close out on the nakajima kika this plane gets radopods and it has good cockpit visibility in all directions however its flight performance is barely average it's seriously underarmed and it's very difficult to use it effectively in air battles the final verdict on the kika is that this plane just isn't competitive against basically any other jet aircraft and even some props can dance all over its grave the jet is more interesting for its historical context than for its overall place in war thunder if this is your first jet fighter please believe me that things get a lot better just one level further into the tech tree as always thanks for watching um

Channel: Tim's Variety War Thunder

Views: 19,039

Keywords: war thunder, warthunder, kikka, kitsuka

Id: bqlnIGTcxsc

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Wed May 04 2022