NS-45 (45 mm)

Description

The Nudelman-Suranov NS-45 (also known as NS-45 for short) is an extended and much larger version of the NS-37 aircraft auto-cannon. It was made for the Yak-9K (The "K" stands for "Krupnokalibernyi", which means "larger caliber") specifically, but it was proven to be unsatisfactory as the auto-cannon stressed the aircraft's airframe way too much to be viable and reliable. Only 44 Yak-9Ks were equipped with the NS-45, but a prototype night fighter version of the Tu-2 called the Tupolev Tu-1 carried two of these cannons under its nose, together with a pair of NS-23s on its wings. However, the Tu-1's Am-43V engines were not ready for production so only a prototype version of the aircraft was created.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• TIS MA (Modification)
• Yak-9K
• Yak-9UT (Modification)

General info

The NS-45 is a 45 mm autocannon chambered in the 45 x 186 mm shell. It is fed trough a belt of 29 rounds (sometimes 15 rounds) and its recoil operation is short action based. Its length was approximately 252 cm and its mass is 152 kg. It had a muzzle velocity of 780 m/s which is quite decent for an aircraft mounted autocannon, and the rate of fire of 260 to 280 shots a minute.

It had huge amounts of recoil, so much so that if the pilot was flying at lower speed, they could be violently shook back and forth. This high amounts of recoil also meant that the airframe would be under heavy stress. Numerous oil leaks and water leaks could be sprung after the autocannon was shot.

While it was super effective at taking down most aircraft targets, not only was it an overkill, it could not be aimed very well as realistically, only its first shot could be aimed. This lead to the abandonment of mass producing the aircraft and the cannon.

Available ammunition

• Default: HEFI-T

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
	10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
HEFI-T	4	4	4	4	4	4

Shell details
Ammunition	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile Mass (kg)	Fuse delay (m)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive Mass (TNT equivalent) (g)	Normalisation at 30° from horizontal	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
HEFI-T	780	1.065	1.2	0.1	80.08	0.0°	79°	80°	81°

Comparison with analogues

Comparable auto-cannons to the NS-45
Name	Year of Creation	Rounds Per Minute	Country of Origin	Calibre
Ho-301	1939-1945	475 RPM	Japan	40 mm
Vickers S	1942	100 RPM	Great Britain	40 mm

Usage in battles

Due to the NS-45 high inaccuracy after the second shot, it is recommended to use it like a sniper rifle; precisely aimed shots will demolish any smaller aircraft if hit center mass. While it may be quite a task to use it against enemy fighters, if the user is accurate enough, the hits will mostly result in a complete destruction of the enemy fighters and because the Yak-9K lack of any other real armament except for one 12.7 mm ShVak machine gun with only 200 rounds, the user will have to learn how to properly aim the cannon. Due to being a Yak, it has good mobility in lower altitudes and can out-turn most of its opposition. This means that the user can try to bait enemies into lower altitudes where they'll be easier to destroy with the 45 mm auto-cannon.

If the user does not trust themselves in taking out fighters with the cannon, the other way of using it is for bomber hunting. Due to the NS-45 astonishing power, a single hit will incapacitate a bomber most of the time, either by ripping off their wing, tail or by lighting them on fire or rarely, a complete destruction of the bomber, it is highly useful for sniping bombers at higher altitudes. Because of the bombers being a very large target, and the NS-45 pretty decent velocity, it makes it rather easy to reliably kill bombers at the distances of up to 1.50 km.

If the user is starting out, the best way to use the single 12.7 mm ShVak machine gun is to use it as a "target practice" of sorts. The user can load tracers into it and use it first to judge if their crosshairs are correctly aligned onto the enemy and then use their main, 45 mm cannon. This way the user does not need to waste the 29 rounds that the NS-45 comes with and can instead take very accurate shots.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Decent velocity (takes some time to get used to)
• Almost always one shots or leaves critical hits
• Quite accurate after the "New Cannon" upgrade is unlocked
• Tracer and the bullet itself is bright and large, allowing for easier aim re-adjustment
  • This could be seen as a con however, as the enemy might find it easier to dodge such a shot

Cons:

• Hard to lead (Can get used to gun fairly fast)
• No spray capability
• No AP shells for mixed battles like that on the similar NS-37 on the Yak-9T
• Inferior in fire rate and accuracy compared to NS-37

History

Examine the history of the creation and combat usage of the weapon in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the weapon and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Weapon-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />.

Media

An excellent addition to the article would be a video guide, as well as screenshots from the game and photos.

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the article about the variant of the cannon/machine gun;
• references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.

External links

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• topic on the official game forum;
• encyclopedia page on the weapon;
• other literature.