NS-45 (45 mm)
Contents
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 autocannon. It was made for the Yak-9K (The "K" stands for "Krupnokalibernyi", which means "larger calibre") specifically, but it was proven to be unsatisfactory as the autocannon 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
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 very effective at taking down aircraft targets, it could not be aimed realistically past the first shot. This lead to the abandonment of mass producing the aircraft and the cannon.
Available ammunition
- Default: HEFI-T
| Penetration statistics | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belt | 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 |
| Belt details | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Belt | Velocity (m/s) |
Projectile Mass (kg) |
Fuse delay (m) |
Fuse sensitivity (mm) |
Explosive Mass (TNT equivalent) (g) |
Ricochet | ||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||
| HEFI-T | 780 | 1.07 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 80.08 | 79° | 80° | 81° |
Comparison with analogues
| Comparable autocannons 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 centre 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 Berezin UB 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 autocannon.
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 Berezin UB 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
Cons:
- Hard to lead
- 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
| USSR aircraft cannons | |
|---|---|
| 20 mm | B-20E · B-20M · B-20S · ShVAK |
| 23 mm | GSh-6-23M · GSh-23L · NR-23 · NS-23 · NS-23K · PTB-23 · VYa-23 |
| 30 mm | 2A42 · GSh-6-30 · GSh-30-1 · GSh-30-2 · GSh-30-2K · NR-30 |
| 37 mm | N-37 · N-37D · NS-37 · SH-37 |
| 45 mm | NS-45 |
| Foreign: | |
| 20 mm | Hispano Mk.II (Britain) · MG 151 (Germany) |
| 37 mm | M4 (USA) · M10 (USA) |
