A-20G-30 (USSR)
This page is about the premium bomber A-20G-30 (USSR). For other versions, see DB-7 (Family). |
Contents
Description
As a part of the Lend-Lease program, several variants of the American A-20 Havoc were sent to the Soviet Union to aid in their war effort against Nazi Germany. The A-20G variant in particular made up a significant portion of the delivery. As with several lend-lease aircraft the Soviets received from the Western Allies, Soviet engineers modified some of these vehicles to fit them with domestic equipment, either for the sake of logistics or to potentially improve its capabilities. The lend-lease A-20 Havoc is in the latter case, albeit to an extreme degree. The Soviets deemed that the Havoc's performance was "overpowered", so instead of using its intended payload of four 250 lb bombs or eight rockets, Soviet engineers decided to push the Havoc's weightlifting capacity to its limits by adding extra bomb racks to allow the plane to accept more bombs of various size, effectively doubling its payload size at the cost of worsened flight performance. Following a period of familiarization, the A-20 Havoc was generally liked by Soviet airmen, who deemed the aircraft's ease of use and maintenance, its high top speed and agility, and large payload limit to be its greatest strengths. In the end, the Soviet ended up being the biggest operator of the Havoc, with 3,414 Havocs being delivered, a number even higher than a Havoc in service with the USAAF.
Introduced in Update "Fire and Ice", the ▂A-20G-30 Havoc is an alternative to the lend-lease B-25J Mitchell, featuring more versatile payload and agility at the cost of survivability. The Soviet Havoc is a huge step-up compared to its American counterparts in terms of payload, being able to carry much bigger bombs and heavier overall payload. This allows the Soviet Havoc to excel at ground-pounding, base bombing, or close air support. However, other than its payload, the Soviet Havoc is identical to its American counterpart at a much lower BR, and as such it often struggles against faster and more advanced aircraft, especially while carrying heavy payloads.
General info
Flight performance
The Soviet A-20 performs exactly the same as its American counterpart. It is reasonably fast and manoeuvrable for its type, yet has worse energy retention and handling compared to a fighter. However, due to the Soviets modifying the Havoc to carry a much heavier payload than it was originally designed for, its performance dramatically worsens as a result with the more payload you carry.
Characteristics | Max speed (km/h at 3,048 m) |
Max altitude (metres) |
Turn time (seconds) |
Rate of climb (metres/second) |
Take-off run (metres) | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AB | RB | AB | RB | AB | RB | |||
Stock | 492 | 475 | 7224 | 35.2 | 36.2 | 7.7 | 7.7 | 604 |
Upgraded | 535 | 510 | 33.0 | 34.0 | 12.7 | 10.1 |
Details
Features | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Combat flaps | Take-off flaps | Landing flaps | Air brakes | Arrestor gear |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | X | X |
Limits | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Wings (km/h) | Gear (km/h) | Flaps (km/h) | Max Static G | |||
Combat | Take-off | Landing | + | - | ||
696 | 296 | 428 | 406 | 295 | ~6 | ~3 |
Optimal velocities (km/h) | |||
---|---|---|---|
Ailerons | Rudder | Elevators | Radiator |
< 260 | < 320 | < 300 | > 320 |
Survivability and armour
The A-20G-30 is rather well-protected. It sports 3 defensive .50 calibre guns, two in a dorsal turret capable of complete rotation, the other in a limited arc under the aircraft's tail. As for the armour, the pilot is protected by 57 mm bulletproof glass and several 12.7 mm steel plates in front of and behind, and 8 mm plates to his sides. The only thing to look out for is the chance of the tail section ripping off at a higher rate than its other bomber and ground attacking comrades.
Modifications and economy
Armaments
Offensive armament
The A-20G-30 (USSR) is armed with:
- 6 x 12.7 mm M2 Browning machine guns, nose-mounted (350 rpg = 2,100 total)
Suspended armament
The A-20G-30 (USSR) can be outfitted with the following ordnance:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
50 kg FAB-50sv bombs | 1* | 1* | 4, 16 | 1* | 1* | |||
100 kg FAB-100sv bombs | 1* | 1* | 4, 16 | 1* | 1* | |||
250 kg FAB-250sv bombs | 1* | 1* | 1 | 1 | 1* | 1* | ||
500 kg FAB-500sv bombs | 1 | 1 | ||||||
1,000 kg FAB-1000 bombs | 1 | 1 | ||||||
500 lb AN-M64A1 bombs | 4 | |||||||
450 mm 45-36NU torpedoes | 1 | 1 | ||||||
Maximum permissible loadout weight: 2,160 kg Maximum permissible wing load: 1,080 kg Maximum permissible weight imbalance: 1,080 kg | ||||||||
* 50/100 kg bombs and 250 kg bombs cannot be mixed within each wing (hardpoints 1/2 and hardpoints 6/7) |
Default weapon presets | |
---|---|
|
Defensive armament
The A-20G-30 (USSR) is defended by:
- 2 x 12.7 mm M2 Browning machine guns, dorsal turret (400 rpg = 800 total)
- 1 x 12.7 mm M2 Browning machine gun, ventral turret (400 rpg)
The tail section of the plane creates a big blind spot for the dorsal turret. Be careful when enemies approach from behind because you will not be able to hit targets directly behind you.
Usage in battles
The A-20G-30 was a modification of the American A-20G-25, thus it excels at attacking soft targets such as howitzers and SPAA. The 6 x .50 calibre guns situated in the nose are fully capable of destroying light pillboxes en masse. While still capable of hitting bases with its 2 x 1,000 kg bombs, this aircraft is more effective with loads that contain larger numbers of bombs for soft targets.
With the 6 forward-facing .50 calibre guns and a decent turn time and rate of climb for a twin-engine aircraft, the A-20G-30 is well suited for the role of heavy fighter. Be warned, the A-20G-30 does not have the energy retention of dedicated heavy fighters like the Bf 110's in the German tech tree. This could lead to the aircraft being destroyed in such a dogfight.
Manual Engine Control
MEC elements | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mixer | Pitch | Radiator | Supercharger | Turbocharger | ||
Oil | Water | Type | ||||
Controllable | Controllable Not auto controlled |
Controllable Not auto controlled |
Controllable Not auto controlled |
Separate | Controllable 2 gears |
Not controllable |
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Large payload size and options
- Has an access to custom loadout
- Good top speed and overall handling for its class, especially without payload
- Effective offensive armament
- Has tricycle landing gear, able to take off and land on small airfields
Cons:
- Effectively the same plane as its American counterpart but at a significantly higher BR in RB and SB, can be easily outclassed especially in an uptier
- Lacklustre turn time, flight performance will be worsened the more payload you carry
- Poor energy retention, especially with wing payloads
- Limited defensive coverage, its tail section blocks a large portion of the dorsal turret's firing arc
- Weak tail section that can be easily snapped off by autocannons it commonly faces at the BR
History
Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the aircraft 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 vehicle and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Vehicle-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 />
. This section may also include the vehicle's dev blog entry (if applicable) and the in-game encyclopedia description (under === In-game description ===
, also if applicable).
Media
Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, 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 series of the aircraft;
- links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.
External links
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
Douglas Aircraft Company | |
---|---|
Strike Aircraft | A-20G-25 · A-26B-10 · A-26B-50 · AD-2 · AD-4 · A-1H |
Bombers | TBD-1 · B-18A · SBD-3 · BTD-1 · A-26C-45 · A-26C-45DT |
Turboprops | A2D-1 |
Jet Aircraft | F3D-1 · F4D-1 |
A-4 Skyhawk | A-4B · A-4E Early |
Export | ▄Havoc Mk I · ▄Boston Mk I · ▄DB-7 · ▂A-20G-30 · ▄AD-4 · ▄AD-4NA |
A-4 Skyhawk | A-4H · A-4E Early (M) · Ayit · A-4E |
The Douglas Aircraft Company merged with McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas. |
USSR bombers | |
---|---|
SB and Ar | SB 2M-100 · SB 2M-103 · SB 2M-103 MV-3 · SB 2M-103U · SB 2M-103U MV-3 · SB 2M-105 · Ar-2 |
Yer-2 (petrol) | Yer-2 (M-105) · Yer-2 (M-105) TAT · Yer-2 (M-105R) TAT · Yer-2 (M-105R) LU |
Yer-2 (diesel) | Yer-2 (ACh-30B) (e) · Yer-2 (ACh-30B) (l) |
Tu | Tu-2 · Tu-2S · Tu-2S-44 · Tu-2S-59 · Tu-4 |
Pe | Pe-2-1 · Pe-2-31 · Pe-2-83 · Pe-2-110 · Pe-2-205 · Pe-2-359 · Pe-8 |
IL | DB-3B · IL-4 |
Po | Po-2 · Po-2M |
Other | MBR-2-M-34 · TB-3M-17-32 · Yak-4 · Be-6 |
Lend-Lease | ▂PBY-5A Catalina · ▂Hampden TB Mk I · ▂A-20G-30 · ▂B-25J-30 |
USSR premium aircraft | |
---|---|
Fighters | Krasnolutsky's I-15bis · I-16 type 28 · Zhukovsky's I-153-M62 · I-153P · I-180S · I-301 · ITP (M-1) |
LaGG-3-4 · LaGG-3-23 · LaGG-3-34 · Dolgushin's La-7 · La-11 | |
Eremin's Yak-3(e) · Yak-3 (VK-107) · Yak-3T · Golovachev's Yak-9M | |
▂P-39K-1 · ▂Pokryshkin's P-39N-0 · ▂P-39Q-15 · ▂P-40E-1 · ▂P-47D-27 · ▂P-63A-5 · ▂P-63A-10 · ▂P-63C-5 | |
▂Hurricane Mk IIB · ▂Spitfire Mk IXc · ▂Fw 190 D-9 | |
Twin-engine fighters | I-29 |
Jet fighters | Su-11 · MiG-15bis ISh · MiG-17AS · MiG-21S (R-13-300) · MiG-23ML |
Strike aircraft | IL-2M "Avenger" · IL-2 M-82 · IL-8 (1944) · Su-6 · Tandem MAI · TIS MA · Su-8 · Tu-1 |
Yak-38 · Su-7BMK · Su-25K · Su-39 | |
Bombers | Po-2M · Be-6 · MBR-2-M-34 · Pe-2-205 · TB-3M-17-32 |
▂PBY-5A Catalina · ▂Hampden TB Mk I · ▂A-20G-30 · ▂B-25J-30 |