HS129 users: does the Mk103 is underpowered?

[Max_Damage]

There are no russian soldier memoirs which mention hs129 lols.

[21.Gr.CT.Ludovisi]

Off-topic: can this aircraft be used in BOS/BOM campaigns?

[Blackhawk_FR]

29 minutes ago, Max_Damage said:

There are no russian soldier memoirs which mention hs129 lols.

 

Search for it. 

For the moment I've only read it on the aerojournal magazine (quite a serious one). But I'm sure we can find more somewhere on google. 

During operation Zitadelle in 1943, a group of Hs129 annihilated a whole Russian armored group (something like 50 tanks destroyed within few days). I'll give more details about that when I'll have time and the informations under hands. But this -rare- success of the Luftwaffe is easily findable on internet also.

Edited April 5, 2018 by F/JG300_Faucon

[CrazyDuck]

21 minutes ago, F/JG300_Faucon said:

In the game (and also IRL for good pilots), it's not so hard to hit your target, with some trainings. Btw the slow speed of Hs129 is helpful for that. 

 

This is true only to certain degree. Yes, certain skill level is needed to confidently put your shells onto the target as small as a tank. However, there's another issue; in burst mode, MK103 tends to become somewhat inaccurate after the first shot is fired, and therefore many shots get scattered around and miss the tank after first one or two fired shells. This is hard to notice also due to 7.9 mms being fired at the same time, which literally clouds the picture with their tracers. To get the best accuracy, each shell should be fired individually (which of course is doable, but prolongs the attacks significantly). It's essentially like firing an assault rifle from shoulder, to get the tightest group, individually fired shots are needed.

[Godspeed]

On ‎4‎.‎4‎.‎2018 at 7:22 AM, CG_Justin said:

Pretty much everything about the Hs 129 is under powered and underwhelming. It's like the Nickleback of BoX (not a jab at the devs by any means, the model is beautiful and the FM seems close to accurate). I cant speak for the historical accuracy of the cannon as I'm no expert, but it does seem frustrating to inflict any kind of damage on the heavier tanks with it.

 

It's a shame really. This aircraft is overall a very good design, but the lack of engine power in game (and I'm sure in real life as well) just makes things very frightening when taking it on a mission. It's a very high risk/low reward aircraft IMHO. Sometimes I try to imagine what this aircraft could have done if it were fitted with a pair of BMW 801's...something tells me it would have made it truly amazing. 

 

My mantra...

 

"Save a life....fly a 110!"

 

It lacked engine power in real life too.

Germans had short supply on engines and high demand so they had to use French Gnome-Rhône 14M what was not really optimal choise.

 

Believe me there was even worse engines on prototypes Argus As 410 what was horrible.

 

Junkers Jumo or BWM engines would have made the plane more successfull.

Edited April 5, 2018 by Godspeed

[Eicio]

Actually the G&R were sufficient at the begining, it wasn't anymore when they started adding weight and drag to the plane. 

 

But to be fair 3000 kills for less than a thousand HS 129 can't be grue. It's just like if you say that every 109 pilot was an ace.

 

However I can believe that the HS 129 destroyed 3000 soft targets.

[PatrickAWlson]

15 hours ago, Eicio said:

 

You mean like the allied bomber's gunners that shot one fighters and each of them was like "whoa I killed a fighter" and then command said "impressive ! We killed 123 fighters on this day !"

Pretty much like that

[Swing]

1 hour ago, [RA]Andrea-Sparviero said:

Off-topic: can this aircraft be used in BOS/BOM campaigns?

 

The Hs129 is on the BOS and BOK career mode  

[Godspeed]

39 minutes ago, Eicio said:

Actually the G&R were sufficient at the begining, it wasn't anymore when they started adding weight and drag to the plane.

 

Of course its sufficient when you add the engine to right plane.

 

[Eicio]

8 minutes ago, Godspeed said:

 

Of course its sufficient when you add the engine to right plane.

 

 

The real question is "has the duck ever been the right plane" ?

 

I like it by the way, in the way I use it at least.

[7.GShAP/Silas]

1 hour ago, F/JG300_Faucon said:

 

Search for it. 

For the moment I've only read it on the aerojournal magazine (quite a serious one). But I'm sure we can find more somewhere on google. 

During operation Zitadelle in 1943, a group of Hs129 annihilated a whole Russian armored group (something like 50 tanks destroyed within few days). I'll give more details about that when I'll have time and the informations under hands. But this -rare- success of the Luftwaffe is easily findable on internet also.

 

 

The operation was an apocalyptic failure, how did German specialists manage to assess this victory on the battlefield?  At a brisk westward walk?

[Blackhawk_FR]

1 hour ago, 7.GShAP/Silas said:

 

 

The operation was an apocalyptic failure, how did German specialists manage to assess this victory on the battlefield?  At a brisk westward walk?

 

3 hours ago, F/JG300_Faucon said:

During operation Zitadelle in 1943 [...] But this -rare- success of the Luftwaffe is easily findable on internet also.

 

I'm not talking about the whole operation. I said is was a rare victory of Luftwaffe during that operation... 

8th of July, Hs129 and Fw190 (I/Sch G1) vs 26th tank brigade. They destroyed 46 T70 and T34 within 3 hours. 

Edited April 5, 2018 by F/JG300_Faucon

[Eicio]

they really did kill t84 ? those t84 ?

https://www.google.fr/search?safe=off&source=hp&ei=oTbGWqepNIr8kwXky6HgBg&q=t+84&oq=t+84&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.12..0l2j0i22i30j0i22i10i30l2.702.3503..5061...0....127.435.4j1..........1..mobile-gws-wiz-hp.....3..35i39j0i131.gKjDUcmyKx4%3D#imgrc=AtW1SOSNhF_WTM:

 

The duck is more dangerous than I thought ! 

[Blackhawk_FR]

45 minutes ago, Eicio said:

they really did kill t84 ? those t84 ?

https://www.google.fr/search?safe=off&source=hp&ei=oTbGWqepNIr8kwXky6HgBg&q=t+84&oq=t+84&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.12..0l2j0i22i30j0i22i10i30l2.702.3503..5061...0....127.435.4j1..........1..mobile-gws-wiz-hp.....3..35i39j0i131.gKjDUcmyKx4%3D#imgrc=AtW1SOSNhF_WTM:

 

The duck is more dangerous than I thought ! 

 

Oops  Corrected

[JtD]

I don't know why the Hs129 always gets such a bad reputation on this forum. It is, in several ways, clearly superior to the Il-2 and certainly not worse overall. No word of how the Il-2 is underpowered, overheats, unstable, inaccurate - in short, sucks, yet every time the Hs129 is brought up, folks bash it.

 

Just for your consideration - Henschels core competence was simple production. Henschel was the expert in the pre-war German aviation industry for setting up and designing solutions for easy manufacture. His company was hired by other companies to help them with factory layout and component design in order to minimize effort. He was engaged in this topic to a degree that endangered the existence of Henschel as an aircraft manufacturer as such. With the Hs129 the company finally got a chance to compete for an aircraft, and you need to remember that it won the contract against the similarly performing Fw189 because the Hs129 could be built at two thirds the cost. This is even more remarkable because the Fw189 was already being produced, and obviously, it is typically more cost efficient to expand production of an existing design than to set up production for a new one. So really, the biggest advantage of the Hs129 was that it was cheap. It is somewhat ironic that the biggest advantage was not really utilized, with total production numbers being as low as they were.

 

Now at this low unit cost, the aircraft came with a decent performance for a ground attack aircraft - clearly better than the Ju87 and not worse than the Il-2. It offered the redundancy of two engines, it was better armoured than the Ju87, comparable to the Il-2, it carried firepower again better than the Ju87, comparable to the Il-2, gun attacks were more accurate in the Hs129, vision from the cockpit was better. All this while being smaller and lighter than the other two, close with the Ju87, considerable difference to the Il-2. So it's not surprising it carries a few less bombs. It was, however, the smallest aircraft ever to carry a 75mm gun.

 

All in all it is a cheap, small aircraft which packs a tremendous punch for its size. It's well armoured, with a decent survivability and decent performance - to sum it up, a good ground attack aircraft. Back in the day, and to some extent also in game. So, what do you want? The A-10 wasn't around in WW2.

[7.GShAP/Silas]

The IL-2 is far faster, carries a far more robust array of armament and is by far more survivable in an environment where the enemy is not totally impotent and you do not have total air superiority.

[Blackhawk_FR]

8 minutes ago, 7.GShAP/Silas said:

The IL-2 is far faster, carries a far more robust array of armament and is by far more survivable in an environment where the enemy is not totally impotent and you do not have total air superiority.

 

 

If that is not propaganda... 

[216th_Jordan]

IIRC there was a document around which stated that on trials KV-1 armor could NOT be penetrated by the Mk103. Cannot find the post however.

[SAS_Storebror]

I must say I tend to agree with Silas here.

Have flown both aircraft plenty of times, and apart from the fact that it takes time to get used to the Henschel's rather odd engine controls, all in all the IL-2 just "feels" much better.

With an IL-2 you can even, to a limited degree, counter an ambush of single 109s picking you up randomly.

With the Henschel, you cannot even fight back the IL-2.

And to get back to the topic, I guess what people miss most on the Henschel is it's ability to kill tanks.

The IL-2 with 2x37mm guns is the tank killer in IL-2, hands down.

The Henschel with a 37mm cannon might come close, but you just don't have it, so you're stuck with the Ju-87 "Kanonenvogel" (flies like a filled bathtub) or the 110 with "Dackelbauch" (doesn't withstand AAA if being around). The Henschel with it's 30mm cannon just isn't suitable against tanks, and against other cars the MG151 would do the job too.

 

Sure, it's a rather tiny plane, it's been cheap in production, and in real life it definitely was up to the task, but here in IL-2 it's questionable what exactly to choose the Henschel for.

 

Cheers!

Mike

[7.GShAP/Silas]

2 minutes ago, F/JG300_Faucon said:

 

 

If that is not propaganda... 

 

 

I cruise the IL-2 43 at ~365kph fully loaded with rockets, bombs, 23mm cannons and enough fuel for any mission.  At combat settings I get ~385kph.  This of course is with a .50cal armed gunner.

In the IL-2 41 it's in excess of 400kph while fully loaded with rockets bombs, cannons, fuel.  No gunner, but you can fly it like a fighter.

 

I shoot down fighters in both regularly.  If we have no fighter cover, we can proceed without it and do our job.

 

These are all advantages that real IL-2 regiments enjoyed, and none of these were had by the poor bastards in the Hs129, in our sim or in the war.  If you counted up all the Axis troops that are dead because of the IL-2, you would have a mountain of skulls that Genghis Khan would be proud of.

[KoN_]

18 hours ago, CrazyDuck said:

 

Very hard to do indeed. KV-1 needs exactly 24 hits from the side or rear from MK103 to start smoking (and consequently blow up if you wait long enough). That's about 30% hit ratio with 80 rounds to begin with.

 

So in the real world of WWII `it took 24 hits to take out a tank KV-1 seems a little too much don`t you think ??? .

I find the HS129 quite useless against tanks in this game for a standard player that is i have very little time flying it as its such an easy target online .

Getting tank kills to clear online maps for axis takes a more or less direct hit with an egg 500. Now since the new patch ive not tried tank busting yet any updates welcome . 

[InProgress]

Even funnier is that on WoL 103 is often locked and you have 101 with 30 bullets I wonder if you can kill tanks with g6 30mm cannon tho.

 

Can anyone who did carieer with hs129 tell if you fly on mission with air superiority or/and heavy cover? Or you just fly and get aattacked by spam of enemy fighters always magically be over your targets?

[Yogiflight]

28 minutes ago, II./JG77_Con said:

So in the real world of WWII `it took 24 hits to take out a tank KV-1 seems a little too much don`t you think ??? .

Not in the real world, but in game. OK for some members here it seems to be the real world, but that's a different thing.

1 hour ago, SAS_Storebror said:

or the 110 with "Dackelbauch"

We don't have the 110 with Dackelbauch, this was a longrange version of the Dora with additional fuel in the Dackelbauch.

BTW, the Hs129 is not a bad tank killer, because it is not able to destroy KV-1s. I don't think there were too many of them on the battlefields compared with the numbers of T-34s or the lighter version like T-70s. So still plenty of targets without the KV-1.

Edited April 5, 2018 by Yogiflight

[StG77_Kondor]

I love the 129. It has enough 'mediocre' in it to make me enjoy every time I fly it, and really work for positive results.
However for game purposes - a Ju-87D-5 would've been a better choice to give the Germans something a bit more competitive.

[Yogiflight]

2 minutes ago, InProgress said:

Can anyone who did carieer with hs129 tell if you fly on mission with air superiority or/and heavy cover? Or you just fly and get aattacked by spam of enemy fighters always magically be over your targets?

As far as I experienced, with easy difficulty settings your are most times safe, but with medium difficulty there were almost every time russian fighters around me on the way to the target, not so much over the target itself.

[Eicio]

3 hours ago, JtD said:

I don't know why the Hs129 always gets such a bad reputation on this forum. It is, in several ways, clearly superior to the Il-2 and certainly not worse overall. No word of how the Il-2 is underpowered, overheats, unstable, inaccurate - in short, sucks, yet every time the Hs129 is brought up, folks bash it.

 

Just for your consideration - Henschels core competence was simple production. Henschel was the expert in the pre-war German aviation industry for setting up and designing solutions for easy manufacture. His company was hired by other companies to help them with factory layout and component design in order to minimize effort. He was engaged in this topic to a degree that endangered the existence of Henschel as an aircraft manufacturer as such. With the Hs129 the company finally got a chance to compete for an aircraft, and you need to remember that it won the contract against the similarly performing Fw189 because the Hs129 could be built at two thirds the cost. This is even more remarkable because the Fw189 was already being produced, and obviously, it is typically more cost efficient to expand production of an existing design than to set up production for a new one. So really, the biggest advantage of the Hs129 was that it was cheap. It is somewhat ironic that the biggest advantage was not really utilized, with total production numbers being as low as they were.

 

Now at this low unit cost, the aircraft came with a decent performance for a ground attack aircraft - clearly better than the Ju87 and not worse than the Il-2. It offered the redundancy of two engines, it was better armoured than the Ju87, comparable to the Il-2, it carried firepower again better than the Ju87, comparable to the Il-2, gun attacks were more accurate in the Hs129, vision from the cockpit was better. All this while being smaller and lighter than the other two, close with the Ju87, considerable difference to the Il-2. So it's not surprising it carries a few less bombs. It was, however, the smallest aircraft ever to carry a 75mm gun.

 

All in all it is a cheap, small aircraft which packs a tremendous punch for its size. It's well armoured, with a decent survivability and decent performance - to sum it up, a good ground attack aircraft. Back in the day, and to some extent also in game. So, what do you want? The A-10 wasn't around in WW2.

 What !? 

 

Il-2 slow ? "Sucks" ? No ! Not at all, the Il-2 is even pretty fast and nimble for a bomber.

 

And what ? Hs 129 competing with fw 189 ? Do you know what you are saying ? The fw 189 was a reco plane and the hs 129, that appeared later is a ground attack plane. Will you compare the storch with the 109 next time ? 

[LukeFF]

36 minutes ago, Eicio said:

Hs 129 competing with fw 189 ? Do you know what you are saying ? The fw 189 was a reco plane and the hs 129, that appeared later is a ground attack plane. Will you compare the storch with the 109 next time?

 

He knows exactly what he is saying. Suggest you do some research before making comments like that - just like you also thought the MK101 and MK103 weren't used much in the Hs 129.

[InProgress]

40 minutes ago, Eicio said:

And what ? Hs 129 competing with fw 189 ? Do you know what you are saying ? The fw 189 was a reco plane and the hs 129, that appeared later is a ground attack plane. Will you compare the storch with the 109 next time ? 

Gosh.. calm down.. and use google before raging.

 

"The Fw 189C was conceived as a heavily armoured ground-attack, close-supportvariant, in competition with the Henschel Hs 129. But its two prototypes (V1b and V6) were not satisfactory, and it was not produced"

[Blackhawk_FR]

4 hours ago, SAS_Storebror said:

 

The IL-2 with 2x37mm guns is the tank killer in IL-2, hands down.

The Henschel with a 37mm cannon might come close, but you just don't have it, so you're stuck with the Ju-87 "Kanonenvogel" (flies like a filled bathtub) or the 110 with "Dackelbauch" (doesn't withstand AAA if being around). The Henschel with it's 30mm cannon just isn't suitable against tanks, and against other cars the MG151 would do the job too.

Question is, how many shells you got in the IL2, how many you need to kill a tank, and how precise the cannons are. From my small experience with IL2, the dual 37mm is not so effective (not as accurate as german 37mm).

Knowing you need 3 BK37 shells to kill a T34, with the 110 G2, you can potentially kill 22 of them. So 110 is probably the best tank killer of the game. 

The thing is, killing 22 tanks take a really long time...

Stuka G have less ammo, but 2 BK37: with good aiming, you can destroy anything (KV1 included) by a single pass. That make him a very good tank killer also, but without 20mm or light MG, you can shoot at soft targets following tanks.

It just depends which advantage you're looking for.

 

 

3 hours ago, II./JG77_Con said:

I find the HS129 quite useless against tanks in this game for a standard player that is i have very little time flying it as its such an easy target online .

It's completely normal, tank busting with cannons requires training and skill (skill comes with training).

Then, if covered and cleared of flak, a Stuka can kill 6 T34s. While the same Stuka with bombs will kill only 3, if he's very very lucky. 

Also 6 T34 for the Hs129 (with Mk103), and 22 for 110, as I said above.

 

 

3 hours ago, InProgress said:

Even funnier is that on WoL 103 is often locked and you have 101 with 30 bullets I wonder if you can kill tanks with g6 30mm cannon tho.

Only HE ammo on Mk108, so useless against tanks. Even though it's pretty effective against small ships.

 

Edited April 5, 2018 by F/JG300_Faucon

[Eicio]

42 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

He knows exactly what he is saying. Suggest you do some research before making comments like that - just like you also thought the MK101 and MK103 weren't used much in the Hs 129.

 

That still doesn't explain who got the brilliant idea to turn a fw 189 into a ground attacker 

[GridiroN]

3 hours ago, StG77_Kondor said:

I love the 129. It has enough 'mediocre' in it to make me enjoy every time I fly it, and really work for positive results.
However for game purposes - a Ju-87D-5 would've been a better choice to give the Germans something a bit more competitive.

 

I very much enjoy the 129. I don't understand people who think it sucks. I took out an entire light armour objective myself with it once. 

[Farky]

6 hours ago, F/JG300_Faucon said:

8th of July, Hs129 and Fw190 (I/Sch G1) vs 26th tank brigade. They destroyed 46 T70 and T34 within 3 hours. 

 

Well, actual losses for 8th July 1943 of the whole 2nd Guards Tank Corps (26th Guards tank brigade was part of this corps) were 6 tanks destroyed or abadoned and 10 more damaged.

Edited April 5, 2018 by Farky

[Bilbo_Baggins]

18 minutes ago, GridiroN said:

 

I very much enjoy the 129. I don't understand people who think it sucks. I took out an entire light armour objective myself with it once. 

 

This wing comes off like a twig for one. Cockpit may be heavily armoured but this airframe sheds many wings.

[GridiroN]

5 minutes ago, Mcdaddy said:

 

This wing comes off like a twig for one. Cockpit may be heavily armoured but this airframe sheds many wings.

 

It's slow as a mollases in January and has no back gunner. If anyone sees you, and there are no fighters who'd prefer their GA not be shot down, you're dead anyway. 

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

7 hours ago, F/JG300_Faucon said:

Question is, how many shells you got in the IL2, how many you need to kill a tank, and how precise the cannons are. From my small experience with IL2, the dual 37mm is not so effective (not as accurate as german 37mm).

Knowing you need 3 BK37 shells to kill a T34, with the 110 G2, you can potentially kill 22 of them. So 110 is probably the best tank killer of the game. 

The thing is, killing 22 tanks take a really long time...

Stuka G have less ammo, but 2 BK37: with good aiming, you can destroy anything (KV1 included) by a single pass. That make him a very good tank killer also, but without 20mm or light MG, you can shoot at soft targets following tanks.

It just depends which advantage you're looking for.

 

 

It's completely normal, tank busting with cannons requires training and skill (skill comes with training).

Then, if covered and cleared of flak, a Stuka can kill 6 T34s. While the same Stuka with bombs will kill only 3, if he's very very lucky. 

Also 6 T34 for the Hs129 (with Mk103), and 22 for 110, as I said above.

 

 

Only HE ammo on Mk108, so useless against tanks. Even though it's pretty effective against small ships.

 

 

With the MK 103 I needed around 9 hits to kill a T-34 from the side (9 kills with 80 rounds), I missed a couple of times so maybe with a bit more practice I can get to 10 with a full ammo load.

 

Using the BK 37 you can get a T-34 with 3 rounds yep, with the single firing cannon in the 110 G-2, although they have to be well aimed, if not they it would need 4 or 5.

With the NS 37 against T-34 you need 8 rounds to destroy it, got 10 tanks destroyed with the full ammo load of the IL-2 1943 (100 rounds) but I missed some and I could see tanks getting destroyed after 8 hits at least. Against the Panzer IV it needs 6 hits usually.

 

The 23mm needs around 33 rounds to kill a Panzer IV (9 kills with 300 rounds). Thanks to the rate of fire of 600 rpm and having two guns you can do it in a single pass, with a 1.6 sec burst or so (1200 rpm effective).

The MK 103 has a rate of fire of 400 rpm, so it needs a 1.2 sec burst to destroy a T-34 in one pass, however this is difficult because the cannon has quite a bit of dispersion in the gunpod so you need to fire at close range if you want to have all of your shots hit the tank, the best I could get was like 5 hits in a single pass without missing, so against the T-34 you need to do two passes.

Edited April 6, 2018 by -=PHX=-SuperEtendard

[JtD]

SuperEntendard, thanks for providing the figures. I experimented a bit myself yesterday after posting (actually I just fired up the game and blasted away at ground targets), and my impressions are pretty close to yours. With the MK103 on the Hs129 I'm getting about the same number of tanks per flight I'm getting with the NS37 on the Il-2, but typically, it takes a little longer. Good thing about the Hs129, after killing the tanks I went on and used the remaining 7.92mm and 20mm guns to do some serious damage to soft targets, whereas with the Il-2, that option didn't exist.

 

I also used a fighter to shoot down some Henschels and Ilyushins, to my surprise, the Il-2 fell apart earlier. That wasn't real testing, also just an indication. You much sooner got leaks and smoke off a Hs129, though. The rear gunner makes a difference, because it poses a threat, however, if you don't fly a very fragile plane, it doesn't really increase the survival chances for the Il-2. The Il-2 can maintain somewhat tighter turns, which makes it easier to evade an enemy fighter than in a Hs129.

 

WRT speeds mentioned earlier - at maintainable settings while packing a similar punch, the Il-2 is significantly faster at low altitudes, the Hs129 is faster at about 2500m-3000m upwards. If you fly both of them at WEP, which the Il-2 can do considerably longer, but the Hs129 gets a larger benefit from, the Hs129 is still a little bit slower down low, but gains an increasing advantage at relatively low altitude (1000m+). In practice, there's a small advantage for the Il-2, because both aircraft generally fly at low altitudes. If you're every send out to take out a KV-1 parked on a Kuban mountain top, the Hs129 will get you there faster.

 

All in all, even in game, these two appear very similar in capability, with the Il-2 being a bit more versatile owing to the larger variety of bombs and rockets available. As a pure tank buster, I don't think I prefer the Il-2. If I would, it's because German armour is weaker, not because the Il-2 is harder hitting.

[Blackhawk_FR]

1 hour ago, -=PHX=-SuperEtendard said:

so against the T-34 you need to do two passes.

 

It's possible to do it with one pass. During the approach on the tank I put some flaps down (~15%) and don't rush the tank on full power (> more firing time).

[Solmyr]

On 04/04/2018 at 10:20 PM, PatrickAWlson said:

 

My guess is that the 3000 comes from pilot claims, not from research that correlates claims with actual losses.

 

The thing is that, even if I can't confirm anything because I seem to not own this particular magazine number (would need to look for it), the Aero-Journal magazine is particularly serious overall, often comparing, consulting and criticizing different specialized-books sources and any other sources. And most of the time when it comes to comment on figures, they are very likely to doubt from the overclaiming/propaganda/etc phenomena.

[SAS_Storebror]

15 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

We don't have the 110 with Dackelbauch

 

Okay okay, it's just that it looks quite similar. Let's agree on "conformal ventral gun pod under the fuselage".

 

Cheers!

Mike

[Yogiflight]

1 minute ago, SAS_Storebror said:

Okay okay, it's just that it looks quite similar. Let's agree on "conformal ventral gun pod under the fuselage".

You could call it 'Dackelbäuchlein'