@Ram: If I may ask, what's the important difference between proposal 10 and 11?
B) The bazooka proposal will probably not be able to use "multiple hits to penetrate heavy armor.". If a hit doesn't penetrate, it usually only damages armour, and only a hit at nearly the same place will do further damage.
B) Yes, I noticed that, but I felt it would still be relevant if they could get around the back or something, but potentially, if they used some sort of caustic round, or maybe something like thermite...
10 Shark dive bomber (UR vote#3)
Aircaraft designed to operate in clear skies, quite slow, one engined dive bomber armed with one built in 40mm gun (20 shells), one 14mm machinegun and bomb mountings (yep, no machinegun). Designed to obliterate light fortifications, enemy armor and ships with dive attacks
Should use those 20 additional engineers to design it (+ our own of cause) and 200 workers to produce initial run
I11: Design a twin-engined biplane using the new 1200kw engine and wings angled back to increase their wind-speed tolerance.
House a covered cockpit with 2 seats, one forward-facing and one rear-facing with a focus on ground visibility while diving or turning.
Attempt to include a fuel capacity sufficient for 2 hours of flight.
Attempt to include mosin-nagant-resistant armour shielding the fuel, pilots, and engines from ground-fire while diving.
Arm it with two, wide-spaced GVS-14 machine guns in front of the pilot, a single GVS-14 in a rear-gunner position, and a single jettisonable HVG-40 centrally-mounted under the armour.
Name it the Patriotic Zest 1a.
Well, the same primary armament, mine probably has more ammunition, but it is hard to tell how it will be worked out. 11's gun is meant to be jettisonable, which would free up its options somewhat, but also introduce a new point for mechanical flaws. Finally, the under-side position of the gun will likely pull the plane down when it fires, this would probably help it a little with ground runs, as the pilot would be free to have the plane pulling up a little while still firing, but tend to make it difficult to control while firing...
3 GVS-14s to one: 11 has a wider strafing area, but more weight. 10 is much lighter but has no rear-gunner.
11 is more detailed: less freedom for the engineers, more of an idea what it will be. Likely to take longer to finish.
2 crew to one: more expensive to lose 11, but the gunner probably isn't going to get that much training... 11 has a bit more awareness but less visibility due to being a biplane. The rear-gunner would hopefully be useful in reporting the results of an attack and suppressing counter-fire, though the latter is quite a stretch.
Biplane to monoplane: 11 is likely more agile, and therefore better able to aim when diving and pull up afterwards, but 10 can probably dive faster and travel faster.
11 has two engines for twice the price but also a significant weight increase.
I could be wrong, but I get the impression that 2 hours is a long time for a fighter aircraft of that era to stay aloft, I would have said "at least 2 hours" if I had had my wits about me... But flight time is important if you are basically looking for targets as you go. With only 20 shells 10 can probably stay aloft a long time too...
11 has more armour, which makes it heavier, but less likely to go down to a stray bullet. 11 can probably also still fly, or at least land with some dignity, with a wing compromised and an engine gone...
Shark is... Well, a largely nondescript and often used predator. Patriotic Zest 1a leaves more room for similar names but bears a strong resemblance to our naval names, but then there is the patriotism MG so...
Parts:
1/2* engines
1/1 40mm
1/3 14mm
2/4* wings
0/oh, lets say 12mm armour, maybe 8 square metres. Umm, 96000 cubic centimetres or .096 cubic metres? Call it an even tenth?
1/1.5-ish body-volume?
*additional bracing is likely
So 11 is probably about 2-2.5 times the cost of 10, but has a higher coolness quotient and various varied advantages...