I would like to pursue both C and B. They should both have their uses. Note that all three variants are working prototypes, so we could put all three into production...
I really dislike the 78mm calibre, and am not too fond to the overpowered gun, but I agree that, given that we have it, we should put it on the K-1 and get it out there.
I would prefer to spam Cods than Hammers. Hammers are easier to produce, but if we could get, say, 50 Cods to bear on a single battlefield. T'would be glorious... Which is why I want to rush the Cod into production, get at least one per month, preferably two. But one per month would suffice to slowly build up the numbers until we have enough to be effective, hopefully their range will keep most of them alive... But yes, artillery is good, no such thing as too many Hammers...
I think that we just need more lightnings until we get a look at the new engine and 25mm gun. The 25mm may well be too much for a dogfighter... Also, my rocket pods should provide a small boost to Lightnings in the interim, but they would need some minor refitting to gain the pod mountings... Hopefully Pod mountings for lightnings are included in the pod proposal, I did leave that point a little ambiguous, but surely they will need a working system to test it...
My ground attack craft would have been better... Sending them against bombers is a grand idea, but once again altitude could be an issue, and ironically enough, my design probably wouldn't have been as compatible with rocket pods... But yes, I think that the air war really need quantity right now.
Unless they have carriers, airships should be fairly effective at just following the enemy surface-fleet and harassing them, should make their supply situation more pressing and keep our merchants away from them. We can probably deal with the subs by just spamming Popular Devotion A.S.W.s and maintaining regular patrols, so long as we can keep the enemy surface ships at bay. Maybe we can find a way to mount a pair of righteous boats on the side of a popular devotion and drop them for combat. That would turn 3 popular devotions into 3 Popular Devotions and 6 Righteouses which should be plenty to take down a single capital ship without being at too much risk from bad weather wrecking the boats. Of course, ideally we can get some solid bombardment guns and form a nice little fleet. But for now, maybe a S.O.N.A.R. variant of the Righteous to maintain frequent patrols so we can keep our harbours clear...
Fighter uses them to gain altitude more quickly immediately after taking off to intercept enemy planes.
That ( and ability to launch from shorter runway ) is a viable use, but with our radars our fighters shouldn't be caught on surprise
Fighter climbs to maximum altitude then uses rockets to climb higher.
And has it's engine dead... Maximum attitude it's mostly ability of engine to work in low oxygen environment.
Fighter notices that they have lost a lot of altitude and speed chasing another plane and uses the pods to recover potential energy.
You see, sane fighter pilot will drop those pods as soon as they see enemy fighter. Why? Because 1) getting one bullet in that rocket is an instakill 2) due to increased weight and increased drag it will lose too much speed and maneuverability
Also, that pods will take place of several machineguns. Isn't that bad trade-off?
It take a long time to get to interception altitude, and our R.A.D.A.R. is not yet that good.
Altitude is also a matter of applying force against and gaining lift from lower-density air. And you can turn altitude into speed, it could well be worth having to restart the engines if it means getting an altitude advantage at the beginning of an encounter.
There are lots of instant kills in combat, and the example was of chasing an opponent, presumably in a situation where the opponent is already fleeing, either due to being at a perceived disadvantage or perhaps due to an ongoing engagement that the fighter in question arrived late to...
The machine guns are rather heavy, "several" sounds like an over-estimate. Having more than 4 GVS-14s is probably excessive in terms of fire=power. And these would be optional kit, you could just as easily have a gun pod. The current model has cargo capacity. I would guess that starting above your opponents rather than below them would be worth having 6 guns instead of 8, but it is all relative... Oh, I see, two 14 and eight 8, I would definitely consider it a fair trade for 4 of those 8mm guns, and that really isn't the situation. It will produce a reduction in performance while it is loaded, if the plane can't actually fly at all with an extra 100 kilograms of weight then you have probably already weighed it down too much to be an effective fighter anyway...