I am also against upscaling the weapons, since I think we'd be better off designing or revising a completely new autocannon for all vehicles using them instead of lumping it into a plane design. As pointed out somewhere, the current AS-AC-18 was, as the name implies,
made in 1918. We can definitely do a lot better now, but as a separate action.
Also, I would like to point out that weight of fire does matter, especially since you have dropped to two cannons from four. Not an expert on armament, though, so if you can show that larger calibre outweighs that then it's good.
better chance at inflicting damage in strafing runs against tanks.
NOT A POUND FOR AIR TO GROUND! NOT A GRAM FOR LAYIN' DOWN BLAM!
Seriously though, I made this design just so we could have a option for pure air-superiority fighter. Strafing tanks, and its effectiveness in doing so, is not a consideration at all. If you want, you could put that into a variant design.
Hmm. If upscaling them is impractical, can we improve them in some other way? If we're using a research credit, I'd like to be somewhat ambitious. Would a better RoF be feasible/useful?
If it needs to be specified what the research credit is for, I'm thinking of putting it toward high-speed aerodynamic design. Suggestions welcome, though.
I'm assuming we don't need to specifically include mention of radio in its design?
Radios are part of our design doctrine already, so they're considered to be auto-included in our vehicles.