FWs Durabillity

[falconilia]

I would like to see more realistic hits on Fws engine especially with 0.50 mgs.
Its impossible to set fire on this engine!!!
You can damage the engine,cut or destroy elevators/ruder,set fire on main fuselage tank but the engine will work unless it runs out of fuel.
For quick test just stay on A B17s rear and see!
Also i miss when i could cut his wing with a good hit even with P51s 4x0.50s
No matter how many hits are on its wing u see only holes.
Any Future Fix?

[gaunt1]

BMW radials were quite tough in RL too, so I think it isnt too much a problem.

If you have problems with FWs, dont shoot at their engine. Just a few hits, even with the weakest weapons, on their wings and they are barely controllable.

[IceFire]

FW190s damage model has always been a bit weird... it was concrete for a while, or the fuel tank leaked like crazy from a single light calibre hit, or it would do other weird things. For one patch version it would flame up like a Zero. It's been a long time since that... I'm not sure what the reason for all the weirdness is but I think its actually in a pretty good place considering what we used to deal with :)

[falconilia]

BMW radials were quite tough in RL too, so I think it isnt too much a problem.

If you have problems with FWs, dont shoot at their engine. Just a few hits, even with the weakest weapons, on their wings and they are barely controllable.

True and i know pilots felt safer with this engine in front of them.
Even if one or more cylinders were out the engine was still running.
But in RL if for any reason was stoped the FWs characteristics was, as they say like a brick and they had to bail out.
In game expert players no matter how badly the plane is damaged they will find a close runway to land.
The only chance to confirm a kill is to find it at low alt,alone or having 20mm guns.
PS. Many opponents have RTB with 75 or more hits by my P51s 0.50s :grin::grin::grin:

[falconilia]

If you have problems with FWs, dont shoot at their engine. Just a few hits, even with the weakest weapons, on their wings and they are barely controllable.

Thats why i use long distance convergence to hit only wings!!!
;););)

[KG26_Alpha]

For a front line fighter that was called the "Butcher Bird", it should be renamed the "Butchered Bird".

From its former glory of pre AEP release to its latest incarnation its a poor representation of the series and its compatible contemporary's.

Some common complaints >

Glued to the runway
Wings made of rice paper
An E bleeding turn rate

Advice once airborne with the Fw190A .......... hunt in pairs or more !!!



Ok next ac that's porked below please :)

No don't i'm joking ............


Seriously though the Fw190A has been messed around with so much over the years.

[Janosch]

The 190 we have now in Il-2 is a good fighter, with obvious strengths and weaknesses, making it a challenging but overally balanced plane gameplay-wise. As an added bonus, it's modeled in a historically accurate fashion. I can't really think of anything that's even remotely wrong with the 190s - maybe some variants are a bit optimistically modeled in terms of durability, but it's not a problem that's unique to the 190 series.

[Pursuivant]

The FW-190 model is fairly old, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were some oddities in its DM. The 4.13 patch finally fixed some serious and long-standing DM problems with the P-40, P-47, Spitfire, etc., so there might be further bug stomping to do on the FW-190's DM.

But, unless you've got evidence to back up your claims you're just whining. :)

This is my "DM test" which will prove the point one way or another.

In Conf.ini set "Arcade Mode = 1"

Start IL2. Set up a QMB mission with a flight of Ace Wellington III bombers as your enemies. (The quad .30 caliber tail guns spit out a lot of lead and don't shred your plane immediately, so you can see damage effects without getting shot down immediately. The Ace gunners guarantee that you'll get shot up.)

Choose the plane you want to test and attack the bomber flight using stupid tactics. (i.e., flight straight in from the bombers' 6 o'clock level).

Keep track of range as you close. When you get damaged, hit pause and use external views as necessary to see where you're hit and how badly. For anomalous results, take a screenshot.

Keep stats on where you get hit and why you ultimately get shot down. Refly the mission a couple of dozen times to get a decent statistical sample.

If you fly a FW-190 vs. Wellington III QMB mission a couple dozen or so times and you NEVER get an engine fire, then it's probably a DM bug. Otherwise, its probably good DM modeling, with the engine mostly protecting the fuel tank from the front. (Remember, the fuselage fuel tanks in the 190 are beneath the pilot, and the fuel lines to the engine are behind the engine itself. So, you're not likely to get an engine fire unless you happen to hit a fuel line.)

[Pursuivant]

I can't really think of anything that's even remotely wrong with the 190s - maybe some variants are a bit optimistically modeled in terms of durability, but it's not a problem that's unique to the 190 series.

I think that a number of planes in the game have FM and/or DM which are a bit overmodeled - in that they're based on data obtained from test pilots using aircraft which are in peak condition.

I don't know if it's possible, but I'd love an option in the FMB which allows mission builders to slightly reduce FM and/or DM to reflect "war weary" aircraft.

[falconilia]

Started QMB mission test vs 2 ACE Wellington III bombers and the results are not looking good....no fire at all,only minor damaged engine.
But VS 2 Ace B17 Bombers i had lot of main fuel tank fire.
Still no Engine fire.
Testing VS 3 or 4 Wellington now.

[julian265]

As others said, the problem is not unique to 190s. However, the cases involving 190s stick out in my memory.

A key finding myself and others made, was that when shooting from close to directly behind the 190, it is much less sensitive to hits than from other angles.
It often absorbed 50+ .50s and still kept flying. I remember a few cases online with more than 100 .50 hits from 6 o'clock (using gunstat before and after), and the prick continued to speed get away.

Whilst there is no magical number of bullets that should bring down a plane, it just seemed far too common to be unable to drop a 190 with lots of hits from directly behind, whilst it wasn't too hard to knock them out with snap shots from other angles.

[Pursuivant]

Started QMB mission test vs 2 ACE Wellington III bombers and the results are not looking good....no fire at all,only minor damaged engine.
But VS 2 Ace B17 Bombers i had lot of main fuel tank fire.
Still no Engine fire.

Stick with opponents equipped with just .30 caliber/7.62 mm flexible guns.

Historically, 0.50 caliber/12.7 mm guns were extremely effective fighter killers, with just a few shots being able to stop an engine or cause a fuel tank to explode, even at extreme limits of gunner accuracy. That effectiveness makes it harder to pick out oddities with the DM.

By contrast, being "nibbled to death" by .30 caliber fire helps to pinpoint problems.

Another tool which is helpful when bug-stomping damage models is a good cut-away drawing of the plane you're testing which show the placement of all internal systems.

If you pause the game and compare the drawing to a bullet's trajectory, sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised when a hit that seems to prove a DM fault turns out to actually be good damage modeling.

For example, I've had bullets "seem" to penetrate armor like it wasn't there, but careful examination shows that the bullet actually passed through gaps in the armor to hit a vital system.

If you get a really strange damage result, immediately pause the game, take a screenshot, and make a note of the circumstances (range, what you were doing when you got shot).

Screenshots and statistics are the most valuable way to make your case.

If you can say, "I flew 25 missions with the Fw-190A vs. a bunch of Ace Wellington III (or B5N2, or SBD-3, TB-3), each time attacking from 6 o'clock level at 250 kph until I got shot down or couldn't keep up with the bomber stream. These are the stats of how I got shot down . . . none of them involve engine fires, even though these screenies show that my engine was filled with holes" then you might have a good case that the Fw-190 DM for engine fires is porked.

[Pursuivant]

A key finding myself and others made, was that when shooting from close to directly behind the 190, it is much less sensitive to hits than from other angles.

This isn't surprising. If you're attacking a plane from exactly 6 o'clock level, it presents its narrowest profile, and most WW2-era planes had armor to protect crew and vital systems from hits from the rear.

So, unless the convergence of your guns is perfect, many of your shots will miss the smaller target, and many of the shots that hit will be stopped by armor.

That's why you ideally never attack from exactly 6 or 12 o'clock level. Always incorporate a bit of "angle off" when attacking from those directions so that you get a slightly bigger target and some of your bullets will bypass armor.

It often absorbed 50+ .50s and still kept flying. I remember a few cases online with more than 100 .50 hits from 6 o'clock (using gunstat before and after)

With all respect, unless you were playing with "arcade mode on" so you could record exactly where each shot hit, all you can say is that you shot 50+ or 100+ 0.50 caliber rounds at an Fw-190 and it still got away.

That doesn't make the Fw-190's damage model incorrect, it just puts you in the company of however many thousand allied pilots who had the same problem in real life.

If your gunnery wasn't up to scratch, you might very well have sprayed a lot of virtual lead around the target, with a fraction of the bullets hitting the target but being scattered such that there was never the concentrated fire needed to score a kill. A few more might have been stopped by armor.

Killing aircraft with a machine gun requires a higher level of precision than killing them using cannons. Your deflection and convergence has to be just right so that you can bring several seconds of fire onto a single vital system, and you have to be close enough to your target that you can reliably hit that system.

Achieving those conditions can be quite hard, which is one of the reasons that most air forces ultimately chose cannons as their airborne weapon of choice!

[falconilia]

After dozen and dozen tests FW A8 VS 4 Wellington III,B17,B29,and online games my conlcusions are:
FWs can be shot down:
A)You hit and destroy its ailerons/elevators
B)Pilot killed
C)Damaged engine with also damaged wing but being at low alt
D)Fuel tank fire
E)Destroy/cut off elevators(if u aim the tail its easy)
F)All the above

You can not:
A)Set fire on engine including 20mm guns
B)Cut wing(flying P47 and trying to aim only the wings in photo one it took 75 bullets and in photo 2 147 bullets.In 3rd photo you can see the heavier damage can take one wing from 0.50s.

PS:This is not a 4.13 issue.This bug? was also was on 4.12 but i thought someone would notice it

[falconilia]

This isn't surprising. If you're attacking a plane from exactly 6 o'clock level, it presents its narrowest profile, and most WW2-era planes had armor to protect crew and vital systems from hits from the rear.

So, unless the convergence of your guns is perfect, many of your shots will miss the smaller target, and many of the shots that hit will be stopped by armor.

That's why you ideally never attack from exactly 6 or 12 o'clock level. Always incorporate a bit of "angle off" when attacking from those directions so that you get a slightly bigger target and some of your bullets will bypass armor.



With all respect, unless you were playing with "arcade mode on" so you could record exactly where each shot hit, all you can say is that you shot 50+ or 100+ 0.50 caliber rounds at an Fw-190 and it still got away.

That doesn't make the Fw-190's damage model incorrect, it just puts you in the company of however many thousand allied pilots who had the same problem in real life.

If your gunnery wasn't up to scratch, you might very well have sprayed a lot of virtual lead around the target, with a fraction of the bullets hitting the target but being scattered such that there was never the concentrated fire needed to score a kill. A few more might have been stopped by armor.

Killing aircraft with a machine gun requires a higher level of precision than killing them using cannons. Your deflection and convergence has to be just right so that you can bring several seconds of fire onto a single vital system, and you have to be close enough to your target that you can reliably hit that system.

Achieving those conditions can be quite hard, which is one of the reasons that most air forces ultimately chose cannons as their airborne weapon of choice!
You are correct above all these.
with the right convergence and angle of attack you can destroy even a B17 easy.
But hitting FW in a specific point u only get the max damage at this point as i mention before.... dont know if you u understand me.i tired :)))))

[KG26_Alpha]

They left off the engine on fire damage because they felt so sorry for the rest of what they have done to it.

Its getting boring this kind of damage modelling stuff, there's plenty of planes out there that are over specification and have strange damage modelling.

And complaints over the years have never had any effect on having these changed.

Best thing to do is report it to DT in the stickies and see if anyone is willing to look at what your saying.

eg:

Spitfire wing absorbing Mk108 damage no effect aircraft flies normally
ever been fixed ............ nope.

The Fw190's wing takes a few MG rounds and the aircraft is almost un-flyable certainly run for home time when its flown by humans and not AI.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v119/alpha1/mk108_zps18b8c964.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/alpha1/media/mk108_zps18b8c964.jpg.html)

Unfortunately theres lots of planes with problems, it seems the FW190 has had a bad time over the years,

I should know I have CooP missions I made from the the beginning of the IL2 series featuring the "Butchered Bird"
so its progress at the hands of patching over the years has seen it goes backwards in performance and damage modelling.

How about Delta woods amazing properties :)

[majorfailure]

B)Cut wing(flying P47 and trying to aim only the wings in photo one it took 75 bullets and in photo 2 147 bullets.In 3rd photo you can see the heavier damage can take one wing from 0.50s.


I know that I have shot off the wings of 190s more than once. Though usually with some Russian armament, which frequently features 20mm cannon(s).

And you can kill the engine totally, but set it on fire -doubtful if I've ever seen it- it is at least not common. And though not as common as with other birds - Fw190s can go 1 million pieces puzzle, too.

[Pursuivant]

A)Set fire on engine including 20mm guns
B)Cut wing(flying P47 and trying to aim only the wings in photo one it took 75 bullets and in photo 2 147 bullets.In 3rd photo you can see the heavier damage can take one wing from 0.50s.

Something that would help make your case would be taking screenshots with Arcade Mode on.

That is, go into your conf.ini file and using a text editor alter "Arcade=0" to "Arcade=1"

In arcade mode when a plane takes damage you'll see a big "arrow" through it which marks the bullet trajectory. Explosions give a "starburst" effect, like in KG26_Alpha's post. This is a tremendously valuable tool for A) checking the accuracy of your gunnery. B) Determining exactly where a bullet goes when troubleshooting DM problems.

It IS possible to take the wing off a FW-190 using machine guns in the game, but you need to get sufficient concentration of fire on one location, as I said before. In particular, you have to get enough bullets through the main wing spar, which might be hard against a hard-maneuvering target.

While the IL2 damage textures have little to do with where bullets actually go, in the P-47 vs. FW-190 duel, it looks like the P-47 sprayed a whole lot of lead randomly into the 190's wings without getting that concentration.

But, in fairness to your argument, something that may or may not be modeled in IL2 is ammo explosions. And, one of the few design flaws of the FW-190 was that its 20mm cannon ammo magazine was right next to the main wing spar. One bullet in the right place could cause a secondary explosion that could rip the wing off, as shown here at 0:21 on the video:

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675034793_8th-Air-Force_FW-190-aircraft_aircraft-trying-evasive-action_plane-flying-over-clouds

Note the relative lack of prior 0.50 caliber impacts on the wings prior to the blast.

[Pursuivant]

I know that I have shot off the wings of 190s more than once. Though usually with some Russian armament, which frequently features 20mm cannon(s).

That's entirely reasonable. I would be surprised if a couple of 20mm hits to the wings DIDN'T blow the wing off a fighter, or at least render it virtually unflyable.

[gaunt1]

And complaints over the years have never had any effect on having these changed.

Not only DM. Also the power of certain weapons. Like soviet 20mm is vastly overpowered, (in RL, it had one of the weakest 20mm ammo), but at the same time, soviet 12.7mm is underpowered.

And this is despite that there is a very good reference for all of this.
http://www.quarryhs.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm

[falconilia]

It IS possible to take the wing off a FW-190 using machine guns in the game, but you need to get sufficient concentration of fire on one location, as I said before. In particular, you have to get enough bullets through the main wing spar, which might be hard against a hard-maneuvering target.

While the IL2 damage textures have little to do with where bullets actually go, in the P-47 vs. FW-190 duel, it looks like the P-47 sprayed a whole lot of lead randomly into the 190's wings without getting that concentration.

But, in fairness to your argument, something that may or may not be modeled in IL2 is ammo explosions. And, one of the few design flaws of the FW-190 was that its 20mm cannon ammo magazine was right next to the main wing spar. One bullet in the right place could cause a secondary explosion that could rip the wing off, as shown here at 0:21 on the video:

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675034793_8th-Air-Force_FW-190-aircraft_aircraft-trying-evasive-action_plane-flying-over-clouds

Note the relative lack of prior 0.50 caliber impacts on the wings prior to the blast.
Honestly i have never succeeded to take FWs wing with 0.50 guns on 4.12 and now on 4.13 patch.Have you?
But on previous patches with close convergence 175-200 it was the best tactic to destroy a FW as i had good concentration.

0.50s are good mgs.You can destroy every fighters wing even ill2 or N1K George.Not easy but with lots of bullets no matter how the concentration is.

[falconilia]

That's entirely reasonable. I would be surprised if a couple of 20mm hits to the wings DIDN'T blow the wing off a fighter, or at least render it virtually unflyable.

With 20mm its not hard.
P38 has one 20mm and it can destroy the wing with the help of 0.50s or not!:)

[julian265]

This isn't surprising. If you're attacking a plane from exactly 6 o'clock level, it presents its narrowest profile, and most WW2-era planes had armor to protect crew and vital systems from hits from the rear.

So, unless the convergence of your guns is perfect, many of your shots will miss the smaller target, and many of the shots that hit will be stopped by armor.

That's why you ideally never attack from exactly 6 or 12 o'clock level. Always incorporate a bit of "angle off" when attacking from those directions so that you get a slightly bigger target and some of your bullets will bypass armor.



With all respect, unless you were playing with "arcade mode on" so you could record exactly where each shot hit, all you can say is that you shot 50+ or 100+ 0.50 caliber rounds at an Fw-190 and it still got away.

That doesn't make the Fw-190's damage model incorrect, it just puts you in the company of however many thousand allied pilots who had the same problem in real life.

If your gunnery wasn't up to scratch, you might very well have sprayed a lot of virtual lead around the target, with a fraction of the bullets hitting the target but being scattered such that there was never the concentrated fire needed to score a kill. A few more might have been stopped by armor.

Killing aircraft with a machine gun requires a higher level of precision than killing them using cannons. Your deflection and convergence has to be just right so that you can bring several seconds of fire onto a single vital system, and you have to be close enough to your target that you can reliably hit that system.

Achieving those conditions can be quite hard, which is one of the reasons that most air forces ultimately chose cannons as their airborne weapon of choice!

I agree with most of what you said, except that - as stated in my post - I used gunstat before and after shooting to count HITS, not shots fired (I had a bee in my bonnet at the time).

[Pursuivant]

I agree with most of what you said, except that - as stated in my post - I used gunstat before and after shooting to count HITS, not shots fired (I had a bee in my bonnet at the time).

Since I'm offline only (crappy ISP) I'm not familiar with the gunstat function. The nearest thing is the statistics page off of the QMB, which is handy but doesn't give you statistics about your hit percentage against a particular target.

But, Gunstat looks like a valuable tool for those lucky enough to be able to play online. If you were playing unmodded IL2, and if the FW-190's damage model hasn't been changed subsequently, then there's definitely an issue.

50 or 100 .50 caliber bullets into any single-engined fighter (except maybe brutes like the F6F or P-47) should be enough to make it unflyable. If its a one-off event, then its a case of a very lucky FW-190 pilot. If you're getting the same result on a more or less regular basis, its a DM problem.

[Pursuivant]

I've seen the light and have converted to the belief that the FW-190's DM is broken, at least with respect to not being able to take off its wing using .50 caliber guns.

To test this assumption, I set up a flight of friendly FW-190s, with me flying a P-47D-27, which is about as many .50 caliber guns as you're going to get on a reasonably maneuverable aircraft.

Guns converged for 300 meters. I'd pull up behind each FW-190 at 6 o'clock level, at about 100-200 m so that bullet convergence would go through the wings, and start shooting.

Arcade mode on so I could tell where my bullets were hitting.

1) It seems like a very few hits to the fuselage (5-6 hits) were sufficient to trigger the heavy damage textures and make the pilot bail out. No control cable hits from what I could tell. So, the FW-190 seems to be a bit undermodeled there.

2) A burst of a two or three bullets in the fuel tank will set the FW-190 alight. Arguably, that's a unrealistic since it should take a bit of time for fuel to leak or get splashed about before a fire can start, and most self-sealing fuel tanks could take a couple of .50 caliber bullets without leaking too badly.
But, all planes in IL2 seem to be a bit too flammable, and the FW-190 doesn't seem to be any more or less vulnerable than comparable fighters in that respect.

3) I put plenty of concentrated .50 caliber fire directly through the wings (through the spars), sufficient to trigger plenty of "heavy damage" textures to both the inboard and outboard wings. But, despite repeated attempts, I never could get the FW-190's wing to separate. I think there's a bug there, at least with respect to .50 caliber MG fire.

4) Elevators and rudder seem to be quite vulnerable to damage - heavy damage textures appear after just one or two hits. But, the vertical stabilizer itself seems to be about as invulnerable to concentrated HMG fire as the wings. (Although the AI will always bail out after elevators and rudder are shredded.)

5) Not really testing for it, since I was taking shots from the rear and aiming at the wings and rear fuselage, but while I was able to get a number of smoking engine results, I was never able to get an engine fire.

6) Again, not testing for it, and it should never be common if it is modeled, but I never got that 20mm magazine explosion I've seen in gun camera footage.

7) Armor plate is well modeled, with the plate behind the pilot repeatedly stopping .50 caliber bullets at 100-200 meter ranges. I can't speak to the accuracy of frontal armor/armor glass modeling.

So, in some ways the DM of the the FW-190 is overmodeled, and some ways it's undermodeled. Durability of control surfaces might be improved slightly (they were fabric covered, so many bullets should just go through leaving only a small hole, rather than tumbling or exploding). Rear fuselage definitely needs to be a bit tougher. Wings and vertical stabilizer need to be made a bit more vulnerable to HMG fire.

[falconilia]

I've seen the light and have converted to the belief that the FW-190's DM is broken, at least with respect to not being able to take off its wing using .50 caliber guns.

To test this assumption, I set up a flight of friendly FW-190s, with me flying a P-47D-27, which is about as many .50 caliber guns as you're going to get on a reasonably maneuverable aircraft.

Guns converged for 300 meters. I'd pull up behind each FW-190 at 6 o'clock level, at about 100-200 m so that bullet convergence would go through the wings, and start shooting.

Arcade mode on so I could tell where my bullets were hitting.

1) It seems like a very few hits to the fuselage (5-6 hits) were sufficient to trigger the heavy damage textures and make the pilot bail out. No control cable hits from what I could tell. So, the FW-190 seems to be a bit undermodeled there.

2) A burst of a two or three bullets in the fuel tank will set the FW-190 alight. Arguably, that's a unrealistic since it should take a bit of time for fuel to leak or get splashed about before a fire can start, and most self-sealing fuel tanks could take a couple of .50 caliber bullets without leaking too badly.
But, all planes in IL2 seem to be a bit too flammable, and the FW-190 doesn't seem to be any more or less vulnerable than comparable fighters in that respect.

3) I put plenty of concentrated .50 caliber fire directly through the wings (through the spars), sufficient to trigger plenty of "heavy damage" textures to both the inboard and outboard wings. But, despite repeated attempts, I never could get the FW-190's wing to separate. I think there's a bug there, at least with respect to .50 caliber MG fire.

4) Elevators and rudder seem to be quite vulnerable to damage - heavy damage textures appear after just one or two hits. But, the vertical stabilizer itself seems to be about as invulnerable to concentrated HMG fire as the wings. (Although the AI will always bail out after elevators and rudder are shredded.)

5) Not really testing for it, since I was taking shots from the rear and aiming at the wings and rear fuselage, but while I was able to get a number of smoking engine results, I was never able to get an engine fire.

6) Again, not testing for it, and it should never be common if it is modeled, but I never got that 20mm magazine explosion I've seen in gun camera footage.

7) Armor plate is well modeled, with the plate behind the pilot repeatedly stopping .50 caliber bullets at 100-200 meter ranges. I can't speak to the accuracy of frontal armor/armor glass modeling.


Unlike you i play for years online with historical missions but with cockpit off.Gunstat is the same.you see the % hits on air or on ground.
Real players cant do so many crazy evasive or hard moves as AI does.
When they see you they usually run or turn hard so you have a good deflection shoot.
After long discussion with some friends using P51 or P47 we had some conclusions about 0.50s convergence and FWs:
200 to 300 convergence u may destroy some controls easier
300 to 500 convergence several damage to wing but also no matter how close you are you hit main fuselage tank many times.
Also engine damage but not so often.
500 to 820 lots of PK!!!,and wing damage.
Average firing distance is about 300mts.

Elevators as you said can be completely removed but ailerons can be disabled still never be removed.

Yesterday i played a QMB with a Yak3 P.
I destroyed Fws wing with ONLY 2 hits from my pair of 12.7mm!(i didnt use 20mm cannon).
That means that there is an issue between US 12.7mm and FW.
Ill try with a KI 43 Oscar but im not sure if they use US 12.7mm and not sure if i can hit it(to fast to reach it).

[RPS69]

Yesterday i played a QMB with a Yak3 P.
I destroyed Fws wing with ONLY 2 hits from my pair of 12.7mm!(i didnt use 20mm cannon).
That means that there is an issue between US 12.7mm and FW.
Ill try with a KI 43 Oscar but im not sure if they use US 12.7mm and not sure if i can hit it(to fast to reach it).

To me it seems that there is an issue with .50s... no need to catch it on the 190.

[Woke Up Dead]

Yesterday i played a QMB with a Yak3 P.
I destroyed Fws wing with ONLY 2 hits from my pair of 12.7mm!(i didnt use 20mm cannon).
That means that there is an issue between US 12.7mm and FW.
Ill try with a KI 43 Oscar but im not sure if they use US 12.7mm and not sure if i can hit it(to fast to reach it).

The Yak 3P doesn't have machine guns, it has three 20mm cannons. The Yak 3 is the one with one cannon and two mg's.

[Pursuivant]

To me it seems that there is an issue with .50s... no need to catch it on the 190.

Maybe. It seems like the .50 caliber MG has no problems starting fires or fatally damaging engines, even if it isn't so good at chewing up airframes or punching through armor. That makes it an effective weapon, especially against fighters and light bombers.

I don't think that it should be easy for .50 caliber fire to take off a wing, even off of a small fighter like the FW-190. But, it should be possible with sufficient damage. Perhaps it is, but I my gunnery skills aren't good enough.

[IceFire]

Yesterday i played a QMB with a Yak3 P.
I destroyed Fws wing with ONLY 2 hits from my pair of 12.7mm!(i didnt use 20mm cannon).
That means that there is an issue between US 12.7mm and FW.
Ill try with a KI 43 Oscar but im not sure if they use US 12.7mm and not sure if i can hit it(to fast to reach it).

As already pointed out, the Yak-3P has a 3xB-20 20mm cannon arrangement in the nose. Quite a lot of hitting power. The standard Yak-3 has two 12.7mm UBS and and one 20mm ShVAK cannon.

The Ki-43-Ic has two Ho-103 machine guns. The Ki-43-II and II-Kai also have two Ho-103 machine guns. In past patches the Ki-43-II was incorrectly armed with US .50cal machine guns but I researched and ensured that it was fixed (like the incorrect Yak-9UT armament before it) in 4.12.

[gaunt1]

Just dont forget that if you hit the FW's wing even with just a few light MG shots, you render it barely flyable! I highly doubt its realistic. This needs to be fixed too.

[RPS69]

Maybe. It seems like the .50 caliber MG has no problems starting fires or fatally damaging engines, even if it isn't so good at chewing up airframes or punching through armor. That makes it an effective weapon, especially against fighters and light bombers.

I don't think that it should be easy for .50 caliber fire to take off a wing, even off of a small fighter like the FW-190. But, it should be possible with sufficient damage. Perhaps it is, but I my gunnery skills aren't good enough.

Actually, I will really like to see any proof of severing a wing from a 190 on reality using .50s. Wings got severed not by enemy fire itself, but by a weakening of it's structure and spars that are subjected to high pressure. Also you could got the ammo rack exploded if it was simulated on il-2 at all, but it is not.
190's were really sturdy for their time. Much more so than a 109.
Even so, on the popular plane lists, it is the one that suffers more from single damage. It becomes almost impossible to land safely after any single shot on it's wings.

[KG26_Alpha]

Just dont forget that if you hit the FW's wing even with just a few light MG shots, you render it barely flyable! I highly doubt its realistic. This needs to be fixed too.

If a human is flying it yes, its time to RTB
AI seem to be less affected for some reason.

Actually, I will really like to see any proof of severing a wing from a 190 on reality using .50s. Wings got severed not by enemy fire itself, but by a weakening of it's structure and spars that are subjected to high pressure. Also you could got the ammo rack exploded if it was simulated on il-2 at all, but it is not.
190's were really sturdy for their time. Much more so than a 109.
Even so, on the popular plane lists, it is the one that suffers more from single damage. It becomes almost impossible to land safely after any single shot on it's wings.

My findings as well for a long time now,
even worse is the length of runway needed for landing now compounding the DM problem when RTBing

[IceFire]

My perspective on this has changed over time but I honestly think that everyone is making some good... no... excellent points! But this may be a case of missing the forest for the trees. The damage model has been adjusted a half dozen times over the years in an attempt to make things work. The FW190 has been one of the harder ones to get right - for whatever reason.

I suspect a variety of reasons but I think the big one staring us all right in the face is that the simulation is just not complex enough.

I think it's pretty good right now - having seen some of the worst adjustments over the years. It's not super or even great but its ok and maybe mucking around with it would only make things worse.

[Furio]

My perspective on this has changed over time but I honestly think that everyone is making some good... no... excellent points! But this may be a case of missing the forest for the trees. The damage model has been adjusted a half dozen times over the years in an attempt to make things work. The FW190 has been one of the harder ones to get right - for whatever reason.

I suspect a variety of reasons but I think the big one staring us all right in the face is that the simulation is just not complex enough.

I think it's pretty good right now - having seen some of the worst adjustments over the years. It's not super or even great but its ok and maybe mucking around with it would only make things worse.

Or, possibly, a simplification could be the answer. Generally speaking, all WWII types were very susceptible to battle damage. Yes, I know: rifle calibre machine guns were largely ineffective, and some types were able to absorb a lot of damage and return home, but that’s exactly the point: they returned home, being unable to press on combat and reach their target.

Any fighter, not just the FW190, with a 20 mm. shot in a wing or in the engine became unfit for combat.

A possible improvement (I don’t dare to say “solution”) could be to use a single damage model, with simple tweaking. An armoured engine (Il2) should resist more than an unarmoured radial, a radial engine more than a liquid cooled one. A metal wing should resist a little more than a wooden one. An unprotected fuel tank should catch fire more easily than a self-sealing one. Pilot protection with armour plates and glass should be taken in account, but that’s all. Three, four variables at most for airframe, fuel tank, engine and crew.

It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would avoid seriously “porked planes”.
To complement this simplification, an effective “return to base” routine for damaged planes should be implemented. Here also I’m not talking of complicated calculations. Any plane with serious damage should immediately quit combat and RTB.

[Pursuivant]

Actually, I will really like to see any proof of severing a wing from a 190 on reality using .50s. Wings got severed not by enemy fire itself, but by a weakening of it's structure and spars that are subjected to high pressure.

You're right, of course. It's rare that any sort of small caliber gunfire - even counting 30mm guns as "small" - directly causes structural failure.

Instead, as you point out, what happens is that the gunfire sufficiently weakens the airframe that the forces of gravity, g-forces, and air resistance take over and cause structural collapse.

If you look at combat films where an aircraft's wing fails, often you'll see a slight delay before the wing comes off. Sometimes, you'll even see the wing "fold" as it collapses. That means that the gunfire/fire just fatally weakened the wing and gravity and air pressure finished the job.

I don't know if IL2 can model progressive weakening of damaged parts. Obviously, the game models parts pulling off due to overspeed flight, but I'm not sure if the game progressively reduces the top speed and maximum G load a damaged part can sustain without failing.

For the experiments I did with the FW-190, they were mostly in level flight or making relatively low-G turns, and were never traveling at excessive speeds. So, I have no way of knowing if the FW-190's wing might have failed had it been exposed to greater stresses, assuming the game even models that sort of failure.

Also you could got the ammo rack exploded if it was simulated on il-2 at all, but it is not.

I'm pretty sure that all a hit to the 20mm cannon magazine does is trigger a "gun jammed" hit. IL2 doesn't seem to model the possibility of bullets/cannon shells exploding. To be fair, that possibility is rare, since it requires just the right circumstances for one bullet/cannon shell to make another bullet/shell explode.

190's were really sturdy for their time. Much more so than a 109.

Of course the men who flew the FW-190 thought that it was a tougher plane than the Bf-109! The FW-190 was heavier (3,200 kg for the FW-190A-8 vs. 2,247 kg for the Bf-109G-6) and the basic airframe was designed 5 years after the Bf-109's (1937 vs. 1933) giving it at least a "generation" of progressive improvements in airframe construction.

The real question is whether the FW-190 was any tougher than aircraft of equivalent quality of construction, designed in the same year, and with roughly equivalent mass. For example, should the FW-190's AIRFRAME be any tougher than that of the P-51 D (designed 1939/40, 3,465 kg empty mass) or the P-40E (designed 1938, 2,753 kg empty mass)?

Unless you have a novel structural design which was famed for its structural strength or weakness - like the geodesic wing and fuselage structure of the Wellington or the delamination problems that some of the LaGG-3 series suffered - then really all you can do is base a plane's ability to absorb punishment on its year of production and its empty mass.

Perhaps divide by the number of engines and/or omit the mass of the engines as well.

Pilot reports of relative combat durability of their aircraft have to be read skeptically, because they're based on the accounts of the men who survived and came back to tell the tale. If a plane was well-liked by its crew, they were likely to overlook its lesser faults and sing its praises. If they disliked the type, they were likely to overlook its merits.

Also, unless you're reading the reports of a test pilot or an engineering commission, where the writer(s) had a chance to examine multiple different aircraft, the writer - even if he's an experienced combat veteran - might not necessarily be in the best position to make comparisons.


Even so, on the popular plane lists, it is the one that suffers more from single damage. It becomes almost impossible to land safely after any single shot on it's wings.

I agree, this is another way that the FW-190 is messed up. Just a handful of .50 caliber bullets scattered across the wings will trigger the heavy damage texture. That seems excessive considering that each .50 caliber bullet is only going to make a thumb-sized to fist-sized hole. (huge by human standards, but less impressive scattered across several square meters of space).

In some ways it seems like it's far too easy to damage the FW-190, in other ways it seems to be invulnerable.

Too weak: Far too vulnerable to having minor wing or fuselage damage turn into serious damage. Probably a bit too vulnerable to having control surfaces shot off/seriously damaged. Perhaps a bit too vulnerable to fuel tank fires (but no more vulnerable than equivalently equipped planes in the game).

Too easy to snap the fuselage due to damage (but this is IL2's method of modeling fatal fuselage damage that renders the plane unflyable. Since IL2 can't make airframes bend or shake, it breaks them instead.)

Too strong: Seems quite difficult for heavy damage to the wing (at least from .50 caliber guns) to convert to fatal damage - either directly or by causing structural failure under G-loads. Probably far too difficult to start an engine fire. Possibly too difficult to seriously damage/destroy vertical stabilizer.

Just right: Armor modeling, cockpit/crew hits, hydraulic failure which causes landing gear to begin to extend. Engine durability (excluding fires).

Missing/Not modeled (AFAIK): Potential "critical hit" to loaded 20mm cannon magazine can cause secondary explosion sufficient to instantly separate the wing.

[Pursuivant]

The damage model has been adjusted a half dozen times over the years in an attempt to make things work. The FW190 has been one of the harder ones to get right - for whatever reason.

That is a problem. If DM creation is as tricky as I imagine it to be, all those progressive changes to DM might have introduced progressive errors as well!

Perhaps all that is needed is for all the remnants of past attempts to fix the DM model be removed.

But, assuming that getting the FW-190's DM is possible, and that the sim can handle the complexities of how a brilliantly designed, well-built, but smallish aircraft falls apart, here's what I think needs to happen for the FW-190.

These suggestions assume that DM operates on a "hit point" or "life bar" model - where damage progressively reduces a particular part's ability to take future damage in a linear fashion.

Engine: Reduce threshold between hit points required to get the "serious damage" texture/smoke, and that required for "engine fire". (Assuming those two damage results are linked.)

Wing: Slightly increase threshold required to get light damage result, increase threshold required for light damage to turn into heavy damage. Decrease threshold for heavy damage to turn into fatal damage/wing breaks.

Control surfaces: Slightly increase threshold required to get damage & destruction/part falls off result.

Vertical & horizontal stabilizer: Slightly reduce threshold required to turn heavy damage into fatal damage/part breaks off.

These changes both address the "one shot and it's unflyable" complaints of FW-190 fans, and the "you can't kill it" complaints of its opponents.

In any case, the FW-190 should be about as tough as contemporary planes of equivalent quality, design, and mass (e.g. P-51 & Spitfire). Certainly less durable than heavier aircraft like the Tempest, P-47 or F6F.

[Pursuivant]

Any fighter, not just the FW190, with a 20 mm. shot in a wing or in the engine became unfit for combat.

Generally, this is already the case. In a dogfight a single 20mm shot in the wing or engine will put you at enough of a disadvantage that it's time to find a way to disengage.

A possible improvement (I don’t dare to say “solution”) could be to use a single damage model, with simple tweaking.

I'd love to see this, since it would simplify DM production and would settle a number of arguments about whether a particular plane is "nerfed" or "uber".
Maybe it's already in place, and we peasants don't know about it.

Base "hit points" for airframe parts on aircraft empty mass, minus mass of engines and fuel tanks, divided by surface area of that part. (Surface area is easily determined in a 3D modeling program.) Modify as necessary.

Similar formulas could be used to get basic HP for engines/coolant/turbocharger systems & fuel tanks/lines.

Damage modeling to humans would be a bit more complex, but unless you get hit by shrapnel or a 3.03/.30 caliber/7.62 mm bullet you're going to be seriously wounded at best, most likely dead. That simplifies things a lot! :twisted:

Pilot protection with armour plates and glass should be taken in account, but that’s all.

IL2 already does a great job of modeling armor/armor glass. And, I believe that it actually works on real ballistic calculations of bullet energy vs. armor thickness, which makes it more accurate than any simplified model based on "hit points."

To complement this simplification, an effective “return to base” routine for damaged planes should be implemented. Here also I’m not talking of complicated calculations. Any plane with serious damage should immediately quit combat and RTB.

In Arcade Mode, a "speech bubble" pops up over the damaged aircraft when it takes enough damage that it should RTB. It actually reads "RTB". For the life of me, I can't understand why that calculation hasn't yet made it into the AI programming!

So simple. Enough damage to trigger RTB message in arcade mode = actual freakin' AI RTB routine!

[RPS69]

I don't know if IL2 can model progressive weakening of damaged parts. Obviously, the game models parts pulling off due to overspeed flight, but I'm not sure if the game progressively reduces the top speed and maximum G load a damaged part can sustain without failing.
Very good question. It does model it with a heavier load, but I don't know if it applies to damaged air frames too.

Now, you could see a lot of guncams of zeros or Ki43 planes braking wings, but it is very difficult to find one of an anton doing it.

Also, they will rarely aim at a wing, they will fire to the bulk of the plane. Wing shots are always done while diving on an unexpected foe, not from dead six. And guncams of diving shots are extremely rare to find. Specially because they don't show the enemy plane. That kind of shot is always a deflection shot.


I'm pretty sure that all a hit to the 20mm cannon magazine does is trigger a "gun jammed" hit. IL2 doesn't seem to model the possibility of bullets/cannon shells exploding. To be fair, that possibility is rare, since it requires just the right circumstances for one bullet/cannon shell to make another bullet/shell explode.

I don't know how rare it was, but ages back, in the beginnings of il-2, they invited a former German fighter pilot to test the sim, and when he find himself being fired at, the first thing he did, was emptying his magazine, even before trying to evade it's foe. Everybody was confused why he was doing that, and he clearly explained that it was for avoiding fatal hit on live ammo. He didn't know that it wasn't simmed.


Of course the men who flew the FW-190 thought that it was a tougher plane than the Bf-109! The FW-190 was heavier (3,200 kg for the FW-190A-8 vs. 2,247 kg for the Bf-109G-6) and the basic airframe was designed 5 years after the Bf-109's (1937 vs. 1933) giving it at least a "generation" of progressive improvements in airframe construction.


Actually, if you can believe the tales on osprey book aces of the FW on the eastern front, the first test the pilots themselves made was putting the 190 on a steep dive, and, after landing, count the lost rivets on the airframe.
The tale states that to their surprise, the count was zero.


The real question is whether the FW-190 was any tougher than aircraft of equivalent quality of construction, designed in the same year, and with roughly equivalent mass. For example, should the FW-190's AIRFRAME be any tougher than that of the P-51 D (designed 1939/40, 3,465 kg empty mass) or the P-40E (designed 1938, 2,753 kg empty mass)?

Tougher wings, I don't know, but smaller, for sure! Also, it's ailerons control system, was far better and sturdier than any other plane of it's time. It also helped to build stronger wings because of this particular detail.


Also, unless you're reading the reports of a test pilot or an engineering commission, where the writer(s) had a chance to examine multiple different aircraft, the writer - even if he's an experienced combat veteran - might not necessarily be in the best position to make comparisons.

Already assumed before posting


I agree, this is another way that the FW-190 is messed up. Just a handful of .50 caliber bullets scattered across the wings will trigger the heavy damage texture. That seems excessive considering that each .50 caliber bullet is only going to make a thumb-sized to fist-sized hole. (huge by human standards, but less impressive scattered across several square meters of space).

It doesn't need a handful. Sometimes even a singe shot will do the trick. Tested it with the arrows enabled.


In some ways it seems like it's far too easy to damage the FW-190, in other ways it seems to be invulnerable.

Tough, yes, invulnerable, no way. Pick 8 B17s on quick mission. at 2000m. Not historically accurate, but funnier to do. Try to down more than four, and tell me how invulnerable it is to .50s fire. It is really nice to try it.

You will suffer a lot of damage, and of different sorts.
Try the same thing with different planes, and you will have an idea which planes have weak points when YOU are flying them.
Still, american .50s are really a bad weapon to down B17s!

Keep the arrows on.

[Pursuivant]

Also, they will rarely aim at a wing, they will fire to the bulk of the plane.

Agreed, but if you get your deflection wrong while aiming at the fuselage, your bullets can go through the wings.


I don't know how rare it was, but ages back, in the beginnings of il-2, they invited a former German fighter pilot to test the sim, and when he find himself being fired at, the first thing he did, was emptying his magazine

That's good evidence that the more experienced German pilots knew of the "bug," so it must be more common than I assumed.

The reason I called out bullets/shells exploding bullets/shells as being rare is that in order to get a secondary explosion, you need to have an explosive bullet that hits the propellant or explosive charge, or a direct hit on the primer within the bullet, to make it detonate. Otherwise, the bullet/shell hit just tears up the other bullet/shell, which just causes a stoppage.

Also, with a typical aircraft ammo belting, you're only going to have a fraction of bullets/shells which are APE (rarely HE). That means you've typically got a 20%-33% chance that any bullet that hits ammo will be APE, and a 25-33% chance that the bullet/shell it hits will be APE.

So, low odds, but higher than getting hit by lightning or winning the lottery.

But, packing all your bullets/shells into a magazine (like FW-190's cannon shell magazine) will increase the chance that an APE bullet will hit something that causes a secondary explosion, so the odds go up a bit.

To simplify things, lets say there's a 10% chance that any hit to a magazine by an explosive bullet will cause a secondary explosion, multiplied by the percentage of HE bullets in the magazine. With 25% explosive rounds for both attacker and target, that works out to a 0.625% chance that any given bullet hit to a magazine will cause a secondary explosion.

Basically, a lucky hit rather than a certainty, even if you're an amazing shot.


Actually, if you can believe the tales on osprey book aces of the FW on the eastern front, the first test the pilots themselves made was putting the 190 on a steep dive, and, after landing, count the lost rivets on the airframe.
The tale states that to their surprise, the count was zero.

The factors that affect airframe durability are: design quality, construction quality, & quality of materials.

Early war German aircraft were beautifully constructed, which is why monthly aircraft production totals were low(ish). The same could be said for pre-war/early war aircraft constructed by other advanced economies, as well as many prototypes.

Massively mass-produced aircraft, especially those constructed from inferior materials, had inferior - or at least uneven - construction. Pilots of the era will tell you that no two aircraft flew exactly the same, even if they came off the same assembly line.

Giving the FW-190A the benefit of the doubt, I'd call it superior in terms of design, superior in construction quality, but average in terms of materials (at least for much of the war). Later war versions were probably only average in construction quality.

By contrast: P-51D = superior design, average construction quality (Rosie the Riveter was highly motivated, but she was new to the job), with average to superior materials. LaGG-3 = Superior design (precursor to the well-loved and rugged La-5), average to poor construction quality (and quite variable!), average to poor materials.


Tougher wings, I don't know, but smaller, for sure! Also, it's ailerons control system, was far better and sturdier than any other plane of it's time.

Control system =/ control surface area. The FW-190 should be a bit more resilient vs. aileron control damage. Control surfaces are a different story, since they're fabric covered.

The game doesn't distinguish between fabric-covered surfaces vs. surfaces with a skin of some solid material like wood or aluminum. Fabric-covered surfaces shouldn't trigger bullet/cannon shell explosions, should be much more vulnerable to fire, and to the effects of nearby internal explosions. Wood or steel frame with doped canvas construction should also have fewer overall "hit points" than for monococque construction.

Fabric covered control surfaces should be slightly less responsive at high speeds, and more prone to damage due to overspeed. (The fabric could deform or tear under stress.)



It doesn't need a handful. Sometimes even a singe shot will do the trick. Tested it with the arrows enabled.

This a problem common to all aircraft in the game. IL2 damage textures are merely "artist's interpretations" of actual damage results. With Arcade Mode on, you can get some really strange results. For example, in a some cases, the damage textures will actually show more holes in the plane than the actual number of actual bullets that hit it!

I think you could make a good case that the damage threshold required to trigger any sort of damage to fuselage, wings, tail or control surfaces, for all planes, should be considerably higher for .30 caliber or .50 caliber bullets. Those weapons were fine for killing people, damaging engines and starting fires, but were never intended to blast vehicles apart.

But, there also needs to be some degree of progressive weakening of damaged parts so even .30 caliber bullets can make a plane fall apart if it subsequently pulls extreme Gs or goes overspeed.


Tough, yes, invulnerable, no way. Pick 8 B17s on quick mission. at 2000m. Not historically accurate, but funnier to do. Try to down more than four, and tell me how invulnerable it is to .50s fire. It is really nice to try it.

You'll get no argument from me, but it's a matter of how you die. I've flown this sort of mission dozens of times over the years and generally end up with a dead/dying engine or pilot. Less commonly a flaming fuel tank or chewed up wing that keeps me from keeping up with the bomber formation. Its very unusual to get a wing failure, however.


Still, american .50s are really a bad weapon to down B17s!


That's the thing that US 0.50 caliber fanboys forget. .50 caliber/12.7 mm guns suck against any sturdily-built medium to heavy bomber.

The US military standardized on the M2 as their preferred aerial weapon because it was their most reliable weapon, because it simplified supply chain problems, and most importantly, because US pilots were almost always on the offensive, flying long range missions (where ammo quantity is as important as weight of fire) where the opposition was usually enemy fighters.

By contrast, nations whose air forces had to play defense against medium or heavy bombers (read: everybody except the US), or who wanted effective "tank buster" aircraft, quickly learned that the 20 mm or 30 mm cannon was the preferred tool for the job.

For bomber interceptors, the US got the message, too, which is why planes like the F6F-5N, P-61 & F7F were armed with cannons.

[gaunt1]

Actually, the .50 was nothing specatacular even against fighters. What made them effective, the number of them. 6-8 such machineguns were more than enough, but the cost was lots of weight.

[Janosch]

I took tail gunner shots from an Il-2 (apparently 12,7 mm bullets) on my Fw-190 A6 wing. The left wingtip/emblem area looked very, very ugly - bullet holes and large dark splotches. With such damage, fighting is pretty much out of the question, but the plane is far from unflyable, and landing requires just a bit more caution than usually, so that the plane doesn't roll left when you least expect it! My wheels touched down roughly at 45% of standard grass runway length, and the plane came to full stop at 96%, give or take a few percent. I'd say that's good enough for a damaged plane. In lab conditions, the landing distance needed is naturally shorter.

If a plane was well-liked by its crew, they were likely to overlook its lesser faults and sing its praises.

Or maybe there were no faults at all, and they were very musical people. I haven't come across a Focke Wulf - Lied, though ;)

[KG26_Alpha]

A typical FW190 discussion from years ago, there's been plenty of them around over the years.

Lol post#107 from this old discussion on FW190 refers to old DM discussions around that time.

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/563268-WWII-veteran-FW-190A-pilot-opinion-of-Il-2-s-FW-190A-series-Forums

[Pursuivant]

I took tail gunner shots from an Il-2 (apparently 12,7 mm bullets) on my Fw-190 A6 wing. The left wingtip/emblem area looked very, very ugly - bullet holes and large dark splotches.

That's the "heavy damage" texture.


With such damage, fighting is pretty much out of the question, but the plane is far from unflyable, and landing requires just a bit more caution than usually, so that the plane doesn't roll left when you least expect it!

That's my experience, too.

But, the issue is how much damage is required to trigger the wing heavy damage texture, not just for the FW-190, but also for other planes of equivalent size and construction.

I think that the .30/.303 cal/7.62 mm MG is way to effective in inflicting airframe damage in the game, and that the .50 cal/12.7 mm MG is somewhat too effective. The 20 & 30 mm cannons seem about right in terms of the damage they inflict.

[gaunt1]

I think that the .30/.303 cal/7.62 mm MG is way to effective in inflicting airframe damage in the game, and that the .50 cal/12.7 mm MG is somewhat too effective. The 20 & 30 mm cannons seem about right in terms of the damage they inflict.

soviet 12.7 is underpowered currently. For 20mm, some are good (Hispano, MG-151, some are vastly overpowered (ShVAK), some are a bit weak (certain japanese guns)

[Pursuivant]

soviet 12.7 is underpowered currently. For 20mm, some are good (Hispano, MG-151, some are vastly overpowered (ShVAK), some are a bit weak (certain japanese guns)

Presumably, they all use some sort of calculation for weight of fire, based on bullet mass, muzzle velocity & ballistic coefficient. While there might be other elements of how a bullet inflicts damage based on terminal ballistics (e.g., likelihood of tumbling or shattering on impact), that seems like the best way to do it.

My point wasn't that some heavy MG are comparatively over- or underpowered, its that I think there's a good argument to be made that ALL HMG are a bit overpowered in their ability to inflict airframe damage.

[RPS69]

When I posted about 190 wings having their ammo exploded, got curious and checked available guncams videos to see what was over there.

This one:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKbQqTeGcL4

look at 1:25, and 1:27

You could see a clear explosion on the wing. It just doesn't break, it exploded.

I find just one more with an exploding wing. All the other guncams were with smoking planes. IF there are someone over there that could post some more examples will be nice.

[KG26_Alpha]

That video, along with others, has been done to death in the past regarding FW wings exploding.

But would it mean all aircraft with wing ammo are classed the same damage wise.

Or just the Fw190 !!

03:10
04:18

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyeltf58BaU

[RPS69]

Funny, or those videos got some cut and paste, or I'm getting some deja vu on those broken wings.

They always break on the same place. It looks like some repetitive damage on an arcade game.

I will look for videos from the german guncams, but they look really worst than the american ones.

Also, the idea was to see .50's breaking wings.

My point, is that they may, if they hit the ammo rack.

[KG26_Alpha]

Gun cam is only a tiny portion of the actual fight.

We wont know the whole story about the kills we see.

Modelling the game from gun cam would not be a good idea.

[Furio]

We should not be surprised to see wings broke at a certain place. As tough as it can be, any wing has its weakest point, and it will fail there most of the time.

In these gun cam footage, we see wing breaking more or less at mid wingspan, where FW main spar has a bend to the rear, to make room for the landing gear, and where usually is installed an MGFF cannon with 60 rounds drum magazine, both having a significant mass. Outboard of mid span, then, there is the aileron with its bending moment.

Summing up all these factors, we can guess here we have wing’s weakest point, but, as KG said above, this means nothing. What matters is how much weak it is, when hit by machine gun or cannon fire.

[Pursuivant]

They always break on the same place. It looks like some repetitive damage on an arcade game.

This was exactly the point I was trying to make about the vulnerability of the 20 mm ammo magazine in the FW-190's wing.

This is confirmed not just by gun camera footage, but also by anecdotal evidence from a LW veteran who flew the FW-190 in combat.

If you look at a cutaway drawing of the FW-190A:

http://photobucket.com/images/fw%20190%20cutaway%20drawing

You will notice that there is a drum-style 20mm ammo magazine just outboard of the the landing gear, right next to one of the wing spars.

Compare that to where the gun camera footage shows the wing breaking/exploding and there's a pretty good correlation.

Any plane which carries box or drum-style magazines filled with HE or APEX rounds, not just the FW-190, should be vulnerable to a "critical hit" which causes some or all of the remaining ammo to explode, but only if they are hit by an explosive round. Planes which carry belts of HE or APEX ammo should also be vulnerable, but only one bullet/shell should explode.

But, in terms of the .50 caliber effectiveness against airframes, IL2 makes it too easy to cause airframe damage.

For example, take a close look at the video cited above:

0:15 - 0:22 Bf-109. Hits observed on fuselage, no parts fall off, not obvious damage. Likely result: damaged.
0:23 - 0:27 FW-190. As above. Likely result: damaged.
0:28 - 0:47 Bf-109. Hits observed on fuselage, fuel tank leakage, then engine damage (smoke), final shot shows flames & plane in slow rolling dive, CK
0:48 - 0:51 Bf-109. Hits observed on fuselage, fuel tank/coolant leak, inverted spin but regains control. Likely result: damaged.
0:52 - 1:10 FW-190. No hits observed, but pilot bails out due to morale failure/poor tactical position, CK
1:11 - 1:23 FW-190. Hits observed on fuselage, further hits cause engine smoke or fuel/coolant leak, next frame shows fuel tank explosion, CK
1:24 - 1:29 FW-190. Hits observed on wing, ammo magazine blows up severing wing, CK
1:30- 1:33 FW-190, Hits observed on fuselage, fuel tank explosion, CK

Notice what's missing?

NO GREAT BIG HOLES IN THE AIRFRAME. NO AIRFRAME FAILURE (without secondary explosion). EVEN THE CONTROL SURFACES STAY PUT!

IMO, it should be just about impossible to make an airplane fall apart using .30 caliber guns, and very difficult to do so using .50 caliber guns. Heavy damage textures should be very difficult to trigger using .30 caliber guns and somewhat difficult using 0.50 calibers. This isn't just the FW-190, its just about all the planes in the game.

The exceptions are:

Any caliber weapon should be able to cause secondary explosions which can tear a plane apart.

Any caliber weapon should cause progressive airframe weakening which can cause airframe failure if the target plane subsequently attempts to fly at maximum speed (or overspeed) or attempts to pull high G maneuvers.

0.50 caliber guns might be able to break the airframe on a relatively small, lightly built aircraft, particularly one which isn't fully aerobatic (i.e., not stressed to cope with more than 3 g positive or -1 G negative).

[Pursuivant]

Gun cam is only a tiny portion of the actual fight.

While gun camera films don't capture the approach and maneuver phases of the engagement, and fail to capture very high deflection shots, they still can be quite valuable.

They are a very good method of understanding how pilots historically made their attacks (notice the huge preponderance of low-deflection, close range shots?), and how the target planes respond when attacked (notice how very few late war German pilots don't immediately break when fired on?) which is valuable for AI programming.

For damage modeling, gun camera footage is a good method of getting the damage effects right.

[Pursuivant]

A typical FW190 discussion from years ago, there's been plenty of them around over the years.

Lol post#107 from this old discussion on FW190 refers to old DM discussions around that time.

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/563268-WWII-veteran-FW-190A-pilot-opinion-of-Il-2-s-FW-190A-series-Forums

That discussion thread actually pulls in a lot of good evidence - although much of it anecdotal - about how the FW-190 flew and took damage.

That's good for players learning how to fly the plane, and for mission builders, but not so good for developers. Anecdotes are useless there. Instead, what we need is numbers, ideally statistics, and perhaps good photographs.

The exceptions might be reports by very experienced test pilots. For example, I might take Eric Brown's or Hanna Reitsch's opinions at face value.

For pilots with less experience flying different aircraft types, what's valuable is simpler numbers about the planes they knew best. For example, if Robert Johnson said that the P-47C-10 could go X mph at 20,000' at Y inches of manifold pressure, then he's probably right.

But that only applies to flight modeling. DM modeling is a can of worms. There's just no way it can be as realistic as FM since we literally lack the tools to model it correctly. All you can do is get it "in the ballpark," relative to other planes.

[RPS69]

NO GREAT BIG HOLES IN THE AIRFRAME. NO AIRFRAME FAILURE (without secondary explosion). EVEN THE CONTROL SURFACES STAY PUT!

IMO, it should be just about impossible to make an airplane fall apart using .30 caliber guns, and very difficult to do so using .50 caliber guns. Heavy damage textures should be very difficult to trigger using .30 caliber guns and somewhat difficult using 0.50 calibers. This isn't just the FW-190, its just about all the planes in the game.

The exceptions are:

Any caliber weapon should be able to cause secondary explosions which can tear a plane apart.

Any caliber weapon should cause progressive airframe weakening which can cause airframe failure if the target plane subsequently attempts to fly at maximum speed (or overspeed) or attempts to pull high G maneuvers.

0.50 caliber guns might be able to break the airframe on a relatively small, lightly built aircraft, particularly one which isn't fully aerobatic (i.e., not stressed to cope with more than 3 g positive or -1 G negative).

Totally in agreement.

[majorfailure]

Still, american .50s are really a bad weapon to down B17s!

It is not the weapon of choice - but one good, concentrated burst to vulnerable areas (B-17:fuel tanks, engines, pilot(s))-does still hurt or kill - even fat cars.
soviet 12.7 is underpowered currently.
My feeling is different, if you have a stable gunnery platform, the UB is IMHO on par with other HMGs - you can make quite a mess of German planes with only one UB the usually give you in a YAK. Yak3 has two UB, even better, MiG-3 too - and there they suck balls, and I think it is because MiG-3 is so unstable and the white tracers are not very useful for correcting aim, too.

[gaunt1]

you can make quite a mess of German planes

You can make a mess of german planes with just about everything. They are so weak. Test it against tougher planes.

[KG26_Alpha]

This was exactly the point I was trying to make about the vulnerability of the 20 mm ammo magazine in the FW-190's wing.

This is confirmed not just by gun camera footage, but also by anecdotal evidence from a LW veteran who flew the FW-190 in combat.


The comments made by the pilot were with reference to the FW190 A-8 and the Mk108 wing canons.

If he was caught low on return to base he would empty (fire) the wing Mk108's in case of enemy attack from behind and above.

iirc.

:)

[Pursuivant]

You can make a mess of german planes with just about everything. They are so weak. Test it against tougher planes.

I wouldn't call the German planes "weak." Most of them seem to be more or less right - but with odd inconsistencies.

What might be an issue is that the basic DM for many of them is OLD, in some cases dating back to the original IL2 Sturmovik game. There are probably a lot of simplifications and inconsistencies still lurking there, waiting to be bug stomped.

[RPS69]

Just find some time to spend testing .50's on lots of planes.

I used a B25 rear gunner, and each time placed a different plane at it's rear on the runaway.

Planes I tested that won't break a wing:

FW190 A&D
Bf110
P51
P47
P38
F4U1
F6F
F4F
F2A

Planes that will break it:

Bf109
A6M
Spitfire
Tempest
P40
P39
La5
Yak9

I also tested the other thread beginner theory about 190 no taking fire when hitting their engine with .50's.

190 Do take fire, but it is represented on the cabin.
All other airplanes will also take fire, but it will be showed on different places, not necessary on their engines.

So... it is not a 190 issue.

Now, if you hit the wing, even the AI at some point, on any of those planes, will lost control of it.
Also, 109's do break their wings with .50's, but doing so on a moving target it is much more difficult than when stationary. The amount of well placed and consecutive shots are difficult to achieve(as the P40 or spitfire)

Only the Zero it's much more fragile to the .50's. A well placed burst will break it easily.

If someone is interested, this is the test mission

[MAIN]
MAP SandsOfTime/load.ini
TIME 12.0
CloudType 0
CloudHeight 1000.0
player r0100
army 1
playerNum 0
[SEASON]
Year 1940
Month 6
Day 15
[WEATHER]
WindDirection 0.0
WindSpeed 0.0
Gust 0
Turbulence 0
[MDS]
MDS_Radar_SetRadarToAdvanceMode 0
MDS_Radar_RefreshInterval 0
MDS_Radar_DisableVectoring 0
MDS_Radar_EnableTowerCommunications 1
MDS_Radar_ShipsAsRadar 0
MDS_Radar_ShipRadar_MaxRange 100
MDS_Radar_ShipRadar_MinHeight 100
MDS_Radar_ShipRadar_MaxHeight 5000
MDS_Radar_ShipSmallRadar_MaxRange 25
MDS_Radar_ShipSmallRadar_MinHeight 0
MDS_Radar_ShipSmallRadar_MaxHeight 2000
MDS_Radar_ScoutsAsRadar 0
MDS_Radar_ScoutRadar_MaxRange 2
MDS_Radar_ScoutRadar_DeltaHeight 1500
MDS_Radar_HideUnpopulatedAirstripsFromMinimap 0
MDS_Radar_ScoutGroundObjects_Alpha 5
MDS_Radar_ScoutCompleteRecon 0
MDS_Misc_DisableAIRadioChatter 0
MDS_Misc_DespawnAIPlanesAfterLanding 1
MDS_Misc_HidePlayersCountOnHomeBase 0
MDS_Misc_BombsCat1_CratersVisibilityMultiplier 1.0
MDS_Misc_BombsCat2_CratersVisibilityMultiplier 1.0
MDS_Misc_BombsCat3_CratersVisibilityMultiplier 1.0
[RespawnTime]
Bigship 1800
Ship 1800
Aeroanchored 1800
Artillery 1800
Searchlight 1800
[Wing]
r0100
r0101
[r0100]
Planes 1
Skill 1
Class air.B_25J1
Fuel 100
weapons default
[r0100_Way]
TAKEOFF 14379.60 26740.23 0 0 &0
NORMFLY 13827.45 26741.52 500.00 300.00 &0
[r0101]
Planes 1
Skill 1
Class air.FW_190D9
Fuel 100
weapons default
[r0101_Way]
TAKEOFF 14379.60 26740.23 0 0 &0
NORMFLY 13836.59 26750.66 500.00 300.00 &0
[NStationary]
[Buildings]
[Bridge]
[House]

[Pursuivant]

Just find some time to spend testing .50's on lots of planes.

Brilliant! A very clever method of testing.

I used a B25 rear gunner, and each time placed a different plane at it's rear on the runaway.

B-25 rear guns are equal to those of most other US medium or heavy bombers - twin .50 calibers - so good choice.

Planes I tested that won't break a wing:

Good data. But, two minor complaints.

How many bullets does it take to break the wings of the planes whose wings will break?

Shooting at planes on the ground also means that its wings are under exactly 1 G of positive pressure for the entire period. Assuming that IL2 models it, that means that there's no way to test whether a wing will fail due to damage when subjected to G loads.

Further experiment idea: Try the same thing with the G4M "Betty" and see how well suspect planes fare against a 20 mm cannon. If you can't eventually break wings with a 20 mm cannon, that means there's a serious DM problem.

For the planes whose wings can't be broken off by .50 caliber fire, it seems odd that the P-40 and the Tempest are on the list. Both were regarded as being quite rugged.


I also tested the other thread beginner theory about 190 no taking fire when hitting their engine with .50's.

190 Do take fire, but it is represented on the cabin.

That might just represent a fuel tank fire, since the FW-190 is angled up when its on the ground, possibly allowing bullets to hit just below the engine so they pass through the fuel tank.

All other airplanes will also take fire, but it will be showed on different places, not necessary on their engines.

Again, is this due to actual engine fire, or due to hits to the fuel tanks?


Only the Zero it's much more fragile to the .50's. A well placed burst will break it easily.

This seems to be realistic. There are many reports of US pilots causing Zeroes, especially the A6M2 series, to break up in midair using just .50 caliber bullets. But, that might just be wing tanks exploding.

[RPS69]

Well, I didn`t count the bullets, but on planes that won't break their wings, you could keep firing at them for almost two minutes with unlimited ammo on, and they won't break. I just got bored holding the trigger.

All the others got a reasonable time to happen, and the Zero was specially fast.

Actually the Zero was the only one I could make it happen on a dogfight.

The others require an almost impossible sustained fire on them.

[Pursuivant]

Well, I didn`t count the bullets, but on planes that won't break their wings, you could keep firing at them for almost two minutes with unlimited ammo on, and they won't break. I just got bored holding the trigger.

That's pretty good evidence! :)


The others require an almost impossible sustained fire on them.

That makes sense. You have to punch a whole lot of half inch wide (i.e., .50 caliber sized) holes into a vehicle to make it fall apart on its own.

[Pursuivant]

I would say that this picture is proof that it's currently impossible to start an engine fire in the FW-190A-4.

Using RPS69's test mission as a base, I changed the flyable plane to the G4M-11. From the rear gunner's position I blasted away at the FW-190A-4 parked behind me with a 20mm cannon at point blank range. Typically, just 10-15 seconds of fire was sufficient to "vaporize" the target.

All shots hit, all of them hit the engine, although shrapnel from explosions quickly killed the pilot and caused heavy damage textures to engine and fuselage. In all cases, the engine almost immediately stops working and starts to smoke slightly. But, in several different trials I never got an engine fire result.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=15114&stc=1&d=1441891628

Edit: Also true for all other variants of the FW-190A in the game. Interestingly, I found that after I cease fire for a sufficiently long time for the "arcade arrows" to disappear, the FW-190 vanishes as well. So, it's possible to vaporize the target plane without ever setting it on fire!

[KG26_Alpha]

I don't see why thees so much emphasis on setting the FW190A engine on fire, the engines useless mechanically by then,
and inside the cockpit you see smoke from the engine,
perhaps set up the full list of in game ac and go through each one with the tail gunner 20mm as the reference point and create a list :)

Or is this a FW190 witch hunt :)

Just a very quick test :)

Fw190A has same wing damage as P47 regarding 0.50 cals, they wont cut off either,
but you can still fly with reasonable control unlike the FW190's few wing hits and game over RTB.

Unless the Betty 20mm is that much different from Hispanos & MGFF i don't see it being that far off a reasonable comparison DM test on the ground.

Wings Off 1-2 second burst 20mm Same for P47

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v119/alpha1/fw190%20wing%20cut_zpskus2mlv6.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/alpha1/media/fw190%20wing%20cut_zpskus2mlv6.jpg.html)

[RPS69]

At he start of the thread, the original poster complained about 190's wings not breaking while under .50s fire.
I tested it with 20mm, and all break fine.

Still, with .50s there are lots of planes that won't break, not just the 190.

Also as you said, 190's are the ones that suffer the most on their capacity to keep in combat after a single .50 shot on a wing. This was always wrong.

So the conclusion is that this whole thing have nothing to do with the 190, but with planes that are impossible to break their wings with .50s

If the aircraft damage tables are equal to the ground objects, it may happen as with the BK37 vs KV1. They can't penetrate their upper armor, no matter what, because there is a table stating so.

[Pursuivant]

I don't see why thees so much emphasis on setting the FW190A engine on fire, the engines useless mechanically by then

It's the difference between gliding home and getting roasted alive in the cockpit if you don't bail out. Isn't that important?

perhaps set up the full list of in game ac and go through each one with the tail gunner 20mm as the reference point and create a list :)

That's exactly what I'm doing on another thread, although I'm starting with .50 caliber guns. It might sound like BS, but I'm getting some very interesting results. In particular, the US Navy fighters from Pacific Fighters have some strange wing breakage issues. It seems like you have to hit them in just the right spot to knock their wings off.

Fw190A has same wing damage as P47 regarding 0.50 cals, they wont cut off either, but you can still fly with reasonable control unlike the FW190's few wing hits and game over RTB.

Yep, that's a problem. It should be possible, if difficult, to take the P-47's wing off. And, the FW-190 should be a bit more controllable if its wing is heavily damaged.

Unless the Betty 20mm is that much different from Hispanos & MGFF i don't see it being that far off a reasonable comparison DM test on the ground.

I chose the Betty for expediency, because it's the one flyable plane in the game that has a 20mm tail gun (at at least the first one that popped into my head).

[gaunt1]

Maybe try with Pe-8. That has ShVAK, the strongest 20mm of the game.

[Jumoschwanz]

I was flying a FW190 this past weekend and an allied aircraft made an off-angle shot and sprayed me with his fifties. It apparently took out my prop governor because when I tried to use throttle it over-revved and then quit running.

All the different WWII aircraft were just that, different. They were made in different parts of the world with different materials and designed by different engineers.

Anyone that comes along and cries when one aircraft is not the same as another is simply ignorant in many areas.

[Ice_Eagle]

And, the FW-190 should be a bit more controllable if its wing is heavily damaged.
FW-190 pilots had a specific set of complex instructions on what to do in their
heavily damaged 190:

1. Jettison canopy
2. Bail

Source: Horst Petzschler

[Pursuivant]

I was flying a FW190 this past weekend and an allied aircraft made an off-angle shot and sprayed me with his fifties. It apparently took out my prop governor because when I tried to use throttle it over-revved and then quit running.

That might not be a special damage effect, but just the way that IL2 models the death of the FW-190s engine due to cumulative damage. There are several other planes in the game which have similar "engine death" effects.

But, if that effect is actually modeled, it's a nice bit of work.


All the different WWII aircraft were just that, different. They were made in different parts of the world with different materials and designed by different engineers.

Partially agreed, but the materials and construction techniques of the era were more or less the same, although quality certainly did vary. Those facts can be used to give us a baseline for airframe durability, and possibly engine durability.

My damage model testing has also shown that there are some huge discrepancies between a plane's ability to take damage in the game as compared to a similar plane's ability to absorb damage. For example, identical engines can vary widely in their ability to take damage depending on which aircraft they're mounted in.

[Pursuivant]

FW-190 pilots had a specific set of complex instructions on what to do in their heavily damaged 190:

1. Jettison canopy
2. Bail

Yes, but what counts as heavy damage? And, why is it that no amount of .50 caliber MG fire can break the wing of a FW-190 or P-51, when its possible for .50 caliber MG to break the wing of a Spitfire MkIX, a P-63, or a dozen other fighters of similar vintage and size?

The way that IL2 models wing damage and breakage seems to be highly subjective, and wings seem to be far more fragile than they should be.

My guess is that this is because IL2 doesn't have a mechanism for modeling progressive weakening of a given part due to damage, nor a method of accurately modeling the effects of G-forces and air resistance on those damaged parts.

[Ice_Eagle]

And, why is it that no amount of .50 caliber MG fire can break the wing of a FW-190
Notice the P-51's in the background ;)

http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee380/ASYLUM_thirteen/grab1524_zpsaku5bqc1.jpg~original

[Pursuivant]

Then it appears that IL2 actually does have some mechanism that allows wing failure due to air resistance or G forces, because shooting at a static target it is IMPOSSIBLE to remove a FW-190's wing using .50 cal BMG fire.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=15136&stc=1&d=1445185349

[Ice_Eagle]

Statics use an entirely different damage model. And to be honest, I'm just happy
that they blowup/burn when strafing an airfield. Its not like your sitting there
in a helicopter continually shooting at a 190's wing. :)

[RPS69]

Hmmm... try to break it without the mortars. Maybe what is modeled is the mortar explosion there.
You could check it on the ground too, Pursuivant.

[Pursuivant]

Statics use an entirely different damage model.

Sorry that I wasn't clearer. In my test mission I use the flying models. I just have them start on the ground so that I have a very close range, non-moving target so that there can be no mistakes about what part I hit, how often I hit, and whether a particular gun loses effectiveness at range.

I also use Arcade Mode so I can determine exactly where my bullets hit, and what effect my firing has on AI.

Yes, it's a very artificial test environment, but it's taught me a lot about the IL2 damage model and about how the actual planes were built.


So, I repeat: on the ground, against a flyable FW-190, it is impossible to break that aircraft's wing using .50 caliber BMG. I've tested this something like 25 times now and I always get the same result.


Where I'm obviously wrong is that it appears that IL2 actually does have some mechanism where parts weakened by gunfire can break under G-stress or high speeds. That's very good news indeed.

Now if they just extend that same effect to fires rather than having a "plane explodes" effect set to trigger sometime after the plane is set on fire.

[RPS69]

Hey Ice, you sure this was unmodded?

I couldn't repeat your results on more than 100 trials with friendly targets.

[Pursuivant]

Hmmm... try to break it without the mortars. Maybe what is modeled is the mortar explosion there.
You could check it on the ground too, Pursuivant.

Done, using the FW-190A-4 in my test mission environment, although I only made two trials.

In both cases, the Wgr.21 didn't cause wing breakage because the rocket is immune to weapon fire. It has no DM.

That means that my guess in my previous post seems more likely - IL2 actually has some mechanism that allows parts weakened by damage to break under G-stress or high air resistance.

If so, that's really good news. Not only is it realistic, but a very similar effect could be used to simulate progressive damage and weakening of surrounding parts due to fires.

(Currently, it appears that fires either burn forever, burn until the plane's fuel runs out, or burn for some number of seconds until they trigger an explosion, depending on the plane.)

[majorfailure]

(Currently, it appears that fires either burn forever, burn until the plane's fuel runs out, or burn for some number of seconds until they trigger an explosion, depending on the plane.)

I think there are two stages of fire - at least for fuel tanks. One that burns forever, and does not do any damage, and another that eventually will lead to explosion of the tank. And I also think it is now possible that a fire reaches "second stage" on its own. Also it is possible to turn fire stage one into full blown with only a (few) hit(s) of incendiary ammo.

[Pursuivant]

I think there are two stages of fire - at least for fuel tanks. One that burns forever, and does not do any damage, and another that eventually will lead to explosion of the tank. And I also think it is now possible that a fire reaches "second stage" on its own. Also it is possible to turn fire stage one into full blown with only a (few) hit(s) of incendiary ammo.

My guess is that IL2's damage model includes the option to include special effects which can include explosions. They might be timed ("10 seconds and then explosion"), they might be a random chance over time ("1% chance every second the fire continues), or they might be a cumulative chance over time ("1% chance of explosion +1% every second").

But, since the .sfs and buttons files are some of the most closely held information in the game - even on the modding sites.

[Ice_Eagle]

Hey Ice, you sure this was unmodded?

I couldn't repeat your results on more than 100 trials with friendly targets.
The damage models on the 190's were bone stock. With Wgr.21 attached I can break, or something breaks the wing. Without Wgr.21 attached I cannot break the wing. I killed the pilot, engine, rudder, fin, elevators, ailerons, landing gear, but the wings remained intact. :lol: So Pursuivant is on to something here.

[majorfailure]

The damage models on the 190's were bone stock. With Wgr.21 attached I can break, or something breaks the wing. Without Wgr.21 attached I cannot break the wing. I killed the pilot, engine, rudder, fin, elevators, ailerons, landing gear, but the wings remained intact. :lol: So Pursuivant is on to something here.

Can you break the wings when there are 50kg bombs attached? Wings on weaker planes are breakable by only the force gravity and mass of attachments generate. Extremely easy to do with Hs129, if done well you can lose both wings simultaneously. So maybe the wings of Fw190 are weakened under fire to a point where they can no longer support the additional load of attachment under the gravitational pull?

[Pursuivant]

Can you break the wings when there are 50kg bombs attached? Wings on weaker planes are breakable by only the force gravity and mass of attachments generate.

I don't think that parts can be broken by gravity alone - at least when I'm shooting at static models.

IL2 doesn't model the sort of sagging or bending you'd see if the airframe was failing due to gravity. Instead, broken parts often fly off stationary (flyable) aircraft in extremely unrealistic fashion.

But, the idea that wings might break under the strain of ordinance on their wings might have merit.

On the ground, I've seen no evidence that ordinance mounted on wing hardpoints affects wing breakage. But, what might be going on is that the game models increased wind resistance due to external ordinance and that combines with other damage effects to break wings. Sort of a combination of my guess and your guess.

[RPS69]

I don't think that parts can be broken by gravity alone - at least when I'm shooting at static models.

But, the idea that wings might break under the strain of ordinance on their wings might have merit.


Actually, if you take a very step dive and climb with heavy ordenance on your plane, your wings will fall of. This is so since 4.10 or 4.11. (Don't remember well since when this started).

You can't reproduce that while on ground.

[majorfailure]

Actually, if you take a very step dive and climb with heavy ordenance on your plane, your wings will fall of. This is so since 4.10 or 4.11. (Don't remember well since when this started).

You can't reproduce that while on ground.

Yes, I remember, before the patch I used to do steep bombing attacks with external loads attached in an A-20. A few and some more A-20 were lost due to catastrophic wing fractures before I learned to either not carry external loads, or to remember them.

[KG26_Alpha]

A20 = classic wing breaker.

[Pursuivant]

A20 = classic wing breaker.

Makes sense. Although the A-20 handled like a fighter in many ways, it was not fully aerobatic. All the training materials warn pilots of this fact.

[falconilia]

Good morning Guys.
Right now my free time is limited so i dont have time to respond often.
So ill try to set my opinion in few lines.

Im sure 0.50s cant destroy FWs wing as P47s or P40s as you said.
But im focus to FW because i dont meet Allied planes as enemies on single games or on net.Also in RL was impossible as well.
I think i cant brake KI61s wing BUT i can destroy it in other ways as it has it weakneses as most planes.
For example.When i shoot BF109 i will destroy his engine or wing -ME110:engines -A6m:wing fuel or engine - KI43:wing - KI61:engine -D9:engine - KI84 engine or fuel tank - N1K:engine or wings(hard but duable) - KI100:engine..........FW190a: ??????(luck?):-P:-P:-P

Witch engine is more durable? P47s,F6fs or FWs?try to shoot a P47 and you will see its engine burning like hell.

Finaly my conclusion about wing damage is that the trigger set about wing brake is broken or off.
Minor damage :1-10 bullets
Moderate damage:11-25 bullets
Heavy Damage :26-unlimited bullets
(Number of bullets are just a guess not true)

Pursuivant id like to thank you for your time and all the test you made and will do!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Pursuivant]

Whitch engine is more durable? P47s, F6fs or FWs?try to shoot a P47 and you will see its engine burning like hell.

This is a problem I've mentioned before. The same engine takes damage differently depending on the plane it's mounted in.

For example, the P&W R-2800 engine was used by the P-47, F6F and F4U. The cooling and supercharging system for the engine was a bit different for each plane, with the P-47 having the most complex supercharging and cooling system, but the engine was more or less identical.

But, in the game, the P-47's engine is the toughest, then the F6F, then the F4U. Same engine, three different damage results.


Finaly my conclusion about wing damage is that the trigger set about wing brake is broken or off.
Minor damage :1-10 bullets
Moderate damage:11-25 bullets
Heavy Damage :26-unlimited bullets

In my subjective rating damage rating system, I used a 1-7 scale.

Approximately:

Incredibly fragile = 1-2 .50 caliber MG hits triggers damage textures or breakage.

Very fragile - 3-5 .50 caliber MG triggers damage textures or breakage.

Somewhat fragile - 6-10 hits " "

Somewhat tough - 11-15 hits " "

Very tough - 15-20 hits " "

Incredibly tough - 21-30 hits " "

Invulnerable - No amount of damage causes breakage.