Grazing bullets

[Music]

Hi All

I was online today, in a La5 3xwhatever, (or a P-63 aerocobra, pretty sure it was in the la that it happened though), and was being chased by a Spitfire, a lot of hits were showing up as sparks, I counted three different burst from the Spit chasing me that showed a flash on my plane, but no damage, even my windows did not have the "Bullet holes" that show when someone gets hits, but did not damage anything on the plane, (the plane flies fine, pilot is OK). That happens quite often when some one gets hits that don't blow you up, or blow a wing off, tear the stabilizers or leave a hole in the body like the exaggerated 109 body damage, or hits your Left leg, it's always the Left leg.
It was so strange I thought the guy chasing me might think I was cheating.

Then I wondered if the bullets trajectory when it hits the plane has been programed. I always figured it would just be a hit was a hit, from any angle would be the same, like the bullet hit a black hole a micro measurement beside the aircraft and went straight in.

Is the angle of impact something that has been modeled. Was he just grazing my plane? I have noticed what looks like the effect when getting hit on invulnerable, that white line the reaches out from hit on plane. Not very often, and mostly on Il-2's.

Thanks, just wondering.
I have a NTRK, but I think this is like 15-20 minutes in, and I was just drifting around for most if it, away from combat, trimmed plane and let it get altitude while I did something else here, so not even exciting to watch. But if some one wants to see it, I'll upload it. It's a full map, 60+ min.
American and German Planes against Russian, late war, about 12 people on server. I get murdered as usual, dewinged, then blown up, then dewinged again, killed in a cloud. Success for me is if I can land.

Cheers!

[Pursuivant]

AFAIK, angle at which a bullet strikes an airplane only matters when determining armor penetration and whether you get a "critical hit" by striking some vital part of the aircraft.

IL2 actually has poor damage modeling by modern standards. Airframe damage appears to be handled as "hit points" which trigger increasingly battered-looking skins for a given part of the aircraft, regardless of where and how a particular bullet strikes.

That is, rather than showing where a given bullet hits, damage above X level triggers the D1 texture for a given aircraft part, damage above Y triggers the D2 damage texture, and damage above Z triggers breaking parts/destruction.

Spark/debris effects are triggered regardless of what sort of round hits or where it strikes and have little or nothing to do with levels at which D1, D2 or breaking parts effects are triggered.

The "white rod" you see in Invulnerable mode actually is an arrow which shows exactly where and how a given round hit. It is possible to trigger this effect without being in Invulnerable mode, but I forget the exact command off the top of my head. In the past I've found it very handy for testing damage modeling and for practicing my gunnery offline.

[Ice_Eagle]

Under [GAME] set Arcade=0 to =1 and it will show every hit you make.

[Music]

Yeah, I have flown in Arcade, the arrows are handy, but not the balloon when a pilot says he's going to do something ("I'm RTB"). And the white lights where you hit the ground are handy.

The arrows are not what I mean when referring to the sparks. You can see the sparks when invulnerable, and you are being hammered by 7 or eight A.I. enemy planes all shoulder shooting each other. Saw it on a Il-2 a few days ago as it went into the ground.

Thanks for replies.

[stugumby]

You can see sparks whenever you hit the armor plated areas of an IL-2. if this is what your talking about by grazing, the bullet not being armor piercing is basically disintegrating and metal on metal makes a spark or flash effect.

[Pursuivant]

I think that IL2 handles bullets vs. armor as a simple force vs. resistance calculation.

If the bullet doesn't have enough force to penetrate armor plate it "vanishes" and does no further damage. The armor is undamaged and is "immortal" until the plane itself is destroyed.

If the bullet has enough force to penetrate armor, it continues on its original trajectory, but with reduced force. No bullet deformation, deflection, shrapnel from the armor penetration, etc. Generally, this makes sense for relatively small-caliber AP rounds. Maybe less sense for 20mm+ rounds and non-AP bullets.

[dimlee]

I think that "grazing" theory makes sense. Sometimes I see the same effect on the a/c I fly. It doesn't happen too often (unfortunately!).

And it probably depends on the damage model of particular aircraft.
I experienced the "grazing" on Bf 110 and probably on Hs 129. I'm sure about Bf 110 as I flew it often with recording on and then studied some tracks. Never on Ki-45 or Pe-3bis - once you feel a hit, that means something bad happened even if you see no damage on the plane's skin.

Recently I tried Beau Mk.21 vs Pe-8 on Samara server. 85.113.41.253:21002. There are maps with interesting airplane sets. When I keep at respectful distance from Pe-8 formation, I can get several hits, can feel them - but nothing happens.