About gun convergence

[notimejeff]

Just seen a Discovery documentary in which a WW2 Spit/Hurri pilot said that when the squadrons received their planes they would unilaterally alter the gun 'harmonization' from the standard 400 yds so that the inner guns converged at 200, the middle guns at 250 and the outer guns at 400, thus giving what he called a lethal cone.
Well this was news to me. If anyone has heard of this could you say where you heard it, as it would be good to verify this. Was this practice widespread or just confined to some squadrons? Thanks for any info. BTW it might make a good mod if when the more pressing issues are resolved.:confused:

[Glider]

Altering the gun convergence was often done by squadrons of all airforces. As far as I am aware this was accepted and was a subject of debate then and now. The differences varied and sometimes by individual pilot.

[skouras]

during BOB era
the default convergence of the British guns was 250 yards.
However most veteran pilots though that was to far for them so they usually set them to 150 yards
[from spitfire ace documentery]
i switch mine to 200..is the best option to me [at least for the Bf 109 that i'm flying most]

[notimejeff]

thanks for your input. What was new to me is the practice of setting different convergence distances for different pairs of guns, giving a cone effect rather than a combined hit at the same distance. I'll do some research and see what I can find out.

[ATAG_Doc]

If you're able to fly a 109 in such a way that you can get in close for a tight shot try reducing convergence to 100 and watch how you shred'em then :)

[notimejeff]

I found this:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/gun-convergence-how-big-area-5447.html

I think it would make a nice mod if we could try both the sledgehammer and the shotgun for different targets.

[Ataros]

IIRC these settings are already in game, no mod needed.

[skouras]

correct

[Blackdog_kt]

It's the difference between point harmonization and pattern harmonization.

Point harmonization has all guns set to the same convergence, so that they all hit the same area at the same range. The word "same" is used with some artistic license though, since rapid firing guns on a vibrating, fast moving platform shooting at another such platform don't really manage to concentrate all rounds on one place, but you get the idea: point harmonization is for putting as much amount of lead as possible on the smallest target surface possible, to ensure maximum damage in the event of a hit.

Pattern harmonization is different, because the goal is to ensure maximum possibility of as much guns scoring a hit, at the expense of some damage in the event that the hit does occur because not all guns are harmonized for that particular hit and some will miss. In other words, if you are any good with aiming go for point harmonization, if you are struggling with placing rounds on target go for pattern harmonization. You'll do less damage when you score hits (since not all guns will be scoring them), but you'll be able to score them more often/easier.

Pattern harmonization is achieved by setting different convergence for each pair of guns and as such, it is better suited to allied fighters that tend to use banks of similar machine guns with a relatively high rate of fire (4,6 or even 8 of them) and not a 109 with it's 3-4 separate guns (depending on variant) some of which fire slower than the rest.

The final effect is that at different ranges, each pair of guns has a varying possibility of scoring a hit and an associated potential for damage if the hit is scored. The process is somewhat complicated to figure out manually and the best method is to dig up some historical documentation on where to have each pair of guns converge. I remember there was one such document, either on this forum or on the previous IL2 series section, detailing how it was set for US fighters with six machine guns in the pacific.

However, once you do find the needed information it's true that you don't need a mod to use it: we can already assign different convergence settings to each individual gun through the loadout options.