.303 ammunition expierence exchange

[Hellbender]

Hello everybody,
i would like to know what experiences you made with the different kinds of ammo for the British fighter planes in CoD. In which way, if you have done it, have you modified your ammo belts with which kinds of ammo.

Share you experiences about the .303 standard rounds, incendiary rounds, DeWilde HE rounds and armor piercing rounds with us :grin: .

Personally, I´m trying out the DeWilde at the moment and I kinda find it not very useful. Can´t really ignite the german fighter planes successfully like I would use the German MGs with their phosphor rounds.

Anyone tried to fly around with mainly armor piercing against german planes and had success/less success than the standard ammo mixture?

[Tavingon]

Id love to but I can never seem to change the amunition ingame before a battle!

[SEE]

George Beurling, in his book, mentions the Loadout sequence for each belt for his Spit - Incendiary, Tracer, AP, Ball. Strangely enough, that was the loadout I use in CloD as I only bought the book recently (I only have tracer rounds in guns 1 and 8

I still cannot be sure that the loadouts for allied ac are separate rounds or sequenced. When you read the description in the loadout menu it looks like a defined sequence but the one that matches George Beurlings description looks like it has a white tracer but doesn't when you load that into a gun.

I have tried various loadouts but stuck with the above. Irrespective of loadout, what I find most critical is correct convergence and hitting the correct part of the target, i.e. Ju88b - Starboard Engine and wing section just to the side of it as the BoB pilots always went for.

BTW, someone posted a script that is very usful for assessing weapons loadouts - it displays the damage you are inflicting as your rounds hit.

[Gerbil Maximus]

The .303's are under powered. You can read many accounts from pilots that state giving german aircraft in the battle a 2-3 second burst and watching the aircraft disintegrate before their eyes. For larger aircraft of course more power was needed hence the introduction of the 20mm.
But everyone presumes that because the round is a .303 it wont do much damage, a single .303 wont do much thats true but were are talking huge volumes of rounds.
Lets do the maths }
8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

A 3 second burst into an enemy aircraft unleashes 1,440 rounds into it.
The hurricane and spitfire both had around 16 seconds worth of fire.
Logically it speaks for itself.
Maybe the aircraft might not suffer structual failure (like a spit or hurricane would) but the vital parts would most likely be hit and pilot killed/wounded.

[TomcatViP]

The .303's are under powered. You can read many accounts from pilots that state giving german aircraft in the battle a 2-3 second burst and watching the aircraft disintegrate before their eyes. For larger aircraft of course more power was needed hence the introduction of the 20mm.
But everyone presumes that because the round is a .303 it wont do much damage, a single .303 wont do much thats true but were are talking huge volumes of rounds.
Lets do the maths }
8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

A 3 second burst into an enemy aircraft unleashes 1,440 rounds into it.
The hurricane and spitfire both had around 16 seconds worth of fire.
Logically it speaks for itself.
Maybe the aircraft might not suffer structual failure (like a spit or hurricane would) but the vital parts would most likely be hit and pilot killed/wounded.


HALT!!!!

not all the rounds scored a hit. Actually the proportion is more ard 10% from dead six.

You have to think that you are dealing with munitions that does not have a straight path, are fired from a flexible wing out of a vibrating barrel from a 100m distance.

That's all abt nose mounted armament, high RoF, low offset time and huge kinetic/Explosive power.

Obviously for all of us it shld remain difficult to score a kill with less than 2sec or 3 sec well aimed burst. (ideally without modded guns :evil:)

[Geronimo989]

Is there any point in using ball ammo? I take it that it is just a regular bullet? Wouldnt it be better if it was armor piercing or incendiary?

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

The .303's are under powered. You can read many accounts from pilots that state giving german aircraft in the battle a 2-3 second burst and watching the aircraft disintegrate before their eyes. For larger aircraft of course more power was needed hence the introduction of the 20mm.
But everyone presumes that because the round is a .303 it wont do much damage, a single .303 wont do much thats true but were are talking huge volumes of rounds.
Lets do the maths }
8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

A 3 second burst into an enemy aircraft unleashes 1,440 rounds into it.
The hurricane and spitfire both had around 16 seconds worth of fire.
Logically it speaks for itself.
Maybe the aircraft might not suffer structual failure (like a spit or hurricane would) but the vital parts would most likely be hit and pilot killed/wounded.

I have the same issue with the M-geschoss. Or the canon ammo in the E3 /E4. Does not seem very powerfull.

[Hellbender]

Is there any point in using ball ammo? I take it that it is just a regular bullet? Wouldnt it be better if it was armor piercing or incendiary?
I assume that regular bullets deal moderate damage to soft and hard components of a plane. Armor piercing rounds deal high damage to hard comp. but low damage to soft components. Incendiary rounds on the contrary deal damage over the time when for isntance that ammo ignites you flaps any you have to watch how the flaps of the Spitfire slowly burns away. If my assumptions and observations are correct, my question arising in that context is what good does the DeWild HE round concerning damage ? Perhaps someone should fly around with only AP or DeWild rounds.

Little side note: I guess oen day the developers will put in Spits and Hurricane versio nwith the Hispano cannon and we will have another discussion here.

Concerning the M-Shell or the german auto cannon: I am relatively successful with it against british planes concerning inflicting critical damage. And from the receiving end seen, only 2-4 cannon shells are quite devastating, especially in the wings since the big wholes left by the shells, negate your truning bonus against a 109 or 110 since you lose lift with wholes in your wings ( I´m talking of big wholes here :) ,not the MG wholes ).
From my perspective, the cannon shells have an enormous destructive potential and I agree with those you posted in other cannon related shells, that it took 4 cannon hits on a fighter to bring it down (and 20 for a 4 engine bomber). I experienced it often on the ATAG that the 109s manage to hit you luckily (from unorthodox angles) with 2 or 4 cannon shells and the hurricane or Spit has taken severe damage and is no longer able to stay in the fight. Mostly due to a upcomign engine failure (oil leak, govonor failor etc.) I had to land the plane. I didn´t explode in mid air or my wings were ripped apart but I was not able to continue that fight for a longer time and was forced to land somewhere.
Concernign ripping apart, I made the experience that flying almost into the motuh of your target with the 109, 8 to 10 rounds can rip a plane or a wing easily apart from close range when you can´t miss your target anymore :grin: .

On the other side I balst 3 seconds into a 110, inflict serious damage and it might be still able to fly, not for long but it had its punishment.
That video should show it:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXw4zOQ-R00

Last night on the ATAG server I was able with the default Hurricane Rotol ammo load out and 200m convergence to ignite a 109 (see picture). Igniting planes really occurs seldomly to me. I assume you have to pound the main tank to ignite it porperly :grin: .

[TomcatViP]

+1

same here and that's all good for me ;)

[Gerbil Maximus]

HALT!!!!

not all the rounds scored a hit. Actually the proportion is more ard 10% from dead six.

You have to think that you are dealing with munitions that does not have a straight path, are fired from a flexible wing out of a vibrating barrel from a 100m distance.

That's all abt nose mounted armament, high RoF, low offset time and huge kinetic/Explosive power.

Obviously for all of us it shld remain difficult to score a kill with less than 2sec or 3 sec well aimed burst. (ideally without modded guns :evil:)

Correct all rounds fired would not hit but..
Thats why the guns are harmonized and a gunsight was fitted that could be adjusted so the rounds crossed at the required point.
As for the munitions not having a straight path, you are sort of right.
The correct expression would be ballistic drop which can be accounted for when firing when pilots set their sights at 200 to 250 yds yealding less time to drop before the rounds struck.
Machine guns the same as all weapons of this era they have rifled barrels making the bullet spin and travel straighter and not tumble.
As for the vibrations and flexible wing, have you ever fired a machine gun? Firing when prone is considered stable enough to easily put 80% of the rounds on target at about 300yds, I can then presume using my experience of weaponry that having 8 would cause a large degree of shake within the aircraft but I'm certain the aircrafts build would have been designed to compensate for that shake and for sure the mg mounts within the wing had dampening to reduce this redundancy.

[Sven]

I would also like to leave a comment here, don't assume that shooting from a dead 6 position is the best way to represent the true damage of the guns of an aircraft.

Yesterday on ATAG I was flying a spitfire Ia against the blue horde, and a full 1 second burst into an 109 who was climbing up was enough to kill the pilot and to send him down to the earth in flames. I always try to avoid ending up on someone's 6 when I'm fighting, how strange this might seem to some. I find it to be a very successful way of fighting.

Shooting cannon from a dead 6 position has so far not been very succesful, it's excessive recoil either makes the round jump over or beneath the target, and if it does hit the results aren't that spectacular, although M-geschoss should be quite effective. Again, coming in from an angle gives far better results.

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

The whole DM needs an overhaul I think.

I just hit on Repka server a spit 2a with M geschoss and panzersprenggranaten in my canons resulting in a huge fireball out of wich the spit came with lost one elevator half and other damage. It still made circles I could not follow and it was able to catch me with ease.

[TomcatViP]

A day in a life of a Spit :rolleyes:

[Hellbender]

The issue with the exploding but still flying planes have been eyewitnessed several times, mostly on the Repka server due to the high density of the dogfights.

I also find it much more promising to attack a target not from 6 o´clock level but high or low, especially bombers sicne you can hit in that way the pilot or the fuel tanks better. However the problem remains, that you can´t chose your firing angle often, especially when a 109 tries to escape in a dive. In a dogfight it is a good idea to attack someone while he/she is turning sicne your bullets will have a lots of surface to impact on :grin:.

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

Actually with a 109 you harly will get ever a shot from 6 astern. Either because your target is fixed on someone and is turning wildly or because he can hear you from 500m (needs to be fixed because it is not realistic that one hears sounds from outside).

It still remains that I have seen a thousand times Spits doing a turning fight and winning even though they have been badly damaged (on Repka one has external view). I guess the same is for 109s.

Basically I think it is currently a bit unrealistic that if a spit looses one half of its elevator that it still can outturn me and catch on me with ease. That is what I challenge.

The same basically goes for 109 loosing half of its wings. One has some small torque but that's all. You still can land safely.

The best way currently to score a kill is to kill the pilot. I agree that this was the ultimate goal (with all the nastyness of meaning of course) in an air combat back then but my difficulty is that I wonder how they scored kills at all bck then.

Even when I am badly damaged I usually can get home and actually land ...

[TomcatViP]

one thing tht I know is that the grd seems to be too soft making crash-ldng a piece of cake.

yesterday I came back to the airfield in my 110 with no rudder and half elev (I tested online the new VNE) touching down too fast nose first in a -5deg attitude.
Figure what ? I survived !

[Hellbender]

Tonight, when there were 70+ people flying on the ATAG server, I took the chance and flew with a 109 ( there were more REDs than BLUEs). I vulched two Spitfires and a Hurricane with the MG and enaged 3 Hurricanes over the Channel in a dogfight.

I must admit, that the recoil of the cannon can lead to the issue that there a soem shells are bouncing over your target, I foudn it very useful and successful to only fire very short burst of MG/FF rounds (4-6) which saves some ammo and, in case your aiming is good deal some significant damage. 1 or two hits at the hurricanes each time and the planes had to abort the dogfight or when they continued they had to fly with soem big wholes in the wing. One hurricane stalled and crashed.

On the other side, I got hit in the last dogfight with two hurricanes and with the player Gelbe Vierzehn helping me out in the midst of the channel, were I got hit by a 1 second burst of a hurricane. That burst slightly injured me and created 3 tiny wholes in total in my wings. Anything else seemed to be okay.

Point is, when I compae the firepower apart form the auto cannon of the 109, I find the MGs of it more powerful than the .303 rounds of the british planes.

The most promising ammo loadout i fly in the british planes at them moment is for me:

Gun 1: White Tracer/Incendiary
Gun 2 Ball
Gun 3 Armor
Gun 4 DeWilde
Gun 5 Armor
Gun 6 Ball, DeWilde, Ball
Gun 7 Ball
Gun 8 Tracer/Indendiary

So big question still remains, is the DeWilde any good and worth 300 rounds in Gun 6 or has it only a minoreffect on your targets ?

[tools4fools]

8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

Moment.
9600 rpm divided by 60 sec is 160.
Times 3 gives 480 rounds for a 3 sec burst from all 8 guns.


So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
Correct.

20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
Not correct.

20 rounds x 8 guns = 160 rounds per second - not 480
(160 x 3 we get back to the 480 bullets per 3 second burst, not 1440)

As said only few of those will actually hit.

Haven't tried CoD yet but managed to shoot down twin engines easily with my poor Hayabusa in IL-2.
But I never shoot at 200-300m - I open fire earliest when at about 120-150m, down to 50m or so. One short burst will smoke an engine. If aimed accurately that is.

So out to those who play CoD: how do those 0.303 perform in CoD when you get close in, aim at and hit porperly an engine?

[Hellbender]

From close range, in order to inflict serious damage, one has to fire from 6 o´clock high or low and hit fro mthere the engine area. Straight from the 6 of the twin engien bomber, you only do little damage. When the bullets penetrate the wings and enter the engien area they do little damage, except the armor piercing rounds, which do a little more damage in that way.

[JG53Frankyboy]

Tonight, when there were 70+ people flying on the ATAG server, I took the chance and flew with a 109 ( there were more REDs than BLUEs). I vulched two Spitfires and a Hurricane with the MG and enaged 3 Hurricanes over the Channel in a dogfight.

I must admit, that the recoil of the cannon can lead to the issue that there a soem shells are bouncing over your target, I foudn it very useful and successful to only fire very short burst of MG/FF rounds (4-6) which saves some ammo and, in case your aiming is good deal some significant damage. 1 or two hits at the hurricanes each time and the planes had to abort the dogfight or when they continued they had to fly with soem big wholes in the wing. One hurricane stalled and crashed.

On the other side, I got hit in the last dogfight with two hurricanes and with the player Gelbe Vierzehn helping me out in the midst of the channel, were I got hit by a 1 second burst of a hurricane. That burst slightly injured me and created 3 tiny wholes in total in my wings. Anything else seemed to be okay.

Point is, when I compae the firepower apart form the auto cannon of the 109, I find the MGs of it more powerful than the .303 rounds of the british planes.

The most promising ammo loadout i fly in the british planes at them moment is for me:

Gun 1: White Tracer/Incendiary
Gun 2 Ball
Gun 3 Armor
Gun 4 DeWilde
Gun 5 Armor
Gun 6 Ball, DeWilde, Ball
Gun 7 Ball
Gun 8 Tracer/Indendiary

So big question still remains, is the DeWilde any good and worth 300 rounds in Gun 6 or has it only a minoreffect on your targets ?

till the ammoloadout GUI is not working 100% properly, i will do no ammo tests ;)

from a pure guessing i have loaded all guns with
1 DeWilde
1 AP

No tracers, just 5 in the last 25 rounds in the inner guns. IIRC the real pilots of 1940 wanted a lot DeWilde, but it was on too short supply for this....nobody is asking in game for supply :D

[Hellbender]

I read as well that a lots of the kills by the RAF during the Battle of Britain was credited to the DeWilde against bombers ammuntion. Is the ammo historically modeled in its effect here in this game ?

[JG53Frankyboy]

here in game, with never ending supplies of all kind of ammo ( a reason i dont like these totaly free editable gun loadouts.......), i see no reason to use ball ?!

if i want make holes in the target or even kill the pilot, a AP should be superiour over a ball ;)
and british test showed that the "DeWilde" Mk.VI incendiary was far superiour over the "normal" Mk.IV incendiary.

'The incendiary ammunition was also variable in performance. Comparative British tests of British .303" and German 7.92 mm incendiary ammunition against the self-sealing wing tanks in the Blenheim, also fired from 200 yards (180m) astern, revealed that the .303" B. Mk IV incendiary tracer (based on the First World War Buckingham design – it was ignited on firing and burned on its way to the target) and the 7.92 mm were about equal, each setting the tanks alight with about one in ten shots fired. The B. Mk VI 'De Wilde' incendiary (named after the original Belgian inventor but in fact completely redesigned by Major Dixon), which contained 0.5 grams of SR 365 (a composition including barium nitrate which ignited on impact with the target) was twice as effective as these, scoring one in five.



The 'De Wilde' bullets were first issued in June 1940 and tested operationally in the air battles over Dunkirk. Their improved effectiveness, coupled with the fact that the flash on impact indicated that the shooting was on target, was much appreciated by the fighter pilots. It was at first in short supply, and the initial RAF fighter loading was three guns loaded with ball, two with AP, two with Mk IV incendiary tracer and one with Mk VI incendiary.

Another source for the Battle of Britain armament gives four guns with ball, two with AP and two with incendiaries (presumably Mk VI) with four of the last 25 rounds being tracer (presumably Mk IV incendiary/tracer) to tell the pilot he was running out of ammunition. It is not clear why ball was used at all; presumably there was a shortage of the more effective loadings. (By 1942 the standard loading for fixed .303s was half loaded with AP and half with incendiary.) '


to repeat, when the GUI is working, such tests will be much more easier.

Let the game run, than we can test its features :D

[brando]

I can't see why you want to reject ball ammo? It would pierce the wings and the fuselage, and kill any crew members who were in the way. Whilst the De Wilde had a splendid effect lighting up fuel tanks it was also aided by ball piercing the tanks and releasing fuel for the De Wilde to ignite.

[Hellbender]

I can't see why you want to reject ball ammo? It would pierce the wings and the fuselage, and kill any crew members who were in the way. Whilst the De Wilde had a splendid effect lighting up fuel tanks it was also aided by ball piercing the tanks and releasing fuel for the De Wilde to ignite.
Convincing argument, Brando.
I just used the aformentioned mission with the damage script and found that you deal more damage the more closer you are to your target, the more energy your projectiles have when they imapct in your target.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=25337&highlight=damage

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

I agree we need a GUI where during quick mission one can select a loadout directly from a file.

We also need to be able to select convergence that are smaller than 100m which is unfortunately currently the lowest value possible.

[TomcatViP]

I agree we need a GUI where during quick mission one can select a loadout directly from a file.

We also need to be able to select convergence that are smaller than 100m which is unfortunately currently the lowest value possible.

Whot ? you ain't like that prop in front of you ?

Mind that there is a minimum angle of gun convergence: Thales might want to help you there.:rolleyes:

[Skoshi Tiger]

Ball would make a hole in the skin, which mushrooms the bullet, and can cause a bigger hole underneath,

+1 on most of your points but ...

MkVII .303 rounds don't mushroom (I seriously anyone would want to use the Boer war vintage MkI round), The MKVII's are designed to tumble on impact. They have an aluminium (or wood or paper in some cases) insert under the copper jacket in the tip of the jacket and a heavy lead base.

On soft targets (ie the crew ) this leads to the round leaving a very nasty path through the body (wounds from a MkVII have been described as being something like a chainsaw), On harder targets it leads to very little penetration, though maximises the kinetic engergy transfered to the target.

Long and the short of it, you need to hit something vital to cause immediate damage to your target. if not it would have been a very long 20 minute flight back to base accross open water for the axis pilot.

Cheers!

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

Whot ? you ain't like that prop in front of you ?

Mind that there is a minimum angle of gun convergence: Thales might want to help you there.:rolleyes:

I mind having 80m or 90 m. And vertical convergence can be made smaller more

[Gerbil Maximus]

20 rounds x 8 guns = 160 rounds per second - not 480
(160 x 3 we get back to the 480 bullets per 3 second burst, not 1440)


Thanks for the correction my maths went skewd there :-P
But even so you can see that amount of rounds means significant damage.
Collinder springs to mind.
I have my sight settings at 200yds (182.88 m) in game and horizantal to what ever im going after, under 200yds is a big risk, not so much ingame but in RL debris is dangerous in that close.

[tools4fools]

Well that would be 10-25 hits out of a burst of 480 bullets. Not really a lot...
I wouldn't expect wings coming off and the such.
( From: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm "estimates for an average pilot's hit rate varying between two and five percent").
With only 10-20% of incendiaries causing fires don't expect too many fires either.

From reading about Hartmann, Knoke and Sakro it seems they shot well inside 200 yards, in real life.

As said I fly the Hayabusa in IL-2, attacks are never from dead 6 however - IL-2 rear gunners would kill you with the blink of an eye if you do that - and it's two 0.303 are effective if used properly - meaning to hit in the first place and from close distance in one particular area, with an angle.
I remember that even back then people where complaining about 0.303 not being effective enough.
I tried once the 8 gun hurricane against He 111 and Ju 88, what an awesome firepower that thing had compared to my little Hayabusa and no trouble in shooting down German twin engines.

Maybe we are expecting to many big bang explosions, wings coming off, fires all over the place.

Now how is it in CoD, if you shoot at 100m or less, not from dead 6, difficult to shoot down planes?

If I watch vids like this it seems 0.303 is effective:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7NXrflZP7Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKBNlqPZBdA&feature=related

[TomcatViP]

Remind that Hartman had a powerful nose mounted canon. I hve alrdy said that extensively at the time of old IL2 but when you need to score a lot of hits to get a kill, it's better to fire from moderate range were the aspect ratio of your target will stay approx. cte during the burst with only minor corrections needed on the ctrl.

At close range the natural tendency is to over react with an out of phase mvmt.

If you need only a cpl of hits to score a kill with big shells for sure it's better to leave you eggs at hands range.

Until w've got the MG151 and late F 109 model, close range does not mean nothing IMHO

[Hellbender]

The website http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm is really a nice overview.

Furthermore, I see things similar like tools4fools concerning the destructive potential of the .303 ammo. Planes can´t always explode after you hit em with a 3 second burst like i nsoem historical WW2 guncam footage. It´s often enough to hit the engine of a german bomber without seeing flames or explosions. Mostly ,some mintues later the engine stops workign after you have pounded the engines. Why should one waste additional bullets into a target which is very likely to go down short time later.

This really helps you saving ammo concerning bombers and you can bring down 3-5 bombers after 15 minutes over the channel or England.

In regards to ripping of wings, I have since several days the impression in that case convergence matters the most, since you can rip it of at 200m with a 220yards convergence setup with a short burst at the right stop but despair at close range (50m) while pumping bullets into the bomber which doesn´t expldoe or loses its wing. Apparently, it appears to me, that the convergence is the key or main factor for such wing-off enterprises :grin: .

[TomcatViP]

There is some interesting parts in this web article but some are clearly wrong stuff.

Dealing with Air to Air artillery is dealing with rate of fire, destructive power, time to full rate of fire, closed coupled gun installation and weight.

You can put a dozen of heavy high fire machine guns in a wing and still won't be able to down a nimble fighter.

Guys how many Beau hve down a Zero during the war ?

Twisted interpretation leads only to twisted argumentation (and (mostly) vis versa).

Fun that it has been so well documented in the press (Air force monthly, Le Fana de l'aviation comes in my mind) that we hve to deal with such on the internet :(

[Mr_Steven]

Bring your convergence down to 100m and watch stuff go down

[IvanK]

Whats the refrence to a minimum of 200yds in the Spit convergence ? If thats the case it should be modelled imo.

[Hellbender]

I would be interested in the damage values in the configs for the different types of .303 in the game. Does anybody know whether someone extracted that information from the game files.
I now dumbed the Incendiary/Tracer (White) rounds in the two outer guns and substituted them with Red Tracer 800yds ball ammo, since I saw little to no effect of the usage of the Incendiary Tracer rounds. The universal ball rounds seemed to have more punch in enemy planes as I tried it today on the Repka Steppe server from my point of view.

I now fly around with:
1.)Tracer (Red ball)
2.) Ball
3.) Armor piercing
4.) Incendiary/DeWilde HE
5.) Armor piercing
6.) Ball/ DeWilde HE/Ball
7.) Ball
8.) Tracer (Red Ball)

I nthe future I try to investigate the ammo effects with more objective measures like recorded tracks :grin: . I hope they are working now.

[Hellbender]

Concerning the gun convergence, I found accidentally an informative document about setting up different types of convergences in Spitfires and Hurricanes.

http://www.slowcat.de/slowcats1/AHTC/Convergence.pdf

[Swoop]

Interesting thread and thanks Hellbender as I've been trying different types of ammo and convergences. Someone also pointed out attacking from dead six doesn't seem to do much.
I've been finding attacking from an angle with speed, firing at the last second close in to cause the most damage. Manage to knock a wing off a Stuka with a quick burst.
200m setting
Ball
Ball
AP
White/tracer

If I'm flying at similar speed to the target the damage is less effective.