Cannons 109E firing rate

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

Concerning the canons of the 109 my observation is that in 90% of all cases when I give a broadside shot (aspect angle 90% seeing nearly top view of target plane) with canons at a close target (60m) or medium distant target (100-130m) my canons just don't hit. For me it is basically impossible to score a hit with canons by letting a target fly through my bullet stream. I only score very few hits with my machine guns.

Somehow I have some doubts if the cadence is correctly modelled. I may accept that few cannon rounds hit - perhaps only one or two and that occasionally the target just flies through. But really almost in any case? This seems to me very strange.

[Sven]

To be honest, I can't hit a thing at point blank range. My aim seems to be right on the target and the smoke trails are covering my target completely, yet only a few hit and sometimes start a little fire on the enemy's fuselage. But I'm not on the receiving end most of the time so I can't tell what damage I am really doing.

[TomcatViP]

Canon shells and machine gun bullets hve not the same speed. If you use your MG for aiming you need to compensate for the extra time the canon shell will take to hit the same point( raise the nose)

Canons are great for high aspect ratio shots (when you target is more in plan view than from dead six)

But I hve the same problem as both of you. On many occasion my target will disappear in the smokes of the canon shells just to reappear 1 sec latter apparently unscathed. The uge smoke trails is making aiming difficult.

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

Basically I never really look at the smoke trails as I do not care. I place the point where I want and then press button.

However, during high aspect ratios (basically from above) when I just let the target fly through my bullet stream I simply do not score hits or only very few with the MG. Hardly ever with the cannons. And often I am really close with the target filling basically almost the whole windshield.

I wonder if (like in old IL2) perhaps not all bullets are physically modelled but only some.

I really would like to have your experience with this kind of situation.

Anyhow both replies seem to confirm my observation.

[Flanker35M]

S!

TIE fighters will make their appearance with Battle For Moscow so do not cheer too early ;)

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

Actually with 10 rounds per second you will have every 0.1s a round from one cannon. With two cannons basically I have two rounds every 0.1s with one shell being slightly behind the first one.

Assuming a travel speed of a plane in a turn of 250 kph, this equals to a travel speed of a little less than 70 m/s. In 0.1s this plane will have travelled 7m. A fighter is about 10m in length. So in between 0.1s it would not have slipped through between two rounds of one cannon as it would had just moved by 70% of its length.

So basically I will have 1.3 rounds shot during the time the fighter enters the shooting spot and leaves it. This is based on one cannon. With two cannons this will be 2.6 rounds.

But please take into account that this situation is only when I do not track the target but only shoot straight at a fighter that passes at 90° to my flight path. Usually I will track him at least slightly and hence will increase his exposure time.

And please remember: The mentioned situation occurs at close range (difficult to miss) and while I let him fly through my shots (so not big g applied to my plane; I start firing before really well he enters my sight to accound for lead and I stop after he has left it)

I understand that a fighter is not a flying square and that quite a few rounds might just pass through and often I just miss. But really in almost EVERY case? This is what I cannot understand.

[robtek]

Is your conversion set to 60 -80 m?

If not your target for the cannon are the wings only because the fuselage is only 0,8 m wide, so the cannon shell pass by the sides.

As the wings are max. 1.5m wide there is a lot of space left for the rounds to pass.

To hit a fast moving target with the cannon is pure luck!!!

The cannon works well against stable targets at conversion range (fighter dead six) or big targets (bombers).

[JG53Frankyboy]

according to Saburo Sakai to hit anything with the canons (the Zero canons are very simiular to the 109E canons) was VERY difficult. He got his most kills with the MGs only... :D

one of the "funny" things about the BoB is for me, that the LW had the better weapons to kill bombers but their main targets were fighters and in the RAF it was otherway round.

[SNAFU]

The success of the Bf109 depended on the surprise and positional advantage. Some JG leader on escort duty was reported to have waited 15 minutes for the chance to dive on steady targets before he ordered to engage, because he wanted his 109s to make kills and no just to drive off the interceptors. They experienced that they had only one chance to shoot down a Hurricane or a Spit, and that was the first bounce out of a favourable position. In that time the Hurricanes caused havoc amongst the bombers and the JG leader a few friends less.

What we are used to from 1946, to get scores with high deflection shots on evading targets, was reserved for some few virtuoso pilots like Marseille methinks. Well, on the other side the pilots back then, didn´t have endless hours of combat experience as we have. Anyhow I think hits as you described or in the situation a matter of luck and maybe only your AP rounds hit, so you simply don´t see the impact at all.

[drewpee]

In my own experience I found it easier to hit things in IL2. I could bring down a tough target like a FW-190 or a P-47 by wrecking control surfaces. In COD I struggle to bring down a target. I do have more success destroying targets in a Spitfire than a BF109 but I prefer to fly the BF109.
It's harder to use historical reference's for tactics and AC design because no one really knows what parts of the game are accurate and whats not. For me I think my flying skills have improved but the ability to quickly dispense of an opponent has not.

[robtek]

drewpee, that is the difference between sim-light, sim and real life.

In a sim-light you need instant success, i.e. wings ripped off, huge explosions

In a sim you get more authentic damage, most of the time a delayed kill.

In real life pilots with even minor damage would have extended and returned home, not fought to the end if avoidable.

[Varrattu]

“In Pursuit” by Johan Kylander:
Learning how to play a computer game should be an easy matter. Most games ARE easy to master once you’ve figured out what makes them tick, but the massively multiplayer online air combat game is a striking exception because it isn’t predictable. There are simply too many factors to consider at any turn: beyond certain automated functions the action is totally unscripted, unregulated and unpredictable because every action or piece of the
environment is that of another human being - and it all happens in real time.

This Work-of-Art “In Pursuit” by Johan Kylander is a MUST READ:

http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=johan%20kylander&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDEQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.comhem.se%2F~u85627360%2Finpu rsuit.pdf&ei=I9ijTpfhBYa2hQfDkJjZBA&usg=AFQjCNHhqOHgDBS8VoF0hVtECCb2Pzfe3Q&cad=rja

Regards Varrattu

[JG52Karaya]

I wonder if (like in old IL2) perhaps not all bullets are physically modelled but only some.

I'm sorry but even the "old" IL-2 modelled each and every round fired, the majority just werent visible due to not having tracers. I do not know where you got that assumption from...

[pupo162]

In my own experience I found it easier to hit things in IL2. I could bring down a tough target like a FW-190 or a P-47 by wrecking control surfaces. In COD I struggle to bring down a target. I do have more success destroying targets in a Spitfire than a BF109 but I prefer to fly the BF109.
It's harder to use historical reference's for tactics and AC design because no one really knows what parts of the game are accurate and whats not. For me I think my flying skills have improved but the ability to quickly dispense of an opponent has not.

well.

the other day was flying with comms with a mate, and he shreaded me to pieces, i ahd no controls, bleeding, my wings ahd holes bigger than head and fuel was leaking badly. i was as good as dead. why am i telling this?

My mate was complaining on how he could not kill me and how we wasted all of his ammo to do no damage too me.

i believe the kill eficience, and the fast dispense of an enemy is the smae as off old il2, yet, due to the new complexety of damage model, the game will not jump wings and tails off as often becouse it has new ways of "killing players".

be sure, if yo usee the 20mm shells hitting the target he is not fighting back, and if he is we will be a broken wing bird.

cheers, and good hunting

[CaptainDoggles]

Concerning the canons of the 109 my observation is that in 90% of all cases when I give a broadside shot (aspect angle 90% seeing nearly top view of target plane) with canons at a close target (60m) or medium distant target (100-130m) my canons just don't hit. For me it is basically impossible to score a hit with canons by letting a target fly through my bullet stream. I only score very few hits with my machine guns.

Somehow I have some doubts if the cadence is correctly modelled. I may accept that few cannon rounds hit - perhaps only one or two and that occasionally the target just flies through. But really almost in any case? This seems to me very strange.

It's sad that the track recording function is broken at the moment because I used to enjoy using ntrks to check my deflection shooting in 1946.

However my experience with Cliffs is that the cannons are working just fine. I can usually hit targets at 90-degrees angle-off (i.e. crossing in front of my guns perpendicularly, my view being of the top of his aircraft). But I find I have to give more lead than I used to in 1946, and I rarely take off the target's wings with these snapshots. Most of my online victories in such situations have been pilot- or engine-kills. Gunnery has always been the weakest part of my game, so I find to really take someone's wings off I need a decently-long burst (at least in this game... Mk 108s from 1946 are different). It might be the ammo I'm loading *shrug*

I've never had the target fly through my bullet stream and seemingly pass between rounds unless I was pulling a lot of G's as I was firing. In my experience that is the key: To unload your aircraft before pulling the trigger.

If you were to watch your aircraft from the side as you fire, and draw lines where your rounds went, you want the picture to look like a single spike, not a mohawk.

[drewpee]

drewpee, that is the difference between sim-light, sim and real life.

In a sim-light you need instant success, i.e. wings ripped off, huge explosions

In a sim you get more authentic damage, most of the time a delayed kill.

In real life pilots with even minor damage would have extended and returned home, not fought to the end if avoidable.

Sorry I think you miss my point. Not being a Computer programing WW2 fighter pilot most of what we talk about is just assumptions based on our own experience. None of us have flown a actuarial bf109 and a Spitfire in battle. Therefor I for one have no idea how quickly an AC can be brought down.

To say COD is newer so there for is more realistic is incorrect. Sorry to dampen debate.

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

I agree that IL2 was far too "explosive" in terms of ripping wings off and explosions.

So Clod is definitely an improvement.

And yes, one can still rip off wings but my guess is this occurs when the shooter achieves to be within the limits of certain parameters (like distance, certain spot on the wing hit, certain amount of bullets hitting this certain spot) which then triggers a wing-away-sequence. Ever seen the neat cut line of the wing and the stump remaining on the plane when this occurs? So imho a simplified algorithm kicks in here.

On the other hand you can see planes flying with swiss cheese wings around without little effect to their aerodynamic.

Or those 3/4 wing 109ers ...

[TomcatViP]

I landed back a Hurri without a wing. I think it can happen with all planes in game.

[CaptainDoggles]

I think wingless behaviour is probably a discussion best saved for the next patch.

Hopefully when they address the flight/damage models they include these issues as well.

[DUI]

Getting a bit off-topic, but I finally saw a chance to publish this beauty:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=7539&stc=1&d=1319489440

The AI plane flew a straight line without any change in altitude for more than 10 minutes. Probably, it would have continued this way endlessly, but I then lost interest.
Besides the severe damage it managed to overrule physics even with a dead pilot. :grin:

[CaptainDoggles]

I pretty much discount anything the AI does as bogus. I've seen AI Wellies in level climbs with no props spinning.

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

I anyhow have the feeling that physics die with the ai pilot. Offline you kill the pilot and the plane just flies on.

Perhaps they have implemented different levels of FM according to the status of the plane:

Level 1 (most accurate FM): pilot seat is occupied by player
Level 2 (less accurate FM): AI is sitting there
Level 3 (even lesser accurate FM): Pilot bailed out
Level 4 (UFO or perpetuum mobile - whatever you like): dead AI pilot occupies pilot seat.