CoD's 109E4 canons : overdone ?

[TomcatViP]

Hi everyone,

If I fly a 109 usually my mount is an E3.

Lately, after months of seeing my kills online being reduced to 0.16% or 0.03 after flaming a bomber or killing it's entire crew before someone else in an E4 model decided to threw some eggs toward it, I took the E4 offline for a test.

My test mission is usually me vs 3 opponents. If I am flying blue my ride is either an E3 or a 110. My adversaries (AI) are flying what ever I want to shoot but mostly Hurri and SPits.

Usually with a full load of canon shells in a 109E3 I can with attention shot down 3 opponents at max before my canons drums are empty.

There on my second try of a E4, I selected 6 Hurri. In 10 mins all 6 were down (pls bear in mind that the more the advantage AI gets, the more aggressive they are - hence it was not simply shots from dead six on a row of seating ducks ;) )

The last kill was scored with ONLY ONE shell left in each barrel !! Ok I did work it pretty well :oops: : very close and with a slight drift to point one of my canon directly in the cockpit (Old IL2's mk108 might help sometime ;) ).

But guys at 380kph flying my nose in the rear of a Hurri how can 1 single shell kill the pilot instantly despite the turbulences (not in game) and the imposiibility to aim precisely with something 3meter off to your line of sight ?

And how can I shot down twice as many plane just with the introduction of a few minenshells in the drums (pls note default loading and default convergence)?

I know, we blue hve been whining for so long before we get the E4 and Devs are so much nice that they went back to tht drawing board just for that... But c'mon... this is turkey shooting !

~S all !

[CaptainDoggles]

There seems to be a huge and disappointing trend lately of assuming that the E4 is overmodeled.

It really is not.

I know there's a vocal minority of Allied pilots who seem to be afraid of/fed up with/otherwise against the E-4 even though it has the same performance as the E-3.

Yes, it carries minegeschoss shells and they are better. No, these are not super 1946-style Mk-108 wonder weapons.

More than once I've put a perfect 5-round burst into the cockpit of a Hurricane only to see him start maneuvering wildly as if he was unscathed. If you edit the belting in the E-3 it can be nearly as effective as the E-4, as I found out during the 5./JG27 missions before the E-4 was introduced. In fact, I find that mostly it's the MG-17s in the nose that do most of the pilot killing.

Tomcat, if you are having trouble killing bombers with the E-3 then I suggest to you to a) Stop worrying about "kill stealing" when fractional scores are awarded anyways and b) edit your belting.

I have on numerous occasions taken down 5+ Blenheims using only the nose guns shooting a mix of armor-piercing and incendiary ammunition (SmkH and PmK). If you approach from 6 low, shoot the gunner until you kill him and then aim either at the engine or the wing root inboard of the engine it usually takes about 200 rounds of MG-17 per bomber.

I am sure that I will be flamed shortly by those who wish only to see the "Blue side" nerfed because they want their favorite ride to be the best in every respect.

[robtek]

It seems the mine shells are twice as effective as the usual shells, must be the reason they were invented.
It must have been a really strong reason to change, as all MG-FF had to be modified to use them.
One doesn't do this if there isn't a big gain in effectivity, i'd say.

[Sven]

I prefer to fly the E1 to be honest with you which I did in the campaign. I think cannons suck big time in Cliffs of Dover, especially in a 109 where the recoil bounces my reticle all over the place. No thanks, I'd rather place a well aimed stream of bullets directly into the cockpit/engine. Much quicker and more effective I reckon.

It could be well true that the Minengeschoss was 2x as effective. Hence the total switch-over. Being able to kill the pilot quicker is of course a logical thing, when the shell was intended to penetrate and then explode, causing much more damage where-ever it hit.

[pupo162]

well. oi could dig the post. but the normal 109 e3 explosvie shell ( not really explsoive but icendiary) as about 7-12 grams of explosive. vs 40g of explosive of a mine shell.

im not sure of this values to be acurate, but the proportion should be about right.

[TomcatViP]

Hi guys,

Yes the MG17 are good and in some way better. Like many here I can shot down several bombers with only the twin machine gun of my E3 (I think I did 4.5 one day when my canon ammo were exhausted before I came in contact with a flight of Wellies). I hve alway advocated the introduction of the E1 on that very grds when we had problem and complains abt the effectiveness of the 109 armament.

I am training offline my canon skills as it suit better the way I am engaging targets. Hence, it can be said that most of the score I am referring too in my post (see above) are CANON kills.

I hve alway thought that the Mineshells were far much effective and the fact that it double my kill ratio with only a few of those weapons in my drums tend to re-affirm that thought

With 60 shells I can score 6 kills what makes us 10 shells per kill with 500 rpm = 10/500 min for a kill = 0.02*60sec = 1.2 sec to score one kill. That's an impressive AVERAGE stats (I hve 21% rate of hits in the E4 - 12/15% in the E3).

I hev no problem with the 1 sec burst to make a plane goes down. But in AVERAGE ?! over 10min of fight ?

My opinion is that something is over done like the blast radius as I said once.

@Doggles : I am not crying after kill stealing since CoD give credits to everyone that scrored a hit and once a crew has bailed out it's often impossible to see that a plane is going down (usually it can fly straight for hours). Perhaps, some damage sharing might be tuned up.
But what belt wld you recommend ?

[CaptainDoggles]

It's been a while, but I seem to recall I had good success using equal panzerbrandsprenggranate and phosphor/elektron rounds. The very first mission I had a one-pass kill on a Hurri IIRC.

[CaptainDoggles]

Ball is more effective against wooden and fabric-covered targets, as the round makes larger, more ragged holes.

[jg27_mc]

...I know there's a vocal minority of Allied pilots who seem to be afraid of/fed up with/otherwise against the E-4 even though it has the same performance as the E-3...

I always had the feel that E4 outperforms the E1/E3 models. I could be wrong... I have the sensation (while flying E4) that it is a better turner and has far better accelerating while in a dive. (placebo?)

I prefer to fly the E1 to be honest with you which I did in the campaign. I think cannons suck big time in Cliffs of Dover, especially in a 109 where the recoil bounces my reticle all over the place. No thanks, I'd rather place a well aimed stream of bullets directly into the cockpit/engine. Much quicker and more effective I reckon...

Agree 100%.

[drewpee]

This is a 30mm, but gives you an idea of how these rounds were. Even at a fraction of that destructive power, it would give an effect modelled relatively accurately in CoD. Mind you, we can't see bent skin, but a high explosive cannon round should do tremendous damage. The minengeschoss round had more explosive charge than the 20mm rounds of the German Panzers. It didn't have the penetrating power however.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoLLDi-M3fk

The 20mm round had something like 20g of HE, where the 30mm had 70g

Nice find Cheesehalk. Interesting to see historical dater at work.

I must say I cringe every time a debate is started on AC performance. Only documented dater should be counted or it becomes more of a contest of who sounds the most convincing and not what is truth.

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

Actually I always thought that the minengeschoss is slightly undermodelled particularly with respect to the damage it should do on the primary structure. It seems to make only damage on the skin (holes) that does take some stress in real life but not as much as the carrying structure. The minengeschoss as modelled in the game seems only to punch large holes and that's it.

As we can see in the vid the damage by the 108 on the ribs and spars is considerable and should rip off the wing under load greater than 1g (or perhaps even at lower g as the wing in the vid seems to be supported by some structure).

Of course I do not expect exactly the same damage by the minengeschoss as the calliber was smaller (I think by 25% smaller)

Of course this is my personal thinking.

[TomcatViP]

This is 30mm shells. They are much bigger than 20mm and carry both more kinetic and chemical destructive power.

If we stay on that line, 30mm canons in future add-on would be modeled just like laser ray guns à la IL2's Mig-9

What I want to say is that the E4 canons bring too much improvement regarding those of the E3 (see the % of damages) and feel like being way too optimistic in hit rate (see the nbr of shells needed averagely per kill).

[41Sqn_Stormcrow]

This is 30mm shells. They are much bigger than 20mm and carry both more kinetic and chemical destructive power.

If we stay on that line, 30mm canons in future add-on would be modeled just like laser ray guns à la IL2's Mig-9

What I want to say is that the E4 canons bring too much improvement regarding those of the E3 (see the % of damages) and feel like being way too optimistic in hit rate (see the nbr of shells needed averagely per kill).

Well, chemical destructive power in a shell = explosive. Or do you mean the chemical destructive power meant that it will on impact corrode the material away? I guess that is not what the chemical stuff was meant to do as it would have taken too much time to take effect :grin:

If we equate explosive power to the mass then we can make a rapid and simplified calculation on what could be estimated as the explosive power of a 20mm shell wrt a 30mm shell:

volume 20mm shell / volume 30mm shell (assuming overall same length) = 20^2 / 30^2 = 0.44. Ok let's say that the volume of a 20mm shell is about 40% of a 30 mm shell. I think this can be somewhat used as an approximation of the detonation mass that is we may now estimate the explosion power of a 20mm shell to about 40% of the explosive power of a 30mm shell. Comparing this to the video 40% of the damage shown would still mean considerable damage ... and even 30% of the damage would have impaired the plane considerably imho ...

[TomcatViP]

I had a more impressive image in my books but can't remeber where.

here is an extract from the excellent website : http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/tankammo4.htm

Legend : WW2 AIRCRAFT GUN AMMUNITION (2)

20x101RB (Oerlikon FFL/IJN Type 99-2), 20x110RB (Oerlikon FFS/HS Type 7, 9), 20x110 (Hispano HS 404), 20x125 (IJA Ho-1, Ho-3), 23x152B (23mm VYa), 30x90RB (MK 108) , 30x184B (MK 101/MK 103), 37x145R (US M4, M10), 37x195 (NS-37)

You can see on this same website the comparison btw HS404 and MGFF M

[TomcatViP]

Regarding the Corrosive power of shells as Storm mentioned, that's a thing that I won't put frwd to devs for the next patch ;)

Well at least that a good idea for the next gen non-lethal super weapon.

But Chemical and kinetics E are the ones you usely talks abt in such a discussion :rolleyes:

Here is another one of highly improbable kill rate in a E4 offline. I can assure you that those plane (AI) were maneouvring

[pupo162]

Regarding the Corrosive power of shells as Storm mentioned, that's a thing that I won't put frwd to devs for the next patch ;)

Well at least that a good idea for the next gen non-lethal super weapon.

But Chemical and kinetics E are the ones you usely talks abt in such a discussion :rolleyes:

Here is another one of highly improbable kill rate in a E4 offline. I can assure you that those plane (AI) were maneouvring

8 bullets hit in 20, let me say awsome accuracy.

then let me ask: where did they hit? if they hit the pilot, im not amazed, except by your accuracy.

[TomcatViP]

8 bullets hit in 20, let me say awsome accuracy.

then let me ask: where did they hit? if they hit the pilot, im not amazed, except by your accuracy.

Thx

...

But I fear that this score hve nothing to do with me.

Hit rate is too optimistic with shells patterns likes cylinders with some sort of proximity fuse.

Unless I miss something I don't remember those 20mm being such.

Pls remember :
1st : I can't hve the same hit ratio in my E3 than in a E4.
2ndly ; the diff in kill rate is over 100%

@ CheeseHawk : ok but if one shell is enough for a kill it does not mean that with a single shell you will score a kill ;)

[robtek]

Don't forget that the rounds for the MG-FF/M are much faster than the older rounds for the MG-FF, so maybe with the same convergence in the same situation you might miss with the slower rounds and just hit with the faster rounds.

[5./JG27.Farber]

Don't forget that the rounds for the MG-FF/M are much faster than the older rounds for the MG-FF, so maybe with the same convergence in the same situation you might miss with the slower rounds and just hit with the faster rounds.

+1

[VO101_Tom]

This is 30mm shells. They are much bigger than 20mm and carry both more kinetic and chemical destructive power.

If we stay on that line, 30mm canons in future add-on would be modeled just like laser ray guns à la IL2's Mig-9

What I want to say is that the E4 canons bring too much improvement regarding those of the E3 (see the % of damages) and feel like being way too optimistic in hit rate (see the nbr of shells needed averagely per kill).

I know, its not MG-FF/M, but the 20 mm M-Geschoss have devastating effect too, not only the 30mm (against a P47!):

http://riseofflight.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=219796#p219796

[Varrattu]

Don't forget that the rounds for the MG-FF/M are much faster than the older rounds for the MG-FF, so maybe with the same convergence in the same situation you might miss with the slower rounds and just hit with the faster rounds.
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/images/icons/icon14.gif ~ please have a look:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpost.php?p=396572&postcount=6

~S~