yeah, what everyone else said.

Its not the equivalent of professional motor racing where you go for the technically best possible option regardless of cost. there was a war on and the 0.50 cal was readily avaialble and did the job good enough against fighters.

Add to this the fact that American made 20mm were unreliable in high vibration and flex wing mount positions and too large for "in wing" mounting in existing US aircraft and its clear why they stayed with 0.50 cal.

This link about pattern bore-sight gun harmonization might give you some insight into the some of the issues.

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Air...nBoresighting/

lolz, I read the part about the Russian guns carrying less explosives and such. That is displayed very well in IL2.....Ive flown the IL2M3 w/ those big 57mm wing cannons and also the LA5's and it became very obvious quickly that the Russian guns were simply not even remotly close to as powerful as the German/Allied guns. In game i also flew a Mig FS jet and had to unload basically all my ammo into 1 B17 to take it out. Also w/ the LA I ran out of ammo firing at 4 HE111s b/c the guns wuoldnt shoot em down. As for the British..or is it a French 20mm? the Hispano in the Spitfire, like 4-8 rounds downs a fighter and like 10-12 or so will down a HE111. As for the large caliber 50+mms I flew the Me262 UA w/ that 50mm and the Il2M3 w/ the 57mms and w/ the 262 it takes 1 or 2 rounds in the wing to kill big bombers, the Il2 its quite a few more. Im sure in RL it played out different but in game yeah....Russian cannons are kinda junky.

How good is your aim? :D The MiG-9 actually has very good cannons that do significant damage to the target aircraft. Several hits should be enough to finish off a B-17.

The Russians actually get quit a bit for their weaponry and there are a few other factors to consider that aren't strictly played out in the numbers.

The ShVAK 20mm cannon if we compare with the Hispano II fires at a higher rate (800 rounds per minute versus 600 rpm) and has a smaller round (20x99 versus 20x110) which means having a bigger ammo supply on the relatively small Russian fighters. Also if memory serves the ShVAK 20mm was very reliable through most of the war, even in dusty or dirty conditions whereas the Hispano had problems for years and it wasn't until later that the Mark II was made reliable.

Also the Russians have the best heavy machine gun with the Berezin UB 12.7mm.

I look at the three main cannons like this: The MG151/20 is a refined weapon with a very sophisticated high explosive MINE round. The Hispano is like a sledgehammer which fires the heaviest round at very high velocities. The ShVAK is more of a scalpel with high refire rate and good ballistics. Both ShVAK and MG151 can be fired through a propeller hub whereas the Hispano I don't think was ever fired from a synchronized installation.

Yes, the Shvak has higher rate, but it is also true that you need more hits to down a target.

So, it pretty much balances out in the long run as far as DPS (damage per second) goes, if we could assign a way to measure it.

I think that there's more to aerial gunnery than having the one round that does massive damage to a target with one hit. The mk108 does this, but i never use it unless i go against bombers. There are other things to consider, like for example ease of aiming, and i don't mean pure balistics (in which the 108 is still inferior to other lighter guns).

A gun with a high ammo supply and high rate of fire is easier to aim every single time, simply because you can afford to keep the trigger pressed a few more seconds and correct your aim by looking at the tracers. In this way, Russian guns with their high rate of fire could be easier to aim and score hits, compared to slow firing German heavy cannons.

On the other hand, having only fast firing light guns (like for example .303s) is very easy to take and correct aim, but commits you to a tracking shot, with all the dangers it brings due to target fixation.

I think that the "sweet spot" lies somewhere in the middle: a gun that fires projectiles big and powerful enough to cripple or outright destroy a fighter in less than 10 hits, while still being of low enough caliber to maintain a high ammo supply and high rate of fire to assist in aiming/correcting your shot. If the ballistics are good, it gets even better and that's why i like the MG151s a lot...it's like they are the golden middle ground.

You would like the modified 109F in this clip then :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xj7Bd8BTMY

Lol .30 cal guns and smaller to me are like pickles and sauerkraut, they make me gag and throwup a little bit just seeing them mentioned......ive used them alot seeings how the Spitfire is my fav plane in IL2 and I can tell you idk how to kill anything with them. They are just barely enough to let the enemy know your behind them.......I once flew the Hurri MkIIB??(one with 12 30cals) against an empty B29 on unlimited ammo for like 20+ minutes and never shot it down before I was totally convinced that 30cals are useless and I wish I could get them off my planes. when I got done w/ that B29 it had sooo many bullet holes in it that when it got to base the ground crew coulda mistaken it for that months supply of ammo it had so many casings on it...prolly like 20,000+ rounds I put into it. Then I did the same thing to an He111 but not shooting it nearly as long but I still only shot that plane down when I think I killed the pilots. And the 30cals is my only real complaint with the Spit, good plane but its got 30cals. my next new favorite, finding out that 25 and 50% fuel makes a plane hella more manuverable is the Corsair F4U1C. I always liked the Corsair ever since I had a toy of it, it looks cool and after over a year of flying IL2 and keeping my planes at 100% fuel and seeing the Corsair as a flying rock and deeming it junk, I finally realized my awnser had been slapping me in the face all along. Soo, I lowered it to 50% fuel load and was actually able to make a Black Out inducing turn with out stalling...i was like..wow...its a mircle, low fuel settings do work....now that F4u1C is like almost my dream plane. It has good turn radius, its fairly fast and has 4 cannons.....its only problem is its engine overheats fast.

Just for the hell of it, I'll throw my $.02 in. Like the old saying goes: The most effective pistol round is the one in the pistol you actually have on you when the $hit hits the fan. The same goes for aircraft armament.

While I suppose there may be some merit in arguing this or that with power or effectiveness of various guns, the fact is that men go to war with the weapons at hand. In WWII they did so with devastating effect, just about every weapon arrangement used during the war killed people effectively when used advantageously by skilled pilots.

Much like the pistol analogy, the main thing that pilots (or any kind of soldier, for that matter) demanded from their armament was reliability, as evidenced by the quick demise of the Hispano on Spitfires during the BOB. This is one big parameter that we don't have in IL2, yet one of the most important.

All that said, I prefer whatever weapons the aircraft I'm flying has, so long as they work when I press the button.

All that is true but my definition of work is a gun that can kill the enemy quickly....dogfights are fast, and you dont have much time to aim and down targets before the next target appears or you got a guy on ur ass drilling you so I like guns that kill fast so I can get the kill, and move on. its sooo annoying when you shoot the shit out of something or someone and they dont go down so your stuck shooting them while someone kills you....and while in RL the 30cal was prolly an effective weapon in Il2 it sucks...imo it needs to be upped a little bit, its just a crappy gun. The only thing ive killed w/ a 30cal in less than every round I have was a Zero w/ a frontal engine hit from a Spit MKI. Ive downed a few other fighters but I think it was from either jamming the controls or killing the pilot from the front...but that takes awhile.

Set the MG convergence very short (I use 140m) and then fire from around that range, aiming for the wing roots, cockpit or engine of your target.

Even a Gladiator with 4 .303s or a Bf109D with 4 7.62mm MGs can bring down a lightly armoured opponent in a well aimed 2-3 second burst.