Got it, makes sense. Thanks!
Although, it would be great if you can post a link that describes this in more historical accurate detail (not being sarcastic). The reason why I ask then is if so, they aren't just making perfectly round holes in the surface of the plane and they aren't just "passing through the empty tail section without hitting anything of importance". In my opinion and based on what you have said there should be a far more drastic effect on the tail (especially fighters and Stuka) when hit from the dead six position. Currently what I'm seeing is the rudder or elevators might fall off, but that's about it.

Just to put it a bit into retrospect, this dumb video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7J2rbUFyJ8 shows a 7.62 (.308) mini gun that fires at 3000 rounds per minute. I would certainly think that this baby would saw with ease through the tail section of a ME 109.
Now, if you look at http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/BoB.htm you’ll see that the Hurricane and Spitfire equipped with .303s had a firing rate of 9600 rounds per minute. That’s more than 3 of these mini guns. Cleary they would do a lot more structural damage then what is being depicted.
Interestingly enough, in the article they also say that the Germans moved away from AP to HE for the reason of causing large structural damage which was more affective then targeting components. Clearly structural damage is being down played a lot more to what was actually happening.

All I can say is, bullets do stange things! They would go through aluminium pretty easily and may even stay 'tip first', but there's a lot of stuff within the structure that is more substantial and as soon as a bullet hits these things you can forget about it penetrating armour. The flip side is that AP will go straight through the tail section leaving just small holes at entry and exit, so unless you hit something vital all you're really doing is letting some fresh air in :

I'm basing what I said on 2 things, my understanding of WWII Ammo / ballistics
and a test that has been mentioned on here before where the RAF fired LW and RAF AP rounds at a Blenheim rear gunners armoured plate from 180m away. Only 6% of the RAF AP actually penetrated the armour (4mm) and only 1% of the German equivilent (7.92mm) penetrated the armour. (Remember that this is the rear gunner in a Blenheim, the chances of hitting and penetrating the pilots armour from six o'clock is virtually zero).

The armour on most LW bombers was substantially thicker.


An indicator of the ineffectivness of AP is that the LW stopped using them for Air to Air. They knew the best way to bring aircraft down was HE and fragmentation.

I accept the inefficiency of the .303 rounds and should be pretty useless against internal armour fitted at an angle. Just also do realise that the 1% of the rounds fired at the bomber would mean that of the 160 rounds of one second firing, that 1.6 bullets would at least penetrate.

Anyway, again back to the structural damage and this is in regards to the fighters. If the bullets are hitting internal structures from the dead six positions, than surely the must be damaged? These are the things that hold the aluminium up in the first place. Also, at 160 bullets a second you are going to let in a lot of air in no time as well. If let’s say the .303 bullet makes a 7 millimetre hole in diameter and we times that with 160, a second’s worth of fire would open up a meter’s worth of area.
With regards to 111 bombers, the article states that some returned home with up to 200 bullet holes in them. With a large exclamation on how big this number is. However, that is little more than a second’s worth of firing. Again I state the sheer volume of rounds that is being fired. (Look at what the 1/3 of the volume mini gun does to the derelict car in the video)

The armour that they were penetrating was 4mm. He-111's armour for example was 12mm or 3 times thicker.

I believe that the 8x .303 were actually pretty effective against fighters, main reason being that all the vital stuff (as I said earlier) was concentrated in a much smaller space. You need to also remember that in RL there were only usually 2 guns loaded with AP, the rest were ball ammo (good at killing people, not aircraft) and incendiaries with maybe 1 gun loaded with tracer.

The mini gun comparison only works with RoF, obviously the bullets all get fired from the same place so the concentration of fire is better, and you can independantly aim a mini gun. You're basically aiming the plane with the .303's, the wings are vibrating madly the guns are spaced out over 20 feet the target is moving and possibly firing back. it's almost impossible to hit the exact same spot with a 2 second burst so you'd just end up with lots of holes as opposed to one big hole. Also the loss of velocity associated with tumbling bullets is huge. The ammo in a mini gun is also a lot more modern (most of the RAF .303 rounds in use at the start of the battle were WW1/ 1920's designs)

If you want to put a big hole in a plane then use HE.

You could always try 111 squadrons head on tactics!

Fair enough in regards to the 111 armour. Not that the entire plane is covered in 12mm armour but let’s leave it at that.
However, I disagree completely in regards to accuracy issue and what you have said about vibration etc. In game, with the exact convergence distance, you can almost fire on a dime with the .303's. Also to get the 1 meter area you'd obviously won't be firing through the same 8 holes. Yes, the independent firing and recoil of the guns would have an effect on accuracy, but not 10 meters variation on 150 meters, surely?
A two second burst as you say would open 2 meters of fuselage if the bullets were to pass through, the same amount on the other side as well. The plane is aimed straight at the other plane, why wouldn't a comparison be legit at the correct convergence? Have I mentioned that it spits out 3 times more than that mini gun per second? If only a third hit where they were actually aimed at, that is still a mini gun chewing away at the planes structure. Question, how must structure is there in the tail section of a Me 109 then?
Also, 1920 designed rifle bullets are still actually pretty effective. Firing from 150 meters away, the tumble effect would be minimal as the intended engagement range is about 400 meters for .303 rifles.

I'm not arguing for or against what you say, I'm just saying what I know.

Also I'm only talking about RL, I have no idea what the internal stucture of the 109 in CoD is.

As for wing vibration, a movement of 1 degree would have a noticeable effect at 150m.

In RL if you parked on a bombers six trying to make a big hole you'd end up dead. I don't know where you got the info that bullets can have 'minimal' tumble. As soon as the bullet is knocked of off its axis it will tumble, drag sees to that. A tumbling AP round is still bad news, but it's not AP anymore.

There is however still the chance that an AP round could get through the pilots armour from behind, it happened. In theory you could saw the back off a bomber with .303s, in practice it just didn't happen very often.
I've never read of it happening.

I had 3 he 111 instant kills in the bomber intercept mission with realistic gunnery set. By "instant kills", I mean that either a wing was blown off or an engine fire was started that caused the crew to bail. I set convergence 4 guns 300, and 4 guns 295. I don't think the type of ammo really matters much.

I think there are two factors at play. Accuracy and luck. Even when hitting the right spots on the wing or motor, you still need a bit of luck. Aiming to hit the leading edges of the wings seems to be the most effective.

A bigger issue is the fact that the damn he 111's are doing barrel rolls as a defensive maneuver. As far as I'm concerned, they should be very difficult to take down without cannons.

I think there is possibly something slightly amiss with damage modelling. Yesterday during an online battle I managed to ignite the fuel tank of a player 109. He was burning, full on flames and smoke... leaving a huge trail of black smoke behind him. I thought that was it, he is shot down.. but nope. I chase him with no ammo to take screen shots. We chase around for ages, with him still fully on fire until he eventually shoots me down!

We spoke in game and he doesn't know how he was still alive also.

Here is a screenshot after being on flames for some time (5 mins or thereabouts).

In regards to the .303s against bombers, in order for them to work like described by previous posters (sawing off parts of the structure by sheer number of rounds alone) you would need to have a perfectly controllable concentration pattern. Such a thing doesn't really exist.

Well, i was a relatively good shot during my time as a conscript in the local armed forces and it's still impossible to put two consecutive rounds through the same exact part of a stationary target a mere 100 meters away, and that's when firing
a) modern rifles with gas regulators that significantly decrease recoil
b) in single shot configuration that further helps with recoil in contrast to full automatic
c) modern ammo
d) from a comfortable, stable, prone position in a controlled environment with no risk to life and limb

No enemy firing back, no vibrating gun platform, better guns and ammo, smaller distances and it's still impossible to hit the exact same spot twice or manage to carefully put rounds one next to the other as if "stitching" the target, unless you just happen to have a one in a million lucky shot. If we could there would be no need for specialised sniper rifles, but it's impossible to put rounds on specific parts of any target with absolute accuracy without using telescopic gunsights and as stable a firing platform as possible with a very low rate of fire.

What happens with the .303s is a hail of rounds where the slightest deviation from optimal conditions hurts the intended concentration of lead on the target...rounds leave the barrel mere tenths of a degree apart and on the way to the target they end up separated by a few meters and you can have 10 rounds fired in a single burst impacting all over the place, from the tail all along the fuselage and even passing over the nose and missing completely. Multiply that by 8 rapid firing guns and you get a lot of swiss cheese unless you hit something vital which for most intents and purposes is human flesh, due to the tumbling effect making the rounds ineffective against metal after the initial hit.

I think the .303s are pretty accurate. I don't even try to aim for fuel tanks or engines anymore, i just come in from the sides, above or head-on and aim for those big sections of plexiglass that every Luftwaffe bomber has where the crew sits. I usually get anywhere between one (if i'm forgetting to target the crew) and three (if i conserve my ammo only for cockpit shots) bomber kills before i run out of ammo.