Brilliant! A very clever method of testing.

B-25 rear guns are equal to those of most other US medium or heavy bombers - twin .50 calibers - so good choice.

Good data. But, two minor complaints.

How many bullets does it take to break the wings of the planes whose wings will break?

Shooting at planes on the ground also means that its wings are under exactly 1 G of positive pressure for the entire period. Assuming that IL2 models it, that means that there's no way to test whether a wing will fail due to damage when subjected to G loads.

Further experiment idea: Try the same thing with the G4M "Betty" and see how well suspect planes fare against a 20 mm cannon. If you can't eventually break wings with a 20 mm cannon, that means there's a serious DM problem.

For the planes whose wings can't be broken off by .50 caliber fire, it seems odd that the P-40 and the Tempest are on the list. Both were regarded as being quite rugged.

That might just represent a fuel tank fire, since the FW-190 is angled up when its on the ground, possibly allowing bullets to hit just below the engine so they pass through the fuel tank.

Again, is this due to actual engine fire, or due to hits to the fuel tanks?

This seems to be realistic. There are many reports of US pilots causing Zeroes, especially the A6M2 series, to break up in midair using just .50 caliber bullets. But, that might just be wing tanks exploding.

Well, I didn`t count the bullets, but on planes that won't break their wings, you could keep firing at them for almost two minutes with unlimited ammo on, and they won't break. I just got bored holding the trigger.

All the others got a reasonable time to happen, and the Zero was specially fast.

Actually the Zero was the only one I could make it happen on a dogfight.

The others require an almost impossible sustained fire on them.

That's pretty good evidence! :)

That makes sense. You have to punch a whole lot of half inch wide (i.e., .50 caliber sized) holes into a vehicle to make it fall apart on its own.

I would say that this picture is proof that it's currently impossible to start an engine fire in the FW-190A-4.

Using RPS69's test mission as a base, I changed the flyable plane to the G4M-11. From the rear gunner's position I blasted away at the FW-190A-4 parked behind me with a 20mm cannon at point blank range. Typically, just 10-15 seconds of fire was sufficient to "vaporize" the target.

All shots hit, all of them hit the engine, although shrapnel from explosions quickly killed the pilot and caused heavy damage textures to engine and fuselage. In all cases, the engine almost immediately stops working and starts to smoke slightly. But, in several different trials I never got an engine fire result.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1441891628

Edit: Also true for all other variants of the FW-190A in the game. Interestingly, I found that after I cease fire for a sufficiently long time for the "arcade arrows" to disappear, the FW-190 vanishes as well. So, it's possible to vaporize the target plane without ever setting it on fire!

I don't see why thees so much emphasis on setting the FW190A engine on fire, the engines useless mechanically by then,
and inside the cockpit you see smoke from the engine,
perhaps set up the full list of in game ac and go through each one with the tail gunner 20mm as the reference point and create a list :)

Or is this a FW190 witch hunt :)

Just a very quick test :)

Fw190A has same wing damage as P47 regarding 0.50 cals, they wont cut off either,
but you can still fly with reasonable control unlike the FW190's few wing hits and game over RTB.

Unless the Betty 20mm is that much different from Hispanos & MGFF i don't see it being that far off a reasonable comparison DM test on the ground.

Wings Off 1-2 second burst 20mm Same for P47

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...pskus2mlv6.jpg

At he start of the thread, the original poster complained about 190's wings not breaking while under .50s fire.
I tested it with 20mm, and all break fine.

Still, with .50s there are lots of planes that won't break, not just the 190.

Also as you said, 190's are the ones that suffer the most on their capacity to keep in combat after a single .50 shot on a wing. This was always wrong.

So the conclusion is that this whole thing have nothing to do with the 190, but with planes that are impossible to break their wings with .50s

If the aircraft damage tables are equal to the ground objects, it may happen as with the BK37 vs KV1. They can't penetrate their upper armor, no matter what, because there is a table stating so.

It's the difference between gliding home and getting roasted alive in the cockpit if you don't bail out. Isn't that important?

That's exactly what I'm doing on another thread, although I'm starting with .50 caliber guns. It might sound like BS, but I'm getting some very interesting results. In particular, the US Navy fighters from Pacific Fighters have some strange wing breakage issues. It seems like you have to hit them in just the right spot to knock their wings off.

Yep, that's a problem. It should be possible, if difficult, to take the P-47's wing off. And, the FW-190 should be a bit more controllable if its wing is heavily damaged.

I chose the Betty for expediency, because it's the one flyable plane in the game that has a 20mm tail gun (at at least the first one that popped into my head).

Maybe try with Pe-8. That has ShVAK, the strongest 20mm of the game.

I was flying a FW190 this past weekend and an allied aircraft made an off-angle shot and sprayed me with his fifties. It apparently took out my prop governor because when I tried to use throttle it over-revved and then quit running.

All the different WWII aircraft were just that, different. They were made in different parts of the world with different materials and designed by different engineers.

Anyone that comes along and cries when one aircraft is not the same as another is simply ignorant in many areas.

FW-190 pilots had a specific set of complex instructions on what to do in their
heavily damaged 190:

1. Jettison canopy
2. Bail

Source: Horst Petzschler