BF109's and Stukas too hard to shoot down? Anyone else finding this?
 

Hi All, I''m loving the game post patch, but struggling to get kills on single seat fighters. I Did some testing and returned the following:

In a quick mission i scored 247 hits from incendiary and armour peircing .303 rounds into a bf109, and not only was it still flying, it wasnt even smoking. Sure the wings were a little shot up and the tail had some holes, but surely in reality a single seat fighter could take this kind of damage and still be flying along happily?

I had realistic gunnery on, limited ammo, just me and him in the air and all shots were from dead astern. I do love the damage model in CloD - I've seen bombers and fighters go down after just a couple of hits in the engines or cockpits, but surely 247 rounds up the backside would be enough to bring down any fighter?

Maybe the damage model needs tweaking from dead astern? What does everyone else think?

To this reports a track file are more useful.

You must remember that the .303" British cartridge was adopted in 1888 as the standard infantry rifle round. It was designed to kill unarmoured, soft skinned human beings, not shoot down machines that had not been invented yet.

Rifle caliber machine guns, while still in use in most air forces at the start of WW2 were inadequate at best in the air to air role. It was not uncommon for German bombers to get back to their bases in France with hundreds of bullet holes in them.

To take down a fighter you must hit something vital. Hard to do from astern with what amounts to a fast firing deer rifle.

Try always shot at the convergence distance and shot short bursts.

And has ElAurens said, aim to vital parts, don´t shot the airplanes form, aim to their engines, for example

I put hundreds of bullets into a bf109 last night from my spit, eventually the pilot bailed, the bf109 flew for a good 10 minutes on it's own before crashing (we were at sea level).

bombers seem to go down a lot easier

Yeah good call re the convergence, unfortunately the bug whereby u cant set up your guns in the QMB is frustrating.

The tails of planes are largely empty right? So that many rounds into the tail, surely some of them would go on to harm the pilot? And where are the fuel tanks? Have yet to see a plane explode.

I've seen .303 rounds shoot through tree trunks, add in armour piercing rounds and surely a pilot would be harmed by that many rounds going into the back of his plane?

Plus when we take rounds from bombers, it only takes a couple before our planes are smoking or we are wounded, doesnt seem to be the same for AI planes..

I really hope it aint a bug hehehe, As people mentioned it could be convergence, in a QM I sometimes see the guns hitting each wingitp on the fighters when I'm close and dont do much damage, if they fixed the gun convergence settings thing then a good idea would be to set it similar to a thing I saw on discovery where they set all pairs of guns to one different convergence, so it becomes a "band" or "carpet" of bullets that works in a wider variety of distances..?

i actually reckon this is one of the few areas of the game they got absolutely right.

Read Len Deighton's book about the BoB, Fighter. he talks about british pilots being utterly frustrated about emptying every .303 bullet they had into an enemy plane and it simply sailing on unaffected. when they trialled canon the results were spectacular, but the early versions jammed badly.

These topics made me laugh..."i cant bring this and that down, is it too hard?" lol guys, all you need to do is sort out your aiming. More practise is key to succes :-P

My issue isnt "it's too hard" - far from it. My question though was is it realistic to score 250 hits on a single seat fighter and not even make it smoke? On a closer examination it had literally dozens of holes in the fuselage, all of which made from dead astern, and yet the damage model recorded no major damage to either the pilot, or any of the planes vitals.

My question was is the damage model inaccurate from dead astern? I think it may be -this wasnt a one off - its easily reproducable, both with the 109 and the stukka.

i placed a full pack of 20 mils on a hurircane last night it kept flying, when i used my 303s the poor nbastard was put on fire :rolleyes:

At least for BF109, convergence settings work (except, horizontal and vertical are mistakenly labeled) in QMB, only custom belts don't.

Actually, with guns set to 150yd convergence I managed to saw off a 109's wing with 1 pass deflection shot. My guess was that I hit the 20mm Ammo drum and blew off the wing. Also if you go AP rounds you'll penetrate the seat armor if you hit the plane's cockpit area. I usually get my 109 kills by pilot kill.

I have hit a Beaufighter with MG FF, 25 times. And fly away, without problems...

I too have experienced this, but as Rather peeved and ElAurens ponted out, this is probably very realistic. I did change tack and aim for one of the engines on the Heinkel with better results, even hitting a fuel tank (I assume) and causing the wing to explode.

The Stukas have a very narrow cross-section from the rear, so logically it is very difficult to hit anything vital, but the damage model appears very realistic. I've seen one of the fixed wheels come off, been showered in an assortment of debris, and noticed the dead rear gunner slumped behind his gun.

The level of detail evident in this sim is impressive, and am massively enjoying the campaign. Having to take off, fly a mission and make it back to base in one piece is fantastic. Reminds me of my first introduction to the genre - M$ Combat Flight Simulator, way back when.

You probably didn't have anything vital - engine, pilot, fuel tank or radiator. Its odd, but it could happen. Personally I have little trouble knocking down 109.

One thing to keep in mind that only reasonably hittable vital system in the 109 wing are the radiators, otherwise the wing is pretty empty.

If you shoot the fuselage from dead astern, chances of success are low. I presume, given your results that the 109E-3 has armor plates modeled. A 8mm plate was mounted behind the fuel tank, and its should be proof against .303s at just about any range. With all rounds defeated by the armor plate, the rounds only pass through the rear fuselage and the tail, which is completely empty - you may hit the control cables or the radio though. Everything that is vital is front of it - fuel tank, pilot, engine, oil tank, in that order.

I suppose shooting it from an angle is the key, as you can bypass the armor plate, and hit the fuel or the pilot, since the armor plate is a distance behind them in the fuselage. Probably shooting from a bit below is the best approach.

I'd say it's convergence too. I do most of my shooting with the two 7.92mm MG's in the bf109. I save the cannon for close in. In fact I spray with the MG a lot as there is just soooo much ammo for it. I've smoked a lot of Hurris with these.

Now that's 2 MG vs the Spit's 8 but they are straight down the centre so if I aim at the engine from an off tail angle I'll get results. With the Spit at close ranges you'll be hitting the wings of the 109 when dead astern. Plus you are lined up with all the armour facing you. I've had the best results at angles off tail.

In real life the RAF boys were happy to see some smoke, oil, or radiator fluid leaking and knew they had removed that bf109 from the fight and that he also probably would have a hard time getting home over the water.

Shit happens.

I usually find the BF109 catch fire quite easy or a pilot kill, just a few short bursts.

I find it more random to hit things with the BF109 because of the insane recoil from those cannons.

This is true and modeled well imo.


For example... It took me multiple bursts to take down or cause significant amounts of damage to a BF110 whereas the next BF110 I encountered it took one small, less than a second, burst to completely destroy the aircraft.. Difference was that the first plane I was putting rounds into the control surfaces whereas that second 110 got the rounds directly into its right engine and the thing went up in a ball of flame. Was kinda cool actually beause it was flying a tight wedge with it's wing leader and due to their proximity to each other the damage to the wingman also took out the wing leader.. very cool and I wish I had saved the track... It basically took me maybe 3 bullets to bring down two BF110's.

Sometimes you are lucky, most times you aint :P

The tails of planes are indeed largely empty, but the first thing your bullets meet is the armor plate protecting the pilot's back.
As for explosions, it's possible but harder and probably more realistic to achieve than it was in IL2. It seems that having fuel is enough to cause a fire but not an explosion, for the plane to explode we actually need to have vaporized fuel.

I have seen two Heinkels explode in the same sortie and i was flying a tracerless Spitfire with its less than ideal concentration of guns (the Hurricanes are usually more accurate to shoot with), in another one a Blenheim exploded as i was shooting it with the 110's machine guns and no cannons at all (i was out of cannon ammo and my gunner was reloading it).

The trick is to fire at the wings in concentrated short bursts and try to start a fuel leak. First burst starts the leak, you let it develop for a couple of seconds and then you fire a second burst that can possibly ignite the fuel vapors.

No problem to down a 109 or Stuka.

How are people changing their convergence? I can't seem to change mine and it's the only thing keeping me from playing the game.


Yeah it's the saving that's the problem. Spend 10 minutes setting it up - can't select my loadout. I want to play so bad, but the default convergence frustrates the hell out of me.
VVVVV

Under Options/plane/loadout. It's a little buggy but the convergence seems to work OK. You have to set the convergence for each gun individually, and you can also set the belting for each gun, but saving the belting is buggy and sometimes you get nothing for your 5-10 minutes work.

That said, if you do it right it makes a huge difference I set up my spitfire with 4 guns AP and 4 guns DeWilde (yellow tracers every 4th rd on only 2 guns and 50 red tracers at the end of the belt on 2 guns). The outboard guns are set to 250 yds, next in at 225, and the four inboard at 200, giving a nice pattern right from 250yds to point blank. With this loadout I've taken down 2 He 111's and left a third limping home on one engine looking like a leaky block of Swiss cheese. I've shot the whole load at one plane and gotten nothing for it, so like I sad before, shit happens. (This setup comes right from my squadmate Jediteo, I'm sure knowing him he came up with this setup using a complex algorithm that only he and Einstein would understand)