Ammunition power
 

This is something I found in the internet quoting Oleg.

Can someone explain (preferably Oleg himself) why there is a huge tendency to over-model allied guns and under-model axis guns? The only exception is the German MG 17 7.92 machine-gun which was mounted in the bombers.(the true bullet velocity is marled blue or red and added by me, I checked different soucres in the internet for one and the same gun)
Was it ever changed to historically correct?

I don´t want to bring up old discussion that probably already took place. But I suppose it´s similar with the flight-model (and I always wonderd why a 109 or a 190 is close to be unflyable with a hole in the wing, in contrast to some allied planes that even fly with some parts of the wing broken off)


I would hate to see the same happening again in SoW.
It should be historically correct.

Or otherwise all fly the same planetype to have a balanced game.

Maybe these will help



Weights and Measures
http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/i...g/50_ammo.html

WORLD WAR 2 FIGHTER ARMAMENT EFFECTIVENESS
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm

then this one

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=2830

link doesn´t work

I know the site and have some of the infromation from it.


Unfortunately this threat doesn´t really explain why those guns where modelled wrong in the first place.

Simply ............................ balancing.

Links fixed

Sorry, I don´t by that one, there are too many things out of balance in favour of red planes.

If we only stick to the guns, we get an average velocity in m/s of:

Russia: 852,5m/s
Western Allies:794,2 m/s
Red Total: 826,6 m/s

Axis:690,6m/s

So where is the balance?

.50's are porked....


Wait a minute...I was having a bad dream, or deja vu...or a vision or something.

I can't answer your question, but here's a link that is informative as well - http://members.tele2.nl/harmstolk/gunpower.htm

Good grief. Do you people ever give up? Just accept that Oleg is against whatever it is you want and move the Hell on. My kids didn't whine so much when they were two.

Good post emil, i always thought that Blue planes were at a distinct disadvantage now it has been confirmed. Lets hope Oleg fixes it in SOW so that we have a realistic sim.

From: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=2830

I have to agree with Diablo here.

You can complain that velocity is porked in favour of Allies, but the actual advantage in-game goes to Blue - by a long margin. Wrong belting and what not else.

The way I see it blue (especialy 190s and 109s) need only one or two shots for their opponent to explode. You might want to complain about that first.

Need proof - just hop over to the WarClouds.

Yes, the balance might have been something which was attempted, but in very odd way. With USAAF suffering the most from wrong .50 cal belting. The velocity values you posted in the first post reflect that balance very well (FM / WM => Belting / Velocity values).

interesting post !

i always thought the values used for munitions explosive power and their velocity should be openly provided, in the same way we need aerial speed and climb rates etc (like il2 compare did). that is the only way to confirm that the game is historically accurate and that the values used for both sides are correct and fair.

does anybody know if that list of explosive power and velocity is still accurate, going by the date in that post it was from 2002 ?

we need somebody like josse to have a peak at the files and give us a list of the current values oleg used in 4.09b

didnt he already do that and adjust the 20mm ?

I think the individual aircraft armament strength won't matter as much in SOW. The Damage Model will balance the fight. Hopefully with the SOW's new far more detailed DM you will have only two options if you survive a solid burst from any caliber weapon. Bail out or run. I don't think we will see anymore heavily damaged aircraft out running you or out turning you. The fight will be over, and you can turn your attention quickly to the next threat.

This is going to make a huge difference in game play, for the better, IMHO.

I don't want to start a whining contest but, as demonstrated recently by peeking into the game code, the Regia Aeronautica wins the most porked gun award. The Breda SAFAT wasn't a powerful gun indeed, but in the game they are simply ridiculous.

Ins

Yes...yes they are.

Appologies, you're quite right there. I forgot about that.

I cant agree more... that's why when I read about the "disadvantage" of blue planes.. I almost fell out of my chair.... and don't forget the Ki-84Cs..

Wow. Genuine luftwhinners. I thought they'd gone extinct!

Oleg doesn't balance, so you need another explanation ;) (maybe biased reference materials...) ;) ;)

I didn´t open this thread to say blue planes need faster bullets, but to say that I would like everything to be historicaly correct as possible.

I only understand the meaning of velocity the other data is too abstract for me to be able to compare and judge about it´s correctness.

There are likely some other factors that are governing the speed of bullets so comparing values across the table probably means you need to compare all of the values rather than just cherry picking the velocity value.

That'd just be a guess but with a system as complex as IL-2s...that'd be my assumption.

If we go by feel...ever since the MG151/20 got its proper belting in place it became the best 20mm cannon available...especially in terms of power. Its tied in my books for #1 most destructive 20mm cannon in IL-2. Surely there is more to it...

Now where are those posters of Crash's when you need them..

It made a couple of the middle 109's quite, quite good. That's for sure. It also made the separation of some of the FW models (like the A5-vs-A6) much wider. While their performance figures are almost identical the A6's armament makes it a much more formiddable opponent. Not saying that's a bad thing, just a fact.

For me personally it´s not about domination of one side(excellent comment Avimus, I learned a lot from it). It´s more or less about historical correctnes and this is not happening in the game.

You have a Polikarpov I-185, that never existed, with the best flying abilitys ever and great guns, where nobody knows how that thing was flying in the first place(2 prototypes that fell out of the sky). Fortunately not many servers have it.
And on the other side you have castrated planes or characteristics like the Browning 50 cal.(I´m not talking about blue planes now as many red pilots feel aparently offended if I do).

This simulator is said to be a WW2 simulation, so it claims to be a historical simulation and the community says it´s one of the best.
I love this sim too for this very reason, but seeing the arguments above, I must say, it has some aspects of a fantasy game.

Now why am I writing this? Not to provoke anyone or to put anyone off(especially not Oleg Maddox, as he has done more than anyone else for the sim-world)
This is meant as a constructive input. I would like things to be historically corrected for the future either for IL2 or SoW, in order to really be able to enjoy a historical simulation.

Truly historical accuracy in a simulation would make it unflyable for at least half the community population. Either because it would simply be too hard to put in the effort necessary to learn it (consider the fact people said exactly that about this sim 8 years ago) or it would simply be too hard for some to learn. Add to that the ridiculously complex physics and graphics computations and it's likely most pc's wouldn't be able to run it.

If realistic torque were modeled, people would bitch so loud you'd think Oleg was a lunatic, but the fact is, in this sim (and likely in subsequent sims) we will really only get a glimpse of truly accurate FM modeling.

If you had the accuracy you claim to desire, it's unlikely you, or many others, would enjoy it.

Understand I'm not advocationg for dumbing down FM's. I'm just saying that in reality the market for a sim as accurate as you describe is likely not large enough to support it economically...unless of course the military were to subsidize it as well. ;)

You´re absolutely right about your argumentation, but only half.
The things you point out might be too complex to program them correctly but some of the things that are implemented aren´t implemented correctly. Some are overpowered and others underpowered.
And actually these should be corrected.

Congratulations! +1

90% auor comunity like and want absolutely the max realism in FM, guns, velocity, aceleration, trying follow the tecnical data, fisicals and aerodinamics caracteristic.
I dont care about realism to start the engine.
Realism is not soo hard, this comunity is ready.

Emil I think you're having a bit of a disconnect between what a historical simulation is capable of (especially one that is now 7 years old) and how that history is interpreted. Oleg's done a marvelous job of taking a game that was meant to be a simulator for the IL-2 ...for use on old Pentium computers and turning it into a modern flight sim master piece spanning virtually the entire war.

Now a year or two ago a number of people took the average number of bullets the average fighter in WWII would sustain from weapons like a 20mm cannon and a .50cal machine gun. I can't find the thread on the Ubi forums anymore but basically it came down to the fact that the "average" number of bullets required in IL-2 and in data we could find from World War II and after was fairly close. I apologise for only being able to mention and not cite the exact information but I took away from it that what we have is close. Very close all things considered.

Its not perfect and in some ways we're at a disadvantage due to the inadequacies of the damage modeling system...but given the limitations of the technology and the limitations of time working on such a project I think what we have is so close to reality that anyone who is talking seriously...I mean seriously...is going to be splitting hairs over a couple of percentage points plus or minus.

The .50cal is a weapon that keeps coming up and I think that the biggest problem is the interpretation from years of watching The History Channel. It was not a perfect weapon but...in real life and in the game if you use it correctly then it will shred the enemy. Its biggest disadvantage is that its a weapon that breaks stuff inside the plane...and the damage model could stand to have a few more objects inside each plane that can be hit. But the average number of hits its still quite close to history if the numbers and testing are to be believed.

The I-185 did fly and presumably was tested so no doubt there is information to base the flight model on. Its probably optimistic and its fun to have...but its not likely to show up in a serious historical mission. Thats ok. It was a FUN bonus project (I believe it was third party)....and I think the real goal there was to show off what texture baking could do for the quality of cockpit. Its ok to have fun with history too.

i agree that is one of the most likely explanations, and is similarly valid for the explosive/destructive power of various munitions, the structural strength modeling of airframes, and aircraft speed etc... what we are dealing with is multiple "virtual variables", each with their own inbuilt imperfections, being mixed together to model one specific variable, for ex the destructive power of one munition on one specific aircraft surface. except that .............

when you look at the types of errors that are now surfacing when people look inside the il2 code, they indicate a strong bias for some of the russian planes/munitions on multiple aspects, and some blatant and recurrent errors that disadvantage the allied/axis side. some of these most obvious errors were never addressed despite repeated and detailed information being provided to oleg by users (like the 50 cal issue for ex)

after having been involved with il2 since the first demo was released, and seeing olegs various reasons/excuses given over time and this being compared to what is now found inside the il2 code, i can arrive at only one conclusion...... the errors in favour of the russian side are not random or coincidental, many are deliberate.

you could still argue that this is based on incorrect data being used in the programming, for ex russian historical documents being overly optimistic about russian equipment performances in ww2. but 50 years after ww2 there is fairly unanimous impartial conclusions that can be drawn from these historical data and information, and unless oleg has exclusively used russian sources there really is no excuse for this bias anymore in 2009.

there is only one solution to this imho for BoB, the modeled data for airspeed, turn ratio, climb rate, explosive modeling of munitions and their belting, has to be OPENLY provided in tables and figures at the release of the game. il2 fans can then have an informed argument about the validity of various sources and the facts of the matter, and if need be minor adjustments can be made when valid new facts outweigh the previous date.

oleg, no more concrete i-16 with magic ray guns please !! and dont expect us to just imagine everything is perfect and that "the pilot makes the difference, not the plane", first we need aircraft that are programmed correctly, then we can add the variable quantity of the skill of the pilot.

I think you're right, the damage model should be reviewed also. I read that the in the game code the damage radius of some 12.7 guns is 4 times less than other ones (e.g. 20 cm vs. 5 cm), with the same type of bullet. Can anyone confirm this?

Regards,
Insuber

Ot: Safat he
 

About the lack of a proper HET belting for the SAFAT, debated sometimes in the forums, an interesting finding of the well-known Quarry Nildram site (http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk):

"The .5" Vickers Class B aircraft gun was not purely experimental. Small numbers were sold to both Siam (Thailand) and Japan in the 1930s, although no aircraft installations have so far emerged. It is presumed that these guns were chambered for the semi-rimmed version of the 12.7x81 cartridge.

It now appears that the IJA's use of this cartridge in the Ho-103 aircraft gun was a separate development via Italy (who adopted this calibre for the Breda-SAFAT and Scotti aircraft guns), and the Italian explosive projectiles were adopted by Japan."

Now in this forum someone already poke into the code, you can find some data here (explosion radius of Breda HET 4 cm, vs 15 cm of the Browning M2):

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...?t=2845&page=2



Regards,
Ins

Well here's my mathematical analysis of the problem.

For sake of brevity I will only deal with a non existing weapon.
In the table below
WP= Weapon Power
RoF= Rate of Fire
PpS= Power per Minute
AP = Applied Power
--------------------------------------------------------
WP.....RoF.........PpM.......%Hit...AP........%Pow er
1 100....700.........70000....4%.....2800....100
2 110....700.........77000.....4%......3080.....110
3 100....700.........70000.....5%......3500......125
---------------------------------------------------------

In line one we have a generic weapon with a "power" of 100 and a RoF of 700 rounds per minute. Historically pilots scored an average of 2 - 5% hits so I've taken a baseline % hits as 4%. This means that 2800 units of power have been applied to the target which is 100%Power.

Line 2 assumes that the code is altered by 10% and power on target increases by 10%

Line 3 assumes you can increase your accuracy by just 1% this means that an extra 25% power is applied to the target above the standard score.

To get the same increase of power applied to the target at line 3 you would have to boost the weapons power (in the code) by 25% over the standard power.

Now if all the time and energy that has gone into arguing the case for changing the weapon powers had gone into gunnery practice, this issue may not have existed in the first place :)

------------------
warped logics or Excel in the hands of a Chart Monkey is a very dangerous thing!

QFT!

Most people suck at aiming their guns...its no small wonder that the really big cannons are preferred due to the increased chance of killing something with a lucky shot rather than a well clustered group of bullets.

Signature material :)

Funny! But I would say instead: "warped logics in the hands of a chart monkey is a very dangerous thing" ... ;-)

If one changes the reference, he can demonstrate whatever he wants, right ? Even that (15 cm : 4 cm)= (M2 : SAFAT) ... LOL.

Regards,
Insuber

you are looking at it the wrong way around, by arguing that only accuracy of gunnery matters and that the caliber/belting or explosive charge of the munition has little significance.

the discussion at the moment here is about the importance of having correct historical munitions loadouts for all aircraft in il2/BoB, and that those munitions damage effects on aircraft surfaces are modeled correctly.

imo the way to remove controversy and speculation, is for those values to be openly given, in the same ways we need accurate values for airspeed, climb rate, etc... Not providing that information leads to speculation of incorrect values being used, and that has now been proven to be the case for some aircraft/munitions by the people who have opened the code for il2.

I'm hip with what your saying man, but with historically correct values for weapon power, I doubt that we would see anything like real world effect.

Although sophisticated for its time, the aircraft physics, systems and damage model in IL2 is simplified and abstracted (as they are in any sim, even the big space shuttle jobbies used by nasa, even if they are several orders of magnitude 'better' and more detailed than IL2! ). This requires tweeking of the values used, in our case, to represent the damage of the various weapons.

I do not know what process they used to determine the values that they settled on, but I would hope they used a process where the results obtained in the sim (statistically) reflected what occured during the war. I know this approach lead to discussions like this and the process used to select these values will cause arguments, but I can't see any simple way around it.

At the moment my average hit percentage is at or below that 4% value I talked about before and I'm having a hell of a time getting that extra 1%. At that point I'll go into this Zen like state, that will last until SoW gets released. (Or I get shot down in flames on hyperlobby again!)

In my opinion, in 8 years time we will probably be having similar discussions about SoW.

Oh and sorry about the 'Hip' remark I've been watching Life on Mars and I'm going through a 70's revival. Dig it Brother!

Wait! Wait!

Are you really defending the wrong data with a "learn to shot better"?

It's like you buy a bicycle, at home you find out that it has only one wheel and the seller explains that you need to learn to ride it in that way.

Of course Il2 is dead and where will be no changes.. no reason to whine.

But Emil is rightly asking WHY this wrong data in a game who should be a realistic simulator.

Looking at the overall data (FM and DM) with my years of experience I can say that the game is clearly biased toward the Red side.

Of course there is inaccuracy on both the sides, but "usually" (ergo not always) these flaws are a disadvantage for the Blue and an advantage for the Red.

It's like the old story of "the 190's acceleration is wrong" -> "learn to fly". Of course people learned to fly it (mostly because they were prevented from flying the late 109s withone of the latest patches), using tactics and learing to build a good SA. But the accelleration was still wrong (im not talking about data, but comparison between planes) and his performance was/are still worser than those of an A4 with the Stuka's prop.

Anyway you can learn, you can make experience and at last you try to fight I16s flying a G50 and you want to lauch the monitor out of the window.

If only the modders could solve these problems (but I know they decided to not doing it leaving all the original data, even if wrong: I have friend inside that community).

I think I will buy SOW too even if the bias will remain the same... I only hate to find out again and again experts (flying time wise) Red pilots who accuse you of cowardy when they are flying a SpitIXLF and you are in your 190A8...

I still have fun because I play in a virtual community.

Yes. This is as good as it's going to get, or go to one of the Modding site.

I would question your powers of observation if it was a real bike.

See previous post. IL2 has limitations, using real world power for weapons doesn't mean you'ld get real world results.


The Developers have made numerous changes to flight models through out the life of the sim to make it more 'realistic' (with the limitations of the game. Why didn't they change the weapon power? I don't think it was some conspiracy to taqrget the Blue side. I think that they were trying to make a reasonable model of the the type of damage that could be expected in real life (within the limitations of the game engine) Of course it's not perfect. No one can make it perfect.

maybe they tried the real data and it just didn't 'Work'

I will still be flying this SoW. Even with all the problems it will probably be the best WWII sim out there for some time.

I still remember the early days of the original IL2 when one shot from the Mk 108 would turn any plane in the sim into confetti.

The cries of bias by both sides are so silly.

Emil did not ask for a change, he did ask for the reason of this wrong data.

LOL! You know what I mean... you buy a box with a big word "bicycle" but you can't see its content yet... like a videogame object.

Of course... but it's strange that when people uses real data the thing ingame seem more realistic... or do you really believe to the green ray of death? I believe Oleg did a great job with his engine.

Mhm.. I though it was more realistic in the first version of the game... you could stall in a La7 as in a 109.. now you can't...
Anyway I'm aware of the engine problems (i've been a oleg supporter since the start, I've been a oleg doubter since the famous patch who porked the 109s and a conspiracy believer since the i16/G50 fight I did)

Modders tried and it worked.. they only agreed to not change any original data keeping "Il2" as the game developed by Oleg.

Me too.. Oleg di a good job and we all must thank him.
The only thing I need to say is "Please leave SOW a realistic hystorical simulator, don't change hystory for marketing affair". I have 5 copy of this game at home... and I'm going follow him. I only wish that this time Blue players could play without handicaps because Red world needs to win...

AFAIK the damage models of some weapons/ammunitions are not correct (blue or red, I do not care a damn), that is they are not 'realistic', and with a little tweaking of the parameters (and the mod guys say that it is a very easy tweaking) the 'realism' can be improved.

When I say lack of 'realism' I intend:

- the lack of data coherence when comparing the effects of similar ammunition fired by different weapons in the game, which strangely enough yields sometimes very different results (DM is in cause here),
- the lack of correspondence with historical accounts and guncam movies, even though this method is more prone to flaws and subjective interpretations.

I brought the example of the 4 cm radius of damage of a type of 12.7 gun, versus the 15 cm radius of a different type of 12.7 gun. Is this logical or coherent ? IMHO it isn't, and the obvious results are a huge loss of 'realism' if you dogfight in a plane with the first type of gun.

I have to go now, I need to practice so to improve my hit ratio by at least 50% ... hoping that it is enough :-).

Regards,
Insuber

Bullet isn't missile, which propels itself and its characteristics do not depend on launcher.

Bullet accelerates only when it is in the barrel of the gun, so barrel length directly effects muzzle velocity. Higher velocity allows the bullet to fly in less curved trajectory and do more damage (penetration). Guns with different length of barrel will have different effects on target and will have to be aimed differently, despite the same ammunition.

Difference between guns increases even more when they are fired in bursts. The higher muzzle velocity is, the higher recoil will be and the more subsequent shots will be thrown away from aim point, so higher muzzle velocity (longer barrel) will result in larger spread when burst time (or shots count) increases.

The last thing is RPM of the gun. It mostly depends on how strong are the materials from which the gun is made. Basically designers trade between high RPM and high muzzle velocity, so the gun will not be destroyed just by firing it. Higher RPM is desirable when firing from unstable platforms such as aircraft, because it decreases spread which occurs because of platform instability. However, high RPM coupled with high recoil can give very very high spread.

So, to sum up: different guns with the same ammunition will fire differently.

Zaltys,

Well said and agreed, in principle. But my point is that the "different" is way too much so in game, especially for HE rounds where the amount of HE is the same, and penetration is a second order factor. In particular, if true, the 4 cm vs. 15 cm damage radius for two different .50 guns (that is a 14x in effectiveness factor as far as affected area, and 50x as far as affected volume ...) is not "realistic".

Also, I believe that even for ordinary AP shells the penetration effect on thin aluminum surfaces is *approximately* the same, independently from the bullet energy, since the aluminum foil resistance is again a second order factor.

Going to a more subjective talk, I'm ready to accept a penalization for using weaker planes/guns, but not ready to pepper a Tomahawk with hundreds of .50 well aimed rounds from convergence distance, only to see him loosing some small debris and flying home with a large "bras d'honneur" popping out of the cockpit ... You know what I mean, if you don't, just try ... ;-)

Regards,
Insuber

There is big problem with ammunition types in this game. All heavy MGs in this game have only AP (AP-T) rounds and no incendiary or explosive ones. That is why .50, MG131, MG151, BredaSAFATs look so weak.

Thanks Zaltys, that's right. I can't explain still the relative difference between Brownings (and HO's, btw) and the rest of .50's.

Regards,
Ins

And here we come to another factor. IL-2 is IMO so far the game with best scaling I ever saw and this goes to both, graphics and more importantly for this topic difficulty.
There are so many difficulty options that one can scale il2 from high fidelity simulation to sunday afternoon shootout arcade.
But what happened? The thing commonly reffered to as "elitism", some people coudn't handle more realistic settings but also couldn't accept it and simply turn off the options that were in the way of their fun. And then, on the 7th day - the whined at O.M.
Pffft one of the worst things for IL-2 was so many "inputs" on ubi...
I would even go THAT far and say that the best thing that could possibly happen for SoW is O.M.'s absence from us

Realistic torque was modelled and people did bitch, a small but load group of weekend "war winners" ruined it for many of us, while all they had to do for their instant gratification is turn off the darn torque in the difficulty options, yes it's actually there.
I remember there was a small DF server ran by a female in the past, she simply turned off the torque, that's one of the reasons I love females so much - they usually throw much less BS around...


In the end don't get me wrong I fully understand what you want to say, I just hate the reasons that make the whole situation what it is.
This is also one of the reasons simulation genre is barely living...too many people want instant gratification. The would all like to be uber aces with no effort, well they can play Ace Combat on "Realistic" settings thinking they would be awsome pilots IRL - LOL

It's all relative. Given 109s and 190s lose a great deal of speed and stability by just beeing looked at by 50cals the wrong way a porked 50 cal belting does not make that much of a difference. 50ies don't do structual damage that easily, but they are certainly more then adequate in reducing german planes combat efficiency to a degree no other planes are effected. This is especially true for the 109 engine. Though this makes Ponies and Jugs more or less "kill message 5 minutes after engagement" planes, in my exprience whenever I fly those, which is not that a rare happening, all in all they are not less effective. The danger of kill stealing is pretty high, however.

The only guns I never felt at home with are the Hispanos. But that may be because most Hispano planes I flew have their cannons pretty much far away from the center of the planes, which makes precise shooting only a real possibility at convergence range. You lack the range flexibility other aircraft possess in this regard.

I don't know how I could cut in 2 late 109s (2 of them in the same mission) simply firing at convergence distance flying a P51... it's like the uber overmodelled K4 that you have to learn to fly, above all to remain at 400m from a US bomber since its .50s will open you (AI can be good to hitting you; it doesn't involve the damage at your plane, ammo data does).

At the same time I like to be PKed from 500m by the green ray of death.

Anyway this is true even for the P51's engine: one shot and you are out... other planes (P39, Spit) you can fly all the mission with a smoking engine like you had 300lts. of oil.

Heh, be sure. And constant griping that HMG actually does damage to plane.

The AP .50 Cal BMG will penetrate about 3/4 inch of steel at 500m. The aluminium that makes up most aircraft doesn't really offer too much resistance. At convergence the 6 Browning machine guns are concentrated in a fairly small area and with enough time on target would literally cut a plane in half. That just comes down to good technique and shooting accurately at the convergence distance


There was a general trend to move to larger guns through the war. The object was to destroy aircraft. The pilot is a lot more susceptible to damage than the plane. One lucky shot is all it takes. I think the record for a confirmed ‘kill’ with a .50cal BMG round (from a sniper rifle) is about 2,430 metres. Like I said, if you get hit all it takes is one lucky shot and your history.

cheers.

beg to differ ....

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

The grist of the document is to say (Sorry for my cruddy paraphrasing) "If you have your guns converged at a single distance (point) you will create an area of overkill at that spot but at other ranges the density of fire will produce excessive dispersion" so to be more efficent "you should converge your guns at slightly different ranges so that you produce a larger area (zone) where you have a minimum lethal density" and it recomends a system of convergence for the guns that creates this zone.

I don't see that this contradicts my statements, which was that if you fired 6 .50 BMG at the same spot on aircraft for long enough you could cut it in half! In fact it explains how it works ( And why a different system should be used to increase your chances of getting a kill at other ranges), even though the circumstances to do this in real life would have been extremely rare.

As far as I can tell in IL2 we use the "point bore sighting" (I think the exception is in the P47 where you can alter one of the pairs of guns by changing the cannon convergence) where the guns are converged on a single point. (I use this for range finding in my skip bombing attacks- fire the odd burst until your rounds converge to a spot and then let the bomb go! It works a treat!)


Cheers and thanks for the link it was an interesting read.

Although BuOrd makes a recommendation for boresighting, that doesn't mean it's what the squadrons use. The highest scoring USN squadron (VF-15) used a tightly grouped point convergence.

And I believe several USAAF aces did too. I get the impression that point convergence is something the experienced pilots prefer while it makes it more difficult for the less experienced pilots.

I'm not surprised that there is a range of feelings about how effective the .50cal is and who that corresponds to.

I feel the .50cal is perfectly lethal when I'm aiming properly. My record is still 7 Zeros (A6M3 and A6M5) shot down online by me flying a F6F-5. That is the exception rather than the rule for me ...but its possible. Its also quite possible to keep firing and waste the whole ammo load on one or two Zeros without scoring a definitive kill. I've also done that :D

This what USMC Medal of Honor winner Jo Foss had to say about shooting with 0.50 cal ...


" Q. How close do you have to come to do effective damage?

A. When we started out, all our shooting was out of range. We would begin on the enemy a quarter of a mile away, and by the time we actually got into range we'd used up our ammunition. Then we started getting in there from 300 yards to 50 foot off, and really started hitting them. Then we moved it down so that we'd shoot right at 100 yards - then you can't miss. If you're off to one side or the other, just kick it on. If you shoot too far off, you scare 'em! If you keep your tracers out of there - the Jap pilot shoots. I've seen him shoot half a mile off; they just keep shooting until they go on range, and they're still shooting whan they pass you. They really get rid of the ammunition! I talked to the boys when a new outfit would come in. When you talk to a man before he goes out the first time, it doesn't do any good; but after he's been out the first time or the first two times, then you can talk to him. He knows what you're talking about. I'd just tell them, "Get in there, really get them in your sights, and really shoot close." I told one group that, and every flight scored on the trip. They'd all had a couple of combats before; they were shooting away out of range - 500 or 600 yards."


The entire interview with him is here ...

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Aircraft/VMF-121/

its well worth a read.

Possibly, but some of it could be training too. USN had more thorough gunnery training than USAAF.

Here's Dave McCampbell, MOH winner and leading USN/USMC ace (34 victories) on convergence used in VF-15:

Source: Smithsonian Oral History Collection "Carrier Warfare in the Pacific", ISBN 1-56098-822-3

Thing is while most weapons in this game work more or less good in the game, they don't really work like in RL... to much discrepancies.
So that is what makes people think that something is wrong.
Granted some of the people have gone so far that mere reading their posts makes me laughing...:o

Anyhow the key for most of these "problems" with weapons really is - improved DM.
That will make some weapons (or if you like, all of them) more effective, and the LMG/HMG are the ones which will really benefit, as they will be able to damage more stuff on hit...

Looking forward to the Rise of Flight:cool:...

I couldn't agree more. I've been saying this for years. The biggest issue with current weapons is:

1. poor marksmanship
2. Limited damage model

Notice I didn't say "poor" DM. The next-gen sims (both RoF and SoW) should benefit greatly from much more detailed DM. This will enhance (not increase it per se) weapon damage, incidental contact damage, airfoil stress damage due to exceeding aircraft performance limits, etc,. All good things that the current DM we're used to is lacking.

Salute

The muzzle velocity figures that are quoted by II/JG54 Emi for German weapons are simply not accurate.

Would suggest he do some more research.

I made my research one many pages!

Please explain yourself with numbers not with empty statements.

*buzzsaw*,


I would respectfully suggest you to complete your argument by adding facts and figures, otherwise it risks to appear simple trolling.

Ins

+1, We know, this is a game with limitations, but We are here because we love simulation and we know there is a lot of details can be easily fixed, like velocity amo of MK108.