Sway while firing guns
 

I posted this on the dev forum and thought it may be a good topic here:

Did the aircraft's attitude really change that much when firing the guns? If I was the designer of a fighter, that would be the #1 problem to solve. And if you watch enough gun camera footage they don't seem to sway side to side. If it looks that way, that's just the pilot working the rudder.

But, I've never spoken to a WW2 fighter pilot so I may be way off base.

It varies from plane to plane...the 109G vs the 109K for example...the G is all over the place but the K does not....also it varies because of the weapons being used... .303(spit) will not kick as much as a 108 (109g)

and then you have the same weapons working differently, for example the .303

works better in the hurricane than the spit, due the thicker wing of the hurricane making it a better gun platform than the spit.

I think my #1 would be out-manouvring every other plane out there. It would be more usefull to be able to get on someone's six and then have to burst carefully then to have no recoil at all, but the turning radius of a B17.
Problem with designing an aircraft is that there are a lot of factors involved, and I think I'd put recoil relatively low on the list.

There is also side area to consider. The Go-229, for example, has no vertial surface at all, and in the IL-2 1946 version, was fitted with MK103's (the 180's bigger brother). You start firing, and you're going everywhere.

Gun mounting is also a factor. The Fw-190A with the MK103 wing pods has some real issues with fire drift. Not only is it firing a big round at a high velocity, the pods are sort of flexible, and tended to wobble and flex when the gun is fired. Not only are you gettng asyncronous impulses, you're getting them from randomized vectors too! Those things were widely loathed.

Harry Voyager

I think you took that sentence a little too literally.

IMO the Yak-9 has some of the worst recoil in BoP. You've got to be sure you have the perfect shot first, or you'll get your aim thrown way off.

Yeah... I can't believe how horrible it's recoil is. It's practically useless unless you are a perfect shot.

That's what I mean. You would think there would be an easy way to solve that.

Say a plane has four MGs. You set guns 1$3 to fire at the same time. And 2&4 fire at the same time. Problem solved. No?

The Yak 9T only had 1 huge cannon right? Maybe the added machine gun was a failed attempt to make it compensate for the recoil :-P

thats what they did with for example the P-51 and the hurricane

But the Yak-9T was more intended to use its cannon at ground targets. It didnt need the 0 recoil to get a perfect burst at a turning plane.
It needed to be able to fire a few rounds in a tank, that it can do :)..
But yeah, to kill a tank, you need a big round, thus giving a lot of recoil. But since it didnt need 0 recoil for its goal... why bother fixing it

Besides, the big cannon is in the nose, you cant really compensate for that.
A gun in the left wing can be compensated by a gun in the right wing, the cannon of the yak is in the middle, what were they supposed to do :P
what is the easy way to solve that?

Ask the designers of the A-10. :-P Thing has a 12 foot gatling gun in it's nose.

I thinkkk, the fact that it has been made 30 years later, might maybe perhaps have something to do with that :P.

none the less, im gonna google my @ss off now for a sec, to see if there is something to say about that :P

EDIT: 2 sec later:
it might be because the gatlin is 30mm and the yak cannon 37mm

But I think im gonna go for the fact that the empty weight of the yak-9t was 2300kg... and of the A-10 it was 21000kg.. :).
same thing: try mounting a flak cannon on a bicycle, think you might notice the recoil a bit more, than on a tiger tank

Does make you wonder what would happen if you mounted the A-10 gatlin of the yak :D would it fly backwards ??

Sarcasm my friend :).

I do believe however that when strafing a tiny tank you wouldn't want to much recoil either.. in any case, it would be wise to burst :).

The 30mm on the A-10 generates about as much thrust as one of its engines. The engire aircraft was designed around its installation, such that it's firing along nearly the exact center of mass of the plane. The Yak-9T, on the other hand, simply has its engine mounted 20mm cannon replaced with a 37mm, and one of the 12.7mm mg's taken off to cut the weight.

I think you misspelt 20ft gatling gun.

20ft 100rps gatling gun

I wish the game had an option to turn this recoil off.

I know the arcade mode doesn't have recoil, but it would be nice in the other 2 modes to play without the recoil. Playing with the joystick makes it pretty difficult...

I completely understand which is why I switched back to the controller, hard to believe but think about it, its analog therefore minor adjustments are MUCH more accurate I guess the drawback is that you have to have coordinated thumbs to manage the minor adjustments! However the recoil was there so i'm glad its in and I honestly like dealing with it. The single biggest problem for me is the dead spot on the stick combined with the recoil and I definitely struggle with the sticks currently available...

But yeah, recoil for me please!

I'm also going to have to say because the Yak-9T was cloth, wood, and lightweight chromoli-steel. While on the other hand, the A-10 is made of much heavier steel etc.

The A-10 has a solid titanium bathtub surrounding the cockpit. This has the added bonus of making sure the pilot can survive a direct hit on the cockpit from a .50 cal weapon.

Incidentally the A-10 is designed to be able to fly straight and steady with only one engine and half a wing blown off.