Quote:
Originally Posted by horseback
Cannot tell you if the Stuka DM is porked—oops, excuse me, I meant ‘off’. The ridiculous ai rear gunners have kept me from doing any serious damage to them for years. Still, given the sheer size of the beast, if it were even a bit fragile in real life, it couldn’t have been as effective in combat conditions for most of the war as it obviously was.
|
There's nothing about the Stuka's service record which indicates that it was a particularly tough aircraft, other than the fact that it was stressed to handle dive bombing.
Remember, part of the Stuka's reputation rested on the fact that the Germans were able to achieve massive air superiority in 1939-41. Without fighter escort, the Stuka was quite vulnerable, as evidenced by its less than stellar performance during the Battle of Britain.
Dora model Stukas might have been tougher than Bertha models, but they were still based on a mid-1930s design with all its limitations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by horseback
However, most Jug (and Corsair and Hellcat) fans would have to wonder where you’ve been all these years; the Il-2 Sturmovik ’46 version of the P-47D DM is obviously the creation of a truly dedicated bunch of debunkers.
|
To paraphrase a common saying, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by poor modeling." (Other than that, I agree with you. Debunking is just a method of generating controversy, which drums up trade for documentary producers, writers and academics.)
Remember that both the Corsair and Hellcat are products of the deeply flawed Pacific Fighters expansion, and there might be legal reasons why 1c/TD can't fix them. The Pacific Theater and carrier ops were obviously areas that 1c had less experience with, fewer local resources to work with, and less personal incentive to recreate, and it shows.
As for the P-47, I think that 1c's original work was influenced heavily by contemporary Soviet assessments of the P-47C, which were influenced by the relative lack of need for a high-altitude, long-range escort and the Soviet preference for cannons rather than heavy machine guns as fighter aircraft armament. The Soviets didn't know what to make of it and wrote it off. I also have to wonder if Soviet assessments suffered from some of the same shock that British and U.S. 56 FG pilots suffered when transitioning from the Spitfire to the Jug. After all, Soviet fighter pilots were more familiar with small, nimble fighters like the I-16 and Yak series, so the P-47 must have seemed clumsy by comparison.
TD has gone to great lengths to fix things, so I don't want to fault them, but it's possible that there is more work to be done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by horseback
P-47s and F6F Hellcats were the two safest fighters to fly in combat in WWII, and they were both powered by the mighty R-2800.
|
While I think that your points about the R-2800 (and, by extension many of the other late war U.S. radial engines modeled in the game) are valid, to play devil's advocate, part of the reputation of the late war U.S. fighters was made by the fact that after 1943, U.S. pilots usually had air superiority (at least locally) and were usually facing inferior opponents.
What I'd like is if just about every plane in the game were harder to break into pieces or set on fire, except those noted for their light construction and lack of self-sealing fuel tanks. I think that TD has got it about right for crew injury and kills, but it's a too easy to blow parts off or set planes on fire.
In particular, I think that it's unrealistic for any heavy or medium bomber to lose a wing, stabilizer or entire engine to MG fire, or anything other than sustained 20mm cannon fire, and extremely unrealistic for the fuselage to break up.
I particularly dislike the ease with which you can blow off entire wings of planes like the B-17 using just heavy machine guns or a few 20mm cannon hits. If you look at gun camera footage of actual heavy bomber kills, kills are mostly achieved by setting the plane on fire, while archival films of heavy bomber shoot-downs shows that major parts come off the plane only as a result of severe fires (which melt, burn and weaken aluminum), direct hits by heavy flak (i.e., a direct hit by a 75mm or greater explosive round) or G-stresses on the plane as it falls out of control (possibly due to pilot kills or destruction of control linkages).
Likewise, it's possibly unrealistic for the heavier single- and twin-engined planes in the game (e.g. IL-2, P-38, P-47, F4U, F6F) to lose wings, engines or entire control surfaces due to MG fire, or anything more than sustained 20mm cannon fire, much less break up. There's plenty of evidence showing that smaller planes like the Bf-109, FW-190 or various Japanese fighters can lose wings due to heavy MG or 20mm fire, however.
After all, it's the nature of explosive rounds to blow up on the aircraft's surface, blowing big holes in the plane's skin, while much of the blast is dissipated in the empty space within the fuselage or wing, while most AP rounds will punch a smallish hole in the skin and pass through the plane to the other side. Obviously, if there's something under the skin things are very different, but you see lots of pictures of planes with massive surface damage which are able to keep on flying - at least for a while.
And, even for critical parts, most parts of a military aircraft are designed to be redundant, so that one hit to a particular part doesn't kill the plane. Obviously, there are exceptions like cooling systems or crew, but just one hit to a wing root or engine mount isn't going to blow that part off.
I'd like to see slightly more complex damage modeling, where there is a minimum damage requirement to blow off certain parts of certain planes (as opposed to just setting them on fire or make them stop working). Not just "hit points" or a random chance of critical damage, but an actual threshold to do any significant damage at all.
As an ignorant rough estimate:
Heavy or medium bomber fuselage or wing - 75 mm explosive.
Heavy or medium bomber stabilizer or engine mount - 30 mm explosive.
Heavy or medium bomber control surface - 20 mm explosive.
Light twin-engined bomber or heavy attack, fighter or transport fuselage - 75 mm explosive.
Light twin-engined bomber or heavy attack, fighter or transport wing or engine mount - 30 mm explosive.
Light twin-engined bomber or heavy attack, fighter or transport stabilizer - 20 mm explosive.
Light twin-engined bomber or heavy attack, fighter or transport control surface - Heavy MG (e.g., .50 caliber or 12.7mm) HE, AP or ball.
Light attack, recce or fighter or transport fuselage or engine mount - 30 mm explosive.
Light attack, recce or fighter or transport wing or stabilizer - Heavy MG HE, AP or ball.
Light attack, recce or fighter or transport control surface - Light MG (e.g., 0.30 caliber or 7.62 mm) AP or ball.
Very light aircraft fuselage, wing or engine mount - 20 mm explosive or AP.
Very light aircraft stabilizer - Heavy MG HE, AP or ball.
Very light aircraft control surface - Light MG AP or ball.