CoD's 109E4 canons : overdone ?

[TomcatViP]

Hi everyone,

If I fly a 109 usually my mount is an E3.

Lately, after months of seeing my kills online being reduced to 0.16% or 0.03 after flaming a bomber or killing it's entire crew before someone else in an E4 model decided to threw some eggs toward it, I took the E4 offline for a test.

My test mission is usually me vs 3 opponents. If I am flying blue my ride is either an E3 or a 110. My adversaries (AI) are flying what ever I want to shoot but mostly Hurri and SPits.

Usually with a full load of canon shells in a 109E3 I can with attention shot down 3 opponents at max before my canons drums are empty.

There on my second try of a E4, I selected 6 Hurri. In 10 mins all 6 were down (pls bear in mind that the more the advantage AI gets, the more aggressive they are - hence it was not simply shots from dead six on a row of seating ducks )

The last kill was scored with ONLY ONE shell left in each barrel !! Ok I did work it pretty well : very close and with a slight drift to point one of my canon directly in the cockpit (Old IL2's mk108 might help sometime ).

But guys at 380kph flying my nose in the rear of a Hurri how can 1 single shell kill the pilot instantly despite the turbulences (not in game) and the imposiibility to aim precisely with something 3meter off to your line of sight ?

And how can I shot down twice as many plane just with the introduction of a few minenshells in the drums (pls note default loading and default convergence)?

I know, we blue hve been whining for so long before we get the E4 and Devs are so much nice that they went back to tht drawing board just for that... But c'mon... this is turkey shooting !

~S all !

[CaptainDoggles]

There seems to be a huge and disappointing trend lately of assuming that the E4 is overmodeled.

It really is not.

I know there's a vocal minority of Allied pilots who seem to be afraid of/fed up with/otherwise against the E-4 even though it has the same performance as the E-3.

Yes, it carries minegeschoss shells and they are better. No, these are not super 1946-style Mk-108 wonder weapons.

More than once I've put a perfect 5-round burst into the cockpit of a Hurricane only to see him start maneuvering wildly as if he was unscathed. If you edit the belting in the E-3 it can be nearly as effective as the E-4, as I found out during the 5./JG27 missions before the E-4 was introduced. In fact, I find that mostly it's the MG-17s in the nose that do most of the pilot killing.

Tomcat, if you are having trouble killing bombers with the E-3 then I suggest to you to a) Stop worrying about "kill stealing" when fractional scores are awarded anyways and b) edit your belting.

I have on numerous occasions taken down 5+ Blenheims using only the nose guns shooting a mix of armor-piercing and incendiary ammunition (SmkH and PmK). If you approach from 6 low, shoot the gunner until you kill him and then aim either at the engine or the wing root inboard of the engine it usually takes about 200 rounds of MG-17 per bomber.

I am sure that I will be flamed shortly by those who wish only to see the "Blue side" nerfed because they want their favorite ride to be the best in every respect.

[robtek]

It seems the mine shells are twice as effective as the usual shells, must be the reason they were invented.
It must have been a really strong reason to change, as all MG-FF had to be modified to use them.
One doesn't do this if there isn't a big gain in effectivity, i'd say.

[Sven]

I prefer to fly the E1 to be honest with you which I did in the campaign. I think cannons suck big time in Cliffs of Dover, especially in a 109 where the recoil bounces my reticle all over the place. No thanks, I'd rather place a well aimed stream of bullets directly into the cockpit/engine. Much quicker and more effective I reckon.

It could be well true that the Minengeschoss was 2x as effective. Hence the total switch-over. Being able to kill the pilot quicker is of course a logical thing, when the shell was intended to penetrate and then explode, causing much more damage where-ever it hit.

[pupo162]

well. oi could dig the post. but the normal 109 e3 explosvie shell ( not really explsoive but icendiary) as about 7-12 grams of explosive. vs 40g of explosive of a mine shell.

im not sure of this values to be acurate, but the proportion should be about right.

[TomcatViP]

Hi guys,

Yes the MG17 are good and in some way better. Like many here I can shot down several bombers with only the twin machine gun of my E3 (I think I did 4.5 one day when my canon ammo were exhausted before I came in contact with a flight of Wellies). I hve alway advocated the introduction of the E1 on that very grds when we had problem and complains abt the effectiveness of the 109 armament.

I am training offline my canon skills as it suit better the way I am engaging targets. Hence, it can be said that most of the score I am referring too in my post (see above) are CANON kills.

I hve alway thought that the Mineshells were far much effective and the fact that it double my kill ratio with only a few of those weapons in my drums tend to re-affirm that thought

With 60 shells I can score 6 kills what makes us 10 shells per kill with 500 rpm = 10/500 min for a kill = 0.02*60sec = 1.2 sec to score one kill. That's an impressive AVERAGE stats (I hve 21% rate of hits in the E4 - 12/15% in the E3).

I hev no problem with the 1 sec burst to make a plane goes down. But in AVERAGE ?! over 10min of fight ?

My opinion is that something is over done like the blast radius as I said once.

@Doggles : I am not crying after kill stealing since CoD give credits to everyone that scrored a hit and once a crew has bailed out it's often impossible to see that a plane is going down (usually it can fly straight for hours). Perhaps, some damage sharing might be tuned up.
But what belt wld you recommend ?

[CaptainDoggles]

It's been a while, but I seem to recall I had good success using equal panzerbrandsprenggranate and phosphor/elektron rounds. The very first mission I had a one-pass kill on a Hurri IIRC.

[CaptainDoggles]

Ball is more effective against wooden and fabric-covered targets, as the round makes larger, more ragged holes.

[jg27_mc]

Originally Posted by CaptainDoggles

...I know there's a vocal minority of Allied pilots who seem to be afraid of/fed up with/otherwise against the E-4 even though it has the same performance as the E-3...

I always had the feel that E4 outperforms the E1/E3 models. I could be wrong... I have the sensation (while flying E4) that it is a better turner and has far better accelerating while in a dive. (placebo?)

Originally Posted by Sven

I prefer to fly the E1 to be honest with you which I did in the campaign. I think cannons suck big time in Cliffs of Dover, especially in a 109 where the recoil bounces my reticle all over the place. No thanks, I'd rather place a well aimed stream of bullets directly into the cockpit/engine. Much quicker and more effective I reckon...

Agree 100%.

[drewpee]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

This is a 30mm, but gives you an idea of how these rounds were. Even at a fraction of that destructive power, it would give an effect modelled relatively accurately in CoD. Mind you, we can't see bent skin, but a high explosive cannon round should do tremendous damage. The minengeschoss round had more explosive charge than the 20mm rounds of the German Panzers. It didn't have the penetrating power however.

The 20mm round had something like 20g of HE, where the 30mm had 70g

Nice find Cheesehalk. Interesting to see historical dater at work.

I must say I cringe every time a debate is started on AC performance. Only documented dater should be counted or it becomes more of a contest of who sounds the most convincing and not what is truth.