The destructive power of Russian guns/cannons

[IceFire]

So far as I know absolutely nothing was changed to cannon damages. I could be wrong but nobody has said anything about it.

Before you say that Russian cannons were always over modeled I suggest some research on the subject. Russians had some very good aerial weaponry including the excellent Berezin UB and the B-20 which were both lightweight and effective weapons.

[K_Freddie]

I remember there being some comparison info somewhere.. If I'm not mistaken..

- The Russian weapons had a higher muzzle velocity and greater penetration power (going through your pilots armour plate causing more PKs, etc..).

- The German weapons had lower velocity but had more explosive/hitting power, but less penetration power.

So essentially the Russian stuff shredded, and the German stuff blew things apart.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by K_Freddie

I remember there being some comparison info somewhere.. If I'm not mistaken..

- The Russian weapons had a higher muzzle velocity and greater penetration power (going through your pilots armour plate causing more PKs, etc..).

- The German weapons had lower velocity but had more explosive/hitting power, but less penetration power.

So essentially the Russian stuff shredded, and the German stuff blew things apart.

That'd be a pretty good summary for sure!

Doing a very simple comparison...

Cannon, Cartridge, Rate of Fire (rpm), Muzzle Velocity
MG 151/20, 20 x 82, 700-750, 725
ShVAK, 20 x 99R, 800, 750-770
Hispano II, 20 x 110, 600, 880

(from here: http://users.skynet.be/Emmanuel.Gust...n/fgun-pe.html)

The ShVAK basically fires a bigger shell than the MG151/20 and it does it at a higher rate of fire and with a higher muzzle velocity. So on the face of it the ShVAK is actually the better cannon. The MG151/20 makes up for it by having the better explosive shell with the Mine-shell (very thin high grade shell wall with much more explosive). It's a fairly even trade off.

My reading suggests that it's sort of a three way tie as to which cannon is the best. The Hispano fires the biggest round at the highest muzzle velocity but had a variety of teething reliability problems and had a lower fire rate (at least until the Mark V). The ShVAK fills the middle road with a capable cannon that had it's bugs worked out before WWII. The MG151/20 is the most technologically sophisticated and takes slightly lesser stats (very slightly) and makes up for it with a much higher explosive power.

The Japanese also had a pretty good cannon in the Ho-5. It was actually derived from the Browning .50cal design but it wasn't as good as "the big three".

[JtD]

The ShVAK has a bigger cartridge than the MG 151/20, but a smaller projectile.

[RPS69]

The only historical problem with the Russian armament in IL2, is from IL2-3M.

Those canons weren't synchronized. They were removed from the tank buster function to the anti shipping role. At least those were big enough to get some hits with asynchronous heavy guns.

In game, heavy tank killing is a child play with those canons.

[rga]

If you were testing against AI, keep in mind that AI damage control is poorly modelled. AI can still fly perfectly with a big hole in the wing and half rudder gone. And there is a rumor that Ace AI has defense bonus, though I'm not sure if it's right.

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by rga

If you were testing against AI, keep in mind that AI damage control is poorly modelled. AI can still fly perfectly with a big hole in the wing and half rudder gone.

Have an example for this? My experience has consistently been the opposite, that if you blow "a big hole" in the wing of an AI aircraft it's flight performance suffers accordingly, though now it's much more plausibly so with the new patch than in previous versions.

And there is a rumor that Ace AI has defense bonus, though I'm not sure if it's right.

A rumor. And one that you're not even sure of. Why mention this at all?