Mitsubishi Stuka and Thunderbolt

[Art-J]

Stukas being vulnerable at last? Gotta check this out. I haven't done any missions against these for a loooong time, because few patches ago they could absorb ridiculous amounts of bullets (especially .30 caliber), which made emulating early BoB scenarios quite a bit difficult. If they're less "panzer" now, I'm all for it!

Re: La-5/7 and Fw-190 - they are amongst the oldest models, dating back to the very first version of the game and their simplified DMs were never really completely upgraded, hence the engines and fuselages made of reinforced concrete . We just have to live with it and hope that TD will consider putting these on "to do" list (including aforementioned R-2800).

[Jumoschwanz]

The Stuka has been in the sim for a very long time too.

The FW190 has been tweaked up and down over the years, I remember one patch saw it's wings flying off with one hit, then the next patch it was made stronger. I think with most of the aircraft they have found a good balance, you can hobble home with a few hits but when they start adding up your chances of staying in the air quickly go way down.

It just seemed to me that the 4.12 P-47 and Stuka were not as tough as the fW190A, and I have even had better luck while flying the 109 in taking hits than the 4.12 Stuka.


I had a mission set up where I was intercepting four Ace p-47 razorbacks and I was surprised at how easy it was to knock them out of the sky, often one pass, even an off angle one will take the plane or pilot out. I can see getting the occasional lucky hit, but it seemed every one of the P-47s I hit with the FW190 went down very easily. I don't remember reading about how their tail sections were weak or vulnerable like you can read about the IL2 or Bf109.

The Stuka I was flying was the D-5, the late one that is supposed to be more heavily armored than the early ones, but it seems it would light up like a torch with one hit from a fighter, and it fell apart very easily from one AA hit, which is not what you read about in combat accounts.

I have a lot of experience with engineering and mechanics, I know more about internal combustion engines than most people ever will, and I have a good feel for what machinery should do under abuse.

Once I got a look at a sort of blueprint for a FW190 and I am pretty sure I saw that it had a large diameter piece of pipe going through one wing, through the fuselage and into the other wing, and I though about how hard it would be to shoot one of those wings off, it would take a good hit on that metal pipe, hitting the rest of the wing might make it useless, but it would hang onto the fuselage. So when you see wings flying off model aircraft frequently which were specifically designed to be in combat carrying heavy loads while dive bombing etc. it makes you wonder if something needs tweaked a bit.

I don't know what the blueprint for the p47 or stuka looks like, but unless a hit is very lucky or well placed, I would think it would take more than one to break a wing off a dive bomber, or the tail off the massive P47 fuselage. And a late war dive bomber that is heavily armored should not light up in flames as often as a paper-bag early Japanese fighter with no armor and no sealing tanks.

So I don't want to complain, but just offer observations and comparisons between history texts and the modeled aircraft and betwen the modeled aircraft themselves where inconsistencies seem to show up.

Thanks.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Art-J

Stukas being vulnerable at last? Gotta check this out. I haven't done any missions against these for a loooong time, because few patches ago they could absorb ridiculous amounts of bullets (especially .30 caliber), which made emulating early BoB scenarios quite a bit difficult. If they're less "panzer" now, I'm all for it!

We are talking about Ju-87, right? They are extremely vulnerable to small caliber rounds, if you hit the wing tanks. HurricaneIIb lights them like candles. Their only vice is their rear gunner, he can shoot quite far below.

Originally Posted by Art-J

Re: La-5/7 and Fw-190 - they are amongst the oldest models, dating back to the very first version of the game and their simplified DMs were never really completely upgraded, hence the engines and fuselages made of reinforced concrete . We just have to live with it and hope that TD will consider putting these on "to do" list (including aforementioned R-2800).

I do not know if this is true, but for the Fw190 I can say, their damage models seem okay to me. If you park behind and pump .50 cal or smaller into them they absorb lots of damage - but they were considered tough IRL(and had armor plating that protected pilot and fuel tank from .50cal from directly behind).
Hit critical areas - engine, pilot, wingroots with concentrated bursts, or when possible shoot the fuel tank from behind with 20mm or larger, and they will go down. I've had Fw190 going down with single bursts, and I have had them absorb lots of ammo - but then mostly due to my less than stellar targeting. Sitting in an Fw190 I have been killed by single .50cal bullets (pilot or engine) -happens rarely, but does. And I have taken countless hits and still more or less flew away -also rare.

[Mustang]

FW 190
x 4 MG 151. 20
X2 MG 131

If you have bad luck and get one burst of one seconds of fire from fw.
You will get 12 bullets x 4 = 48 hits of HE 20mm
And 15 x 2 = 30 hits of 13 mm - HE - AP ?

Maybe you can lost your tail section in a P47 for the amount of HE.

Many aircraft have fuel tanks in the wings but are ignored.., others have ammunition.
What I wonder is because some fuel tanks catch fire and others no.

TD is doing a good job... But always will be a endless Work.

Now TD is fixing many things.

I only can tell, THANKS!

Edited: some numbers

[JtD]

Actually, the only single shot kill to the R-2800 is hitting the ignition, on top of the hub in the P-47. No armour or backup system there in real life, a clear one shot kill.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by JtD

Actually, the only single shot kill to the R-2800 is hitting the ignition, on top of the hub in the P-47. No armour or backup system there in real life, a clear one shot kill.

How big is the 'ignition' on the R-2800? What percentage of area inside the cowl (viewed from head-on) does it represent? How often does the average two or three shot burst of 7mm into the cowl from a rear gunner kill the engine?

If the answer to the last question is is a greater number than the answers to the the first questions, something is very wrong. Hitting one of the ignition coils(?) on top of the crankcase from over 200m is a classic Golden BB, and should be vanishingly rare.

It is not vanishingly rare.

cheers

horseback

[The_WOZ]

As most planes in the game, both the P-47 and the Fw-190 have complete internal collision boxes modelled. This is, individual models for each internal system with a rough shape and size.

This means that if the ignition system is shot out, is because a bullet indeed hit that small part of the engine.

Now, there's another group of planes, which includes the Stuka and the P-39/P-63, that do not have any internal collision boxes at all.
In these planes the damage to internal systems is determined procedurally every time a bullet hits the airframe.
For the Stuka there's around a 60% chance for a incendiary bullet shot to the wing root to set the wing tanks on fire.

I have once hit a P-47 with 80 20mm rounds (from a J2M) and it flew away. Other times a few hits from a 109 on the wing root will bring it down.
Even on planes with complete damage models there's some randomness thrown in to make things more interesting and realistic.
For example, back to the ignition system in the P-47, a bullet may not have enough force to knock out a magneto, but it may still sever some wiring and have the same effect.

In the case of the F6F, as a Ju88 and Betty pilot I can attest to the engine toughness to both MG and cannon fire.

[ElAurens]

I've had more "one shot" instant stops in the P 47 than any other plane in the sim. Second place goes to the glass jawed P 40.

You could probably bring the IL2 P 47 down easily with a side arm, if they were available in the sim.

[Woke Up Dead]

Originally Posted by The_WOZ

Now, there's another group of planes, which includes the Stuka and the P-39/P-63, that do not have any internal collision boxes at all.
In these planes the damage to internal systems is determined procedurally every time a bullet hits the airframe.

Hi WOZ, do you happen to know the full list of these planes with the simplified damage model?

Someone here once posted an image of these damage boxes in a Zero, and the lack thereof in the P-39 (maybe it was you), but I couldn't track down the list of planes or the tool used to illustrate the damage boxes.

Thanks,

WokeUpDead

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by JtD

Actually, the only single shot kill to the R-2800 is hitting the ignition, on top of the hub in the P-47. No armour or backup system there in real life, a clear one shot kill.

Virtually all aircraft piston engines have dual ignition systems. If one totally fails, the other will continue to run. You'd have to take out both mags or the entire ignition manifold (which also had extra thickness at the front of the ring) to destroy the ignition system in an R-2800. The mags were encased with some armor protection at the front, and also had some protection from the spinning propeller. Their small size also helped protect them. Many things will be hit and knocked out from the front before the ignition.

Though it's one of my top favorite aircraft of any era, I haven't touched Oleg's P-47 in years, due to it's unacceptably crappy cockpit, and it's "glass jaw" vulnerability. Now, I don't know if the latter issue was ever addressed in subsequent patches, but if the real-world P-47 was anywhere as near to being one-shot-killed from the front as it is in the game, then it would have earned an entirely different reputation than the one it enjoys now.

The game's F6F and F4U have the same engine but aren't nearly as brittle in the front quarter as the P-47.