Mitsubishi Stuka and Thunderbolt

[horseback]

Originally Posted by JtD

Right, I guess 8 kills vs. 0 hits were too much of an argument to deal with, had to be avoided by starting some new "ace fighter AI is porked" red herring sideline. I take it the point now is that AI gunners mustn't hit anything even when faced with the most idiotic opposition. *facepalm* Nothing else to say, really.

Just out of curiosity - have you ever tried something bigger, like say 16 vs. 32 or something? Or is 1 vs. X the upper limit?

My reactions are a little different; at 500-700m, no human gunner behind a real machine gun or cannon could possibly have hit you on purpose from a moving aircraft. If you had been flying a real Hellcat against a real Betty formation and been hit at all from those ranges, you would have turned around immediately to inform your Task Force command that the Japanese have apparently developed some sort of automated fire control or aiming system that is accurate out to nearly a half mile, because more than one stray hit at those ranges would not be a coincidence.

The whole point of the ai is to mimic the capabilities and the historical behaviors of human beings in those aircraft, not to exceed them by several orders of magnitude. This is particularly true for the offliner who wants to re-create historical missions.

It is outrageous for the Rookie ai gunners to be able to hit a single Hellcat going the opposite direction from 780 meters while their aircraft is in a banking turn. It's just insulting when that hit results in the loss of rudder control in the bargain, which is what happened to me a couple of weeks ago.

If you want some sort of 'gameplay' difficulty (more Zombies!), then make the Veteran and Ace gunners your 'high difficulty' or online default, and make Rookies the single aircraft realism standard and 'Average' the 'formation multiplier' standard for offline historical players. And separate the pilots from the gunners, if you want to maintain some sort of bombing accuracy.

cheers

horseback

[JtD]

Funny, considering the several thousand rounds spent, I would say a hit once in a while is statistically prone to happen. After all, firing solutions don't get a lot easier than with a dead 6 approach.

Can you prove it is theoretically impossible to hit an aircraft from 500-700 m away? Otherwise, the chance for a hit is always there. That's just life.

Anyway, if I had killed twenty Betties within just 10 missions in 1 vs. 8 situations, for 8 hits into my aircraft in return, folks would probably want to know my secret, not the secret of some loser gunners. I'd certainly not run to my superiors and whine, after all, I'd be the highest ranking US bomber destroyer ace.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by JtD

Funny, considering the several thousand rounds spent, I would say a hit once in a while is statistically prone to happen. After all, firing solutions don't get a lot easier than with a dead 6 approach.

There are none so blind as those who will not see. I can only assume that you've never fired an automatic weapon of any kind, much less an actual machine gun at a target even 100m away. 'Once in a while' is not three times in one flight; I would guess that considerably less than a thousand rounds per plane was fired at you during that flight, and that you were rarely if ever actually in a truly 'steady state' range/angle/angle from any of those gun positions.

Can you prove it is theoretically impossible to hit an aircraft from 500-700 m away? Otherwise, the chance for a hit is always there. That's just life.

Theory involves statistical probabilities; here the probabilities are not merely being violated--they are being gangraped.

If you are at a 'dead six' to any one of a formation of 4 Betties, there are at least 7 guns that can always be brought to bear on you at any time (the 4 tail gunners and the three top rear gunners of the aircraft you are not directly behind), there is one gun that can usually be brought to bear on you (the top rear gun of the aircraft you are most directly behind) and finally, there are maybe three guns that can sometimes be brought to bear on you (the three side guns of the flanking aircraft in the formation). At best, only one of those guns has an actual 'zero deflection' shot at you. The rest have to calculate some degree of deflection.

In my experience, the ai guns usually fire about three rounds every burst fired, and at ranges outside their 'guaranteed kill' ranges, fire random un-aimed bursts about 2/3rds of the time; the rest of the time, if you continue in precisely the same vector or curve you are going when the shots are fired, you are likely to be hit. Since it is nearly impossible for a human to 'fly' with that sort of consistency, you usually move a bit higher or lower or off to the side of where the burst is aimed, and as a function of distance from the point the shots are fired, the size of the miss is determined by how far you can move off-vector or curve between the time the burst is fired and when the rounds arrive at the targeted point.

Are you suggesting that you were the recipient of over 300 total bursts of ai fire from each aircraft in each mission? The 'chance' of a random hit is always there, but if you get hit more than once, it isn't chance.

In short, the closer you get and the less you react to or anticipate the gunners's fire (I don't recall seeing muzzle flashes 99% of the time, but I don't really look for it) the more likely you are to be hit and the difficulty of the angle and speed don't seem to me to be very great factors, even for 'Rookie' gunners once you come within about 200m. That is not quite a 'spray and pray' solution; once you enter their firing cones, regardless of speed or angle, you will be hit, period, very badly hit if more than one gun is involved.

That's not life. It's not even a reasonable imitation. From my own experiences, using high angle, high speed, high deflection attacks, I should hardly ever be hit at all. Instead, I get shredded more than half the time, and much less often take 'only a flesh wound.' I have also come to believe that what you are flying has more to do with your likelihood of taking a hit than how fast or at what angles you attack. I got hit a LOT more often at the same speeds and angles flying a P-39D than I did in an F6F, and I got hit a lot less in a P-40.

You don't even want to know what happens when you bring a Mustang within 700m of a Betty formation (and this is weird, because nobody can keep a Mustang absolutely straight and level in this game, but you can hear round after round banging into your nose and wings at an increasing tempo as you close to 500m or so).

Anyway, if I had killed twenty Betties within just 10 missions in 1 vs. 8 situations, for 8 hits into my aircraft in return, folks would probably want to know my secret, not the secret of some loser gunners. I'd certainly not run to my superiors and whine, after all, I'd be the highest ranking US bomber destroyer ace.

Standing off at ranges like that wouldn't be all that different from dropping the rounds on the Betty from a great height like so many little bombs. Setting your convergences for ranges more than double the accepted effective range of your guns makes them useless at any realistic range for the real targets of American fighters--other fighters. Unlike the ai, you can't adjust your convergences in mid-flight.

It's an artificial comparison. Killing 20 Betties at those ranges is not quite as unrealistic, impractical and improbable as the phony accuracy levels of the ai gunners, but it's in the ballpark.

cheers

horseback

[JtD]

Gun convergence was set to 400 meters. Very typical for US fighters of the time. Quite possibly back then they knew a gun works beyond point blank range.

If you can manage a fifty meter radius around an F6F sized target, conservatively assuming linear distribution, one in 800 rounds will hit the F6F.
Statistically, 8 hits require 6400 rounds. Ten mission with eight enemy aircraft, every aircraft needs to fire exactly 80 rounds to achieve that outcome.
The ground tests from the worst mount gave a ten meter radius, the best mount gave a two meter radius at about that distance. That leaves room for somewhere between 40 and 48 meters of aiming error. That's like missing a disc 3 feet wide from 20 feet away.
Just as a ballpark.

As to the "regardless of speed or angle, you will be hit, period" - I shot down eight of them one flight without being hit at all, and I did it from close range. Period. It's called "proper tactics", and it works better than whining.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by JtD

Gun convergence was set to 400 meters. Very typical for US fighters of the time. Quite possibly back then they knew a gun works beyond point blank range.

Actually, the USN/USMC standard was 1000 ft, which works out to a bit under 275 meters. Against smaller targets that maneuvered energetically, many successful American pilots opted for shorter convergences, particularly in Europe, where some guys felt that a three second burst at 150 yards was more efficient and accurate than several bursts at longer ranges. If you had an assigned aircraft in the Army Air Forces, you could usually have your convergence range set to your preference. Some groups in the ETO were known to have a 'group' setting at some specified range, usually under 200yds/180m.

In the USN/USMC during WWII, the vast majority of fighters' guns were sighted in at 1000 ft, period. BuAer was pretty strict about it. The main exception was for night fighters, which were generally boresighted at about 200 yards.

If you can manage a fifty meter radius around an F6F sized target, conservatively assuming linear distribution, one in 800 rounds will hit the F6F.
Statistically, 8 hits require 6400 rounds. Ten mission with eight enemy aircraft, every aircraft needs to fire exactly 80 rounds to achieve that outcome.
The ground tests from the worst mount gave a ten meter radius, the best mount gave a two meter radius at about that distance. That leaves room for somewhere between 40 and 48 meters of aiming error. That's like missing a disc 3 feet wide from 20 feet away.
Just as a ballpark.

"Ground tests" means that the aircraft was parked, the target was not moving and that the gun was sighted in, strapped down at the handles and fired remotely.

Adding a human to fire the gun will increase the error significantly, and the error would vary from person to person, and day to day. A human element tears the statistical curve to shreds, but the error set with the gun strapped down will be an absolute minimum (and likely less than half the error of the best human result for an open mount gun on a pintle or scarff ring mount).

Applying those same accuracy standards to a moving platform firing at a target moving constantly and randomly relative to the firing platform is comparing apples to oranges.

When you compare the accuracy of a turret mount in a B-17 to a scarff ring mount in a G4M, that is comparing apples to watermelons. BIG watermelons, the kind that win prizes at the county fair. Clearly, you've never been in a ballpark any more than you've ever fired a real machine gun.

Unless you found a way to set a formation of 8 aircraft, you had two formations of 4 aircraft, generally separated by about 700-1000m apart, too far away to lend mutual support except in rare instances where you wandered in between them. So at any given time, the greatest probability is that you were being shot at by a maximum of 4 aircraft initially, and as you shot them down one at a time, that number decreased down to one before you went after the next formation of 4.

I tried your test a few times with an F6F-3 and a convergence of 500m, which allows me some accuracy beginning at 600 meters. Since you specified that you hung back at more than 500m, I consistently pulled away at 520 to 450 meters, and then made another approach. The Rookie Betties began firing intermittently when I got to 900m of them and their bursts increased in frequency as I got closer. I took as little evasive action as possible and kept my speed at approximately 190 kts, which allowed me to slowly approach and peck away. I took hits fairly regularly at 750 and closer, and lost my engine once, got a wing shredded twice, and on the third or fourth go-around actually got them all before I ran out of ammo. I took more than 8 hits by the second pass every time.

Repeating the mission four times in a P-51C, I took hits to the engine every time, once at a range of over 750 meters which resulted in a runaway prop. Smaller target, less stable at that speed, which means that I should have been harder to hit, but the opposite was true. I was hit more often on the nose or engine compartment, and suffered greater damage sooner.

As to the "regardless of speed or angle, you will be hit, period" - I shot down eight of them one flight without being hit at all, and I did it from close range. Period. It's called "proper tactics", and it works better than whining.

Head on passes were rare in the PTO; they were not time effective--you only got one shot per pass, and after that one pass, the bombers were often into the task group's flak zone. I used the standard high deflection attacks that were standard USN doctrine at the outset of the war (and were spectacularly effective when applied). I begin with an altitude advantage of 1000m or more, steeply diving from at least a five o'clock position, and usually more like 3:30-4 o'clock, which generally puts me past my target's tail at speeds around 320 knots, or over 360 mph/580 kph, and puts my target between me and his wingmen.

I use my speed to zoom back up to a 3500 ft advantage, get back over them and to one side and lather-rinse-repeat... I still get hit often as I am in my dive or as I cross my target's tail which are both high deflection, tiny window shots for the top ring mount gunners and a nearly blind shot for the guys in the stingers as I blow through their cones of fire at 160 meters per second less than fifty meters away. The hard part should be avoiding his elevators.

The tactics are fine. They worked very well historically. But as long as the 'Rookie' ai gunners are more deadly than Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis in their prime all wrapped into one, the game is unrealistic and artificial the moment you introduce an aircraft with guns that are pointing in more than one direction.

cheers

horseback

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by horseback

In the USN/USMC during WWII, the vast majority of fighters' guns were sighted in at 1000 ft, period. BuAer was pretty strict about it. The main exception was for night fighters, which were generally boresighted at about 200 yards.

Good info.

Originally Posted by horseback

When you compare the accuracy of a turret mount in a B-17 to a scarff ring mount in a G4M, that is comparing apples to watermelons.

On a related note, operational histories for the B-29 indicate that the long 20 mm cannon in the tail was removed from later models since it actually caused the tail of the plane to yaw when it was turned, due to slipstream effects. I have to wonder if there was something like that on the G4M, at least for certain models. In any case, it shows that even putting a "stinger" in the tail of a plane, where you'd expect that slipstream effects would be minimal wasn't always the case.

Originally Posted by horseback

Clearly, you've never been in a ballpark any more than you've ever fired a real machine gun.

Hey, play nice! You don't know where he's coming from.

Originally Posted by horseback

Unless you found a way to set a formation of 8 aircraft, you had two formations of 4 aircraft, generally separated by about 700-1000m apart, too far away to lend mutual support except in rare instances where you wandered in between them.

Additionally, the tail gun for the G4M1 only carried a limited number of rounds of ammunition and each drum of ammunition had to be manually changed (5 drums - one mounted, four stored, I forget if they were 20 or 50 rounds).

Originally Posted by horseback

I used the standard high deflection attacks that were standard USN doctrine at the outset of the war (and were spectacularly effective when applied). I begin with an altitude advantage of 1000m or more, steeply diving from at least a five o'clock position, and usually more like 3:30-4 o'clock, which generally puts me past my target's tail at speeds around 320 knots, or over 360 mph/580 kph, and puts my target between me and his wingmen.

This is the "pursuit curve" I mentioned in an earlier post. And, it wasn't just used by the USN.

[JtD]

So, I guess effective range means that beyond 600 yards, the bullets would just fly off to elsewhere, instead of continuing on their paths. No point in firing a gun at targets further out. Gunners wouldn't fire at anything too far away, because of their implemented radar, they knew to a foot how far the target was away. And of course, they were immune to psychological things, so they'd happily get fired at from 601 yards, without returning fire. Automatic fire with a mounted gun sort can't manage to stay within 3 feet over 20 feet distance anyway and gun dispersion changes if a human touches a gun instead of a remote control. Horseback can't set up a mission where formations support each other, so no one can. Someone programming the game adds if clauses to the AI gunners that make them behave differently depending on the targeted aircraft. 2% is an established figure for gunner accuracy, covering all conditions, because someone on the internet mentioned the figure. Even though 16 veteran Hellcats can wipe out 16 standard G4M with little loss to themselves, the historical results aren't there because 1 Hellcat can't do the same.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by JtD

As to the "regardless of speed or angle, you will be hit, period" - I shot down eight of them one flight without being hit at all, and I did it from close range. Period. It's called "proper tactics", and it works better than whining.

I'm not whining about MY tactics. I can engage bombers and do pretty well.

Instead, I'm looking at AI performance overall. I want to be able to set up missions where bombers and fighters behave like they did historically, and where the results of AI combat roughly match expected historical results.

Objectively:

* Fighters, even Ace AI, don't use proper bomber interception tactics.

* Gunners, even Ace AI, start shooting far beyond effective range.

* We still don't have much data on just how good WW2 era flexible gunners were in the air against maneuvering targets. What data we do have suggests that 2% accuracy against a relatively easy target was the accepted standard for rookie gunners, 600 yards (~550 meters) was the accepted range at which a 0.50 caliber MG had any chance of hitting, and that different gun mounts had different levels of inherent accuracy (ignoring other factors).

Subjectively,

* AI Gunners might still be too effective, particularly for shots made while the aircraft is maneuvering, for larger guns, for manually-turned guns, and for shots made to anything other than the plane's 6 o'clock.

* Gunnery by human players might be unrealistically accurate because the game engine doesn't model things like airframe vibration, turbulence, slipstream effects on guns and bullets, physical requirements of slewing guns around, g-forces, illusory effects of tracer rounds, and so forth.

[RPS69]

Jtd, Horseback is asking you to fly near the enemy bomber, and play the drone by maneuvering at about 500m, and see how many hits they scored on your aircraft, per shot fired.

The game wont give you AI statistics, only players statistics, so it will be needed a second player to fly the bomber steadily, and let the AI do the shooting.

Still, 1000 fired rounds with a hit percentage of 2%, means that you will be hit by 20 rounds each time. And that is enough to be shot down, specially from 20mm guns. Worst with planes that got inline engines, one shot is enough to be seriously damaged.

[MaxGunz]

I want a cookie with chocolate on it.