Mitsubishi Stuka and Thunderbolt

[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