Breda SAFAT 12,7mm guns - A real life account of their real power

[Rickusty]

shameless bump...

[Monguse]

Agreed, waiting for the API belting and data to get fixed.

[Rickusty]

Let's hope Monguse...

Something new to add though: a very recent discovery made by Italian experts (engineers and historians) , with original Regia Aeronautica documents and even studying an original Synchronization unit, found out that the synchronized rate of fire of the Breda Safat 12,7mm guns was very high... In fact , depending on the engine RPMs, the ROF varied from 550 to 700 rpm in the DB601 engined Italian fighters (Macchi C.202 and Reggiane Re.2001) and from about 500 to 700 in the radial engine fighters as the C.200, Fiat G.50 and Cr.42 fighters...

So , in theory,we should see an avarage ROF of 625 rds/min for the C.202 and about 600 rds/min for the Fiat A.74 engined fighters (in game ,we have a ROF of 525 for these guns ... ) Just to let people understand how the reality was different from the guns modeled in the game...

Add to that the non-included incendiary ammos, and off-values datas for the individual bullet types, and you have what we can see in the game...

After many years of misconceptions and errors, we are probably close to what "it was" in reality, and why in fact Italian pilots never had something to say about those guns in general, apart from being only 2 (and instead considered them very effective against fighters and light bombers).

Hopefully, this recent study will be published shortly.

Rick

[6S.Maraz]

I have no hope that this can be fixed for IL-2, but I hope that in BoB the Italian fighters will have the correct weapons, at last.

Maraz

[JG53Frankyboy]

Originally Posted by 6S.Maraz

I have no hope that this can be fixed for IL-2, but I hope that in BoB the Italian fighters will have the correct weapons, at last.

Maraz

i have sometimes read that the CR.42 of the CAI had one of its 12,7mm SAFATs replaced with a 7,7 mm SAFAT to save weight . is this correct ?

[6S.Maraz]

Originally Posted by JG53Frankyboy

i have sometimes read that the CR.42 of the CAI had one of its 12,7mm SAFATs replaced with a 7,7 mm SAFAT to save weight . is this correct ?

Yes it is.

Maraz

[Xiola]

The Italian 50 cal should not be as powerful as the RUssian of US 50 cal.

But I feel it IS underpowered.

Look at the chart whihc was posted earlier in the thread as to how powerful the gun should be.

[IceFire]

Going by the charts it should only be slightly weaker than the Japanese Ho-103 12.7mm machine gun as the specs are similar. The Japanese gun is better but nothing there suggests a significant discrepancy. In-game the Ho-103 is a reasonably effective weapon while the SAFAT is terrible.

[Rickusty]

Another bump... for I think, a rather interesting thread... and still hoping for a 4.09 modification...

Cheers
Rick

[Insuber]

bump