.303 ammunition expierence exchange

[Hellbender]

Hello everybody,
i would like to know what experiences you made with the different kinds of ammo for the British fighter planes in CoD. In which way, if you have done it, have you modified your ammo belts with which kinds of ammo.

Share you experiences about the .303 standard rounds, incendiary rounds, DeWilde HE rounds and armor piercing rounds with us .

Personally, I´m trying out the DeWilde at the moment and I kinda find it not very useful. Can´t really ignite the german fighter planes successfully like I would use the German MGs with their phosphor rounds.

Anyone tried to fly around with mainly armor piercing against german planes and had success/less success than the standard ammo mixture?

[Tavingon]

Id love to but I can never seem to change the amunition ingame before a battle!

[SEE]

George Beurling, in his book, mentions the Loadout sequence for each belt for his Spit - Incendiary, Tracer, AP, Ball. Strangely enough, that was the loadout I use in CloD as I only bought the book recently (I only have tracer rounds in guns 1 and 8

I still cannot be sure that the loadouts for allied ac are separate rounds or sequenced. When you read the description in the loadout menu it looks like a defined sequence but the one that matches George Beurlings description looks like it has a white tracer but doesn't when you load that into a gun.

I have tried various loadouts but stuck with the above. Irrespective of loadout, what I find most critical is correct convergence and hitting the correct part of the target, i.e. Ju88b - Starboard Engine and wing section just to the side of it as the BoB pilots always went for.

BTW, someone posted a script that is very usful for assessing weapons loadouts - it displays the damage you are inflicting as your rounds hit.

[Gerbil Maximus]

The .303's are under powered. You can read many accounts from pilots that state giving german aircraft in the battle a 2-3 second burst and watching the aircraft disintegrate before their eyes. For larger aircraft of course more power was needed hence the introduction of the 20mm.
But everyone presumes that because the round is a .303 it wont do much damage, a single .303 wont do much thats true but were are talking huge volumes of rounds.
Lets do the maths }
8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

A 3 second burst into an enemy aircraft unleashes 1,440 rounds into it.
The hurricane and spitfire both had around 16 seconds worth of fire.
Logically it speaks for itself.
Maybe the aircraft might not suffer structual failure (like a spit or hurricane would) but the vital parts would most likely be hit and pilot killed/wounded.

[TomcatViP]

Originally Posted by Gerbil Maximus

The .303's are under powered. You can read many accounts from pilots that state giving german aircraft in the battle a 2-3 second burst and watching the aircraft disintegrate before their eyes. For larger aircraft of course more power was needed hence the introduction of the 20mm.
But everyone presumes that because the round is a .303 it wont do much damage, a single .303 wont do much thats true but were are talking huge volumes of rounds.
Lets do the maths }
8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

A 3 second burst into an enemy aircraft unleashes 1,440 rounds into it.
The hurricane and spitfire both had around 16 seconds worth of fire.
Logically it speaks for itself.
Maybe the aircraft might not suffer structual failure (like a spit or hurricane would) but the vital parts would most likely be hit and pilot killed/wounded.

HALT!!!!

not all the rounds scored a hit. Actually the proportion is more ard 10% from dead six.

You have to think that you are dealing with munitions that does not have a straight path, are fired from a flexible wing out of a vibrating barrel from a 100m distance.

That's all abt nose mounted armament, high RoF, low offset time and huge kinetic/Explosive power.

Obviously for all of us it shld remain difficult to score a kill with less than 2sec or 3 sec well aimed burst. (ideally without modded guns )

[Geronimo989]

Is there any point in using ball ammo? I take it that it is just a regular bullet? Wouldnt it be better if it was armor piercing or incendiary?

Originally Posted by Gerbil Maximus

The .303's are under powered. You can read many accounts from pilots that state giving german aircraft in the battle a 2-3 second burst and watching the aircraft disintegrate before their eyes. For larger aircraft of course more power was needed hence the introduction of the 20mm.
But everyone presumes that because the round is a .303 it wont do much damage, a single .303 wont do much thats true but were are talking huge volumes of rounds.
Lets do the maths }
8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

A 3 second burst into an enemy aircraft unleashes 1,440 rounds into it.
The hurricane and spitfire both had around 16 seconds worth of fire.
Logically it speaks for itself.
Maybe the aircraft might not suffer structual failure (like a spit or hurricane would) but the vital parts would most likely be hit and pilot killed/wounded.

I have the same issue with the M-geschoss. Or the canon ammo in the E3 /E4. Does not seem very powerfull.

[Hellbender]

Originally Posted by Geronimo989

Is there any point in using ball ammo? I take it that it is just a regular bullet? Wouldnt it be better if it was armor piercing or incendiary?

I assume that regular bullets deal moderate damage to soft and hard components of a plane. Armor piercing rounds deal high damage to hard comp. but low damage to soft components. Incendiary rounds on the contrary deal damage over the time when for isntance that ammo ignites you flaps any you have to watch how the flaps of the Spitfire slowly burns away. If my assumptions and observations are correct, my question arising in that context is what good does the DeWild HE round concerning damage ? Perhaps someone should fly around with only AP or DeWild rounds.

Little side note: I guess oen day the developers will put in Spits and Hurricane versio nwith the Hispano cannon and we will have another discussion here.

Concerning the M-Shell or the german auto cannon: I am relatively successful with it against british planes concerning inflicting critical damage. And from the receiving end seen, only 2-4 cannon shells are quite devastating, especially in the wings since the big wholes left by the shells, negate your truning bonus against a 109 or 110 since you lose lift with wholes in your wings ( I´m talking of big wholes here ,not the MG wholes ).
From my perspective, the cannon shells have an enormous destructive potential and I agree with those you posted in other cannon related shells, that it took 4 cannon hits on a fighter to bring it down (and 20 for a 4 engine bomber). I experienced it often on the ATAG that the 109s manage to hit you luckily (from unorthodox angles) with 2 or 4 cannon shells and the hurricane or Spit has taken severe damage and is no longer able to stay in the fight. Mostly due to a upcomign engine failure (oil leak, govonor failor etc.) I had to land the plane. I didn´t explode in mid air or my wings were ripped apart but I was not able to continue that fight for a longer time and was forced to land somewhere.
Concernign ripping apart, I made the experience that flying almost into the motuh of your target with the 109, 8 to 10 rounds can rip a plane or a wing easily apart from close range when you can´t miss your target anymore .

On the other side I balst 3 seconds into a 110, inflict serious damage and it might be still able to fly, not for long but it had its punishment.
That video should show it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXw4zOQ-R00

Last night on the ATAG server I was able with the default Hurricane Rotol ammo load out and 200m convergence to ignite a 109 (see picture). Igniting planes really occurs seldomly to me. I assume you have to pound the main tank to ignite it porperly .

[TomcatViP]

+1

same here and that's all good for me

[Gerbil Maximus]

Originally Posted by TomcatViP

HALT!!!!

not all the rounds scored a hit. Actually the proportion is more ard 10% from dead six.

You have to think that you are dealing with munitions that does not have a straight path, are fired from a flexible wing out of a vibrating barrel from a 100m distance.

That's all abt nose mounted armament, high RoF, low offset time and huge kinetic/Explosive power.

Obviously for all of us it shld remain difficult to score a kill with less than 2sec or 3 sec well aimed burst. (ideally without modded guns )

Correct all rounds fired would not hit but..
Thats why the guns are harmonized and a gunsight was fitted that could be adjusted so the rounds crossed at the required point.
As for the munitions not having a straight path, you are sort of right.
The correct expression would be ballistic drop which can be accounted for when firing when pilots set their sights at 200 to 250 yds yealding less time to drop before the rounds struck.
Machine guns the same as all weapons of this era they have rifled barrels making the bullet spin and travel straighter and not tumble.
As for the vibrations and flexible wing, have you ever fired a machine gun? Firing when prone is considered stable enough to easily put 80% of the rounds on target at about 300yds, I can then presume using my experience of weaponry that having 8 would cause a large degree of shake within the aircraft but I'm certain the aircrafts build would have been designed to compensate for that shake and for sure the mg mounts within the wing had dampening to reduce this redundancy.