Improve your aiming/marksman skills

[*Buzzsaw*]

Originally Posted by hegykc

Seems to me the .303 caliber (at least in game) is pretty much useless at more than 200 meters, and takes a lot of hits to do significant damage at more than 130 meters.

Salute

That may be true for .303's, it is not true for the German light 7.92mm MG's because of the SmK (H) tungsten round, you can pilot kill at as far as 300 meters, even from dead six where the pilot armour should protect.

This contradicts tests both the Germans and British did, which showed that 7.92mm rounds needed to be fired at ranges under 100 meters to have a good chance of penetrating pilot armour.

As I have pointed out before, this is an ahistorical advantage which the German side has been given, the round was not part of the historical 109 loadout, it was a rare round, not generally available, and in short supply.

[klem]

Originally Posted by hegykc

Well after a week of testing I found out that I had the "only 2 guns firing" bug on my single point conversion tests.

And than when I fixed it, I cannot see a significant difference between a single point and my setup, from ranges of 100 meters or less.

What I can take away from this is that pilot kills (from 100 meters or less) are so easy they're actually hard to avoid. After murdering more than 100 pilots I started testing the setup on engines but gave up.
It takes only a half second burst into the upper cockpit, shooting from the left side and the pilot is toasted. Any type of ammo any type of target, any convergence setup from 100 to 1000 meters.

hegykc, have you tried your convergence settings on-line?

[hegykc]

No I haven't yet.

That's why I tested on bombers, figured they would behave similar to what real bomber pilots do online?

[AbortedMan]

Originally Posted by hegykc

Before I scare away people with some more complicated stuff, here's a picture:

I'm not understanding why the gunsight is set at 317 and 330 in these pictures...if the graphic is showing the target at 150 yards and 300 yards respectively, shouldn't the gunsight be set at 150 yards and 300 yards as well to achieve the desired convergence pattern when the target is at the proper distances according to your gunsight?

Also...the picture showing the convergence zones of each paired guns and the vertical/horizontal values don't match up....shouldn't all of the convergences have the same vertical convergence except for the inboard-most guns?...with these current numbers, your No.4 guns fall short at less than halfway to the target if you're firing at 300 yards.

I are confuse.

[hegykc]

Disregard these charts completely.

Sorry but after some tests I've found some things I did wrong. I'll post updated charts, and few different setups for both bombers and fighters, both expert pilots and those not so much, later in this thread.

In the mean time, you can try these (setup so that they cover an engine profile of a He-111 or a 109 at 70-150 meters)

Convergences (in meters, reversed so type them in as they are - russian conv. labels seem to be fixed, english are not?)

Guns Vertical Horizontal
1/8----121----109
2/7----100----107
3/6----153----200
4/5----241----205

Gunsight distance set to 150-170 yards. Should be effective from 70 to 200 yards/meters.
Set wingspan according to your target.

[AbortedMan]

Originally Posted by hegykc

Disregard these charts completely.

Sorry but after some tests I've found some things I did wrong. I'll post updated charts, and few different setups for both bombers and fighters, both expert pilots and those not so much, later in this thread.

In the mean time, you can try these (setup so that they cover an engine profile of a He-111 or a 109 at 70-150 meters)

Convergences (in meters, reversed so type them in as they are - russian conv. labels seem to be fixed, english are not?)

Guns Vertical Horizontal
1/8----121----109
2/7----100----107
3/6----153----200
4/5----241----205

Gunsight distance set to 150-170 yards. Should be effective from 70 to 200 yards/meters.
Set wingspan according to your target.

Ehh...if you use this convergence set at anywhere over 100 yards and your pip is on the center of the target, two of your guns will be out of the fight as the rounds they're firing will fall short of the target...am I missing something?

If you're trying to emulate the convergence pattern on the diagram, as in, if in a head-on encounter, and you're firing, your rounds will be hitting enemy spinner, both wing roots and front windscreen, wouldn't you want all* guns at an equal vertical value (*except for guns 4 and 5) which you'd up their vertical convergence up by 50 meters or so?

Your vertical convergence values are what I'm not understanding...but I'm totally onboard with your idea.

[klem]

Its a "spray and pray" pattern. Apparently off line you can kill the pilot every time and down a He111 with just a couple of .303 rounds so if you spread the pattern wide enough to get just a couple of hits you will kill pilots and aircraft at the first pass.

It doesn't seem to work like that on-line.

[hegykc]

Originally Posted by klem

Its a "spray and pray" pattern. Apparently off line you can kill the pilot every time and down a He111 with just a couple of .303 rounds so if you spread the pattern wide enough to get just a couple of hits you will kill pilots and aircraft at the first pass.

It doesn't seem to work like that on-line.

Yes, exactly.

So it's that different online? I mean, that's good, means there's much more sense to different convergences. But I was testing this to prepare myself for online, guess I'll just have to bite the bullet and jump right in.

Because the more I test this offline in FMB, the more it seems to me a lot of things are just random and don't make much sense.
For instance, the left engine failure when you hit only the right one.

But how can that be? Isn't damage model, damage model. The same online and off?

[Roblex]

Am I misunderstanding something about convergence? I see people saying that they, for example, set the horizontal convergence to 250yds then the vertical convergence to 400yds. My understanding is that this would cause the bullet streams to converge at 250yds while still climbing above the plane of your aircraft so that by the time they drop down to to the same level as the target they are scattered all over the sky and almost certainly either side of the target.

What am I missing? I can see that if you open fire on an enemy from 250yds while in a turn then you wont need to apply as much lead but if you are not in a turn you will need to calculate a vertical offset when it should not be needed so you don't really win overall.

[klem]

Originally Posted by Roblex

Am I misunderstanding something about convergence? I see people saying that they, for example, set the horizontal convergence to 250yds then the vertical convergence to 400yds. My understanding is that this would cause the bullet streams to converge at 250yds while still climbing above the plane of your aircraft so that by the time they drop down to to the same level as the target they are scattered all over the sky and almost certainly either side of the target.

What am I missing? I can see that if you open fire on an enemy from 250yds while in a turn then you wont need to apply as much lead but if you are not in a turn you will need to calculate a vertical offset when it should not be needed so you don't really win overall.

Lets assume your intended target was a Me109 250 yards in front of you, your gunsight is set for both 250 yards range convergence and the Me109 wingspan so that the 109 fits snugly between the range bars. The pipper, your aim point, is sqarely on the tail/fuselage centre of the 109 and you squeeze the trigger. In your example the .303s would converge in the horizontal plane at 250yds on a vertical line through the 109 centre but would be above the intended 250 yard aim point because you have set them to drop back onto the sight line at 400 yards. And by then they would be nearly as far apart horizontally as their mounting positions in your wings because they are 150 yards further on than the target point.