Mitsubishi Stuka and Thunderbolt

[KG26_Alpha]

Lol

your complaining about ai gunnery not being realistic

tell me what part of your aircraft's guns are realistic your using to try shoot them down ?

No overheating no jamming no freezing etc etc etc.................

The ai gunnery is what it is, learn how to attack bombers with the games limitations.

I prefer the head on attack, or across the wings high speed pass using a technique with the gunsight to extreme left or right of the screen to make it impossible for me to attack from the rear quarters, leaving the sight in these positions stops you getting in behind the bombers forcing you to attack at an angle from the side, sounds strange but it works.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

Lol

your complaining about ai gunnery not being realistic

tell me what part of your aircraft's guns are realistic your using to try shoot them down ?

No overheating no jamming no freezing etc etc etc.................

The ai gunnery is what it is, learn how to attack bombers with the games limitations.

I prefer the head on attack, or across the wings high speed pass using a technique with the gunsight to extreme left or right of the screen to make it impossible for me to attack from the rear quarters, leaving the sight in these positions stops you getting in behind the bombers forcing you to attack at an angle from the side, sounds strange but it works.

Ignoring for the moment that the ai guns don't freeze, jam, etc, either or apparently get damaged by my guns, well, let's see: I'm 'flying' with a stick and rudder pedals (rather than a mouse), looking at a maximum 90 by approximately 45 degree field of vision (with one eye), I cannot 'feel' whether my aircraft is slipping or skidding about unless I look at my (inconveniently placed) Turn & Bank indicator, which isn't entirely reliable, and my guns aren't fully effective until I am within approximately 85 meters or so of my pre-set convergence range of 250m (giving me an effective firing range of between 165-335 m), my angle of attack tends to change suddenly as my aircraft reaches certain speeds and my firing platform will bounce and shake when it is 'hit' by enemy fire (well beyond any historically correct range if I am attacking less than 16 or more bombers).

Compared to aiming with a mouse while riding on rails, I'd say it's a bit more complicated gunnery model, wouldn't you? Against an ai with exact knowledge of my aircraft's distance and vector, plus all the computing power of a modern computer (mine, without my bloody permission!), unless I randomly change directions every two seconds or so, I'm screwed at least half the time if the bugger is rated 'Ace' or 'Veteran' as soon as I get within 500 meters.

When flying offline campaigns, using the tactics that were actually successful against individual, or even small groups of bombers or Me 110s or 210s is suicidal. It's a perversion of history, and it can be fixed, at least for the offline user.

Slow the gunner's rate of rotating their guns.

Limit their effective range to the historical levels of 150m maximum; you can increase an attacker's probability of being hit beyond that as a function of how many defending aircraft are in range.

Make the aiming point a circle the diameter of the greatest visible dimension from the angle viewed; that is how human beings aim something as imprecise as a machine gun at targets that far away and coming at them rapidly.

Factor in gunshake and aircraft motion. That, more than anything else, is what made hitting anything more than a couple of degrees wide so difficult with 'controllable' short bursts. Call of Duty can do it; DT should be able to as well.

And we are still left to deal with the improbable fragility of the R-2800 engine and the aircraft it powered.

cheers

horseback

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by horseback

And we are still left to deal with the improbable fragility of the R-2800 engine and the aircraft it powered.

Lol, revenge for all the years MicroProse nerfed to oblivion everything that was Soviet.

[horseback]

As for accuracy, I just did a set of about ten QMBs, my F6F-3 against 8 Rookie Betties. On at least five occasions, my aircraft was hit from ranges over 700 meters--and never at a six o'clock to them; it was most often while I was at a low 7 or 8 o'clock to them, twice resulting in fuel leaks, and once in loss of elevators (while my nose was pointed at the shooter). At 700 meters, you can hide a Hellcat behind the tip of your thumb held at arm's length.

Every pass was made on the outermost member of the formation, and generally from a high 7-8 or 4-5 o'clock angle from a minimum 700m advantage, at an minimum terminal speed of over 300kts/ 340mph/ 550kph, which usually ended in my passing behind & below his tailplane less than 30 meters away before barrel rolling out and up ahead and outside of the formation. I got hit every time, and by the fourth or fifth pass in about half the QMBs, had lost at least half my instruments. I believe that the Betty does about 300kph at most, so it wasn't like I was flying close formation with them. Attacking from those angles and speeds would have left a real Hellcat untouched against the finest gunners the IJN ever fielded; against Rookie ai, Swiss Cheese.

At least one firing pass in every QMB, I was able to make a high angle 60+ degrees pass from above and behind that made both wing roots catch fire; never once did I kill the mid-ships top gunner, although I got one of the pilots about half the time and both of them on one glorious occasion (it is always cool to complete a firing pass, look over your shoulder and see a string of 'chutes popping open behind your target).

I also targeted the tail gunner of one aircraft in every QMB that I survived to my third firing pass (usually a singleton, but never more than one wingman); tally was him, three engines splattered, two fuel leaks, three MGs disabled and one PK--I got him twice, once right as he nailed my engine. Again, these were passes made from off angle and usually high, although there were a couple of angled attacks from below after a dive to gain speed (these resulted in one of my kills--and one of his). In these, speed was also always above 300kts.

Let's keep in mind that at 5 o'clock to my target, he has to account for a 30 degree difference in level angle, plus whatever angle up or down I was relative to him; at 4 o'clock, we are up to a 60 degree angle, and the attacker shooting directly down the axis of flight should hold all the cards. In the extreme cases, the real life gunner would not have been physically able to look at his target over his sights (too low, too high, too far to one side).

I've been spending a lot of time in the Hellcat lately, so it's not a matter of not being able to exploit its capabilities, and I was conscientious about keeping my speed up and varying my angle of approach. On 6 of the QMBs, I had to take to my chute; only once did I not have engine damage or a drooping wing (there were several hits, but I got lucky). Rookie AI. Hits from ranges out to 780 meters, almost all requiring deflection in both angle and altitude.

Just like the real thing. /Sarcasm off./

cheers

horseback

[JtD]

So, even in the worst bomber vs. fighter encounters (from bomber perspective), it is about 2 bombers lost for every fighter lost. Why do you expect to take on 8 vs. 1 odds and end up killing everything without being harmed?

For what it's worth, I took up a P-47 vs. 4 veteran G4M and shot them all down, 5 times in a row, without ever having my engine killed. And since I was attacking from the rear quarter, I took several 20mm hits every time.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by JtD

So, even in the worst bomber vs. fighter encounters (from bomber perspective), it is about 2 bombers lost for every fighter lost. Why do you expect to take on 8 vs. 1 odds and end up killing everything without being harmed?

For what it's worth, I took up a P-47 vs. 4 veteran G4M and shot them all down, 5 times in a row, without ever having my engine killed. And since I was attacking from the rear quarter, I took several 20mm hits every time.

Actually, it came out a bit higher than that; on two occasions, my sights were shot out on the first pass, rendering me ‘combat ineffective’, and given the damage I normally took in the first couple of passes, a RL Hellcat driver with a long flight back to his carrier would retire quickly after any noticeable damage, so it should have been scored Betties ten+, me about two and a half if we play RL rules.

Why do I expect to come away unharmed? Because it would be much more realistic. I’ve detailed the inherent difficulties a real gunner would experience myriad times, and pointed out how any reasonable amount of gunshake/vibration would limit accuracy at ranges over 150 m or so. I kept my speed up and my angles steep and complicated—meaning high or low and off axis—and I never maintained a straight course as long as I was within 500m of them. In an actual Hellcat, I would have been untouchable; the worst I could have expected was some scattered light caliber rounds in the rear fuselage.

That 20mm stinger was hard to move about and would have been really tough to aim at any off-angle, and leading a high speed target with any accuracy would have been next to impossible (think about it; that whole rear glasshouse had to be rotated to bring the gun to bear on any target not directly behind the aircraft; given Japanese production quality and maintenance standards of the time, I’d be surprised if more than half of them didn’t jam in combat).

In this game we have Ichiro Schwarzenegger at the rear gun, and he can spin that monster around at blinding speeds and maintain the precision of a neurosurgeon.

RL fighter vs small bomber formation encounters rarely went the bombers’ way—rarer, in fact than documented occasions of a P-47 flying through a grove of trees and returning to base. The individual bomber or a majority of the formation might survive, but they would be pretty badly chopped up and their survival would be more due to the fighter pilot’s poor marksmanship or lack of ammo/firepower than to any skills the bomber’s gunners would have possessed. In general, the fighters would get away scot-free unless one of them was stupid enough to fly alongside to wave or salute; even when the attacking fighter lacked the speed advantages of the later types and ‘crawled’ up to the bomber’s rear, the fighter pilot’s guns would be more accurate and effective well before the tail gunner could hit him 19 out of 20 attacks.

In Il-2 Sturmovik ’46 and its predecessors, that historical reality has been stood on its head; seriously, damaging hits from over 750 meters? From Rookie gunners?

And as for your results with a P-47, I will point out that the Jug has 1/3rd more firepower, is a good bit faster to gain speed and requires about a third less trim input to keep it stable and on target than a Hellcat in this game. You should get better results; the most I got in any single QMB was 6.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

I agree that fires in the fuel tanks is the way that I get most of my heavy bomber kills (other than the odd lucky shot to the cockpit with a head-on initial pass). With cannon fire, that doesn't seem too unreasonable. But, with HMG fire, it almost seems like they burn too easily.

Actually, machine gun rounds starting fires is entirely reasonable; ball, much less armor piercing rounds striking aluminum actually melt their way through. Aluminum melts at around 1160° F, and I can say from experience that splashes or spalling of molten aluminum can start anything reasonably flammable to light up; hydraulic fluid, oil, aviation grade petrol, or thirty plus years ago, my co-worker’s denim jeans (and thank God he had been wearing heavy, high-topped work boots when that stuff splashed on his ankles or he might have lost a foot). Add any incendiary or tracer rounds to the mix and there can easily be flames.

I would argue that it takes much longer in the game than in real life for a fire in a wing tank or fuselage to become catastrophic; I’ve seen a great deal of gun camera film showing B-17s and B-24s, much less Betties (and Sallies and Zeros and Oscars etc) folding up in seconds once a fire gets started anywhere near a fuel tank. Any sort of fuel plus lots of oxygen (at 200kph, the fire is getting plenty of oxygen) creates a blowtorch effect.

Whoosh!

cheers

horseback

[FC99]

Originally Posted by horseback

When flying offline campaigns, using the tactics that were actually successful against individual, or even small groups of bombers or Me 110s or 210s is suicidal. It's a perversion of history, and it can be fixed, at least for the offline user.

Slow the gunner's rate of rotating their guns.

Limit their effective range to the historical levels of 150m maximum; you can increase an attacker's probability of being hit beyond that as a function of how many defending aircraft are in range.

Make the aiming point a circle the diameter of the greatest visible dimension from the angle viewed; that is how human beings aim something as imprecise as a machine gun at targets that far away and coming at them rapidly.

Factor in gunshake and aircraft motion. That, more than anything else, is what made hitting anything more than a couple of degrees wide so difficult with 'controllable' short bursts. Call of Duty can do it; DT should be able to as well.

They can be "fixed" but the problem is that you think that AI gunners are insanely accurate while I think that they suck big time.

And we are still left to deal with the improbable fragility of the R-2800 engine and the aircraft it powered.

Test setup:
Planes : Ju88 and P47D
Distance: 200m
Test method:
Both planes are on the airfield, P47 engine running.
Player is in Ju88 rear gunner position.
P47 is behind Ju88 with front of the engine exposed to the gunner like in typical 6 o'clock attack.
Result:
Bullets Fired: 1200
Bullets Hit Air: 1047
P47 engine still running although at 90% and with some components damaged.
And as many times before FACTS>>>FEELINGS , P47 is one tough MOFO and for every FG guy's story about one ping kill there is a JG guy with the story about P47 soaking dozens of 30mm hits and flying away.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by FC99

They can be "fixed" but the problem is that you think that AI gunners are insanely accurate while I think that they suck big time.

Actually, what I said was that they suck big time because they are so accurate, so you're half right. While I agree that they are greatly improved over 4.10, they have a long way to go before the proportional advantages of fighters vs bombers approaches the historical standard.

Test setup:
Planes : Ju88 and P47D
Distance: 200m
Test method:
Both planes are on the airfield, P47 engine running.
Player is in Ju88 rear gunner position.
P47 is behind Ju88 with front of the engine exposed to the gunner like in typical 6 o'clock attack.
Result:
Bullets Fired: 1200
Bullets Hit Air: 1047
P47 engine still running although at 90% and with some components damaged.
And as many times before FACTS>>>FEELINGS , P47 is one tough MOFO and for every FG guy's story about one ping kill there is a JG guy with the story about P47 soaking dozens of 30mm hits and flying away.

Sorry, but you'll never convince me that an ai plane has exactly the same damage model as one piloted by the Player, or that a human gunner can be as accurate as an ai one. We're talking about a routine that permits high deflection hits at over 700 meters and shot-out engines at steep angles changing at high speeds with considerably less than 1047 rounds fired.

Fly formation 200m behind an He 111 or Betty (both of whose gunners are traditionally more accurate than those noobs in the Ju-88A) in that same P-47 and I bet your engine loss ratio goes up significantly, along your PKs, loss of gunsight, ailerons, fuel leaks(and how could any rounds possibly get past the engine and firewall to reach the fuel tanks?), rudder and Prop Pitch. Of course, that's just my feeling, but it's based on several hours of experience.

AI vs AI contests may ultimately obtain 'realistic' results, but in those cases, the AI fighter knows that he's been fired at and exactly where it will hit if his vector remains constant at the moment it is fired and he makes the slight move that either results in a clean miss or a meaningless hit, but the ai gunner routine knows that he knows and quickly fires a burst at the corrected vector, but the fighter ai routine knows that he will, so they decide not to do that and move on to the next move/countermove several thousand times per second.

Think of the Dread Pirate Roberts' confrontation with the Sicilian 'with death on the line' in The Princess Bride.

cheers

horseback

[KG26_Alpha]

Test AI gunners

1. Offline QMB
2. Offline Campaign
3. Online Dogfight server
4. Online Coop

I know the difference, I wonder if you will notice it too.