Ammunition power

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by T.}{.O.R.

From: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=2830
I have to agree with Diablo here.
You can complain that velocity is porked in favour of Allies, but the actual advantage in-game goes to Blue - by a long margin. Wrong belting and what not else.
The way I see it blue (especialy 190s and 109s) need only one or two shots for their opponent to explode. You might want to complain about that first.
Need proof - just hop over to the WarClouds.
Yes, the balance might have been something which was attempted, but in very odd way. With USAAF suffering the most from wrong .50 cal belting. The velocity values you posted in the first post reflect that balance very well (FM / WM => Belting / Velocity values).

I cant agree more... that's why when I read about the "disadvantage" of blue planes.. I almost fell out of my chair.... and don't forget the Ki-84Cs..

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I cant agree more... that's why when I read about the "disadvantage" of blue planes.. I almost fell out of my chair.... and don't forget the Ki-84Cs..

It's all relative. Given 109s and 190s lose a great deal of speed and stability by just beeing looked at by 50cals the wrong way a porked 50 cal belting does not make that much of a difference. 50ies don't do structual damage that easily, but they are certainly more then adequate in reducing german planes combat efficiency to a degree no other planes are effected. This is especially true for the 109 engine. Though this makes Ponies and Jugs more or less "kill message 5 minutes after engagement" planes, in my exprience whenever I fly those, which is not that a rare happening, all in all they are not less effective. The danger of kill stealing is pretty high, however.

The only guns I never felt at home with are the Hispanos. But that may be because most Hispano planes I flew have their cannons pretty much far away from the center of the planes, which makes precise shooting only a real possibility at convergence range. You lack the range flexibility other aircraft possess in this regard.

[6S.Manu]

Originally Posted by Bewolf

It's all relative. Given 109s and 190s lose a great deal of speed and stability by just beeing looked at by 50cals the wrong way a porked 50 cal belting does not make that much of a difference. 50ies don't do structual damage that easily, but they are certainly more then adequate in reducing german planes combat efficiency to a degree no other planes are effected. This is especially true for the 109 engine. Though this makes Ponies and Jugs more or less "kill message 5 minutes after engagement" planes, in my exprience whenever I fly those, which is not that a rare happening, all in all they are not less effective. The danger of kill stealing is pretty high, however.

I don't know how I could cut in 2 late 109s (2 of them in the same mission) simply firing at convergence distance flying a P51... it's like the uber overmodelled K4 that you have to learn to fly, above all to remain at 400m from a US bomber since its .50s will open you (AI can be good to hitting you; it doesn't involve the damage at your plane, ammo data does).

At the same time I like to be PKed from 500m by the green ray of death.

Anyway this is true even for the P51's engine: one shot and you are out... other planes (P39, Spit) you can fly all the mission with a smoking engine like you had 300lts. of oil.

[WTE_Galway]

[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

I don't know how I could cut in 2 late 109s (2 of them in the same mission) simply firing at convergence distance flying a P51... it's like the uber overmodelled K4 that you have to learn to fly, above all to remain at 400m from a US bomber since its .50s will open you (AI can be good to hitting you; it doesn't involve the damage at your plane, ammo data does).

The AP .50 Cal BMG will penetrate about 3/4 inch of steel at 500m. The aluminium that makes up most aircraft doesn't really offer too much resistance. At convergence the 6 Browning machine guns are concentrated in a fairly small area and with enough time on target would literally cut a plane in half. That just comes down to good technique and shooting accurately at the convergence distance

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

At the same time I like to be PKed from 500m by the green ray of death.

There was a general trend to move to larger guns through the war. The object was to destroy aircraft. The pilot is a lot more susceptible to damage than the plane. One lucky shot is all it takes. I think the record for a confirmed ‘kill’ with a .50cal BMG round (from a sniper rifle) is about 2,430 metres. Like I said, if you get hit all it takes is one lucky shot and your history.

cheers.

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

At convergence the 6 Browning machine guns are concentrated in a fairly small area and with enough time on target would literally cut a plane in half.

beg to differ ....

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Air...nBoresighting/

[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

beg to differ ....

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Air...nBoresighting/

The grist of the document is to say (Sorry for my cruddy paraphrasing) "If you have your guns converged at a single distance (point) you will create an area of overkill at that spot but at other ranges the density of fire will produce excessive dispersion" so to be more efficent "you should converge your guns at slightly different ranges so that you produce a larger area (zone) where you have a minimum lethal density" and it recomends a system of convergence for the guns that creates this zone.

I don't see that this contradicts my statements, which was that if you fired 6 .50 BMG at the same spot on aircraft for long enough you could cut it in half! In fact it explains how it works ( And why a different system should be used to increase your chances of getting a kill at other ranges), even though the circumstances to do this in real life would have been extremely rare.

As far as I can tell in IL2 we use the "point bore sighting" (I think the exception is in the P47 where you can alter one of the pairs of guns by changing the cannon convergence) where the guns are converged on a single point. (I use this for range finding in my skip bombing attacks- fire the odd burst until your rounds converge to a spot and then let the bomb go! It works a treat!)

The practice of converging all guns at some one point along the path of flight, commonly referred to as "point bore sighting", although producing heavy concentrations of fire at certain ranges, produces excessive dispersion at other ranges. Furthermore, heavy concentrations of fire at the selected ranges were found to be undesirable in that bullet densities far in excess of the required lethal density were produced, resulting in inefficient employment of the fire-power available.

Cheers and thanks for the link it was an interesting read.

[R0NNC0]

Although BuOrd makes a recommendation for boresighting, that doesn't mean it's what the squadrons use. The highest scoring USN squadron (VF-15) used a tightly grouped point convergence.

[R0NNC0]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I cant agree more... that's why when I read about the "disadvantage" of blue planes.. I almost fell out of my chair.... and don't forget the Ki-84Cs..

Heh, be sure. And constant griping that HMG actually does damage to plane.