FWs Durabillity

[Pursuivant]

The FW-190 model is fairly old, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were some oddities in its DM. The 4.13 patch finally fixed some serious and long-standing DM problems with the P-40, P-47, Spitfire, etc., so there might be further bug stomping to do on the FW-190's DM.

But, unless you've got evidence to back up your claims you're just whining.

This is my "DM test" which will prove the point one way or another.

In Conf.ini set "Arcade Mode = 1"

Start IL2. Set up a QMB mission with a flight of Ace Wellington III bombers as your enemies. (The quad .30 caliber tail guns spit out a lot of lead and don't shred your plane immediately, so you can see damage effects without getting shot down immediately. The Ace gunners guarantee that you'll get shot up.)

Choose the plane you want to test and attack the bomber flight using stupid tactics. (i.e., flight straight in from the bombers' 6 o'clock level).

Keep track of range as you close. When you get damaged, hit pause and use external views as necessary to see where you're hit and how badly. For anomalous results, take a screenshot.

Keep stats on where you get hit and why you ultimately get shot down. Refly the mission a couple of dozen times to get a decent statistical sample.

If you fly a FW-190 vs. Wellington III QMB mission a couple dozen or so times and you NEVER get an engine fire, then it's probably a DM bug. Otherwise, its probably good DM modeling, with the engine mostly protecting the fuel tank from the front. (Remember, the fuselage fuel tanks in the 190 are beneath the pilot, and the fuel lines to the engine are behind the engine itself. So, you're not likely to get an engine fire unless you happen to hit a fuel line.)

[falconilia]

Started QMB mission test vs 2 ACE Wellington III bombers and the results are not looking good....no fire at all,only minor damaged engine.
But VS 2 Ace B17 Bombers i had lot of main fuel tank fire.
Still no Engine fire.
Testing VS 3 or 4 Wellington now.

[julian265]

As others said, the problem is not unique to 190s. However, the cases involving 190s stick out in my memory.

A key finding myself and others made, was that when shooting from close to directly behind the 190, it is much less sensitive to hits than from other angles.
It often absorbed 50+ .50s and still kept flying. I remember a few cases online with more than 100 .50 hits from 6 o'clock (using gunstat before and after), and the prick continued to speed get away.

Whilst there is no magical number of bullets that should bring down a plane, it just seemed far too common to be unable to drop a 190 with lots of hits from directly behind, whilst it wasn't too hard to knock them out with snap shots from other angles.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by julian265

A key finding myself and others made, was that when shooting from close to directly behind the 190, it is much less sensitive to hits than from other angles.

This isn't surprising. If you're attacking a plane from exactly 6 o'clock level, it presents its narrowest profile, and most WW2-era planes had armor to protect crew and vital systems from hits from the rear.

So, unless the convergence of your guns is perfect, many of your shots will miss the smaller target, and many of the shots that hit will be stopped by armor.

That's why you ideally never attack from exactly 6 or 12 o'clock level. Always incorporate a bit of "angle off" when attacking from those directions so that you get a slightly bigger target and some of your bullets will bypass armor.

Originally Posted by julian265

It often absorbed 50+ .50s and still kept flying. I remember a few cases online with more than 100 .50 hits from 6 o'clock (using gunstat before and after)

With all respect, unless you were playing with "arcade mode on" so you could record exactly where each shot hit, all you can say is that you shot 50+ or 100+ 0.50 caliber rounds at an Fw-190 and it still got away.

That doesn't make the Fw-190's damage model incorrect, it just puts you in the company of however many thousand allied pilots who had the same problem in real life.

If your gunnery wasn't up to scratch, you might very well have sprayed a lot of virtual lead around the target, with a fraction of the bullets hitting the target but being scattered such that there was never the concentrated fire needed to score a kill. A few more might have been stopped by armor.

Killing aircraft with a machine gun requires a higher level of precision than killing them using cannons. Your deflection and convergence has to be just right so that you can bring several seconds of fire onto a single vital system, and you have to be close enough to your target that you can reliably hit that system.

Achieving those conditions can be quite hard, which is one of the reasons that most air forces ultimately chose cannons as their airborne weapon of choice!

[falconilia]

After dozen and dozen tests FW A8 VS 4 Wellington III,B17,B29,and online games my conlcusions are:
FWs can be shot down:
A)You hit and destroy its ailerons/elevators
B)Pilot killed
C)Damaged engine with also damaged wing but being at low alt
D)Fuel tank fire
E)Destroy/cut off elevators(if u aim the tail its easy)
F)All the above

You can not:
A)Set fire on engine including 20mm guns
B)Cut wing(flying P47 and trying to aim only the wings in photo one it took 75 bullets and in photo 2 147 bullets.In 3rd photo you can see the heavier damage can take one wing from 0.50s.

PS:This is not a 4.13 issue.This bug? was also was on 4.12 but i thought someone would notice it

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by falconilia

B)Cut wing(flying P47 and trying to aim only the wings in photo one it took 75 bullets and in photo 2 147 bullets.In 3rd photo you can see the heavier damage can take one wing from 0.50s.

I know that I have shot off the wings of 190s more than once. Though usually with some Russian armament, which frequently features 20mm cannon(s).

And you can kill the engine totally, but set it on fire -doubtful if I've ever seen it- it is at least not common. And though not as common as with other birds - Fw190s can go 1 million pieces puzzle, too.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

I know that I have shot off the wings of 190s more than once. Though usually with some Russian armament, which frequently features 20mm cannon(s).

That's entirely reasonable. I would be surprised if a couple of 20mm hits to the wings DIDN'T blow the wing off a fighter, or at least render it virtually unflyable.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by falconilia

A)Set fire on engine including 20mm guns
B)Cut wing(flying P47 and trying to aim only the wings in photo one it took 75 bullets and in photo 2 147 bullets.In 3rd photo you can see the heavier damage can take one wing from 0.50s.

Something that would help make your case would be taking screenshots with Arcade Mode on.

That is, go into your conf.ini file and using a text editor alter "Arcade=0" to "Arcade=1"

In arcade mode when a plane takes damage you'll see a big "arrow" through it which marks the bullet trajectory. Explosions give a "starburst" effect, like in KG26_Alpha's post. This is a tremendously valuable tool for A) checking the accuracy of your gunnery. B) Determining exactly where a bullet goes when troubleshooting DM problems.

It IS possible to take the wing off a FW-190 using machine guns in the game, but you need to get sufficient concentration of fire on one location, as I said before. In particular, you have to get enough bullets through the main wing spar, which might be hard against a hard-maneuvering target.

While the IL2 damage textures have little to do with where bullets actually go, in the P-47 vs. FW-190 duel, it looks like the P-47 sprayed a whole lot of lead randomly into the 190's wings without getting that concentration.

But, in fairness to your argument, something that may or may not be modeled in IL2 is ammo explosions. And, one of the few design flaws of the FW-190 was that its 20mm cannon ammo magazine was right next to the main wing spar. One bullet in the right place could cause a secondary explosion that could rip the wing off, as shown here at 0:21 on the video:

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65...ng-over-clouds

Note the relative lack of prior 0.50 caliber impacts on the wings prior to the blast.

[falconilia]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

It IS possible to take the wing off a FW-190 using machine guns in the game, but you need to get sufficient concentration of fire on one location, as I said before. In particular, you have to get enough bullets through the main wing spar, which might be hard against a hard-maneuvering target.

While the IL2 damage textures have little to do with where bullets actually go, in the P-47 vs. FW-190 duel, it looks like the P-47 sprayed a whole lot of lead randomly into the 190's wings without getting that concentration.

But, in fairness to your argument, something that may or may not be modeled in IL2 is ammo explosions. And, one of the few design flaws of the FW-190 was that its 20mm cannon ammo magazine was right next to the main wing spar. One bullet in the right place could cause a secondary explosion that could rip the wing off, as shown here at 0:21 on the video:

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65...ng-over-clouds

Note the relative lack of prior 0.50 caliber impacts on the wings prior to the blast.

Honestly i have never succeeded to take FWs wing with 0.50 guns on 4.12 and now on 4.13 patch.Have you?
But on previous patches with close convergence 175-200 it was the best tactic to destroy a FW as i had good concentration.

0.50s are good mgs.You can destroy every fighters wing even ill2 or N1K George.Not easy but with lots of bullets no matter how the concentration is.

[falconilia]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

This isn't surprising. If you're attacking a plane from exactly 6 o'clock level, it presents its narrowest profile, and most WW2-era planes had armor to protect crew and vital systems from hits from the rear.

So, unless the convergence of your guns is perfect, many of your shots will miss the smaller target, and many of the shots that hit will be stopped by armor.

That's why you ideally never attack from exactly 6 or 12 o'clock level. Always incorporate a bit of "angle off" when attacking from those directions so that you get a slightly bigger target and some of your bullets will bypass armor.



With all respect, unless you were playing with "arcade mode on" so you could record exactly where each shot hit, all you can say is that you shot 50+ or 100+ 0.50 caliber rounds at an Fw-190 and it still got away.

That doesn't make the Fw-190's damage model incorrect, it just puts you in the company of however many thousand allied pilots who had the same problem in real life.

If your gunnery wasn't up to scratch, you might very well have sprayed a lot of virtual lead around the target, with a fraction of the bullets hitting the target but being scattered such that there was never the concentrated fire needed to score a kill. A few more might have been stopped by armor.

Killing aircraft with a machine gun requires a higher level of precision than killing them using cannons. Your deflection and convergence has to be just right so that you can bring several seconds of fire onto a single vital system, and you have to be close enough to your target that you can reliably hit that system.

Achieving those conditions can be quite hard, which is one of the reasons that most air forces ultimately chose cannons as their airborne weapon of choice!

You are correct above all these.
with the right convergence and angle of attack you can destroy even a B17 easy.
But hitting FW in a specific point u only get the max damage at this point as i mention before.... dont know if you u understand me.i tired ))))