FWs Durabillity

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by RPS69

Also, they will rarely aim at a wing, they will fire to the bulk of the plane.

Agreed, but if you get your deflection wrong while aiming at the fuselage, your bullets can go through the wings.

Originally Posted by RPS69

I don't know how rare it was, but ages back, in the beginnings of il-2, they invited a former German fighter pilot to test the sim, and when he find himself being fired at, the first thing he did, was emptying his magazine

That's good evidence that the more experienced German pilots knew of the "bug," so it must be more common than I assumed.

The reason I called out bullets/shells exploding bullets/shells as being rare is that in order to get a secondary explosion, you need to have an explosive bullet that hits the propellant or explosive charge, or a direct hit on the primer within the bullet, to make it detonate. Otherwise, the bullet/shell hit just tears up the other bullet/shell, which just causes a stoppage.

Also, with a typical aircraft ammo belting, you're only going to have a fraction of bullets/shells which are APE (rarely HE). That means you've typically got a 20%-33% chance that any bullet that hits ammo will be APE, and a 25-33% chance that the bullet/shell it hits will be APE.

So, low odds, but higher than getting hit by lightning or winning the lottery.

But, packing all your bullets/shells into a magazine (like FW-190's cannon shell magazine) will increase the chance that an APE bullet will hit something that causes a secondary explosion, so the odds go up a bit.

To simplify things, lets say there's a 10% chance that any hit to a magazine by an explosive bullet will cause a secondary explosion, multiplied by the percentage of HE bullets in the magazine. With 25% explosive rounds for both attacker and target, that works out to a 0.625% chance that any given bullet hit to a magazine will cause a secondary explosion.

Basically, a lucky hit rather than a certainty, even if you're an amazing shot.

Originally Posted by RPS69

Actually, if you can believe the tales on osprey book aces of the FW on the eastern front, the first test the pilots themselves made was putting the 190 on a steep dive, and, after landing, count the lost rivets on the airframe.
The tale states that to their surprise, the count was zero.

The factors that affect airframe durability are: design quality, construction quality, & quality of materials.

Early war German aircraft were beautifully constructed, which is why monthly aircraft production totals were low(ish). The same could be said for pre-war/early war aircraft constructed by other advanced economies, as well as many prototypes.

Massively mass-produced aircraft, especially those constructed from inferior materials, had inferior - or at least uneven - construction. Pilots of the era will tell you that no two aircraft flew exactly the same, even if they came off the same assembly line.

Giving the FW-190A the benefit of the doubt, I'd call it superior in terms of design, superior in construction quality, but average in terms of materials (at least for much of the war). Later war versions were probably only average in construction quality.

By contrast: P-51D = superior design, average construction quality (Rosie the Riveter was highly motivated, but she was new to the job), with average to superior materials. LaGG-3 = Superior design (precursor to the well-loved and rugged La-5), average to poor construction quality (and quite variable!), average to poor materials.

Originally Posted by RPS69

Tougher wings, I don't know, but smaller, for sure! Also, it's ailerons control system, was far better and sturdier than any other plane of it's time.

Control system =/ control surface area. The FW-190 should be a bit more resilient vs. aileron control damage. Control surfaces are a different story, since they're fabric covered.

The game doesn't distinguish between fabric-covered surfaces vs. surfaces with a skin of some solid material like wood or aluminum. Fabric-covered surfaces shouldn't trigger bullet/cannon shell explosions, should be much more vulnerable to fire, and to the effects of nearby internal explosions. Wood or steel frame with doped canvas construction should also have fewer overall "hit points" than for monococque construction.

Fabric covered control surfaces should be slightly less responsive at high speeds, and more prone to damage due to overspeed. (The fabric could deform or tear under stress.)

Originally Posted by RPS69

It doesn't need a handful. Sometimes even a singe shot will do the trick. Tested it with the arrows enabled.

This a problem common to all aircraft in the game. IL2 damage textures are merely "artist's interpretations" of actual damage results. With Arcade Mode on, you can get some really strange results. For example, in a some cases, the damage textures will actually show more holes in the plane than the actual number of actual bullets that hit it!

I think you could make a good case that the damage threshold required to trigger any sort of damage to fuselage, wings, tail or control surfaces, for all planes, should be considerably higher for .30 caliber or .50 caliber bullets. Those weapons were fine for killing people, damaging engines and starting fires, but were never intended to blast vehicles apart.

But, there also needs to be some degree of progressive weakening of damaged parts so even .30 caliber bullets can make a plane fall apart if it subsequently pulls extreme Gs or goes overspeed.

Originally Posted by RPS69

Tough, yes, invulnerable, no way. Pick 8 B17s on quick mission. at 2000m. Not historically accurate, but funnier to do. Try to down more than four, and tell me how invulnerable it is to .50s fire. It is really nice to try it.

You'll get no argument from me, but it's a matter of how you die. I've flown this sort of mission dozens of times over the years and generally end up with a dead/dying engine or pilot. Less commonly a flaming fuel tank or chewed up wing that keeps me from keeping up with the bomber formation. Its very unusual to get a wing failure, however.

Originally Posted by RPS69

Still, american .50s are really a bad weapon to down B17s!

That's the thing that US 0.50 caliber fanboys forget. .50 caliber/12.7 mm guns suck against any sturdily-built medium to heavy bomber.

The US military standardized on the M2 as their preferred aerial weapon because it was their most reliable weapon, because it simplified supply chain problems, and most importantly, because US pilots were almost always on the offensive, flying long range missions (where ammo quantity is as important as weight of fire) where the opposition was usually enemy fighters.

By contrast, nations whose air forces had to play defense against medium or heavy bombers (read: everybody except the US), or who wanted effective "tank buster" aircraft, quickly learned that the 20 mm or 30 mm cannon was the preferred tool for the job.

For bomber interceptors, the US got the message, too, which is why planes like the F6F-5N, P-61 & F7F were armed with cannons.