.303 ammunition expierence exchange

[Sven]

I would also like to leave a comment here, don't assume that shooting from a dead 6 position is the best way to represent the true damage of the guns of an aircraft.

Yesterday on ATAG I was flying a spitfire Ia against the blue horde, and a full 1 second burst into an 109 who was climbing up was enough to kill the pilot and to send him down to the earth in flames. I always try to avoid ending up on someone's 6 when I'm fighting, how strange this might seem to some. I find it to be a very successful way of fighting.

Shooting cannon from a dead 6 position has so far not been very succesful, it's excessive recoil either makes the round jump over or beneath the target, and if it does hit the results aren't that spectacular, although M-geschoss should be quite effective. Again, coming in from an angle gives far better results.

The whole DM needs an overhaul I think.

I just hit on Repka server a spit 2a with M geschoss and panzersprenggranaten in my canons resulting in a huge fireball out of wich the spit came with lost one elevator half and other damage. It still made circles I could not follow and it was able to catch me with ease.

[TomcatViP]

A day in a life of a Spit

[Hellbender]

The issue with the exploding but still flying planes have been eyewitnessed several times, mostly on the Repka server due to the high density of the dogfights.

I also find it much more promising to attack a target not from 6 o´clock level but high or low, especially bombers sicne you can hit in that way the pilot or the fuel tanks better. However the problem remains, that you can´t chose your firing angle often, especially when a 109 tries to escape in a dive. In a dogfight it is a good idea to attack someone while he/she is turning sicne your bullets will have a lots of surface to impact on .

Actually with a 109 you harly will get ever a shot from 6 astern. Either because your target is fixed on someone and is turning wildly or because he can hear you from 500m (needs to be fixed because it is not realistic that one hears sounds from outside).

It still remains that I have seen a thousand times Spits doing a turning fight and winning even though they have been badly damaged (on Repka one has external view). I guess the same is for 109s.

Basically I think it is currently a bit unrealistic that if a spit looses one half of its elevator that it still can outturn me and catch on me with ease. That is what I challenge.

The same basically goes for 109 loosing half of its wings. One has some small torque but that's all. You still can land safely.

The best way currently to score a kill is to kill the pilot. I agree that this was the ultimate goal (with all the nastyness of meaning of course) in an air combat back then but my difficulty is that I wonder how they scored kills at all bck then.

Even when I am badly damaged I usually can get home and actually land ...

[TomcatViP]

one thing tht I know is that the grd seems to be too soft making crash-ldng a piece of cake.

yesterday I came back to the airfield in my 110 with no rudder and half elev (I tested online the new VNE) touching down too fast nose first in a -5deg attitude.
Figure what ? I survived !

[Hellbender]

Tonight, when there were 70+ people flying on the ATAG server, I took the chance and flew with a 109 ( there were more REDs than BLUEs). I vulched two Spitfires and a Hurricane with the MG and enaged 3 Hurricanes over the Channel in a dogfight.

I must admit, that the recoil of the cannon can lead to the issue that there a soem shells are bouncing over your target, I foudn it very useful and successful to only fire very short burst of MG/FF rounds (4-6) which saves some ammo and, in case your aiming is good deal some significant damage. 1 or two hits at the hurricanes each time and the planes had to abort the dogfight or when they continued they had to fly with soem big wholes in the wing. One hurricane stalled and crashed.

On the other side, I got hit in the last dogfight with two hurricanes and with the player Gelbe Vierzehn helping me out in the midst of the channel, were I got hit by a 1 second burst of a hurricane. That burst slightly injured me and created 3 tiny wholes in total in my wings. Anything else seemed to be okay.

Point is, when I compae the firepower apart form the auto cannon of the 109, I find the MGs of it more powerful than the .303 rounds of the british planes.

The most promising ammo loadout i fly in the british planes at them moment is for me:

Gun 1: White Tracer/Incendiary
Gun 2 Ball
Gun 3 Armor
Gun 4 DeWilde
Gun 5 Armor
Gun 6 Ball, DeWilde, Ball
Gun 7 Ball
Gun 8 Tracer/Indendiary

So big question still remains, is the DeWilde any good and worth 300 rounds in Gun 6 or has it only a minoreffect on your targets ?

[tools4fools]

8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

Moment.
9600 rpm divided by 60 sec is 160.
Times 3 gives 480 rounds for a 3 sec burst from all 8 guns.

So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.

Correct.

20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.

Not correct.

20 rounds x 8 guns = 160 rounds per second - not 480
(160 x 3 we get back to the 480 bullets per 3 second burst, not 1440)

As said only few of those will actually hit.

Haven't tried CoD yet but managed to shoot down twin engines easily with my poor Hayabusa in IL-2.
But I never shoot at 200-300m - I open fire earliest when at about 120-150m, down to 50m or so. One short burst will smoke an engine. If aimed accurately that is.

So out to those who play CoD: how do those 0.303 perform in CoD when you get close in, aim at and hit porperly an engine?

[Hellbender]

From close range, in order to inflict serious damage, one has to fire from 6 o´clock high or low and hit fro mthere the engine area. Straight from the 6 of the twin engien bomber, you only do little damage. When the bullets penetrate the wings and enter the engien area they do little damage, except the armor piercing rounds, which do a little more damage in that way.

[JG53Frankyboy]

Originally Posted by Hellbender

Tonight, when there were 70+ people flying on the ATAG server, I took the chance and flew with a 109 ( there were more REDs than BLUEs). I vulched two Spitfires and a Hurricane with the MG and enaged 3 Hurricanes over the Channel in a dogfight.

I must admit, that the recoil of the cannon can lead to the issue that there a soem shells are bouncing over your target, I foudn it very useful and successful to only fire very short burst of MG/FF rounds (4-6) which saves some ammo and, in case your aiming is good deal some significant damage. 1 or two hits at the hurricanes each time and the planes had to abort the dogfight or when they continued they had to fly with soem big wholes in the wing. One hurricane stalled and crashed.

On the other side, I got hit in the last dogfight with two hurricanes and with the player Gelbe Vierzehn helping me out in the midst of the channel, were I got hit by a 1 second burst of a hurricane. That burst slightly injured me and created 3 tiny wholes in total in my wings. Anything else seemed to be okay.

Point is, when I compae the firepower apart form the auto cannon of the 109, I find the MGs of it more powerful than the .303 rounds of the british planes.

The most promising ammo loadout i fly in the british planes at them moment is for me:

Gun 1: White Tracer/Incendiary
Gun 2 Ball
Gun 3 Armor
Gun 4 DeWilde
Gun 5 Armor
Gun 6 Ball, DeWilde, Ball
Gun 7 Ball
Gun 8 Tracer/Indendiary

So big question still remains, is the DeWilde any good and worth 300 rounds in Gun 6 or has it only a minoreffect on your targets ?

till the ammoloadout GUI is not working 100% properly, i will do no ammo tests

from a pure guessing i have loaded all guns with
1 DeWilde
1 AP

No tracers, just 5 in the last 25 rounds in the inner guns. IIRC the real pilots of 1940 wanted a lot DeWilde, but it was on too short supply for this....nobody is asking in game for supply