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#41
07-28-2013, 09:15 PM
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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 |
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#42
07-28-2013, 09:54 PM
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#43
07-29-2013, 02:17 AM
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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 |
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#44
07-29-2013, 05:15 AM
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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. |
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#45
07-29-2013, 11:13 AM
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But, for something like Ki-84 (with 20mm cannons) vs. a B-29, it still seems unreasonable for stricken bombers to lose their wings. 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. Quote:
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I also wish that it was possible to set the convergence of different pairs of guns at slightly different ranges to get a broader "kill zone." It would help my accuracy not only with the early British fighters, but also the American fighters. I can see why the Soviets and late-war Germans standardized on cannons - they're easier for an unskilled pilot to use! |
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#46
07-29-2013, 01:39 PM
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I think it is a good thing to give good skills to AI even if it is not "historical". After all what we do when playing the sim is not historical (we can train without danger, reach hit rates from 7% to 30%, we don't even feel the pain when we are injured lol etc) we cannot let AI only with historical skill, otherwise it would not be challenging at all and then it is the combat situation that will not be historical, for there will be no danger. The realism isn't sometimes in history, but it is in trying to reproduce the danger of a war situation. I agree with most of what has been said by Horseback, however, historcally, nothing flying was easy meat for a WW2 pilot (unless he was a great ace), and this must be represented in game, with AI skill improving with years (BTW that's why i'm not really happy with fighter AI ace aiming in 4.12, it was so much better in the previous patch). Bomber defensive fire during WW2 were as described by Horseback, but still the majority of fighter pilots weren't ace and did not even have a single kill. We cannot pretend we are in WW2 when we run IL2. A sim, has to make us feel the danger of a combat situation: IL2 does this well and still we have the confortable choice to decide whether we take the risk or not. Compared to the real WW2 combats, what we have in IL2 is immensely easier. |
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#47
07-29-2013, 07:06 PM
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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 |
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#48
07-29-2013, 07:11 PM
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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 |
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#49
07-29-2013, 07:53 PM
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Hitting other aircraft was more difficult in real life; turbulence, prop wash, wing flex, guns jamming, mechanical aborts or (shockingly often) the pilot forgetting to unsafe his guns. How about the need to change the bulbs in your gunsight in the middle of a dogfight? Finding the enemy was the greatest problem by far; unless he came to you in huge numbers and you were directed to him by Ground Control, chances of actually seeing and engaging enemy aircraft were exceedingly low. Even with radar direction, finding them in any kind of cloud cover was often a matter of luck; early systems couldn't give you accurate altitude information. Making the enemy rare would lead to people leaving the game in droves, as would most of the other stuff I mentioned. We play for the combat ‘experience’, or what we imagine it to be; for the offline player, at least, using the actual tactics the aces used should almost always be successful. They are not. If you are flying a USAAF fighter campaign in Europe, your primary natural prey is not single engine fighters, but the twin engine zerstörers, whose rear gunners were practically useless at their guns at those speeds and altitudes; their primary value was as an extra set of eyes. In this game, they are the most dangerous opponents you can encounter and the rear gunner’s twin 7.9mm guns are several orders of magnitude more dangerous than the two cannon in the nose. At any range or angle, it is usually safer to take on four Ace FW 190A-9s than it is to approach one Rookie Me-110G from the rear... In that sort of situation, the frustration factor is huge. You know that you are doing everything exactly right, and you are still getting hammered. Ultimately, you put the game away and move on to something else, at least for a while. I would expect that the game loses at least ten offliners for every online player every year—and it is almost certainly the grotesque accuracy of the ai gunners that is the main cause. I’ve taken at least four ‘breaks’ of eight or ten months over the last 12 years, but I have come back. How many don’t return, ever? The attraction of the online game is not re-creation of the actual air war but the competition; since the ai gunners are a relatively minor factor in that environment, the guys who want to fly bombers want the extra protection factor of the ai gunners' accuracy, since they will be found by the opposing fighters. The off-liner looks for immersion; let's define that as a temporary escape into someplace else--we might as well call it a role playing game as much as a 'shooter'. In that context, you want things to work consistently according to the historic rules you know, and in those theaters where the enemy came to you, the individual good & aggressive pilots consistently scored heavily, even when they were flying technically inferior aircraft (see Finland, the Battle of Germany, the Battle of Britain, Malta and Guadalcanal for examples). Bombers and multipassenger aircraft were 'easy meat', most definitely including the 'heavy fighters', regardless of the number of defensive guns they carried, because of the limitations of human accuracy at any range or angle with hand fired automatic weapons and their lack of ability to maneuver or run away. At the very least, the offliner should have a 'Full Real' option for the defensive gunners, to implement the changes I've suggested in whole or in part. Making the fighter to bomber contest disproportionately difficult is neither competitive nor realistic for a WWII fighter oriented simulation. cheers horseback |
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#50
07-29-2013, 07:54 PM
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I would rank the fragility of engines according to their aircraft roughly like this, from most delicate to toughest: - Bf-109 - Ki-61 - P-40 - P-51 - Hurricane - Tempest - Italian liquid-cooled planes - P-38 - Spitfire - MiG - P-47 - F4U - Yak - LaGG - F4F - FW-190 - La 5/7 - P-39 - Japanese radial-powered fighters Last edited by Woke Up Dead; 07-29-2013 at 07:59 PM. |
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