FWs Durabillity

[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

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.

With 20mm its not hard.
P38 has one 20mm and it can destroy the wing with the help of 0.50s or not!

[julian265]

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!

I agree with most of what you said, except that - as stated in my post - I used gunstat before and after shooting to count HITS, not shots fired (I had a bee in my bonnet at the time).

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by julian265

I agree with most of what you said, except that - as stated in my post - I used gunstat before and after shooting to count HITS, not shots fired (I had a bee in my bonnet at the time).

Since I'm offline only (crappy ISP) I'm not familiar with the gunstat function. The nearest thing is the statistics page off of the QMB, which is handy but doesn't give you statistics about your hit percentage against a particular target.

But, Gunstat looks like a valuable tool for those lucky enough to be able to play online. If you were playing unmodded IL2, and if the FW-190's damage model hasn't been changed subsequently, then there's definitely an issue.

50 or 100 .50 caliber bullets into any single-engined fighter (except maybe brutes like the F6F or P-47) should be enough to make it unflyable. If its a one-off event, then its a case of a very lucky FW-190 pilot. If you're getting the same result on a more or less regular basis, its a DM problem.

[Pursuivant]

I've seen the light and have converted to the belief that the FW-190's DM is broken, at least with respect to not being able to take off its wing using .50 caliber guns.

To test this assumption, I set up a flight of friendly FW-190s, with me flying a P-47D-27, which is about as many .50 caliber guns as you're going to get on a reasonably maneuverable aircraft.

Guns converged for 300 meters. I'd pull up behind each FW-190 at 6 o'clock level, at about 100-200 m so that bullet convergence would go through the wings, and start shooting.

Arcade mode on so I could tell where my bullets were hitting.

1) It seems like a very few hits to the fuselage (5-6 hits) were sufficient to trigger the heavy damage textures and make the pilot bail out. No control cable hits from what I could tell. So, the FW-190 seems to be a bit undermodeled there.

2) A burst of a two or three bullets in the fuel tank will set the FW-190 alight. Arguably, that's a unrealistic since it should take a bit of time for fuel to leak or get splashed about before a fire can start, and most self-sealing fuel tanks could take a couple of .50 caliber bullets without leaking too badly.
But, all planes in IL2 seem to be a bit too flammable, and the FW-190 doesn't seem to be any more or less vulnerable than comparable fighters in that respect.

3) I put plenty of concentrated .50 caliber fire directly through the wings (through the spars), sufficient to trigger plenty of "heavy damage" textures to both the inboard and outboard wings. But, despite repeated attempts, I never could get the FW-190's wing to separate. I think there's a bug there, at least with respect to .50 caliber MG fire.

4) Elevators and rudder seem to be quite vulnerable to damage - heavy damage textures appear after just one or two hits. But, the vertical stabilizer itself seems to be about as invulnerable to concentrated HMG fire as the wings. (Although the AI will always bail out after elevators and rudder are shredded.)

5) Not really testing for it, since I was taking shots from the rear and aiming at the wings and rear fuselage, but while I was able to get a number of smoking engine results, I was never able to get an engine fire.

6) Again, not testing for it, and it should never be common if it is modeled, but I never got that 20mm magazine explosion I've seen in gun camera footage.

7) Armor plate is well modeled, with the plate behind the pilot repeatedly stopping .50 caliber bullets at 100-200 meter ranges. I can't speak to the accuracy of frontal armor/armor glass modeling.

So, in some ways the DM of the the FW-190 is overmodeled, and some ways it's undermodeled. Durability of control surfaces might be improved slightly (they were fabric covered, so many bullets should just go through leaving only a small hole, rather than tumbling or exploding). Rear fuselage definitely needs to be a bit tougher. Wings and vertical stabilizer need to be made a bit more vulnerable to HMG fire.

[falconilia]

I've seen the light and have converted to the belief that the FW-190's DM is broken, at least with respect to not being able to take off its wing using .50 caliber guns.

To test this assumption, I set up a flight of friendly FW-190s, with me flying a P-47D-27, which is about as many .50 caliber guns as you're going to get on a reasonably maneuverable aircraft.

Guns converged for 300 meters. I'd pull up behind each FW-190 at 6 o'clock level, at about 100-200 m so that bullet convergence would go through the wings, and start shooting.

Arcade mode on so I could tell where my bullets were hitting.

1) It seems like a very few hits to the fuselage (5-6 hits) were sufficient to trigger the heavy damage textures and make the pilot bail out. No control cable hits from what I could tell. So, the FW-190 seems to be a bit undermodeled there.

2) A burst of a two or three bullets in the fuel tank will set the FW-190 alight. Arguably, that's a unrealistic since it should take a bit of time for fuel to leak or get splashed about before a fire can start, and most self-sealing fuel tanks could take a couple of .50 caliber bullets without leaking too badly.
But, all planes in IL2 seem to be a bit too flammable, and the FW-190 doesn't seem to be any more or less vulnerable than comparable fighters in that respect.

3) I put plenty of concentrated .50 caliber fire directly through the wings (through the spars), sufficient to trigger plenty of "heavy damage" textures to both the inboard and outboard wings. But, despite repeated attempts, I never could get the FW-190's wing to separate. I think there's a bug there, at least with respect to .50 caliber MG fire.

4) Elevators and rudder seem to be quite vulnerable to damage - heavy damage textures appear after just one or two hits. But, the vertical stabilizer itself seems to be about as invulnerable to concentrated HMG fire as the wings. (Although the AI will always bail out after elevators and rudder are shredded.)

5) Not really testing for it, since I was taking shots from the rear and aiming at the wings and rear fuselage, but while I was able to get a number of smoking engine results, I was never able to get an engine fire.

6) Again, not testing for it, and it should never be common if it is modeled, but I never got that 20mm magazine explosion I've seen in gun camera footage.

7) Armor plate is well modeled, with the plate behind the pilot repeatedly stopping .50 caliber bullets at 100-200 meter ranges. I can't speak to the accuracy of frontal armor/armor glass modeling.


Unlike you i play for years online with historical missions but with cockpit off.Gunstat is the same.you see the % hits on air or on ground.
Real players cant do so many crazy evasive or hard moves as AI does.
When they see you they usually run or turn hard so you have a good deflection shoot.
After long discussion with some friends using P51 or P47 we had some conclusions about 0.50s convergence and FWs:
200 to 300 convergence u may destroy some controls easier
300 to 500 convergence several damage to wing but also no matter how close you are you hit main fuselage tank many times.
Also engine damage but not so often.
500 to 820 lots of PK!!!,and wing damage.
Average firing distance is about 300mts.

Elevators as you said can be completely removed but ailerons can be disabled still never be removed.

Yesterday i played a QMB with a Yak3 P.
I destroyed Fws wing with ONLY 2 hits from my pair of 12.7mm!(i didnt use 20mm cannon).
That means that there is an issue between US 12.7mm and FW.
Ill try with a KI 43 Oscar but im not sure if they use US 12.7mm and not sure if i can hit it(to fast to reach it).

[RPS69]

Originally Posted by falconilia

Yesterday i played a QMB with a Yak3 P.
I destroyed Fws wing with ONLY 2 hits from my pair of 12.7mm!(i didnt use 20mm cannon).
That means that there is an issue between US 12.7mm and FW.
Ill try with a KI 43 Oscar but im not sure if they use US 12.7mm and not sure if i can hit it(to fast to reach it).

To me it seems that there is an issue with .50s... no need to catch it on the 190.

[Woke Up Dead]

Originally Posted by falconilia

Yesterday i played a QMB with a Yak3 P.
I destroyed Fws wing with ONLY 2 hits from my pair of 12.7mm!(i didnt use 20mm cannon).
That means that there is an issue between US 12.7mm and FW.
Ill try with a KI 43 Oscar but im not sure if they use US 12.7mm and not sure if i can hit it(to fast to reach it).

The Yak 3P doesn't have machine guns, it has three 20mm cannons. The Yak 3 is the one with one cannon and two mg's.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by RPS69

To me it seems that there is an issue with .50s... no need to catch it on the 190.

Maybe. It seems like the .50 caliber MG has no problems starting fires or fatally damaging engines, even if it isn't so good at chewing up airframes or punching through armor. That makes it an effective weapon, especially against fighters and light bombers.

I don't think that it should be easy for .50 caliber fire to take off a wing, even off of a small fighter like the FW-190. But, it should be possible with sufficient damage. Perhaps it is, but I my gunnery skills aren't good enough.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by falconilia

Yesterday i played a QMB with a Yak3 P.
I destroyed Fws wing with ONLY 2 hits from my pair of 12.7mm!(i didnt use 20mm cannon).
That means that there is an issue between US 12.7mm and FW.
Ill try with a KI 43 Oscar but im not sure if they use US 12.7mm and not sure if i can hit it(to fast to reach it).

As already pointed out, the Yak-3P has a 3xB-20 20mm cannon arrangement in the nose. Quite a lot of hitting power. The standard Yak-3 has two 12.7mm UBS and and one 20mm ShVAK cannon.

The Ki-43-Ic has two Ho-103 machine guns. The Ki-43-II and II-Kai also have two Ho-103 machine guns. In past patches the Ki-43-II was incorrectly armed with US .50cal machine guns but I researched and ensured that it was fixed (like the incorrect Yak-9UT armament before it) in 4.12.