De Wilde, or armor piercing?
 

Regular bullets aren't worth sh*. Then there are tracers, which kill your FPS and don't cause any damage. I put one round of tracer in every 4, and only in the outside guns.

That leaves the AP and the De Wilde as the most effective types of ammo, isn't that correct?

Filling my guns with half this and half that didn't prove to be very useful. It only does a half job, whatever you're shooting at. Yesterday I tried to use only AP-s. I got a lot more piot kills, but the apparent damage wasn't much more serious. Should I try with DeWilde only? How would that cope with Heinkels and 109s? In many books I've read about this latter, but I've never seen AP-s being mentioned.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

mine shells? :grin:

well i tried to do a dewilde mix and AP and i got some nice results with it. the first wing a ripped appart in COD was with thsi combo on a hurricane. i Think this has more to do with your accuracy and where you shoot. i ahve been used to aim at wings from my il2 1946, fw190/ me109 tempest flying days, i never suceeded much on p51 and other small caliber fighters becouse of this, Also i never gave much importance to convergence, i use to put convergence at 150 meters becosue i always fire at 100 or at 200. this too say, maybe dewilde if you aim at the wings, and AP if you are used to aim at the centerline , engine - pilot - controls of the aircraift

very good reading here on ammunitions during BoB...
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/BoB.htm

an issue I think should be simulated, at least in online sessions, is the shortage of some cartriges (i.e. dewilde or m-Geschoss) and force the players to an historically correct mix of ball-AP-Incendiary and tracers.
Cheers

Did pilots have a choice of what ammo they loaded their plane with, or was it just standard belting? I would guess the former, as I doubt there would have been time during the BoB to make up individual ammo belting.
IF that is the case, is it not 'gaming the game' to use custom belts?

Thanks for the link! It says that AP bullets weren't too effective, but De Wilde ammo was very much so.

According to books they mostly used that, whenever they could. Whether itwas their choice or a standard belting, I don't know. But using De Wilde-s is more historical than using AP-s, I guess. I might be wrong though.

1st:
This is still game, custom belts are part of the fun.
Following your logic I would have to fly wingtip to wingtip next to 110s...

2nd:
I dont think those belts came ready from the factory. In the field you get: Links, ammo amd a machine.
So, if you want a custom belt, talk to the ground crew and there you go.

Rem: Based on swiss army experience, the link assembly machine we had must have been from WWI, looked like a manual coffee grinder, lol.

i dont know, but for sure they were forced to face the availability for every type of ammo, that was not unlimited and the overall amount of them should be equally shared at squadron level (my thought)

This part is very interesting. So it was half AP half De Wilde after all, except in the beginning, when there was a shortage and they had to use regular ball ammo too.

Using AP only didn't prove to be more effective than half-half. Now I'll try De Wilde only and see, but I'll probably go back to half DW half AP.

I have mine set as half and half, with the outers having white incedery trace mix for marking, also last 50 rounds in outer two guns with red trace as a warning. Works well for me with a 180 yard convergance

Would it make sense to load the 2 outer pair of guns with AP and the 2 inner pairs with DW? If the AP is more useful for wings and DW is more useful for fuselage hits (fuel tanks and such), I reckon I have a better chance like this. Or should it be the other way around? does it make sense or is it better to have DW-AP-DW-AP-AP-DW-AP-DW ?

I use the 1942 setup of half DW\Inc and half AP. DW's on the outside 4 guns and AP on the inside 4 guns. Like Kris, I use tracers (1 in 5 I think) in the last 50 rounds to let me know when the guns are running low.

Actually, tell a lie. In the outer 2 guns (1&8), I use the white incendiary tracer.

I've read that German bombers had 2/3 AP and 1/3 incendiary in their MGs.

In game I noticed that incendiary are very good against British bombers with fabric-coated wings.

I am getting decent results with this load (each wing from outside to in, both Spit and Hurri):-

AP, AP, White Tracer/incendiary (50 red reserve), DeWilde

AP to do damage and make tanks leak or kill pilot
Tracer/Incendiary to observe aim and ignite leaking fuel
DW to confirm hits (they cause a 'splash' on hits) with additional incendiary properties.

Has anyone caught a 109 on fire yet? I have started a fire on a condor's elevator but never a fighter.

I thought ball ammo tended to flaten out when it hit, compared to AP that went straight through, so hitting a wing with ball could do more damage (if modelled)

Trying ball, ball, AP, AP, thinking that I hit the wings with the ball and main body with the AP.

I'm still tweaking :)

I've managed to set a 110's ailerons on fire, looked very cool.

I've set 109's on fire but they soon go out and carry on flying!

Self-sealing tanks?

Normally, when they come out of the explosion, they constantly lose a lots of fuel and are dry after some minutes.

Apart from that, I also had a 109 explosiong incident this night and the two guns equipped with DeWilde appeared to do the job well when you hit it from above or below at the point of convergence. However from 6 o clock I rarely can ignite or explode a 109.

AP / De Wilde on every gun except on the inner 2 - AP / Tracer.

Works more or less OK for me.

Mine is similar to Kristorf's. I alternate guns rather than belting though, I.E. #1 AP, #2 DeWilde, etc. I put white tracer every fourth on the outside only with the last eighty red. I feel this gives the best destructive balance.

hmmmm... well, in theory if you are shooting at convergence they will all pass through the same small area at your target/aim point so it shouldn't make any difference unless you are inside convergence (and aiming a bit low to compensate) when the outer guns might hit the wings.

Assuming you are shooting at convergence you need to consider what it is you are trying to achieve. AP is good for destruction (control surfaces, possibly entire wing, etc?), bomber engines I guess or pilots/crew. Incendiary types for starting fires. Tracer incendiaries tell you where your shots are going, DeWilde (an element of incendiary) has no 'tracer' but gives a nice splash to confirm when you are on target. The RAF pilots loved DeWilde when it was introduced. So do I :)

I fly with 4x Red tracer Ball ammo on the 2 most outer guns ( reminds me of the P-51 in 1946) and 2x Ap and 2x DeWilde on the 4 inner guns. With the convergence setting and the wingspan of your targets the damage is horrific:

Wingspan of the targets for your gunsights:

Bf 109 32 ft
Bf 110 53 ft
Do 17 59 ft
Ju 87 45 ft
Ju 88 60 ft (a-1 version)
He 111 74 ft
BR. 20 70 ft


With the correct convergence one can easily concentrate on ripping of the wings of bombers :grin: .

si soy de wilde

hey gang:

how do you set tracer so it comes out every 4th or 5th ??

also how do you set the last 50 or so to show you are almost our of ammo

what is the "residue Belt"

Denis

Yes, you can set up the 'residue' belt for each gun separately. Select Residue instead of main and enter the number of rounds you want configured (in this case 50). My Main belt has one yellow tracer every five rounds at guns 1 and 8 but this changes to 1:1 red:AP in the last 50 as you can see below. Very easy to tell the difference.

I find it interesting that the guns run out at different times. This adds to the realism for me since I bet they wouldn't be perfectly timed in RL.

http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6047/6...210b56f424.jpg

Cheesehawk & JimBop
Excellent info just what I was looking for

Thanks

Denis/Knucklebutt