Gun Convergance?

[Splitter]

Talking about offline:

I really don't shoot at 400M, but the effects of different MG rounds at that range vary. A .50 cal still packs some punch at that range (that's about 440 yards). A rifle caliber like a .303 has already lost a lot of energy by then. Closer is always better.

I set MG's under 250M usually. With .303's, I set it at 200M.

I set cannon even closer around 150M for "kill shots". The muzzle velocity of cannon tends to be lower than that of MG's PLUS the projectile itself is heavier. Therefore, the "drop" on cannon is higher at a given range. So if you set everything at 400M, MG's and cannon, and fire both at the same time and if both are set at the same "height", the cannon shell should go under the target if the MG's are hitting. (note that I think IL-2 takes elevation into account when setting convergence, however)

Also remember that convergence is your optimum range. At double your convergence distance, the width of the "cone of fire" is the same as the distance between the MG's on your plane. The bullets have already converged and are now spreading out....think of the cone of fire as sort of an "X" if viewed from above. So, effectively, the spread of bullets is still reasonable at double your convergence.

The opposite is also true. If you set your convergence too far out, say 400M, when you get closer to a target your bullet streams will not have converged. You might have to fire at a near target with only one wing's worth of machine guns. At the right angle, a near plane can fly right between your bullet streams.

I am not sure that IL-2 takes "elevation" of guns into account, but I think it does. If I am flying aircraft that fire through the prop where convergence is not really much of a factor, I will set cannons at about twice the distance of MG's. Doing this, it "appears" that the extra drop of cannon rounds is compensated for. In other words, the trajectory of the cannon round is higher than the MG rounds. So if I set MG's to 250M and cannon to 500M, the rounds from both "merge" in height at about 250M. Seems that way at least.

I hope in SoW convergence can be set for each pair of guns. As an example, on a plane with 6 MG's in the wings, you could set the inside pair to converge at 150M, the middle pair at 200M, and the outer pair at 250M (or maybe vice versa). I know in some branches of service the pilot had some options.

I heard a P-51 pilot talking about his preference being for all bullets to pass through one small point at a given distance. He said other pilots liked more of a "spread", but one of his strengths was being a good marksman. In contrast, Richard Bong thought himself to be a poor marksman even though he flew a P-38 and so only opened fire at very close range where he "could not miss". More control over convergence would allow players to tune the cone of fire to their own style.

I have seen youtube videos of IL-2 pilots getting kills on deflection shots at distances approaching 500M. How they do it? I don't know

EDIT: I always fly with overheat "ON" now. It takes a lot more work and I know the AI is cheating, but managing the engine temp is a skill unto itself and, hopefully, will be modeled better in SoW.

Splitter

[Daniël]

Originally Posted by Splitter

Talking about offline:

I have seen youtube videos of IL-2 pilots getting kills on deflection shots at distances approaching 500M. How they do it? I don't know

Splitter

They just show us their lucky shots

Deflection shooting is learning, learning and learning. It isn't easy so you will need experience to make good deflection shots. It can be very usefull, but if you aren't good at it, it's a waste of ammo.

[klem]

Most Squads use Teamspeak 2 or Teamspeak 3 as do the Hyperlobby servers (many have their own TS)

Track analysis is a very usful way to see your errors if you can understand what you are seeing

Originally Posted by Splitter

Talking about offline:

....................

I set MG's under 250M usually. With .303's, I set it at 200M.

I set cannon even closer around 150M for "kill shots". The muzzle velocity of cannon tends to be lower than that of MG's PLUS the projectile itself is heavier. Therefore, the "drop" on cannon is higher at a given range. So if you set everything at 400M, MG's and cannon, and fire both at the same time and if both are set at the same "height", the cannon shell should go under the target if the MG's are hitting. (note that I think IL-2 takes elevation into account when setting convergence, however)

Splitter

No offence Splitter but both MG and Cannons merge at the same point if set. IL-2 caters for MG and Cannon convergence separately so if you set them both to 200m (~ yds) they both hit the same spot at convergence (apart drom some divergence/scatter that may be programmed in).

Settings like 200m are good for +/- 50m as the scatter before and after 200m isn't too much so absolute precision is best for maximum damage but give-or-take a little is fairly good too (you know, you start to fire just as getting into range and stop just beyond it).

With 200m conv, I also use the trick on a runaway target of firing at the top of the canopy at up to 400m if I want to get a few strikes to scare him into turning.

And I can hit something with a few rounds at up to 600m+ even in a turn by aiming a little higher and up to 5 fuselage lengths ahead on a crossing target. You get lots of scatter and you'll be surprised how often you do engine damage. It's not really "spray and pray", you are aiming for the result.

[Splitter]

Originally Posted by klem

Most Squads use Teamspeak 2 or Teamspeak 3 as do the Hyperlobby servers (many have their own TS)

Track analysis is a very usful way to see your errors if you can understand what you are seeing



No offence Splitter but both MG and Cannons merge at the same point if set. IL-2 caters for MG and Cannon convergence separately so if you set them both to 200m (~ yds) they both hit the same spot at convergence (apart drom some divergence/scatter that may be programmed in).

Settings like 200m are good for +/- 50m as the scatter before and after 200m isn't too much so absolute precision is best for maximum damage but give-or-take a little is fairly good too (you know, you start to fire just as getting into range and stop just beyond it).

With 200m conv, I also use the trick on a runaway target of firing at the top of the canopy at up to 400m if I want to get a few strikes to scare him into turning.

And I can hit something with a few rounds at up to 600m+ even in a turn by aiming a little higher and up to 5 fuselage lengths ahead on a crossing target. You get lots of scatter and you'll be surprised how often you do engine damage. It's not really "spray and pray", you are aiming for the result.

So from what you are saying, convergence in IL-2 takes "elevation" into account. In other words, there is a vertical component as well as the obvious horizontal. Good to know.

Yeah, I've gotten long range hits but usually not much more effect than slowing the other plane down. I usually only try this in planes like the 109 where there is plenty of MG ammo and a squirt or two won't leave me short.

Splitter

[el0375]

all these mad eme rememebr teh good days with the ki 43, not teh last version. I use teh one with the scope in a stange tube.
most of times people almost thought WTF a ki 43 against my powrfull spit or fw 190
in fact the only thing that i had was 2 guns and very good manuverability.Just got pissed by the hit n run tactics( i could easily evade but they do not give me the chance to attack them), but if they decide to stay at my altitude... tehy were mine. The most beautiful thing with taht plane is when i was against P47, those flying tanks.
however i almost every time managed to survive because i made small shot but most of time at the right converging distances. I was 100x deadlier if tehy started evade manuver 'cause teh donated their copits , so i shot the pilot= plane down
rememeber 6 months ago a 2 team dog fight where stood with my ki 43 against 5 planes and downed 4 and damage dlittle the last, and returned to base. maybe one of my best online experiences so far in il 1946.

returning to convergence distancei always use 150 to 200, if i have a plane like a fw with lot of wepons on the wings, i put cannon to 150 and MG( or viceversa cant remember) to 180-185, as i thought that as i most of times i hit targets with different spped to mine or evading i thought that is more probabile to have hits in different ranges( but small ones) so often hitting a plane centraly with teh longer converging and just afte rwith the second assured to me most damage and success, as with that i hit also most part of plane.

[House M.D.]

Nice videos, thanks for posting them.

I think, like everything in combat flying, most depends on the pilot and his bird. What I mean is that each pilot has a range that he's getting better results than other distances.
Furthermore, it's got to do a lot with the plane. For example, if you're flying in a competitve environment, you can't hope for a close shot when flying a rata. Enemies are supposed to never let you get so close to them.
On the other hand, flying B&Z in a FW, you should be able for "kiss of death" shots.

[Blackdog_kt]

Much depends on the characteristics of your aircraft as a whole and its proper employment as a complete weapons system.
I haven't been online in months, but when i used to i managed to dig up a manual for the FW190 that was written specifically for the way it flies in IL2.

Some very useful stuff in that one, but when i saw the proposed convergence ranges i jumped in surprise. Nevertheless, i tried it out and to my continued surprise it was awesome. Get ready for it....700 meters

The reasoning was that the 190s have plenty of ammo for long range deflection shots and are slower than P47s and P51s up high so you need to shoot from further out, but you can also outrun other planes on the deck which means you will shoot from close range, in which case you use just the two inner guns (they are mounted very close to the centerline, so they are not affected much by convergence).
However, the vertical component of this convergence setting is what impressed me the most, as it made the Mg151 rounds travel in an almost perfectly straight line like lasers. Ok, they still arc up and down, but i'm not a virtual ace by any means and i still managed to get some 500m deflection shots that did considerable damage.

For example, in one occasion i was hunting a tempest on the deck and he was outrunning me. He was the red teams last available fighter, if i killed him we would win the map. I started giving him some short bursts here and there while requesting cover from the rest of the blue team in my area (there were a couple of hostiles close by but they were kept occupied), watching where my tracers passed in relation to his airframe and adjusting my aim. About 4-5 attempts later i scored a couple of hits on his outter wings that slowed him down, got closer and shot him down.

On another occasion, i had a P-38 cut across my nose from 10 to 2 o'clock...at a range of 1000m or so. I saw this big, nice fat silhouette about to move through my gunsights, estimated the distance, remembered i was set up for long range and had lots of ammo, gave it about 3 gunsight's worth of lead and a two second burst. Imagine my astonishment when i saw hits scored all over his upper wings and fuselage and some of his tailplane assembly flying off the rest of the aircraft.

What's nice with this setting is that people never expect you to shoot that far. So, they might be cutting across your nose thinking that they are safe while they are transitioning to an advantageous situation, only to be met with a hail of 20mm.

The difficult part is two-fold. First of all, it's no small feat to be able to estimate the proper lead at such ranges. Second, when you are close you need to learn to shoot in a totally different manner. The vertical displacement of the guns is so much to enable them to reach 700m that you are not only shooting wide, you are also shooting high. This means that the proper aiming point is not the gunsight's center anymore, you need to have the target at the upper half of the gunsight and push your nose down a bit. Plus, the outer two guns are pretty much useless closer than 350-400m as they will always shoot wide.

However, there is a way to turn this into an advantage as well. With cannons you don't need as much concentration of fire as with maghine guns, so you can use the spread to ensure a higher probability of a hit at the expense of concentration. Even when being a mere 200m from the target with a long range convergence, you can swing that brilliantly responsive rudder left and right a bit and make sure your outter guns have some use, raking the guy from wingtip to wingtip.

All in all, i don't use that setting anymore but it opened my eyes to what a longer convergence can do (not to mention it helps a lot when attacking bombers). Nowadays i fly with anything between 325 and 500 meters in 25m increments, i usually opt for 375m when i'm going to be against faster enemies and 325m when i know i can outrun the opposition. It's still good for longer ranges, but it also makes it easier to score hits when up close.

[swiss]

I really hope we get ballistic tables for SoW.

Also, I would love to set convergence and elevation separately.

[klem]

Originally Posted by swiss

............
Also, I would love to set convergence and elevation separately.

Why is that swiss? in IL-2 you can set different convergences for m/gs and cannons and you need to know that set to 200m, or even 700m, the 'elevation' convergence will co-incide with the 'lateral' convergence or you will have your rounds converging laterally at the set range but too high or too low if 'elevation' wasn't set to the same figure.

[FG28_Kodiak]

It would then be historic correct, german fighter have different values for the harmonization with the sightline and crossover.

For example the Convergence Settings for a FW-190A8