Tracers Rounds (From SimHQ)

[Vasilj_Mitu]

imho, when Luthier said that the tracers look perfect, I think he wanted people to stop whining about such small detail in that thread. to be quite honest, at that moment I also thought it to be nitpicking and complete waste of time to bitch about it. but when people start to take statements like Luthier's as axiom, without any backing of it... then it's time to start asking questions, no matter how dumb or annoying they might seem. I had some experience with firing the tracers from AK47 during my military service, but I wouldn't call myself an expert on the matter, since that wasn't aerial gunnery. and yes, they looked as group of bright dots in the daylight, without elongated light streaks effect. but, I might be wrong there. where I'm almost positive that I'm not wrong is this:

if we have a random tracer bullet whose construction usually is like this:



meaning, that the tracer mixture is in the recess of it's base. so now, how come that we can see product of that mixture burning when bullet is fired in our direction in COD movies? wouldn't that defy the better part of tracer's purpose?

[White Owl]

Without having any sources ready to cite offhand, I know I've read multiple reports from combat pilots who described seeing enemy tracers flying towards them. However you need to bend your understanding of how it works, yes, they are visible from the front.

[Vasilj_Mitu]

Originally Posted by White Owl

However you need to bend your understanding of how it works, yes, they are visible from the front.

got no problem with that bending, just needed a sound proof of it.

[ChrisDNT]

"Does anyone think that Maddox games thought that tracers were unimportant in a combat flight sim? "

In a COMBAT sim, tracers are as much important as CLOUDS in an aviation sim.

[ChrisDNT]

"they looked as group of bright dots in the daylight, without elongated light streaks effect. but, I might be wrong there..."

No, you're right.

I just remember we technically called this group as a "sheaf".

[ChrisDNT]

"So the question to ChrisDNT is; Did you ever observe the 20mm tracer being fired by somebody else from a bit further away, rather than co-axial with the bore? "

Of course yes.
When near the canon (again, I can only speak for the Oerlikon54, basically a WII design), either as a gunner or a loader, you don't see anything (bullets are too fast when going out of the canon tube), but after some hundred meters, you see the back of the bullets as points, NOT AS LINES. The more far the bullets are, the slower the dots are to be seen of course (quite slow I must say, nothing like the speed of a "laser"). When the canon has been firmly held, the dots build a quite concentrated sheaf (called "the dangerous zone"), but if the canon has not been firmly held, you see the dots forming what we called a "banana"

If I remember well, the first Il-2 described this aspect quite correctly.



P.S: I will try if I can find my manuals somewhere and I will also contact an old friend of mine, who was for years engineer by Oerlikon.

[AA_Absolute]

I remember color lens if you look near sun in first versions of il2, beautiful camera effect but fake, removed now, good move to real.

Remove "sperm" tracerts of guncams another camera effect and good move to real.

If long tracers effect (aka lasers) are camera effects i dont like it, i wait Oleg and team remove (or make switch to disable) if are fake.

I´ve hope in Oleg and team love to detail.

Sorry for uglish

[Vasilj_Mitu]

"but, I might be wrong there..." was in regard to shooter's position, as it's probably different to observe the tracer effects when firing from the shoulder/behind the gun from the one position where you sit in the cockpit above the guns, as in aircraft.

[ChrisDNT]

Originally Posted by Vasilj_Mitu

"but, I might be wrong there..." was in regard to shooter's position, as it's probably different to observe the tracer effects when firing from the shoulder/behind the gun from the one position where you sit in the cockpit above the guns, as in aircraft.

Not really, I remember having seen the canons firing from some distance, even outside the gunning area, never saw any "lasers".

[Defender]

LASER:

Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

The tracers in COD look nothing like lasers, lasers are focused continual beams of light, not individual bolts of energy.

Tracer rounds in WWII planes are meant as an aiming aid, so they're quite obviously visible from directly behind so that the gunner can see where his shots are going. Of course it the streaks lengthen as you move out to the x axis and they're moving so fast the eye behaves like a camera shudder creating glorified streaks.