This cant be realistic - 500+ hits, plane still flying??

[Fjordmonkey]

I've completely stopped doing Tail-shots on bogeys when I'm flying british fighters, to be honest. I always try to do either deflection-shots where I can rake the cockpit with my 303's either from above or from the side, or I aim specifically for one engine.

Directly astern-shots on most german aircraft does nothing, with the exception of the 109's, and then ONLY if I hit the radiators.

[GnigruH]

Originally Posted by ReconNZ

OK - I know HE111's are big planes, but i sat dead astern one, and put over 500 rounds into him, he was just slightly smoking!

You be noob. Das game ist flawless!

[brando]

It's kind of obvious surely, that firing a stream of bullets at surfaces that are sloping away from you means that a large proportion of these rounds will be deflected - the angle of incidence is just too narrow. Even thin metal sheet will deflect a round when the angle is around 5 or 10 degrees. The fuselage may allow for more penetration, but it contains armoured bulkheads to protect the crew, and any number of metal fittings that may stop a round that has already lost a lot of energy penetrating the fuselage. So attacks from the rear are really the least effective of all types.

Attacks from head on were always the most effective, and several Hurricane squadrons were noted for practising this - but the danger of this high closing-speed manoeuvre was always collision. Notwithstanding this, a stream of bullets hitting the glazed front of a Heinkel could cause enormous (often fatal) damage to the crew and the controls.

Attacks from almost any quarter could be more effective than a dead six pursuit as far as bullet penetration was concerned, though an awareness of the defensive positions, ie gunner stations, is necessary. Likewise a knowledge of deflection shooting is also important.

[SturmKreator]

Originally Posted by ReconNZ

OK - I know HE111's are big planes, but i sat dead astern one, and put over 500 rounds into him, he was just slightly smoking!

C'mon Luthier and the team, surely this can not be accurate??? Ive seen what a .303 round can do - most if not all of my hits were to the wings, in line with the engines. I could have sawed a wing off i hit it that many times!!



Lets keep a scorecard - what's your record - most hits without downing a plane???

could you please read more books? in the reality you need 3 hurris or spit to down one he 111, becouse .303 suck really sucks

[Viper2000]

Originally Posted by ReconNZ

OK - I know HE111's are big planes, but i sat dead astern one, and put over 500 rounds into him, he was just slightly smoking!

C'mon Luthier and the team, surely this can not be accurate??? Ive seen what a .303 round can do - most if not all of my hits were to the wings, in line with the engines. I could have sawed a wing off i hit it that many times!!

Simple experiment for you.

Take a sheet of paper. Make a paper aeroplane.

Get it flying nicely.

Get a pin. Make a hole in the wing. See if it still flies. Make another hole. See if it still flies...

Assumptions - A paper dart has a wingspan of 210 mm if it's made of A4 paper. He-111 has a wingspan of about 22.6 m, so roughly 100 times bigger. Meanwhile 0.303" ~ 7.7 mm, and 100th would be 0.077 mm, which is a pretty tiny pin hole.

Yes, there are lots of differences between a paper aeroplane and a real He-111, but this should give you a rough idea of the scale problem.

It's really rather difficult to cause structural failure with machine gun rounds. Mostly you score kills by killing the crew, causing fuel/coolant/hydraulic leaks, breaking engines and starting fires.

If you want to regularly break your target into little bits then you need missiles full of HE...

[609_Huetz]

I don't even think it's that much of a problem of scale, it's much more a problem of when you are shooting where.

You can plaster their fuselage all day long from virtually any side (as has already been said), but as long as you don't score hits on the pilot, that is quite a useless effort. If you are however sitting directly astern, try shooting up the wing tanks in your convergence range. I usually bring down 2 out of 3 Heinkels doing that. The sweet spots are the wingroot and just outside the engine mounts.

Doing so will also greatly satisfy the "I want to see things go boom" type of player.

[Avimimus]

The sim also models bullet speeds - they quickly drop into the subsonic range and then gradually slow from there. This means that close range shots have supersonic bullets with a lot more KE than medium range shots. In Il-2 this amounted to about three times the effectiveness. Ideally you want to be within 30 metres of your target before you start firing (unless it is a head on attack!)

This isn't really an issue with cannons - since the rounds detonate on impact (creating supersonic shrapnel).

[JG14_Jagr]

Originally Posted by ReconNZ

OK - I know HE111's are big planes, but i sat dead astern one, and put over 500 rounds into him, he was just slightly smoking!

C'mon Luthier and the team, surely this can not be accurate??? Ive seen what a .303 round can do - most if not all of my hits were to the wings, in line with the engines. I could have sawed a wing off i hit it that many times!!



Lets keep a scorecard - what's your record - most hits without downing a plane???

Thats absolutely accurate and realistic... I've seen photos of Do 17's with that many holes that landed back in france..

KEY POINT: "HOLES" do not bring down aircraft... holes in important things ON THOSE AIRCRAFT do.. HO an He111 and hit the cockpit hard and you will kill the pilot and navigator with a short burst.. hit cooling lines..his fuel tanks... You are too used to seeing planes go BOOM! when you shoot at them..that for the most part is arcade game results.. many planes slowly lost altitude on the way home and when the crew realized they could not make it they had to ditch or bail.

Best way to take out 111's is to fire at your convergence and aim for the engines or the wing roots inboard of the engine. Loaded with cordite and De wylde rounds in each gun it often doesnt take much to blow a wing off when the fuel tank explodes. Though admittedly this doesnt always work, the best thing to do is fly as a group and pick one out to take down. This way you can kill 3-4 before everyone is out of ammo.

[drewpee]

A lot of the issue with damaged AC is the AI. Try jumping into a AC you think you have badly damaged. Then switch between auto pilot on and off. You'll see the plane go from a shuttering wreck to a smooth flying killing machine when auto is on.