Mitsubishi Stuka and Thunderbolt

[Woke Up Dead]

My view of the toughness of the planes being discussed is a bit different from many of the posters here, maybe because I fly mostly online where I rarely attack bombers and their AI gunners. I find the P-47's wings to be extremely tough, same goes for the F4U. They can take a lot of damage and still maintain lift and stability, unlike Yak or 190 wings. Their engines can be damaged lightly, but I rarely see one knocked out completely (though when it does happen it's on the P-47, not the F4U). PKs are rare, and tails falling off are even rarer.

Could my different impression be caused by the difference in environment and targets? AI gunners on bombers will usually be looking directly into your engine, even if you don't attack from six o'clock. Unlike AI fighers, human opponents will usually avoid the head-on and will maneuver onto your six, where they will have a good look at your wings when you make a slight turn. If they shoot directly from your six, they may damage your controls (I lose elevators and rudders often in the F4U and P-47), but your engine will be the furthest target for them.

Agree about the Stuka toughness, the LMGs on the Hurricane IIB really do a number on its wing tanks. It is an old, slow, big plane that I imagine was armored more from the bottom than the top though. Also, its lack of toughness is offset by that rear gunner and its ability to turn with a Spitfire.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Woke Up Dead

Could my different impression be caused by the difference in environment and targets?

This is a good point. And, it's not just AI gunners, it's just the nature of defensive gunnery that you'll mostly be aiming at the front of incoming fighters - either aiming directly at them as they attack you, or taking leading shots them as they pass.

Originally Posted by Woke Up Dead

Agree about the Stuka toughness, the LMGs on the Hurricane IIB really do a number on its wing tanks.

??? I find that those massive rows of .303 machine guns on the Hurricane MkI, MkIIB and Spitfire I are some of the most useless weapons in the game, at least when it comes to attacking anything other than light fighters at close range.

Against anything but the lightest, most lightly armored aircraft, you basically need a PK, a critical hit or a fire to take down your foe. And, to have a hope of getting any of those things, you need to get close, aim carefully and shoot bursts of at least 3-5 seconds.

Of course, that's also historically accurate performance. There's a very good reason why the RAF switched to cannons.

Originally Posted by Woke Up Dead

Also, its lack of toughness is offset by that rear gunner and its ability to turn with a Spitfire.

At least for AI, I don't find that Stuka gunners are that tough, nor do Stukas really try to maneuver defensively, even when they're not in formation. They're pretty much sitting ducks unless they have escorts.

[horseback]

My understanding was that the "beginning of the end" for the IJN were the Battles of Midway and Guadacanal. I don't dispute that the the F6F and F4U sped the destruction of the IJN (and IJAAF in New Guinea), but arguably pilots flying the P-40, P-39/P-400 and F4F paved the way.

In particular, after Midway and Guadacanal, the Japanese supply chain was never as secure as it should have been, so Japanese planes and pilots never got the support they really needed. Japanese policy towards its pilots was also, quite frankly, brutal, which didn't help matters either. All that led to a loss of effectiveness.

But, then maybe that's too much revisionist history on my part.

What is indisputably is that by 1944, when the the F6F and F4U really sealed their reputations, the Japanese were desperate and there was just no comparison between pilot quality and technical support. But, I say that without meaning to detract from the reputation of either plane, or the men who flew them. I think that you're right that 1943 was the year that the tide really turned, and both the F6F and F4U helped to do do that.

The Guadalcanal campaign didn't end until late spring/early summer of 1943, after the first several squadrons of Corsairs had deployed. Combined with Midway, the cream of the IJN's fighter force were eliminated, but Rabaul remained a menace in the Solomons into the following spring of 1944, due in part to the IJA's addition to the mix there. In addition, the IJN's carrier forces were still formidable; they gave the USN a pretty good thumping at Santa Cruz in '43, which led to our being a lot more cautious until the new carriers got in-theater in late summer '43.

The arrival of the new fast carriers equipped with the significantly superior Hellcat, coupled with the land-based Corsairs along the Solomon chain is what tipped the scales.

I'll give plenty of credit to the P-40 and P-38 (which entered combat in New Guinea in November of 1942), but the P-39 was a disaster in the Southwest Pacific. Poor support, bad documentation and poorly prepared pilots and maintenance personnel rushed to the theater doomed it and ruined its reputation, regardless of its capabilities on paper. It was almost strictly a ground support aircraft in the Pacific the moment a viable alternative became available.

The P-40 and the Wildcats gave the USN and USAAF parity at best, and the P-38s were never available in adequate numbers anywhere until the middle of1944. The F6F and the F4U (which had its own production issues early on) were the keys to the turn around.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

Originally Posted by Woke Up Dead

My view of the toughness of the planes being discussed is a bit different from many of the posters here, maybe because I fly mostly online where I rarely attack bombers and their AI gunners. I find the P-47's wings to be extremely tough, same goes for the F4U. They can take a lot of damage and still maintain lift and stability, unlike Yak or 190 wings. Their engines can be damaged lightly, but I rarely see one knocked out completely (though when it does happen it's on the P-47, not the F4U). PKs are rare, and tails falling off are even rarer.

Could my different impression be caused by the difference in environment and targets? AI gunners on bombers will usually be looking directly into your engine, even if you don't attack from six o'clock. Unlike AI fighers, human opponents will usually avoid the head-on and will maneuver onto your six, where they will have a good look at your wings when you make a slight turn. If they shoot directly from your six, they may damage your controls (I lose elevators and rudders often in the F4U and P-47), but your engine will be the furthest target for them.

Agree about the Stuka toughness, the LMGs on the Hurricane IIB really do a number on its wing tanks. It is an old, slow, big plane that I imagine was armored more from the bottom than the top though. Also, its lack of toughness is offset by that rear gunner and its ability to turn with a Spitfire.

'Looking into your engine' should be meaningless at ranges of more than 100m for the best aerial marksmen who ever lived; you're shooting from a platform moving in three dimensions at a target less than 2 meters square and also moving in three dimensions (not the same dimensions and directions as you are). In real terms, until the range was so short that relative motion was meaningless or your attacker was flying in close formation, hitting him was usually a matter of chance. At ranges over 100m, the average man can barely discern that there is a cowl, much less hit it under the conditions that would prevail in WWII.

Shooting accurately from a maneuvering aircraft, even a bomber in a gentle bank, was next to impossible. Ai gunnery from rear gunners and ground flak in this game has always been ridiculously accurate, probably more than modern automated systems today.

Unrealistic accuracy at unrealistic ranges + unrealistic DMs=unrealistic results.

cheers

horseback

[Woke Up Dead]

Originally Posted by horseback

'Looking into your engine' should be meaningless at ranges of more than 100m for the best aerial marksmen who ever lived; you're shooting from a platform moving in three dimensions at a target less than 2 meters square and also moving in three dimensions (not the same dimensions and directions as you are). In real terms, until the range was so short that relative motion was meaningless or your attacker was flying in close formation, hitting him was usually a matter of chance. At ranges over 100m, the average man can barely discern that there is a cowl, much less hit it under the conditions that would prevail in WWII.

Shooting accurately from a maneuvering aircraft, even a bomber in a gentle bank, was next to impossible. Ai gunnery from rear gunners and ground flak in this game has always been ridiculously accurate, probably more than modern automated systems today.

Unrealistic accuracy at unrealistic ranges + unrealistic DMs=unrealistic results.

cheers

horseback

I hear you, but your reply, and most of your subsequent replies in this thread make good arguments about unrealistic accuracy of AI gunners, not about the unrealistic fragility of the American engines. If you try attacking the same bombers with the same tactics in a different planes, you might conclude the R-2800 is just as tough or tougher. That's certainly the impression I get.

I would rank the fragility of engines according to their aircraft roughly like this, from most delicate to toughest:

- Bf-109
- Ki-61
- P-40
- P-51
- Hurricane
- Tempest
- Italian liquid-cooled planes
- P-38
- Spitfire
- MiG
- P-47
- F4U
- Yak
- LaGG
- F4F
- FW-190
- La 5/7
- P-39
- Japanese radial-powered fighters

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by horseback

Shooting accurately from a maneuvering aircraft, even a bomber in a gentle bank, was next to impossible. Ai gunnery from rear gunners and ground flak in this game has always been ridiculously accurate, probably more than modern automated systems today.

I'm inclined to agree with you, but I don't have the data to prove what you're saying, other than somewhat generic stats on bomber casualties due to flak and fighters. We can trade anecdotes all day, but I'd love to see actual statistics to help back us up.

If anything, it seems like bomber gunners (at least rookie to average gunners) have been "nerfed," in 4.12, if only by unrealistic bomber formations and doctrine. But that's only by comparison with the laser-like precision with which gunners prior to 4.12 could shoot you down. It was if were were a generic Imperial TIE fighter pilot and the gunners were Han Solo and Luke Skywalker!

But, gunners must have had some usefulness, otherwise bombers would have dispensed with them earlier.

I think that damage or kills due to heavy flak is about right - as long as you take into account the fact that each gun in the game can actually represents an entire battery. Low to medium altitude flak is downright lethal, but that might actually be realistic. Veteran ground attack pilots learned to come in fast and low, make one good pass and get the hell out.

I don't have a problem with gunners starting to shoot at 500 meters range, but that should mostly be "suppression fire" with very little chance of actually hitting. Shots at anything other than minimal deflection angles against a plane flying a relatively straight course should also have almost no chance of hitting. But, if you make an attack from 6 o'clock level against a heavy bomber, without approaching at a very high closing speed, you deserve every bullet that hits your plane.

Turning speeds for turrets seem to be about right. At least for the U.S. turrets, there's pretty good performance data, and actually possibly a few turrets that actually still work. In archival film, you can see that they turn pretty quickly - something like 120 degrees per second.

But, against that, something that isn't modeled in the game, at least for human gunners, are the effects of G forces, vibrations from the plane itself and wind buffeting of the turret and guns if the guns are angled into the plane's slipstream. All those things make bomber gunnery a bit too easy, at least for a human gunner. I don't know if the AI models those things, but it should.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by horseback

I argued on many occasions on the Ubi forums that the late war American fighters were too demanding of technical expertise at the ground crew level for the Soviets to keep them flying properly, and that the tactical doctrines they were built to were utterly alien to the VVS

You can't have a first-rate Air Force without a first-rate support system, and of the major nations involved in WW2, only Great Britain, the United States and Germany (prior to 1944) had the economic and technological infrastructure to really keep their planes in top condition. Even then, on many fronts it was a challenge for even the best maintenance men and supply chains (e.g., the U.S. and Great Britain in Burma, North Africa, the Pacific Islands).

By contrast, the Soviets, Italians, Japanese, Chinese and minor Axis powers were always struggling to keep their air forces up to scratch (the Chinese were notably bad at it). And, both during and after WW2, the Soviets made a virtue of necessity and emphasized simple, rugged, "soldier-proof" weapon such as the Il-2 and the AK-47.

This is one of the reasons why one of my top standing requests for the game is the ability for mission builders to downgrade aircraft performance. At the very least, there should be a way of downgrading aircraft performance to reflect lack of 100 Octane Avgas.

Originally Posted by horseback

One correction: the 56th FG came to England as the only fighter group in the 8th AF that had experience with the P-47, and they loved it.

My bad. I was thinking of the reactions of the "Eagle Squadron" vets to the P-47, such as the men of the 4th.

Originally Posted by horseback

When we are talking about taking damage from ground fire, the reputations in question were made during 1944 and after, against some extremely potent AAA systems and ground troops (IJA) trained to shoot back rather than scatter and hide from aerial attacks.

Now, that's entirely different. By 1943, just about all the major combatants had gotten very good at AAA gunnery and AAA systems of the era were all roughly comparable (U.S. proximity fuses excepted). And, at least for Germany, the AAA gunners didn't lose that many guns or men and remained quite potent until the end of the war. So, if you're citing survivability against ground fire and you've got comparable statistics for other aircraft types (e.g., loss rate per ground attack sortie) then I withdraw my criticism.

Originally Posted by horseback

Robert Johnson was far from the only guy to get his Thunderbolt shot to pieces over eastern France and still make it back across the Channel.

Yep. I think that your point about the relative vulnerability of the R-2800 engine and my criticism that heavy fighters in IL-2 "break" too easily are compatible. I'd like to see notably tough aircraft like the IL-2, B-17, Wellington, P-47, F4U and F6F be pretty much invulnerable to anything except direct hits by flak, critical hits, pilot kills, fires and sustained fire by 20mm cannons or larger.

Originally Posted by horseback

Corsairs and Hellcats got their combat starts in February and August of 1943, well before the Japanese had been beaten.

My understanding was that the "beginning of the end" for the IJN were the Battles of Midway and Guadacanal. I don't dispute that the the F6F and F4U sped the destruction of the IJN (and IJAAF in New Guinea), but arguably pilots flying the P-40, P-39/P-400 and F4F paved the way.

In particular, after Midway and Guadacanal, the Japanese supply chain was never as secure as it should have been, so Japanese planes and pilots never got the support they really needed. Japanese policy towards its pilots was also, quite frankly, brutal, which didn't help matters either. All that led to a loss of effectiveness.

But, then maybe that's too much revisionist history on my part.

What is indisputably is that by 1944, when the the F6F and F4U really sealed their reputations, the Japanese were desperate and there was just no comparison between pilot quality and technical support. But, I say that without meaning to detract from the reputation of either plane, or the men who flew them. I think that you're right that 1943 was the year that the tide really turned, and both the F6F and F4U helped to do do that.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Yep. I think that your point about the relative vulnerability of the R-2800 engine and my criticism that heavy fighters in IL-2 "break" too easily are compatible. I'd like to see notably tough aircraft like the IL-2, B-17, Wellington, P-47, F4U and F6F be pretty much invulnerable to anything except direct hits by flak, critical hits, pilot kills, fires and sustained fire by 20mm cannons or larger.

Aren't they? If I shoot B-17s, they rarely shed wings, and their tail section is pretty tough, too. Most of the B-17s going down have fires in the fuel tanks.
That is -historically seen- too many, BUT contrary to many historic pilots I know exactly what spots to hit, and I can hit with percentages that would make Marseille blush(and compared to others in this game I'm still a poor shot).
So basically I do not think the damage modeling in it self is the problem, we, and maybe the AI are. We hit too well. We know where to hit to make it hurt a lot (And I do think the AI did(or does) too, how else could they shoot the pilot with next to limitless accuracy in 4.09?).

Another thing that works against the Jug is its size - just set up a filght of Bettys (or any other well armed bomber) and park a Jug behind them - count the hits you recieve in 60 seconds -do it in a much smaller plane like the La5, and count again - you will recieve considerably less hits. And yes, if you do it a few times, you will get the engine shot dead in the Jug, but what did you expect? - the R-2800 is tough, but not immune- especially to 20mm fire.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

??? I find that those massive rows of .303 machine guns on the Hurricane MkI, MkIIB and Spitfire I are some of the most useless weapons in the game, at least when it comes to attacking anything other than light fighters at close range.

Hmm, early to mid war I find them at least decent, and considering armament on the early P-40s, the Italian planes, Gladiators -they are enough to do the job -if employed correctly, vs. He111/SM79 head on, Ju88/87/52 - shoot wing tanks - burn nicely. Bf109/110/Mc202 -try hitting the engine, but I'm sure you know all that...

[horseback]

RE: Jug's (or Hellcat or Corsair's) size relative to an La-5 would be essentially irrelevant to the human eye until you get within shooting range, at which point it will seem closer than it actually is and distort your aim, particularly if it is not a level 'dead six' (distance being crucial to being able to gauge any deflection shot). Being larger should actually make your chances of being hit smaller at any appreciable distance or angle.

LW along Channel Front in early-mid '43 had a terrible time adjusting to targets the size of the B-17 and P-47 after two years of shooting at Spits and Blenheim sized bombers in daylight. Their reflexes told them to shoot much sooner at the bigger targets, and they had to learn all over again to recognize what they were shooting at and to adjust their aims accordingly.

Since AI know to the proverbial gnat's eyelash how far away you are and how fast you are moving, you're hosed. Literally.

Since AI gunners can spin a turret and point a 15kg or more cannon to just the right spot to shoot into your engine cowling or cockpit in less time than it takes for Chuck Norris to deliver a spinning sidekick to your ribs, you're hosed again, even if you're crossing his cone of fire at an extreme angle at high speed a split second after flailing his aircraft with a two or three second burst of 4 or 3 x .50" (which in real life should have the guy stunned and frozen at his guns, if not wondering what that warm wet feeling in his pants was).

Yeah, that's realistic.

Let's fix the AI gunners.

First, change the rules for AI aiming to a circle the diameter of the target wing span at any distance greater than 150m, and then to the fuselage area as the circled area as range and angle decreases. That's realistic. No more aiming at a moving point that is less than a fraction of a degree in width from 500m away (and hitting it-ever). Use your random number generator to scatter the shots evenly in that circle; hitting the middle should be a matter of chance--in fact, I could argue that a third of the shots should be outside the circle by a degree or two, depending upon actual range and relative speed. Machine guns and cannon shake in your hands.

Real-life gunners did not have precise awareness of how far away their targets were, how fast they were moving, what direction they were moving or how big they were; they aimed at an imaginary circle around the largest part of the target and guesstimated where it would be when their bullets reached that point. Given the vibration of the guns they served and the constant motion of the platform they were in, that was the best they could do, and they hardly ever guessed right. Bombers in WWII were dependent upon putting up as many rounds as possible to dissuade fighter attacks, which meant large tight formations to bring as many guns to bear as possible in the hope that somebody would guess right.

Second, assign a speed limit of X degrees per second of rotation for the gun installation type, with a hesitation and re-orientation period when the target is obscured by clouds, other aircraft or your own tail structure. There are mods already out there that slow the ai gunners down, and they work. I don't care if it will be applied to the mouse gunners or not; I find the whole defensive gun crew model of the sim to be oversimplified and unrealistic. Every time I tried it, I wanted to wash my hands afterwards. I'd rather play Call of Duty; at least those guns will simulate the effects of gunshake and pull.

Third, any time that the gunner's aircraft is not flying fairly straight and level, his accuracy should be dropped by at least 33% and decrease more in proportion with G-force/angle or being hit by enemy fire. My aircraft bounces and jerks when it is hit by heavy fire so AI Joe's airplane should too, and Joe should be trying to keep his seat or stay on his feet while that idiot in the front seat is flipping the aircraft around. In those situations, the gun becomes a handle or something to hide behind, not a weapon.

It gets a bit old when you're pounding the living daylights out of an Me-110 (specifically the wingroot/cockpit area) and hear a thump and see the HUD message "Machine Gun Disabled", "Fuel Leak" and/or hear the prop run away. If Hans in the back seat isn't in the process of being converted to hamburger, he ought to have the decency and good sense to be crapping his drawers instead of drawing a bead on a component of my aircraft a foot (30cm) wide and two hundred and fifty meters away and moving at a relative speed of 100kph to him.

DMs become a bit less important for the off-liner if certain parts of the AI are brought within human limits. Bestowing the effectiveness of eight or ten rear gunners on one aircraft is no longer necessary or justifiable; we can put a ton of aircraft and objects into a mission without limiting our FPS these days, so one rear gunner doesn't need to stand in for a wholes squadron's worth of the poor buggers.

cheers

horseback

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

Aren't they? If I shoot B-17s, they rarely shed wings, and their tail section is pretty tough, too. Most of the B-17s going down have fires in the fuel tanks.

I'm thinking more of B-17 vs. Bf-109G. But, then, many marks of the Gustav were optimized for bomber killing and carried 20 mm or 30 mm cannons. So, I guess that I can't complain about realism if a B-17 attacked by an ace AI or good human player loses a wing due to 3-4 closely placed 30 mm shots in the wing root.

But, for something like Ki-84 (with 20mm cannons) vs. a B-29, it still seems unreasonable for stricken bombers to lose their wings.

I agree that fires in the fuel tanks is the way that I get most of my heavy bomber kills (other than the odd lucky shot to the cockpit with a head-on initial pass). With cannon fire, that doesn't seem too unreasonable. But, with HMG fire, it almost seems like they burn too easily.

Originally Posted by majorfailure

I can hit with percentages that would make Marseille blush(and compared to others in this game I'm still a poor shot).
So basically I do not think the damage modeling in it self is the problem, we, and maybe the AI are. We hit too well.

Perhaps. Obviously, on-line players who have been flying every night for a decade have way more gunnery experience than any real WW2 pilot could have ever amassed. But, there are also a lot of average to crap occasional players - both on-line and off-line.

Originally Posted by majorfailure

Another thing that works against the Jug is its size

Historically, this made the P-47 easier to see and easier to shoot, so that's perfectly accurate. I can't complain there, even if I'm flying one.

Originally Posted by majorfailure

Hmm, early to mid war I find them at least decent, and considering armament on the early P-40s, the Italian planes, Gladiators -they are enough to do the job

Since I fall into the "average to crap" range, I have trouble hitting the sweet spots to take down bombers, especially when trying to get sufficient "concentration of fire" on a particular part. Even so, I find that Ju-87 and Ju-52 burn nicely. He-111 are a bit tougher. Ju-88 are very tough prey if you're hunting them using just .303 MG, but that is as it should be. After all, they were stressed for dive bombing!

I also wish that it was possible to set the convergence of different pairs of guns at slightly different ranges to get a broader "kill zone." It would help my accuracy not only with the early British fighters, but also the American fighters.

I can see why the Soviets and late-war Germans standardized on cannons - they're easier for an unskilled pilot to use!