4.13 development update discussion and feedback

[Pursuivant]

A couple more pictures of the P-51B's vulnerabilities.

#1: P-51B after getting zapped by the nose gunner of an Ace AI Wellington III at about 200 m range while closing at about 550 kph, so perhaps about 750-800 kph total closing speed. Normally, I'd call this a fair hit - lots of extra energy, close range and I wasn't maneuvering much - except that you'll notice that none of the bullets' trajectories actually directly penetrates the engine block or the cooling system! (The bullet at the top was also glancing.)

Even with a soft aluminum engine block and lots of extra energy on the bullet, there's a good chance that realistically all of those bullets would have ricocheted rather than penetrating.

And, ONE glancing shot was sufficient to instantly seize up the engine. No warning, just a dead engine. Not realistic behavior even for a mortally wounded engine.


http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1401800105

#2 P-51B after getting hit by the tail gunner of an Ace AI Wellington III at 450 m. This one caused a coolant leak, so perhaps 5-10 minutes of engine life.

In addition to a remarkably tight bullet grouping by the quad machine guns (almost no dispersal at all - the bullet in the wing is from the head on pass I took earlier) at extreme range, you'll also notice that the bullet that inflicted the fatal damage penetrates exactly where the P-51 had 1/4" of armor plate! So, either an AP bullet or the armor plate over the coolant tank isn't properly modeled.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachm...1&d=1401800123

[Pursuivant]

Despite what I posted above, I think there are some places where shots between gaps in armor are realistic. While complete armor diagrams are hard to come by, especially for Soviet planes, it appear that there could be gaps in armor, especially between armor glass and the forward armored firewall.

For example, on many planes, there is a slight horizontal gap between the firewall armor and the armor glass. This means that shots from directly ahead and slightly above can get through the gap to injure the pilot.

[Ventura]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Despite what I posted above, I think there are some places where shots between gaps in armor are realistic. While complete armor diagrams are hard to come by, especially for Soviet planes, it appear that there could be gaps in armor, especially between armor glass and the forward armored firewall.

For example, on many planes, there is a slight horizontal gap between the firewall armor and the armor glass. This means that shots from directly ahead and slightly above can get through the gap to injure the pilot.

Please excuse my ignorance since I don't delve too much into the arcade portion that shows the bullet strikes.

Do each one of those bullet lines represent one bullet or a volley? I ask because in game, planes do occasionally fly through a stream of gunfire.

I do agree that larger planes/Bombers tend to fall apart too easily. But given a simplified factor (I'm assuming it's much more complicated) how much more 'tougher' would you make the larger panes closer to a realistic catastrophic failure?

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Ventura

Do each one of those bullet lines represent one bullet or a volley? I ask because in game, planes do occasionally fly through a stream of gunfire.

IL2 models individual bullet trajectories and does a good job of it. Each arrow represents one bullet. "Starbursts" represent fragments generated by explosions.

You can set up arcade mode by setting "arcade = 1" in your conf.ini file.

Originally Posted by Ventura

I do agree that larger planes/Bombers tend to fall apart too easily. But given a simplified factor (I'm assuming it's much more complicated) how much more 'tougher' would you make the larger panes closer to a realistic catastrophic failure?

I'd alter damage models for twin-engined to 4-engined bombers so that wing or fuselage failures only appear if the plane is involved in a collision with a plane of similar size, is hit by an explosive shell of 30 mm or larger, has its bombs or fuel blow up, suffers a prolonged and severe fire (i.e., a massive fuel fire that goes on for at least 5 minutes), goes into a long high-speed dive, or suffers prolonged and extreme g-forces (i.e., in excess of 3 G for at least a minute).

For cumulative damage from 20mm and smaller rounds, and from collisions with small planes, there should be some other mechanism to indicate "the plane doesn't fly anymore". Possibilities include extreme levels of drag or loss of lift, or inability to control the plane due to damage cable runs and control surfaces.

I think that this would be easy to implement, since all the developers would need to do is set an energy threshold required to trigger a particular breaking part effect. As a very rough guess, I'd say that for light bombers and dive bombers this would be .50 caliber, for lightly built medium bombers and transports it would be 20 mm, and for anything bigger it would be 30 mm.

I believe that this is realistic because if you look at film footage of bomber shoot-downs by fighters, the lethal damage is almost always from engine failure, fire, or pilot kills. Rarely, you get a bomb hit or fuel explosion which blows the plane apart. Control surfaces might come off, but the plane itself is never broken apart just by gunfire.

The pictures of bombers you see falling in pieces are due to the plane suffering a direct hit by flak, from its bombs or fuel exploding, or from it being torn apart by air resistance or g-forces.

Remember, the Luftwaffe estimated in 1943 that an average pilot required 20 20mm cannon hits to bring down a B-17 from the rear. There's no way that a B-17 or any other big, heavily built plane (B-29, B-24, Ju-88, Wellington) is going to fall apart after just 5 or so 20mm cannon hits, as I've often seen when flying IL2.

[RPS69]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

There's no way that a B-17 or any other big, heavily built plane (B-29, B-24, Ju-88, Wellington) is going to fall apart after just 5 or so 20mm cannon hits, as I've often seen when flying IL2.

I really want to see some proof about this statement.

BTW, some few extintions back, when most of us were young, someone complained against the effect of buzzaw as something missing on il2, when using .50s

but even then, 5 20mm shots to brake a B-17's wing, is absolutelly outstanding in my game experience.

[Buster_Dee]

The B-17 had warren truss rather than spar. It was notoriously hard to bring down if trying to "saw the wing off." The B-24, with large spar, was more accommodating.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Buster_Dee

The B-17 had warren truss rather than spar. It was notoriously hard to bring down if trying to "saw the wing off." The B-24, with large spar, was more accommodating.

A good example of exactly how the B-24 wing spar would fail under stress is here: