De Wilde, or armor piercing?

[reflected]

Would it make sense to load the 2 outer pair of guns with AP and the 2 inner pairs with DW? If the AP is more useful for wings and DW is more useful for fuselage hits (fuel tanks and such), I reckon I have a better chance like this. Or should it be the other way around? does it make sense or is it better to have DW-AP-DW-AP-AP-DW-AP-DW ?

[Moggy]

I use the 1942 setup of half DW\Inc and half AP. DW's on the outside 4 guns and AP on the inside 4 guns. Like Kris, I use tracers (1 in 5 I think) in the last 50 rounds to let me know when the guns are running low.

Actually, tell a lie. In the outer 2 guns (1&8), I use the white incendiary tracer.

[klem]

Originally Posted by reflected

Would it make sense to load the 2 outer pair of guns with AP and the 2 inner pairs with DW? If the AP is more useful for wings and DW is more useful for fuselage hits (fuel tanks and such), I reckon I have a better chance like this. Or should it be the other way around? does it make sense or is it better to have DW-AP-DW-AP-AP-DW-AP-DW ?

hmmmm... well, in theory if you are shooting at convergence they will all pass through the same small area at your target/aim point so it shouldn't make any difference unless you are inside convergence (and aiming a bit low to compensate) when the outer guns might hit the wings.

Assuming you are shooting at convergence you need to consider what it is you are trying to achieve. AP is good for destruction (control surfaces, possibly entire wing, etc?), bomber engines I guess or pilots/crew. Incendiary types for starting fires. Tracer incendiaries tell you where your shots are going, DeWilde (an element of incendiary) has no 'tracer' but gives a nice splash to confirm when you are on target. The RAF pilots loved DeWilde when it was introduced. So do I

[Hellbender]

I fly with 4x Red tracer Ball ammo on the 2 most outer guns ( reminds me of the P-51 in 1946) and 2x Ap and 2x DeWilde on the 4 inner guns. With the convergence setting and the wingspan of your targets the damage is horrific:

Wingspan of the targets for your gunsights:

Bf 109 32 ft
Bf 110 53 ft
Do 17 59 ft
Ju 87 45 ft
Ju 88 60 ft (a-1 version)
He 111 74 ft
BR. 20 70 ft


With the correct convergence one can easily concentrate on ripping of the wings of bombers .