Mitsubishi Stuka and Thunderbolt

[MaxGunz]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

The fixed guns on any plane could be set so that individual guns converge with the sight reticule at a certain range. Typically, however, pairs or sets of guns on opposite sides of the plane were set so that they converged, so that the recoil of the guns didn't throw the plane off course when maneuvering or aiming.

At least for the USAAF, it wasn't that uncommon to have one pair of wing-mounted MG set to converge at 300 yards, another pair at 350 and yet another pair at 400 yards to create a "beaten zone" where at least some of the bullets were likely to hit. I don't think that it was just the P-47. I believe that the P-51 and P-40 could have the same option.

The problem is that, in the game you've got just two convergence settings - "cannons" and "machine guns." Furthermore, some planes had the ability to shoot single guns, or just pairs of guns, rather than the current "guns or cannons" option.

So, for realistic fixed gunnery, you need to add the option of setting convergences for each pair of guns (or single gun), and the option of shooting just single guns or pairs of guns.

Neither option seems like it would be that much work, mostly just reworking key bindings and some messing with the GUI.

I've seen historic records saying that the all the guns were harmonized to create a 1 yard wide circle at 'convergence' at some range with each gun aimed slightly off a central point.

I read about bullet scatter and so much of it is empty speculation that I just laugh. I've fired M-60's on bipod which is more scatter prone than the fixed guns on planes and got nowhere near the scatter often mentioned even out to 800 yards.

Planes do vibrate in a mostly parallel way, not twisting. Some bullets will get an up-down vector (you can figure out why sideways is more constrained) but that's inches per second where in 1 full second the bullet goes how far?
Imperfections in the bullet will cause less to more, they were not shooting modern match ammo. The tracers especially aren't even and still --- in less than a second they only get so far off the mark.

Look at the convergence geometry not as the out-of-scale diagrams used to emphasize the concept but as about 5 meters wide (for outer guns) at the wings versus 200 to 300 meters out to 'convergence' and figure out from how far to how far you get a 2 or 3 meter wide pattern of 'beaten zone'. Answer is about halfway to convergence to about the same distance beyond.

Convergence is about rise and drop and how much below the line of sight is as well. Spend time reviewing tracks made in gunnery practice and see how often the tracers go just above or below where you thought they were aimed. Know your range and when to shoot high or low.

I find closing speed affects aim. The faster I close the shorter the range effectively becomes. I like to shoot deflection, coming in not from six and that does make my closing speed higher. I trigger at 400 meters while aiming as if 350 meters to start my fire when I will be within 200 meters very soon. It lets me see where the first burst goes to get in one more before I have to avoid ramming.

If I am shooting horizontal I get more drop than shooting either up or down at more than a few degrees. Shots aimed in steep dive or climb, more than 10 degrees, will go high compared to the pipper but only by a fraction of the drop when horizontal. That changes with range.

A tail gunner firing at a following target has an easier task than a nose gunner. It's the side gunners who have the hardest job. That is just from moving geometry. With practice you can still get good but when the attrition gets high your average gunners won't be so experienced.

[horseback]

• The over accuracy of the ai gunners is primarily a concern for the off-liner; specifically the off-liner who mainly plays fighter scenarios. To me and those like me, the very idea that some poor schlub from the sticks of Bavaria, the rice fields of Honshu or the collective farms of western Russia dumped into a backless sling or seat and facing backwards while flying 200 kph or faster to shoot a light caliber machine gun mounted on a ball mount or ring at smaller, much faster attacking fighters could be accurate at ranges up to 750 meters is obscene, never mind historically false. We expect the default ai gunner routine to mimic or re-create the historic capabilities and limitations of the real human beings who flew those bombers and heavy fighters in WWII, not exceed them by squares and cubes.
• It is enormously frustrating to spend 30 or forty minutes trying to fly formation with an AI `escort’ routine that seems more concerned with either burning off your fuel or playing hide-and-seek behind your canopy frames than it is with keeping in close contact with the bombers we’re supposed to be protecting, finally catching a formation of Bf 110Gs down low and then getting your engine shot out by a Rookie rear gunner at an extreme angle at a range in excess of 400 meters while you’re diving on him at a steep angle and indicated speeds of over 500 kph. It’s unrealistic and grossly unreasonable, and it has nothing to do with `tactics’ or not knowing `how to fly’. A Mustang or Thunderbolt pilot attacking a zerstörer at those speeds and any angle was historically untouchable; the only thing between him and a victory was his guns’ reliability and his own shooting skill. Additionally, limiting all aircraft with rear gunners to `Rookie’ status means that both the heavy fighter and bomber aircraft are flown too poorly and ineffectively for the aircraft’s actual main weapons to be any use or danger in exchange for a minimal step towards realism.
• For the off-liner or online player who specializes or even dabbles in mud-moving in two-seater, medium or heavy bombers, the gunners are not nearly effective enough. From a practical standpoint I understand that imposing the real-life difficulty on the human gunner or the human pilot’s ai ‘crew’ would be suicidal, given the inability to impose the real-life discipline of formations and effective escort, even with other human players. For someone playing the bomber role, über gunners are an absolute necessity, and even then, the ai gunners protecting a human flown aircraft cannot enjoy the rail-smooth firing platform or even the basic levels of communication that a veteran real-life crew had, far less than the all ai “crew” that has the instant awareness and communication that so frustrating to the player who flies fighters.
• The players who campaign or do co-ops as ground-pounders naturally feel threatened by the very idea of limiting their already poor protection. I get that. Honest, I do. But nobody wants to take that away from the on-line or bomber campaign game. The off-line fighter players simply want a choice.
• We clearly now have the capability to give the off-line Player an option or tier of more historically realistic ai gunner routines for all-ai aircraft in off-line missions and campaigns. Therefore, we should:

1. Limit the `reality’ option to all-ai bombers, fighters and attack aircraft gunnery routines
2. Give turret style guns a 10 or 15% advantage over guns directed by human muscle power; the gunners in those were strapped in and had electrical or hydraulic aid in directing his guns
3. Make it strictly for QMBs and campaigns Off-Line as an option that must be selected before starting the QMB, Single Mission, or campaign. This means that I’ll have to re-start any existing campaigns to get this option; no mid-course changes.
4. Never apply it to Player-flown aircraft; in fact, make it impossible to apply it to a human-crewed aircraft or their formations, so that the mouse-gunners will have nothing to complain about or fear.

By the way Max, an M-60 has much less recoil and is lighter & far more user friendly than the older Browning MGs; that's what it was designed for and why it replaced the old-style .30 MGs in squad use and on Helos. No sprinkles for you.

cheers

horseback

[majorfailure]

Sometimes I think I'm playing a different game.
I've acquired quite some experience in shooting at allied heavys/medium bombers, and those are among the best armed/armored in this game IMHO.
I guess in about 40 missions I got shot out of the sky 8 times. Much? Yes.
But only two times when I got nailed (pilot dead) from below while turnig away and up (moving in all three planes of maneuvre) from the already dead bomber and from a landing B-17 about 400m below me on opposite course(thus the shooter had to lead a heck) that felt wrong. All the other times I got bored/greedy and decided to do a 6'o clock approach and forgot to break at 300m. So I'd say that my own poor choice of tactics fried my there.
Doing head-ons, side attacks, high attacks, even fast six o clock attacks with breaking of at ~250-300m regularly works for me.

Degrade the (rookie) gunners so they don't do the seemingly impossible shots that would be good, if it is not only pure luck but some kind of random deliberate ace gunnery. But do not degrade the gunners in general, they are fine IMHO.

And as a part-time mud-mover I can only say whenever you encounter an enemy fighter (AI) that you cannot outrun or outmaneuver and there is no clouds to hide in you are screwed. At least 19 out of 20 times.

The most interesting idea in your post IMHO is to be able to advise different levels of AI to different position, that would be useful. Could depict scenarios, where an all veteran crew got a member KIA and replaced by newbie, or splitting up an ace crew and mixing with regulars to get two useful crews.
Or for formations mission builders could use an ace bombardier/navigator/pilot for flight leader, and an all ace gunner crew for tail end, as surprise for anemy fighters.
And for offliners you could create enemy flights that have rookie skill at all gunner positions - but are pilot/bombardier able enough to bomb the broadside of a barn from three metres away.

[Woke Up Dead]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

Sometimes I think I'm playing a different game.
I've acquired quite some experience in shooting at allied heavys/medium bombers, and those are among the best armed/armored in this game IMHO.
I guess in about 40 missions I got shot out of the sky 8 times. Much? Yes.
But only two times when I got nailed (pilot dead) from below while turnig away and up (moving in all three planes of maneuvre) from the already dead bomber and from a landing B-17 about 400m below me on opposite course(thus the shooter had to lead a heck) that felt wrong. All the other times I got bored/greedy and decided to do a 6'o clock approach and forgot to break at 300m. So I'd say that my own poor choice of tactics fried my there.
Doing head-ons, side attacks, high attacks, even fast six o clock attacks with breaking of at ~250-300m regularly works for me.

I feel the same, with a few notable exceptions. Horseback keeps talking about the gunner on the 110, I agree that he definitely seems to be more effective than most other gunners. There are also gunners on a couple older, rarer Soviet planes that seem super-human. It's those light MGs with the high rate of fire on the smaller, nimbler bombers that give me the most grief, especially when they are twinned like in the 110. Safer tactics can be used against bigger, more stable bombers; and the heavier machine guns have slower rates of fire and don't trouble me as much.

[horseback]

All the other times I got bored/greedy and decided to do a 6'o clock approach and forgot to break at 300m. So I'd say that my own poor choice of tactics fried my there.

I would think that the game has conditioned your view of what the air war was like rather than having your knowledge of the air war framing your view of the game.

Breaking off at 300m when you are attacking with a 200kph speed advantage and are just shooting the hell out of your target would be considered premature against anything less than a formation of 16+ American heavies in real life, regardless of the angle of your attack. Under those conditions, accurate return fire from your target should be next to impossible, and the angles imposed for gunners in flanking aircraft would make it a matter of very poor chance that they would hit you at all, much less hit you anywhere important, like the 'head-sized' magneto that comprises less than 5% of the area you can aim at inside the cowling of a P-47, Hellcat or Corsair, or the considerably smaller reflector sight in your cockpit (and how do they do that without breaking the bulletproof glass in front of it?).

That they do so even as often as one in 20 passes at 'virtual' distances that would strain the abilities of world class match rifle shots on real-world static (i.e., not moving) targets just slips right past you people.

Theoretically, it's possible that a human being behind the flexible guns of any bomber or attack plane flown in WWII could have made those shots--in exactly the same way that it is theoretically possible that angels will fly out of my backside when I break wind.

Comparing the capability of a stepped formation of almost fifty B-17s to the capabilities of a couple of vics of Betties or He-111s just takes it into the realms of fantasy. My own experiments with the B-17 convinces me that that aircraft's gunners are much less effective than most of the earlier war medium and light twins with rear gunners featured in this game. With the exception of the (extremely clumsy and unwieldy) 20mm stinger in the tail of the Betty, most of these aircraft are defended by socket or rail mounted light machine guns and consistently make pinpoint hits at angles which would be impossible for the gunners to look down their guns' sights at the (distant) targeted empty spot in the air which will be occupied by my aircraft a half second and several aircraft lengths later. At 'Rookie' levels.

Worse yet, if you approach within a given distance for a given 'ranking' of AI gunner, even at the extreme edges of his 'firing cone' you will be hit, regardless of your speed and angle

I long ago learned to 'demote' any aircraft mounting a rear or side facing gun to Rookie before flying a mission--LCD monitors aren't cheap and throwing your TrackIR visor at them can be expensive. And of course, let's not forget that they still can hit you while the aircraft they are in is spinning out of control --which was what happened to me for the umpteenth time while I was testing the other night.

There are those of us who don't fly LW vs the USAAF or RAF, and while I understand the tendency of some people to romanticize the German side in that contest, I just can't sympathize with the tendency to 'baseline' your campaign experiences with the comparatively nerfed gunners of the in-game US heavies against my complaints with the gunners on He-111s, Stukas, Bf 110s, Pe-2s, Sturmoviks and more recently, Vals and Betties. All of these aircraft have Rookie gunners superior to any Terminator model James Cameron ever made a dime from, even the hot little blonde one.

Take your 'red' Fw 190A up against a flight of Betties and see what happens. It will shock you.

Only eight out of forty missions sounds like heaven to me; I've had several individual campaign missions where one specific gunner gets me every damned time from every angle and distance imaginable, even after being demoted (do you think that they might be bitter about it?). I hit the 'Refly' button four or five times in a couple of hours and then I just have to walk away for a few days (or months).

There must be many hundreds like me who simply never come back.

cheers

horseback

[MaxGunz]

Was it 4.07 that came with tracks showing how to attack bombers without getting shot?

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by horseback

I would think that the game has conditioned your view of what the air war was like rather than having your knowledge of the air war framing your view of the game.

Yep. A common problem for games that portray historical events. At least IL2 tries for realism.

Originally Posted by horseback

Breaking off at 300m when you are attacking with a 200kph speed advantage and are just shooting the hell out of your target would be considered premature against anything less than a formation of 16+ American heavies in real life, regardless of the angle of your attack.

Maybe. I still think that going straight in from 6 o'clock level is still asking for it, even from a rookie gunner. That should be the baseline accuracy and accuracy should go down fast from there.

Originally Posted by horseback

a matter of very poor chance that they would hit you at all, much less hit you anywhere important

I don't disagree, but flaky damage modeling is a different issue from excessively accurate gunners.

Originally Posted by horseback

That they do so even as often as one in 20 passes at 'virtual' distances that would strain the abilities of world class match rifle shots on real-world static (i.e., not moving) targets just slips right past you people.

To put it another way, 1 in 20 works out to 5% accuracy, which was considered to be excellent even at close ranges.

Originally Posted by horseback

Theoretically, it's possible that a human being behind the flexible guns of any bomber or attack plane flown in WWII could have made those shots--in exactly the same way that it is theoretically possible that angels will fly out of my backside when I break wind.

Well, maybe more like 1 in a 100, or even 1 in a million, rather than impossible.

Originally Posted by horseback

My own experiments with the B-17 convinces me that that aircraft's gunners are much less effective than most of the earlier war medium and light twins with rear gunners featured in this game.

This goes to my argument that AI gunnery needs to be made more "generic." You can't claim that any particular plane is "uber" or "nerfed" if every plane in the game with a single rifle-caliber Scarff-mounted rear gun uses the same gunnery model.

It's also possibly something to do with earlier aircraft models being a bit cruder in damage modeling.

Originally Posted by horseback

Worse yet, if you approach within a given distance for a given 'ranking' of AI gunner, even at the extreme edges of his 'firing cone' you will be hit, regardless of your speed and angle

This is another good point, but gunners should have a slightly better chance to hit based on the amount of time that the target remains within their firing cone. Targets that veer in and out of the cone should be harder to hit, since the gunner must reacquire his target and track it prior to opening fire.

[Pursuivant]

For folks who are interested in the nitty-gritty about how fighter guns were calibrated, at least for the USAAF

http://www.avia-it.com/act/profili_d...monization.pdf

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by horseback

Breaking off at 300m when you are attacking with a 200kph speed advantage and are just shooting the hell out of your target would be considered premature against anything less than a formation of 16+ American heavies in real life, regardless of the angle of your attack. Under those conditions, accurate return fire from your target should be next to impossible, and the angles imposed for gunners in flanking aircraft would make it a matter of very poor chance that they would hit you at all, much less hit you anywhere important, like the 'head-sized' magneto that comprises less than 5% of the area you can aim at inside the cowling of a P-47, Hellcat or Corsair, or the considerably smaller reflector sight in your cockpit (and how do they do that without breaking the bulletproof glass in front of it?).

No, with 6'clock attacks I meant really lazy attacks, with not enough speed difference. And the way I see it I'm an easy target even if I close with 200kph excess -only change is distance, and that's a shot an ace gunner from 200m away should be able to do most of the times, and a rookie should be able to judge by his tracers if he's shooting too high or low. And even if he's leading for 500m distance, and I'm only at 300m, then he will highly likely still hit -as that shot needs no lead in angle left/right and no lead in up/down motion.

Originally Posted by horseback

There are those of us who don't fly LW vs the USAAF or RAF, and while I understand the tendency of some people to romanticize the German side in that contest, I just can't sympathize with the tendency to 'baseline' your campaign experiences with the comparatively nerfed gunners of the in-game US heavies against my complaints with the gunners on He-111s, Stukas, Bf 110s, Pe-2s, Sturmoviks and more recently, Vals and Betties. All of these aircraft have Rookie gunners superior to any Terminator model James Cameron ever made a dime from, even the hot little blonde one.

Usually I play both sides of the medal, so I did the US/Brit side before, and I found the German/Italian bombers nowhere near the capability of a B-17.
The only real danger is the Do217, because they are so fast you are sometimes forced to attack from behind. And when flying planes with .50cals the He111 can be tough, though it is vulnerable to attacks from the front. Strangely enough, the most troublesome Axis bomber for me is the Ju87, because it is so small and usually evades and its gunner shoots below where IMHO he shouldnt even be able to see me. Upside is if using a very low 6 or side/front attacks next to any hit on that thing makes it burn.

Bettys, I've shot countless out of the sky using P-39 (awesome game moments: head on passes with 37mm that connect and blow that thing right out of the sky) or P-40s and F4F.
P-39 is easy, either stay behind and snipe them from a distance or use your superior speed and head-on tactics, high attacks from nearly directly above also work fine.
F4F/P-40 is more difficult, the speed advantage often is not enough to make an intercept possible using head-ons. High 6 attacks work okay, and high sides attacks too. High 6 attacks are better IMHO, its easier to hit the wing tanks, and thats the Bettys vice, its basically a big unprotected flying fuel tank. I would guesstimate that nine out of ten I got were due to fuel tank fire, except when flying the P39, and even then when 37mm ammo was out the .30 cals light them good.

Originally Posted by horseback

Take your 'red' Fw 190A up against a flight of Betties and see what happens. It will shock you.

Will do.

Originally Posted by horseback

Only eight out of forty missions sounds like heaven to me; I've had several individual campaign missions where one specific gunner gets me every damned time from every angle and distance imaginable, even after being demoted (do you think that they might be bitter about it?). I hit the 'Refly' button four or five times in a couple of hours and then I just have to walk away for a few days (or months).

That reminds me of the game before 4.10, when gunners were godlike (and were able to survive 20mm hits). I can remember a BoB campaign, where Ju87 shot you out of the sky with 90% probablity when anywhere within 500m behind.
He-111 and a 6'o clock approach was certain doom, when they appeared, the only surviving member of my squad usually was me - head on tactics worked.
Bf110 had to be left alone, attacking them was suicide, they could turn so you nearly blacked out turning with them, and still the gunner fired with pinpoint accuracy.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

This is another good point, but gunners should have a slightly better chance to hit based on the amount of time that the target remains within their firing cone. Targets that veer in and out of the cone should be harder to hit, since the gunner must reacquire his target and track it prior to opening fire.

That may be one of the reasons we do get strange results, the AI gunners acquire targets at any angle at about 5km, even if they can not see it. Without confirmation from anyone that can read the game code, I'd speculate that any gunner already has your speed and distance and heading estimated before you come into his FoV. If that's the case, that shouuld be changed.

[ElAurens]

OK, let's stop speaking about the AI as if they are beings. OK?

The AI is the computer program that runs the sim. It doesn't have to "calculate" anything. It already "knows" evey parameter of your aircraft's performance, and it knows how you have set your gun convergence. It "knows" where you are at all times, it knows when you make a control input, and has a perfect solution for hitting you at all times.

All that the settings can do is either slow this process down or limit the range that it picks you up as a target.