FWs Durabillity

[julian265]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

This isn't surprising. If you're attacking a plane from exactly 6 o'clock level, it presents its narrowest profile, and most WW2-era planes had armor to protect crew and vital systems from hits from the rear.

So, unless the convergence of your guns is perfect, many of your shots will miss the smaller target, and many of the shots that hit will be stopped by armor.

That's why you ideally never attack from exactly 6 or 12 o'clock level. Always incorporate a bit of "angle off" when attacking from those directions so that you get a slightly bigger target and some of your bullets will bypass armor.



With all respect, unless you were playing with "arcade mode on" so you could record exactly where each shot hit, all you can say is that you shot 50+ or 100+ 0.50 caliber rounds at an Fw-190 and it still got away.

That doesn't make the Fw-190's damage model incorrect, it just puts you in the company of however many thousand allied pilots who had the same problem in real life.

If your gunnery wasn't up to scratch, you might very well have sprayed a lot of virtual lead around the target, with a fraction of the bullets hitting the target but being scattered such that there was never the concentrated fire needed to score a kill. A few more might have been stopped by armor.

Killing aircraft with a machine gun requires a higher level of precision than killing them using cannons. Your deflection and convergence has to be just right so that you can bring several seconds of fire onto a single vital system, and you have to be close enough to your target that you can reliably hit that system.

Achieving those conditions can be quite hard, which is one of the reasons that most air forces ultimately chose cannons as their airborne weapon of choice!

I agree with most of what you said, except that - as stated in my post - I used gunstat before and after shooting to count HITS, not shots fired (I had a bee in my bonnet at the time).

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by julian265

I agree with most of what you said, except that - as stated in my post - I used gunstat before and after shooting to count HITS, not shots fired (I had a bee in my bonnet at the time).

Since I'm offline only (crappy ISP) I'm not familiar with the gunstat function. The nearest thing is the statistics page off of the QMB, which is handy but doesn't give you statistics about your hit percentage against a particular target.

But, Gunstat looks like a valuable tool for those lucky enough to be able to play online. If you were playing unmodded IL2, and if the FW-190's damage model hasn't been changed subsequently, then there's definitely an issue.

50 or 100 .50 caliber bullets into any single-engined fighter (except maybe brutes like the F6F or P-47) should be enough to make it unflyable. If its a one-off event, then its a case of a very lucky FW-190 pilot. If you're getting the same result on a more or less regular basis, its a DM problem.

[Pursuivant]

I've seen the light and have converted to the belief that the FW-190's DM is broken, at least with respect to not being able to take off its wing using .50 caliber guns.

To test this assumption, I set up a flight of friendly FW-190s, with me flying a P-47D-27, which is about as many .50 caliber guns as you're going to get on a reasonably maneuverable aircraft.

Guns converged for 300 meters. I'd pull up behind each FW-190 at 6 o'clock level, at about 100-200 m so that bullet convergence would go through the wings, and start shooting.

Arcade mode on so I could tell where my bullets were hitting.

1) It seems like a very few hits to the fuselage (5-6 hits) were sufficient to trigger the heavy damage textures and make the pilot bail out. No control cable hits from what I could tell. So, the FW-190 seems to be a bit undermodeled there.

2) A burst of a two or three bullets in the fuel tank will set the FW-190 alight. Arguably, that's a unrealistic since it should take a bit of time for fuel to leak or get splashed about before a fire can start, and most self-sealing fuel tanks could take a couple of .50 caliber bullets without leaking too badly.
But, all planes in IL2 seem to be a bit too flammable, and the FW-190 doesn't seem to be any more or less vulnerable than comparable fighters in that respect.

3) I put plenty of concentrated .50 caliber fire directly through the wings (through the spars), sufficient to trigger plenty of "heavy damage" textures to both the inboard and outboard wings. But, despite repeated attempts, I never could get the FW-190's wing to separate. I think there's a bug there, at least with respect to .50 caliber MG fire.

4) Elevators and rudder seem to be quite vulnerable to damage - heavy damage textures appear after just one or two hits. But, the vertical stabilizer itself seems to be about as invulnerable to concentrated HMG fire as the wings. (Although the AI will always bail out after elevators and rudder are shredded.)

5) Not really testing for it, since I was taking shots from the rear and aiming at the wings and rear fuselage, but while I was able to get a number of smoking engine results, I was never able to get an engine fire.

6) Again, not testing for it, and it should never be common if it is modeled, but I never got that 20mm magazine explosion I've seen in gun camera footage.

7) Armor plate is well modeled, with the plate behind the pilot repeatedly stopping .50 caliber bullets at 100-200 meter ranges. I can't speak to the accuracy of frontal armor/armor glass modeling.

So, in some ways the DM of the the FW-190 is overmodeled, and some ways it's undermodeled. Durability of control surfaces might be improved slightly (they were fabric covered, so many bullets should just go through leaving only a small hole, rather than tumbling or exploding). Rear fuselage definitely needs to be a bit tougher. Wings and vertical stabilizer need to be made a bit more vulnerable to HMG fire.

[falconilia]

I've seen the light and have converted to the belief that the FW-190's DM is broken, at least with respect to not being able to take off its wing using .50 caliber guns.

To test this assumption, I set up a flight of friendly FW-190s, with me flying a P-47D-27, which is about as many .50 caliber guns as you're going to get on a reasonably maneuverable aircraft.

Guns converged for 300 meters. I'd pull up behind each FW-190 at 6 o'clock level, at about 100-200 m so that bullet convergence would go through the wings, and start shooting.

Arcade mode on so I could tell where my bullets were hitting.

1) It seems like a very few hits to the fuselage (5-6 hits) were sufficient to trigger the heavy damage textures and make the pilot bail out. No control cable hits from what I could tell. So, the FW-190 seems to be a bit undermodeled there.

2) A burst of a two or three bullets in the fuel tank will set the FW-190 alight. Arguably, that's a unrealistic since it should take a bit of time for fuel to leak or get splashed about before a fire can start, and most self-sealing fuel tanks could take a couple of .50 caliber bullets without leaking too badly.
But, all planes in IL2 seem to be a bit too flammable, and the FW-190 doesn't seem to be any more or less vulnerable than comparable fighters in that respect.

3) I put plenty of concentrated .50 caliber fire directly through the wings (through the spars), sufficient to trigger plenty of "heavy damage" textures to both the inboard and outboard wings. But, despite repeated attempts, I never could get the FW-190's wing to separate. I think there's a bug there, at least with respect to .50 caliber MG fire.

4) Elevators and rudder seem to be quite vulnerable to damage - heavy damage textures appear after just one or two hits. But, the vertical stabilizer itself seems to be about as invulnerable to concentrated HMG fire as the wings. (Although the AI will always bail out after elevators and rudder are shredded.)

5) Not really testing for it, since I was taking shots from the rear and aiming at the wings and rear fuselage, but while I was able to get a number of smoking engine results, I was never able to get an engine fire.

6) Again, not testing for it, and it should never be common if it is modeled, but I never got that 20mm magazine explosion I've seen in gun camera footage.

7) Armor plate is well modeled, with the plate behind the pilot repeatedly stopping .50 caliber bullets at 100-200 meter ranges. I can't speak to the accuracy of frontal armor/armor glass modeling.


Unlike you i play for years online with historical missions but with cockpit off.Gunstat is the same.you see the % hits on air or on ground.
Real players cant do so many crazy evasive or hard moves as AI does.
When they see you they usually run or turn hard so you have a good deflection shoot.
After long discussion with some friends using P51 or P47 we had some conclusions about 0.50s convergence and FWs:
200 to 300 convergence u may destroy some controls easier
300 to 500 convergence several damage to wing but also no matter how close you are you hit main fuselage tank many times.
Also engine damage but not so often.
500 to 820 lots of PK!!!,and wing damage.
Average firing distance is about 300mts.

Elevators as you said can be completely removed but ailerons can be disabled still never be removed.

Yesterday i played a QMB with a Yak3 P.
I destroyed Fws wing with ONLY 2 hits from my pair of 12.7mm!(i didnt use 20mm cannon).
That means that there is an issue between US 12.7mm and FW.
Ill try with a KI 43 Oscar but im not sure if they use US 12.7mm and not sure if i can hit it(to fast to reach it).

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by falconilia

Started QMB mission test vs 2 ACE Wellington III bombers and the results are not looking good....no fire at all,only minor damaged engine.
But VS 2 Ace B17 Bombers i had lot of main fuel tank fire.
Still no Engine fire.

Stick with opponents equipped with just .30 caliber/7.62 mm flexible guns.

Historically, 0.50 caliber/12.7 mm guns were extremely effective fighter killers, with just a few shots being able to stop an engine or cause a fuel tank to explode, even at extreme limits of gunner accuracy. That effectiveness makes it harder to pick out oddities with the DM.

By contrast, being "nibbled to death" by .30 caliber fire helps to pinpoint problems.

Another tool which is helpful when bug-stomping damage models is a good cut-away drawing of the plane you're testing which show the placement of all internal systems.

If you pause the game and compare the drawing to a bullet's trajectory, sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised when a hit that seems to prove a DM fault turns out to actually be good damage modeling.

For example, I've had bullets "seem" to penetrate armor like it wasn't there, but careful examination shows that the bullet actually passed through gaps in the armor to hit a vital system.

If you get a really strange damage result, immediately pause the game, take a screenshot, and make a note of the circumstances (range, what you were doing when you got shot).

Screenshots and statistics are the most valuable way to make your case.

If you can say, "I flew 25 missions with the Fw-190A vs. a bunch of Ace Wellington III (or B5N2, or SBD-3, TB-3), each time attacking from 6 o'clock level at 250 kph until I got shot down or couldn't keep up with the bomber stream. These are the stats of how I got shot down . . . none of them involve engine fires, even though these screenies show that my engine was filled with holes" then you might have a good case that the Fw-190 DM for engine fires is porked.

[KG26_Alpha]

They left off the engine on fire damage because they felt so sorry for the rest of what they have done to it.

Its getting boring this kind of damage modelling stuff, there's plenty of planes out there that are over specification and have strange damage modelling.

And complaints over the years have never had any effect on having these changed.

Best thing to do is report it to DT in the stickies and see if anyone is willing to look at what your saying.

eg:

Spitfire wing absorbing Mk108 damage no effect aircraft flies normally
ever been fixed ............ nope.

The Fw190's wing takes a few MG rounds and the aircraft is almost un-flyable certainly run for home time when its flown by humans and not AI.



Unfortunately theres lots of planes with problems, it seems the FW190 has had a bad time over the years,

I should know I have CooP missions I made from the the beginning of the IL2 series featuring the "Butchered Bird"
so its progress at the hands of patching over the years has seen it goes backwards in performance and damage modelling.

How about Delta woods amazing properties

[gaunt1]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

And complaints over the years have never had any effect on having these changed.

Not only DM. Also the power of certain weapons. Like soviet 20mm is vastly overpowered, (in RL, it had one of the weakest 20mm ammo), but at the same time, soviet 12.7mm is underpowered.

And this is despite that there is a very good reference for all of this.
http://www.quarryhs.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm