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#1
08-26-2015, 02:29 PM
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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). 
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#2
08-26-2015, 05:18 PM
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#3
08-27-2015, 02:30 AM
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I don't think that it should be easy for .50 caliber fire to take off a wing, even off of a small fighter like the FW-190. But, it should be possible with sufficient damage. Perhaps it is, but I my gunnery skills aren't good enough.
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#4
08-27-2015, 01:14 PM
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190's were really sturdy for their time. Much more so than a 109. Even so, on the popular plane lists, it is the one that suffers more from single damage. It becomes almost impossible to land safely after any single shot on it's wings.
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#5
08-28-2015, 09:59 PM
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Instead, as you point out, what happens is that the gunfire sufficiently weakens the airframe that the forces of gravity, g-forces, and air resistance take over and cause structural collapse. If you look at combat films where an aircraft's wing fails, often you'll see a slight delay before the wing comes off. Sometimes, you'll even see the wing "fold" as it collapses. That means that the gunfire/fire just fatally weakened the wing and gravity and air pressure finished the job. I don't know if IL2 can model progressive weakening of damaged parts. Obviously, the game models parts pulling off due to overspeed flight, but I'm not sure if the game progressively reduces the top speed and maximum G load a damaged part can sustain without failing. For the experiments I did with the FW-190, they were mostly in level flight or making relatively low-G turns, and were never traveling at excessive speeds. So, I have no way of knowing if the FW-190's wing might have failed had it been exposed to greater stresses, assuming the game even models that sort of failure. Quote:
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The real question is whether the FW-190 was any tougher than aircraft of equivalent quality of construction, designed in the same year, and with roughly equivalent mass. For example, should the FW-190's AIRFRAME be any tougher than that of the P-51 D (designed 1939/40, 3,465 kg empty mass) or the P-40E (designed 1938, 2,753 kg empty mass)? Unless you have a novel structural design which was famed for its structural strength or weakness - like the geodesic wing and fuselage structure of the Wellington or the delamination problems that some of the LaGG-3 series suffered - then really all you can do is base a plane's ability to absorb punishment on its year of production and its empty mass. Perhaps divide by the number of engines and/or omit the mass of the engines as well. Pilot reports of relative combat durability of their aircraft have to be read skeptically, because they're based on the accounts of the men who survived and came back to tell the tale. If a plane was well-liked by its crew, they were likely to overlook its lesser faults and sing its praises. If they disliked the type, they were likely to overlook its merits. Also, unless you're reading the reports of a test pilot or an engineering commission, where the writer(s) had a chance to examine multiple different aircraft, the writer - even if he's an experienced combat veteran - might not necessarily be in the best position to make comparisons. Quote:
In some ways it seems like it's far too easy to damage the FW-190, in other ways it seems to be invulnerable. Too weak: Far too vulnerable to having minor wing or fuselage damage turn into serious damage. Probably a bit too vulnerable to having control surfaces shot off/seriously damaged. Perhaps a bit too vulnerable to fuel tank fires (but no more vulnerable than equivalently equipped planes in the game). Too easy to snap the fuselage due to damage (but this is IL2's method of modeling fatal fuselage damage that renders the plane unflyable. Since IL2 can't make airframes bend or shake, it breaks them instead.) Too strong: Seems quite difficult for heavy damage to the wing (at least from .50 caliber guns) to convert to fatal damage - either directly or by causing structural failure under G-loads. Probably far too difficult to start an engine fire. Possibly too difficult to seriously damage/destroy vertical stabilizer. Just right: Armor modeling, cockpit/crew hits, hydraulic failure which causes landing gear to begin to extend. Engine durability (excluding fires). Missing/Not modeled (AFAIK): Potential "critical hit" to loaded 20mm cannon magazine can cause secondary explosion sufficient to instantly separate the wing.
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#6
08-29-2015, 12:09 AM
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Now, you could see a lot of guncams of zeros or Ki43 planes braking wings, but it is very difficult to find one of an anton doing it. Also, they will rarely aim at a wing, they will fire to the bulk of the plane. Wing shots are always done while diving on an unexpected foe, not from dead six. And guncams of diving shots are extremely rare to find. Specially because they don't show the enemy plane. That kind of shot is always a deflection shot. Quote:
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The tale states that to their surprise, the count was zero. Quote:
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You will suffer a lot of damage, and of different sorts. Try the same thing with different planes, and you will have an idea which planes have weak points when YOU are flying them. Still, american .50s are really a bad weapon to down B17s! Keep the arrows on.
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#7
08-30-2015, 08:49 AM
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The reason I called out bullets/shells exploding bullets/shells as being rare is that in order to get a secondary explosion, you need to have an explosive bullet that hits the propellant or explosive charge, or a direct hit on the primer within the bullet, to make it detonate. Otherwise, the bullet/shell hit just tears up the other bullet/shell, which just causes a stoppage. Also, with a typical aircraft ammo belting, you're only going to have a fraction of bullets/shells which are APE (rarely HE). That means you've typically got a 20%-33% chance that any bullet that hits ammo will be APE, and a 25-33% chance that the bullet/shell it hits will be APE. So, low odds, but higher than getting hit by lightning or winning the lottery. But, packing all your bullets/shells into a magazine (like FW-190's cannon shell magazine) will increase the chance that an APE bullet will hit something that causes a secondary explosion, so the odds go up a bit. To simplify things, lets say there's a 10% chance that any hit to a magazine by an explosive bullet will cause a secondary explosion, multiplied by the percentage of HE bullets in the magazine. With 25% explosive rounds for both attacker and target, that works out to a 0.625% chance that any given bullet hit to a magazine will cause a secondary explosion. Basically, a lucky hit rather than a certainty, even if you're an amazing shot. Quote:
Early war German aircraft were beautifully constructed, which is why monthly aircraft production totals were low(ish). The same could be said for pre-war/early war aircraft constructed by other advanced economies, as well as many prototypes. Massively mass-produced aircraft, especially those constructed from inferior materials, had inferior - or at least uneven - construction. Pilots of the era will tell you that no two aircraft flew exactly the same, even if they came off the same assembly line. Giving the FW-190A the benefit of the doubt, I'd call it superior in terms of design, superior in construction quality, but average in terms of materials (at least for much of the war). Later war versions were probably only average in construction quality. By contrast: P-51D = superior design, average construction quality (Rosie the Riveter was highly motivated, but she was new to the job), with average to superior materials. LaGG-3 = Superior design (precursor to the well-loved and rugged La-5), average to poor construction quality (and quite variable!), average to poor materials. Quote:
The game doesn't distinguish between fabric-covered surfaces vs. surfaces with a skin of some solid material like wood or aluminum. Fabric-covered surfaces shouldn't trigger bullet/cannon shell explosions, should be much more vulnerable to fire, and to the effects of nearby internal explosions. Wood or steel frame with doped canvas construction should also have fewer overall "hit points" than for monococque construction. Fabric covered control surfaces should be slightly less responsive at high speeds, and more prone to damage due to overspeed. (The fabric could deform or tear under stress.) Quote:
I think you could make a good case that the damage threshold required to trigger any sort of damage to fuselage, wings, tail or control surfaces, for all planes, should be considerably higher for .30 caliber or .50 caliber bullets. Those weapons were fine for killing people, damaging engines and starting fires, but were never intended to blast vehicles apart. But, there also needs to be some degree of progressive weakening of damaged parts so even .30 caliber bullets can make a plane fall apart if it subsequently pulls extreme Gs or goes overspeed. Quote:
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The US military standardized on the M2 as their preferred aerial weapon because it was their most reliable weapon, because it simplified supply chain problems, and most importantly, because US pilots were almost always on the offensive, flying long range missions (where ammo quantity is as important as weight of fire) where the opposition was usually enemy fighters. By contrast, nations whose air forces had to play defense against medium or heavy bombers (read: everybody except the US), or who wanted effective "tank buster" aircraft, quickly learned that the 20 mm or 30 mm cannon was the preferred tool for the job. For bomber interceptors, the US got the message, too, which is why planes like the F6F-5N, P-61 & F7F were armed with cannons. Last edited by Pursuivant; 08-30-2015 at 08:55 AM.
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#8
09-05-2015, 08:38 PM
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#9
08-30-2015, 07:33 PM
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I took tail gunner shots from an Il-2 (apparently 12,7 mm bullets) on my Fw-190 A6 wing. The left wingtip/emblem area looked very, very ugly - bullet holes and large dark splotches. With such damage, fighting is pretty much out of the question, but the plane is far from unflyable, and landing requires just a bit more caution than usually, so that the plane doesn't roll left when you least expect it! My wheels touched down roughly at 45% of standard grass runway length, and the plane came to full stop at 96%, give or take a few percent. I'd say that's good enough for a damaged plane. In lab conditions, the landing distance needed is naturally shorter.
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#10
08-31-2015, 04:39 PM
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A typical FW190 discussion from years ago, there's been plenty of them around over the years.
Lol post#107 from this old discussion on FW190 refers to old DM discussions around that time. http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...-series-Forums Last edited by KG26_Alpha; 08-31-2015 at 05:37 PM.
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