Well I guess I owe Fishu and Juzz both a major apology....
Sorry Guys.
the lower ball turret DOES shoot through the plane at all angles. Guess the auto stops are not yet modeled for the lower ball.
(Bad Pyro,, no cookie)
(though for the rest the game ya get the whole damn cookie isle at yer fav store)
Packrat from the Phoenix Squadron was nice enuff to do some visual testing with me tonight. He said at 500 yds he could NOT tell which guns were firing and it looked like all were whether I was using all or single fire. even though you could see a differance in the bullet trails.
The auto-stops are in place for the upper turret though and the guns will NOT depress to fire below the level of the top of the craft. ie; you can't shoot yer wing tip, or yer own pilots, nor shoot someone under 100 yds at exact same co-alt as yerself.
Hopefully soon the auto-stops will be modeled for the lower ball too. The lower ball was NOT capable of shooting the plane it was riding in....
As an aside, due to fuselage curve, and placement of the "cheek" guns, (even though offset) they were not really capable of firing at the true 12 oc area. Especially the right side cheek gun. The left side could but would have been firing blindly due to the gunners inability to move left enuff to see the sights. (they do here).
While the waist gunners here do track through the wings and tail section, in RL, there were also built with stops. (in the early "F" model, these were just Straps attached to the gun to prevent travel, while in the "G" there was actually a window that prevented wing and tail shots. In actual practice, they (the windows) were generally removed by the gunners in combat since they did limit the traverse. (from one of the gunners who served on the "Nine O Nine", a B17-G from WWII.)
(Wish My scanner was better would post the PIC's)
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GreyBeard
Flight Commander, Aces High
Skeleton Crew
