.50 in aircraft

[thebest1]

when ur plane is onfire it should blow up faster cause u cant fly in and inferno for 5 min> seen it happen in AH!

[Kweassa]

   In most of the US gun camera footage I've seen, the target plane winds up on fire. Also a lot of the British BoB reports mention their targets burning or smoking heavily. In RL were fuel/oil lines armored? It seems that if you sprayed a target plane with .50 bullets you would have a pretty good chance of cutting a line somewhere. Is that type of thing modeled in AH or just if you hit the engine or fuel tank itself?

 That's a very good question 63tb.

 People who think .50s are too weak, should be asking for a better DM implementation than demanding that the .50s are changed back into the laser-weapon that it was in AH1.

 AFAIK AH has a very limited internal DM parts - the pilot, engine, oil, radiator and fuels. Other parts such as superchargers, throttle system, support structures, cable/rods and etc aren't modelled(at least, it seems that way).

 Thus, a plane armed with a .50 HMG(especially, mounted at the wings), usually needs to bring down an enemy craft by causing a direct structural faillure. This wasn't a problem when hitting thing at 500yards was pretty easy as in AH1, but since it is much harder to score consistent hits on the enemy plane now in AH2, the lack of internal systems really shows.

 One shouldn't expect "lighting up the enemy plane like a Christams tree" will just pop the enemy plane out of the sky like some suggest, however, it should have a significant chance of damaging some of the internal systems to the extent that survival becomes a serious mater on the receiving end.

 A few rods or cables could be cut, slowing down the efficiency in maneuvering. A fuel line can be cut, causing leaks. Leaking fuel can be ignited, causing fires.. and etc etc. However, currently, the only direct result of a .50 armed plane that "rakes across the surface, but fails to  do structural damage" is minor inconvenience at best. The most serious thing that could happen in that case is a pilot wound or a radiator damage.

 Again, in this sense I do agree that somethings could be done better.

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Kweassa
Besides, four out of five major air-war combatants of WW2 concluding the 20mm was much more efficient weapon for A2A purposes should mean something.

There's another layer to that US decision though -- US was the only power that didnt have to worry about bringing down tough buffs. Almost all US combat was fighter to fighter, not fighter to bomber. (Japanese Type One Lighters don't count.) Since US targets had less resistent airframes, the advantage of true ballistic concentration was chosen.

For example, Yeager liked the 0.50s because he didnt have mixed ballistics to worry about -- every projectile from his wing had the same energy characteristics and would theoretically hit at the same deflection. He said that if you held the burst on point for a fraction of a second, 50s would rip throughj anything.

I think thats true in AH2. Remember that airframes have more "hit boxes" in AH2 model than AH1. Blasting away is likely to spread your hits along a number of boxes, so no single box will accumulate enough damage to register a kill. You can easily kill fighters with 6x50s, if you understand your convergance and focus hits on a specific PART of your target.

[TequilaChaser]

Originally posted by Simaril
Blasting away is likely to spread your hits along a number of boxes, so no single box will accumulate enough damage to register a kill. You can easily kill fighters with 6x50s, if you understand your convergance and focus hits on a specific PART of your target.

This quote sums it up well for AH2!

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by BALSUR
Ok, now that I've opened this hornets nest have at it!

This had troll written on it from the start.

Karaya