.50 cal's

[Brenjen]

I would like to see the .50 calibre round given it's fair due in Aces HighII. It is weak & anemic,it seems to hit only slightly harder than the .303's. In reality ma duece tore planes outta the sky with close to the same effect as 20mm. And if i'm not mistaken the .50 cal rounds were a mixture of high explosive,armour piercing & tracers when loaded in the anti-aircraft role something like 3-5 H.E. to each A.P. & tracer. Someone please correct me if I am mistaken.

[Kweassa]

It is weak & anemic

 So just how exactly is the .50s 'weak and anemic'?
 Any testings? Proof? Argument?

In reality ma duece tore planes outta the sky with close to the same effect as 20mm. And if i'm not mistaken the .50 cal rounds were a mixture of high explosive,armour piercing & tracers when loaded in the anti-aircraft role something like 3-5 H.E. to each A.P. & tracer. Someone please correct me if I am mistaken.

 You are mistaken, but I won't correct you.

 The place you wanna go look at is Mr.Williams' website.

 ->  http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/

[MANDO]

Originally posted by Brenjen
And if i'm not mistaken the .50 cal rounds were a mixture of high explosive,armour piercing & tracers when loaded in the anti-aircraft role

.50 never were HE, they were AP rounds and are quite affective as long as you can concentrate the fire at convergence.

[Krusty]

Anybody that says 50cal are weak in AH (including MG17s, 12.7mm, etc) doesn't know how to shoot, period. They run for base the second they run out of 20mm.

Those that use them know they kill quite easily.

Fly the c202 more. It's one of the best MG armed planes, and has 2x50cal in the nose. You'll learn how to shoot in that puppy

[NoBaddy]

The gunnery changes from AH to AH2 is what appears to have nerffed the .50's. There is now more dispersion and it is harder to concentrate the rounds. The cure is simple....get closer.

[Urchin]

If you are flying the 202 and thinking the 12.7mm are .50s, you are mistaken.  

I seem to recall that the C202 has somewhat less firepower than 1 .50 caliber, even with the 7.92's helping out.

[Brenjen]

I was flying yesterday in an F4U-D,attacked an F4U-D model, it pulled in a hard right turn I was above & to the right of it so it turned into my line of fire, I pulled the trigger @ around 450 yards & my convergence was set @ 425 yards, I raked it from the prop to the tail with about 100 rounds with the greatest majority of those rounds (I'd guess 60 or 70 of them) in the engine & cockpit. All 6 guns are set to the same convergence, & there was no hint of damage,no smoke,no pieces of plane coming off. And the pilot apparently never got wounded as the engagement took place a good 5 minutes from the nearest base,& he flew on dogfighting other people for 5 minutes after that. I say thats unrealistic.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by Urchin
If you are flying the 202 and thinking the 12.7mm are .50s, you are mistaken.  

I seem to recall that the C202 has somewhat less firepower than 1 .50 caliber, even with the 7.92's helping out.

*cough*BS*cough*



12.7mm is same caliber as 50cal. From *MY* observations they hit about the same too.

And no, the total 4 gun package on the 202 is way better than a single 50cal. If you take the 2 gun package (2x12.7mm) you're just about as effective as any 2x50cal plane. Like hte P40B firing only the 50s. Or the SBD. They're nearly idential in punch. At least in AH. In real life it was different. But then the gunnery hits in AH aren't like in real life, now are they?

[Krusty]

Originally posted by Brenjen
I was flying yesterday in an F4U-D,attacked an F4U-D model, it pulled in a hard right turn I was above & to the right of it so it turned into my line of fire, I pulled the trigger @ around 450 yards & my convergence was set @ 425 yards, I raked it from the prop to the tail with about 100 rounds with the greatest majority of those rounds (I'd guess 60 or 70 of them) in the engine & cockpit. All 6 guns are set to the same convergence, & there was no hint of damage,no smoke,no pieces of plane coming off. And the pilot apparently never got wounded as the engagement took place a good 5 minutes from the nearest base,& he flew on dogfighting other people for 5 minutes after that. I say thats unrealistic.

That could have been a couple of things... Rubber bullets or bad luck.

I've done that too, but it's not too common. Heck I've done it with 20mms and the plane lived with no damage!

But the thing is that you need a good rear aspect hit. The high angle slashing snapshots don't work because the target is moving so fast that even if your convergence is set and he's at range, that he's zipping through the shots so that they spread out (bullets going in 1 place, but plane moving through them, so a hit on the cowl, a hit on the prop, a hit on the oil, a hit on the wing roots, a hit on the cockpit, a hit on the fuselage, a hit on the tail, etc etc... a lot of single hits, not enough to make nay 1 system fail)

[straffo]

Originally posted by Krusty
*cough*BS*cough*



12.7mm is same caliber as 50cal. From *MY* observations they hit about the same too.

And no, the total 4 gun package on the 202 is way better than a single 50cal. If you take the 2 gun package (2x12.7mm) you're just about as effective as any 2x50cal plane. Like hte P40B firing only the 50s. Or the SBD. They're nearly idential in punch. At least in AH. In real life it was different. But then the gunnery hits in AH aren't like in real life, now are they?

Perhaps BS  I remember reading somewher some italian 12.7 were filled with HE
But I remeber also that even with HE this gun was said inefficient.

[Ghosth]

Brenjen
" I raked it from the prop to the tail with about 100 rounds"

There is your problem right there. Yes you probably sparked that plane up like a christmas tree. The problem is you need all those rounds in 1 spot to cause a major part to fail.

As to his not having a pilot wound, you can't prove that either way.

If you'd been able to put that same 100 rounds into one spot on his wingtip at convergience. You'd of likely seen a different outcome entirely.

.50's are NOT cannons, they don't explode, they puncture.  Whats more scattering your rounds from prop to tail scatters the damage.

Last, while mg's can certainly hit at that range its not idea for damage.
Take a page out of the .303 book.

At 400 yards you can light up a bogey with .303's virtually all day for little or no damage. At 150 yards they saw wings off with a short burst.

[SKJohn]

Originally posted by Brenjen
And if i'm not mistaken the .50 cal rounds were a mixture of high explosive,armour piercing & tracers when loaded in the anti-aircraft role something like 3-5 H.E. to each A.P. & tracer. Someone please correct me if I am mistaken.

I seem to recall reading (I think it was Bud Anderson's book) that the US .50 calibers were loaded with A.P.I. (armor piercing incindiery) ammo that was not different types of ammo, but a special roound that combined the effects of all into one round.  Also, that it gave very bright hit sprites when it connected.

On a different note, was watching the history channel the other night, a show about bombing in WWII.  If I'm not mistaken, I heard the show say that the P-51 was armed with 6, 50MM machine guns!  Wouldn't 50mm be about .160 caliber, or the equivalent of 2 and a half 20mm's?  What firepower! Buff killer extraoridinaire!

[Schutt]

Hits only slightly harder than .303?

Well take a spit1 with 8 .303 and a P47 with 8 .50 .

Try hitting a b24 at 400yards, and after that tell me again that there is little diffrence. I would say .50 has at least 3 times the hitting power.

[bustr]

Sounds like he's not firing his .50's at convergence range with enough time on target. All my jugs are set to 325d convergence, and I fire between 200-400 1 second burst. I saw the wings off Lancasters and B17's. Spits kinda dissassemble themselves and flutter away in peices..........

A side note, with AH2 I've reduced all my convergence on aircraft to 350-225 depending on the plane and just get really close to shoot. Works better.

[SkyLab]

Originally posted by SKJohn

On a different note, was watching the history channel the other night, a show about bombing in WWII.  If I'm not mistaken, I heard the show say that the P-51 was armed with 6, 50MM machine guns!  Wouldn't 50mm be about .160 caliber, or the equivalent of 2 and a half 20mm's?  What firepower! Buff killer extraoridinaire!

The Military Channel once claimed the P-51D had "devastating firepower from it's eight  .50 cal machine guns

That would be nice.