.50 cal's

[Kweassa]

Mando, that's not a lethality issue.

 It's a damage depiction issue.

 Closely related, but still different things.

[pellik]

If you want to see how hard 50s can hit try the 50s in the P38 or A20. Cowl mounted 50s rip things apart almost as well as 20mm. Aside from very very brief snapshots I don't even notice a difference in firepower when my 38 is out of cannon rounds.

[Brenjen]

Originally posted by Karnak
Really?  Do tell.

Methinks you need to brush up a bit on your WWII aviation knowledge.  You will find that a convergence of over 300 yards is very rare, typically the domain of an unblooded air force.

 Have you ever fired a .50? Have you ever read anything about the sabre on mig fights over Korea? Same .50 cal. round doing damage at much greater ranges than it's getting credit for here. I would like to hear from some people who have fired .50's in anger about the capabilities of the round. But I made this post simply for the AHII staff to give it a look & decide if it merited any adjustment,not to start an argument over. To all of you I say thanks for the suggestions on what to do to cure the original situation.

[Blammo]

Originally posted by Brenjen
Have you ever fired a .50? Have you ever read anything about the sabre on mig fights over Korea? Same .50 cal. round doing damage at much greater ranges than it's getting credit for here. I would like to hear from some people who have fired .50's in anger about the capabilities of the round. But I made this post simply for the AHII staff to give it a look & decide if it merited any adjustment,not to start an argument over. To all of you I say thanks for the suggestions on what to do to cure the original situation.

While I have not fired the .50 from an A/C, I have fired them when I was in the Army.  I agree that they are fearsome rounds.  However, you cannot compare the Korea (Sabre vs MiG) to WWII (say, 51 vs F4U).  Yes, the round and the HMG are essentially the same, but:

1)  The Sabre had all six brownings mounted in the nose.  This allowed for an automatic tight shot group and good converenge.  From the muzzles the rounds were never more than a foot to two feet apart (IIRC).  If you wanted to compare the P-38 with the Sabre, that would be closer, but...

2)  Korea saw better gunsight.  WWII began showing some improved gunsights, but the majority were static reflector sights (IIRC) and did no predicting or compensation (for maneuvers, etc).  In Korea, particularly with he Sabre, we began to use much improved predicting and compensating sights.

While I agree that the .50 cal seems to be a different beast in AH2 as opposed to AH1, it is still a beast.  I am not saying what you saw was not demonstrative of a greater problem, but I am saying that you may not have best employed your weapons for the situation you found yourself in.

If you fly MG planes I would recommend doing a lot more filming so you can review questionable events like this for yourself.

Cheers!

[Karnak]

Originally posted by Brenjen
Have you ever fired a .50? Have you ever read anything about the sabre on mig fights over Korea? Same .50 cal. round doing damage at much greater ranges than it's getting credit for here. I would like to hear from some people who have fired .50's in anger about the capabilities of the round. But I made this post simply for the AHII staff to give it a look & decide if it merited any adjustment,not to start an argument over. To all of you I say thanks for the suggestions on what to do to cure the original situation.

Have you ever read about WWII convergence settings?

From your comments thus far I have to say that you have not as you are so completely oblivious to what the reality was to be claiming that what was done is "unrealistic".

Do you understand ballistics?  Do you understand bullet travel time?  Do you understand hitting relatively small, fast moving objects in an environment in which the firing solution changes constantly and rapidly?  Do you understand the dispersion on aircraft mounted guns?  Do you understand how much harder 20mm cannons hit in reality?


Your comments in this thread indicate that your answer would have to be "no" to at least some of those questions and that you lack the knowledge to know which.

[Don]

>>Mando, that's not a lethality issue.

It's a damage depiction issue.

Closely related, but still different things.<<

May be but, how are they modelled in the game?
Do ya know, do ya know, do ya know?

[Kweassa]

Do ya know, do ya know, do ya know?

 I don't think anyone really knows, but I do think there's a consensus on what it may be like, based upon what we've experienced during the years.

1) Some internal components of the aircraft, seem to be modelled, albeit in a simplified form. The engine, cockpit, pilot, fuel tanks, oil cans.. etc..

2) However, the rest of the plane seems to receive damage upon direct impact to its surface. Damge to the wings and fuselage are registered upon its surface.

3) But the vital internal components which resides within those surfaces, does not seem to be modelled. Spars, struts, flight surface controls(rod/cable), ammo box, etc..

4) AH DM is "All-or-Nothing". There is no intermediate level of damage. If a certain amount of total damage is not reached, the area which was hit does not show any sign of damage. However, if that certain amount is reached, the area is totally 'destroyed'.

 ...

 What Mando points out is valid. I've rarely seen any USAAF/USN footage of .50 rounds actually causing structural failure itself.

* Most of the lethalities caused by .50s documented in guncams are due to fire.

* The few cases I've seen where wings snap off show tell-tale signs of explosions of the ammo box in the wingroots of the target plane. Or, after a prolonged local fire at the wing area which 'ate away' the support structures and thus caused it to fail.

* In other cases, the pilot bails out of what seems to be a structurally sound(at least, visually unconfirmed) plane. It is highly probable that the pilot found the plane uncontrollable, and thus, bailed - which indicates internal controls messed up by concentrated .50 fire. But the structure of the plane does not fail.

 
 The .50 round is a high velocity AP/API, and its incendiary component is severly insufficient to cause any real explosive effect. "Sawing" a wing off with .50s would be something akin to trying to snap a wooden plank with drills.

 However, AH registers damage upon surface impact, and that damage is applied directly to the same surface. So, if a certain number of hits are registered at the wingroot, the wingroot will just fall off. Kills in AH are in vast majority caused by structural failures.

 If internal DM was more complex, .50s would have a noticeably different effect in the game. You'd rarely be able to snap off a wing with .50s, but the probability of disabling the target plane's controls, or causing damage would become higher.

[tactic]

Well,... there is some people in this game  I would not want  on my 6,  with any thing that has a projectal,... , just because they know where and how to shoot.  I dont care if they were shooting at me with a BB gun.  <-- single shot- pump action!! at that!

 Matter of fact with some of these guys, shooting at me with a freaking sling shot in there hand  while leaning out the cockpit would scare the hell outa me!    

Dennis the menace has nothing on them!!!!   Oh and you guys know who you are!!   I should be on your do not  kill list!!

hehe!  

[Elyeh]

http://www.olive-drab.com/od_firearms_ammo_50cal.php

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~frontacs/WBStored/TombonGunsandDamage.html

[Brenjen]

The last link supported my belief the .50 rounds should have destroyed the target. He was in exactly the right spot starting at 450yds & exiting at around 375yds with my conv. set at 425yds & nearly 100 rounds in his engine, cockpit & wing roots. I have a .50 cal round in my hand as I write this, if the human body got hit with even 1 (one) of these rounds it would be dead, forget the other 99. I would not have started this thread if it hadn't happened several times before. It was merely for H.T.C. to double check the model for the .50 which I still believe is weaker than it should be. I now bow to all the "experts" who think it's fine the way it is. Goodbye & happy game play.

 P.S.  My M-14 hits hard at 1,000 yards & is accurate & it's only a .308. I can't see far enough to fire the .50 cal. No hard feelings either way,it's just a game. Long live Ma-Duece.

[SlapShot]

Originally posted by MANDO
About .50 lethality, I see no way to cut the wing of a B24 with them in RL, here with a P47 you can easily cut the entire B24 in half with 2 second burst. In RL .50s may have been good to damage systems, kill pilots and to start fires, but they were too weak to cause catastrofic structural damage. Here you can cut whatever you want with them.

The History channel showed the "Flying Misfits" last night ... the pilot film for the series "Baa Baa Blacksheep" staring Robert Conrad.

Before going to commercial, they had short snippet interviews with some of the actual Blacksheep pilots.

One of the pilots said and I quote ... "six .50 caliber machine guns could rip a boxcar in half at 800 yards". I don't believe for a second that this guys was streching the truth and spoke from actual experience.

With that ... I can see a Corsair easily cutting a B-24 wing in half with no problem. Had I not heard this guy say that ... I might have agreed with you.

I too believe than in some instances, the .50 in AH is too enemic, but in other instances ... it slices and dices.  I just rack it up to programming anomolies that will forever be inherent in this game ... just part of the territory.

[bj229r]

my favorite planes to fly are P47 d11, F6 and 190A8--- the first 2 net me MANY assists, the last one mostly kills; On other hand, I Was 20k in B24's one day, saw a lone F6 diving on me (AHHH, HERE's that second kill I was looking for to complete the mission;)  the guy did 3 diving, right to left attacks, exploded or set afire 1 bomber on each of the three passes..I put a very few pings on him, no obvious effect--Im guessing that was that 200 yard thing yall were referring to earlier--woulda swore it was a cannon plane hitting me (was Icemaw, btw--very good pilot) If im driving a jug and I ever GET that close to someone, ill definitely pull trigger;

[MANDO]

Originally posted by SlapShot
"six .50 caliber machine guns could rip a boxcar in half at 800 yards".

Yes, with "surgery" aiming an lots, really lots of ammo and time, and, of course, from a still ground placement. I bet that pilot never cut anything with any kind of airborne MG, much less at 800 yards.

[stantond]

AH models 50 cal's with an 800 rounds/min rate of fire and 20mm's (hispando's) at 650 rounds/min.  Using Shaw as a reference, that provides a relative lethality of 15.9 for a 20mm cannon versus 6.4 for a 50 cal gun.  The cannons are over twice as lethal as 50 cal's.  I think that is reflected in AH.

When firing at convergence with all guns set at the same distance, 50 cal's are very effective.  A 2 second hit burst from 50 cal's (27 rounds) always causes noticable damage or downing of a plane.  From the above description of leathality that is the same as 11 cannon rounds.  



Regards,

Malta

[Kweassa]

2 seconds??? 2 seconds is a long time stan.

 A two seconds burst all connecting would even blow up a Lancaster or a B-17 in AH. For most fighters, under 1 second of full, concentrated hit is more than enough. Usually a half-second burst at right angle will damage something bad.