Author Topic: Thoughts on .50 cals.  (Read 2259 times)

Offline Delirium

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 7276
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #15 on: July 11, 2005, 07:18:14 AM »
For me, the only difference between my P38 with and without cannon is the ability to knock down someone with less than a 1 second snapshot when they reverse and attempt to manuver out of plane.

Shooting at horizontal turning bandits, I don't see a difference...

The big difference between cannon and non cannon equipped aircraft is being able to cause critical damage at range, and to be able to knock down ack or some other ground structure.
Delirium
80th "Headhunters"
Retired AH Trainer (but still teach the P38 selectively)

I found an air leak in my inflatable sheep and plugged the hole! Honest!

Offline Midnight

  • Silver Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1809
      • http://www.brauncomustangs.org
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #16 on: July 11, 2005, 11:09:31 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by Hoarach
I dont always shred planes with the 38s 4x50s because ive put a good 500 rounds into some planes and they dont go down.


You may have fired 500 rounds, but you certainly didn't hit with 500 rounds.

If you hit at convergence or close to it, a 1/2 second burst with 6x .50s will kill just about anything that flies in AH.

Offline DamnedRen

  • Persona Non Grata
  • Gold Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2164
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #17 on: July 11, 2005, 11:28:25 AM »
Midnight,

I disagree. It USED to take 1/2 second burst on target with .50's do get the job done. Now its a full second, unloaded.

______________
Ren
The Damned

Offline monteini

  • Zinc Member
  • *
  • Posts: 82
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #18 on: July 11, 2005, 11:37:26 AM »
Try taking down ack with 50's compared to 20mm cannons, If im going to take down ack off of a cv I will deffinatly take a zero or spit over the f4u or f6f, it only takes one quick burst with the cannon but consentrated hits with the .50.  Forget about the science, its the way it is in the game.

Nick

Offline JB73

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8780
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #19 on: July 11, 2005, 11:43:15 AM »
Quote
Originally posted by monteini
Try taking down ack with 50's compared to 20mm cannons, If im going to take down ack off of a cv I will deffinatly take a zero or spit over the f4u or f6f, it only takes one quick burst with the cannon but consentrated hits with the .50.  Forget about the science, its the way it is in the game.

Nick
that is because with the MG rounds you have to physically hit the gun, where with cannons, the gun takes damage from the explosion that happens close to the field gun
I don't know what to put here yet.

Offline monteini

  • Zinc Member
  • *
  • Posts: 82
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #20 on: July 11, 2005, 11:47:46 AM »
Thanks,

I was wondering why it was so easy to kill acks with the 20mm.

Nick

Offline killnu

  • Gold Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3056
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #21 on: July 11, 2005, 11:47:57 AM »
Quote
You may have fired 500 rounds, but you certainly didn't hit with 500 rounds.


when referring to the P38 as he was...there is no convergence issue to worry about...now he may not of hit all 500, but not due to convergence setting.
Karma, it follows you every where you go...

++The Blue Knights++

Offline Wilbus

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 4472
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #22 on: July 11, 2005, 11:57:33 AM »
Quote
I disagree. It USED to take 1/2 second burst on target with .50's do get the job done. Now its a full second, unloaded.


I disagree. I usually kill people in a quick snapshot while just using the 50 cals in the P38. That is even less then half a second burst.
Full second will just about shred em apart in more then one place or blow em up right away.
Rasmus "Wilbus" Mattsson

Liberating Livestock since 1998, recently returned from a 5 year Sheep-care training camp.

Offline Kweassa

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6425
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #23 on: July 11, 2005, 12:00:44 PM »
Quote
Try taking down ack with 50's compared to 20mm cannons, If im going to take down ack off of a cv I will deffinatly take a zero or spit over the f4u or f6f, it only takes one quick burst with the cannon but consentrated hits with the .50. Forget about the science, its the way it is in the game.


 It takes five .50 rounds to knock down ack, in normal setting.

 Basically, planes with wing armed MGs suck in getting hits to teeney weeney targets.


 Try taking up a SBD or a TBM - these have only 2x .50s, but it's still easier to kill acks with these planes than a F4U or a F6F.

 Cowl armament rocks!

Offline Hornet

  • Nickel Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 469
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #24 on: July 11, 2005, 12:06:47 PM »
50's are the best weapon system in the game. P51B is a great case in point, 4 wingmounted 50s will clip off tails, or wings with regularity when fired at convergence.

the problem is the 50s are so good it lures people into taking shots they normally wouldnt take with a different gun.
Hornet

Offline Kweassa

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6425
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #25 on: July 11, 2005, 12:10:22 PM »
Quote
when referring to the P38 as he was...there is no convergence issue to worry about...now he may not of hit all 500, but not due to convergence setting.


 Well, it's not hard to tell that he is exaggerating both the number of rounds fired, and number of rounds landed.

 The M2 Browning 50cal in AH is set up 800rpm - 0.075 seconds are required for each round fired.

 If he fired 500 rounds from four guns mounted on the P-38, he fired 125 rounds from each gun, which means he was holding down the trigger for roughly 9 or more seconds. (9.375 secs)


 Shoot at a plane for 9 seconds, and still it doesn't go down?

 Right....
« Last Edit: July 11, 2005, 12:14:52 PM by Kweassa »

Offline JB73

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8780
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #26 on: July 11, 2005, 12:18:33 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Kweassa
Shoot at a plane for 9 seconds, and still it doesn't go down?

 Right....
i do that all the time, most every night, all types of guns ; (
I don't know what to put here yet.

Offline Bullethead

  • Silver Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1018
      • http://people.delphiforums.com/jtweller
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #27 on: July 11, 2005, 01:16:21 PM »
I have a very interesting book which every AHer would do well to read.  Maybe you'll agree with its conclusions, maybe you won't, but you can't deny it's got a lot of excellent data.  The book is:

Flying Guns:  The Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition, and Installations 1933-45, by Emmanuel Gustin and Anthony G. Williams, Airlife Publishing Ltd, 2003, ISBN 1-84037-227-3.

Anyway, as the title implies, this book covers all the aspects, not just the guns themselves but also their ammo, which was at least as important, as well as how they were mounted.  It's got real convergence settings for a lot of common AH planes, too.  Besides describing the weapons and ammo, it also draws on a lot of contemporary test results which compared the effectiveness of various guns and their different types of ammo against targets such as standard self-sealing fuel tanks inside aircraft structures at different ranges, armor penetration at different angles, etc.

At the end of the book, there's an appendix where the authors present their opinions about the relative effectiveness of typical standard gun/ammo combos (because the ammo had such a big effect on what a given gun could do).   They even say, "The comparative effectiveness of fighter guns in the Second World War is a subject of perennial fascination (and a great deal of argument) among technical military historians and, in particular combat sim designers and players."

To cut to the chase, the authors crunched the numbers in a way that combines kinetic engergy and ammo chemical energy for a given gun/ammo combo into a unitless coefficient, which can then be compared with the values derived for other weapons.  They also arranged their system so that .30cal ball ammo has a coefficient of 1, so it can be used as a baseline for everything else.  Interestingly, the authors' formula uses momentum instead of kinetic energy, because in their opinion squaring the velocity overstates its potential to cause damage.  Most of the target planes were sheet metal, so extra speed just made a neater hole instead of causing more damage.  The velocity was only really important for armor penetration, which is something of a special case on most targets.

Anyway, under the authors' system, things rank as follows:

POWER PER "AVERAGE" ROUND
Takes standard ammo belt composition into account

All .30-ish ball, AP, and I:  1  (.303, .30, 7.9, etc.)
12.7x81SR  AP and HE:  3  (Breda-Safat, Ho-103)
13x64B  AP and HE:    3  (MG131 and IJN 13mm Type 2)          
12.7x99 API:        4.5 (US M2)
12.7x108 API/52:  6  (UB Beresin)
15x96 AP and HE:  7 (MG 151)
20x94 HE and AP:  10  (Ho-5)
20x72RB HE:   12 (MG FF and Type 99-1)
20x99R:  13 (ShVAK and B-20)
20x80RB HEIT and HE(M):  15  (MG FFM)
20x101RB HE:  15 (Type 99-2)
20x82 HET and HE(M):  17 (MG 151/20)
20x125 HE:  18 (Ho-1, Ho-3)
20x110 HE (Mk II and V):  20 (Brit and US Hispanos)
23x152B API and HE:  26 (VYa)
30x90RB HE(M):  58 (MK 108)
37x195 HE:  106 (NS-37)

GUN POWER
Using above standardized ammo combined with guns' stats, such as ROF.  All guns rated on UNsynchronized ROF.  The authors note that synchronization reductions in ROF varied considerably from about -10% for German electric primers to between -20% to -40% for other systems.  The authors give the synchronized ROF for the 12.7 UB, so I've added numbers after the / for synchronized mountings using -10% for German 20mm and -20% for everything else (some of which is unnecessary because some guns weren't synchronized, but WTF?).

.30-ish MGs:  21/17
Breda-Safat:  36/29  
MG 131:  45/41
Ho-103:  45/36
.50 M2:  58/46
12.7UB:  102/78
MG 151:  84/76
Type 99-1:  96/78
MG-FF:  120/96
Type 99-2:  120/96
Ho-1 and -3:  126/100
Ho-5:  140/112
ShVAK and B-20:  169/135
Hispano Mk II:  200/160
MG 151/20:  204/184
VYa:  234/208
Hispano Mk V:  240/192
NS-37:  424/340
MK 108:  580/522

It's nice to see the 151/20 and the Hiso2 are about equal in destructiveness, which is supported by the contemporary test data.  Basically, the higher velocity of the Hiso was countered by the larger explosive content of the 151/20.  So this gives me a bit of confidence in what is obviously a somewhat subjective subject.

The authors take this 1 step further and give a "power-to-weight" ratio, taking into account the weight of the gun and its ammo, to come to an overall efficiency rating for each gun.  But that's beyond this argument.

SAMPLE AH PLANE FIREPOWER RANKING
My own creation, based on the above data.  This is PER SECOND and AT CONVERGENCE RANGE.  The different ballistics of some gun combos on some planes made it harder to get good convergence, and the "sweet spot" was smaller than for more homogenous armaments.

Brit 8x.303:  168
P-40B:  176
A6M2:  226
US 4x.50 (51B, F4F):  232
Bf 109F (1x20mm):  238
La-5:  270
Bf 109E:  274
A6M5:  274
Bf 109G6 (1x20mm):  286
Ki-61:  314
Bf 110C:  324
Yak-9U:  325
US 6x.50 (51D, F6F, Dhog):  348
Ki-84:  352
La-7 (3x20mm):  405
P-38:  432
FW D9:  450
P-47 (8x.50):  464
C.205:  466
N1K2-J:  480
Spit 5:  484
Yak-9T:  502
Il-2M:  510
Spit 9 (2x.50):  516
FW A5 (4x20mm):  642
Bf 109G6 (1x30mm):  662
Typhoon, Hurri IIC, Chog:  800
FW A8 (4x20mm):  858
Mossie:  884
Ta-152H:  948
Tempest:  960
Me 163:  1160
Bf 110G (2x20mm):  1568
FW A8 (2x30mm):  1610
Bf 110G2 (4x20mm):  1976
Me 262:  2320

So, to get back to the start of this thread, 6x.50s, according to this way of looking at things, was a bit weak by European standards, in terms of max potential damage per second.  It was better than the anemic guns of the early-war rides, but not quite into the spit and FW class.  Still, it wasn't THAT much worse, and the ballistics made for decent accuracy over a fairly long range, plus good convergence from all the guns being the same type.  Thus, I feel it was probably easier to get the most out of 6x.50s than it was with the mixed gun types on planes with more powerful armament on paper.  This would go some way towards redressing the apparent US weakness.  Still, unless you're packing multiple cannon, or a 30mm, you don't have that much firepower.

Of course, I have NO IDEA how HTC models all these guns, and whether or not the above is even close to HTC's method.  But at least it puts things in perspective.

Offline dedalos

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8052
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #28 on: July 11, 2005, 01:22:21 PM »
ok, this whole ack killing with 2 20mms that don't even hit the target is kind of fubar (no offence fubie :D ).  You guys want me to believe that 2 20mms (cause that is all it takes) hiting 5 or more feet away from the ack gun will totaly desable it and make it explode?  Then you have the case where a plane can take 2 or more 20s on a wing and have no damage?  Not saing that it should or shouldn't but if 20s can kill a gun by exploding 5 feet away well, you can emagine what they can do to a wing.

Wana have some fun?
Go in the DA with a friend.  Get as close as you cant to his plane and fire your 20s.  You will die while he flyins away with no major damage.

Land with your gear up.  Fires a small burst of 20s on the runway and you can get to the tower without having to end flight.

I don;t know what the hitting power of a 20 or 50 should be, but ammo seems to have some issues.  Fits in perfectly.
Quote from: 2bighorn on December 15, 2010 at 03:46:18 PM
Dedalos pretty much ruined DA.

Offline Soulyss

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6559
      • Aces High Events
Thoughts on .50 cals.
« Reply #29 on: July 11, 2005, 01:29:11 PM »
I haven't noticed a difference from AH1 to now in terms of the hitting power of .50 cals... what I think might be going on the perception has changed because of how the icon system works now.  Before you new exactly what range you were firing at.  Now it's broken down into 200 yard incriments... if your convergence is at 300 or anything but 200 or 400 you're basically guessing your range.  You can get close by measuring the closer rates but at best it's still an educated guess.  I think that have something to do with the "lesser" power of the .50's that I hear about every so often.  If I take that into consideration I haven't noticed a difference and I fly the hellcat 99% of the time it seems.
80th FS "Headhunters"
I blame mir.