What are primary and secondary weapons?

[Fry]

I know, dweeb question, but I'm new to AH and am wondering about this.  If I'm flying a Spit and have machine guns AND cannons, are machine guns primary and cannons secondary?  What about a F6?  Will primary fire ALL 6 machine guns and if I choose BOTH, will it fire all guns and drop a bomb?  Is the order  something like this:

machine guns
cannons
bombs

Meaning if I don't have cannons, would a bomb release would be my secondary weapon?

If so, this could be confusing for setting up my firing buttons whereas I'd rather not have a BOTH button (for a/c that have machine guns and cannons) and while flying an all machine gun a/c and see myself firing all my guns AND dropping my bomb, hehe. Maybe 2 profiles would be required...

Thanks!

[OOZ662]

Cannons, rockets, bombs, and drop tanks are almost always the seconary weapon. On planes that don't have cannons, the MGs are split into two "weapons." If you're flying something like a Niki or HurriIIC that has all cannons, half are Primary and half are Secondary.

EDIT: Hey, check it out, all three lines start with "cannons"

[Fry]

Cannons LOL!  
Cannons I see.  So individual mapping profiles are needed depending on the weapon arrangement.  Is there a Cannons website that shows which weapons are primary and secondary on specific a/c?

Cannons Thanks!

Cannons Holy sheit!  Look...all of mine also start with Cannons

[RTR]

Here's a tip, use it or not. Just what I do.

I set all my weapons to fire (or drop) off of my trigger. Just one button to worry about.

When dropping ord or fuel tanks I lose a couple of rounds of ammo, but only a couple.

I prefer that my MG and cannon fire at the same time. Less hassle, and once you have your convergence figured out, and the range at which you are most effective, you have considerable fire-power at your disposal.

Flying BUff's same thing. Bombs go with a pull of the trigger.

cheers,
RTR

[Fry]

Good point.  I didn't think about that, but I like it.  I may just do that and when I get around to it, noting which planes need a different configuration and eventually go with that.

Thanks for the tip, RTR.

[OOZ662]

The X45's strong point, for me, is that it has two "triggers." I pull the top one for primary and the bottom one for secondary. That way, I pull both and both fire.

[fuzeman]

I did like having buttons for all three fire options, but thats me
There is no convention or rule as far as what gun is what. For example the F4U-1D and the P-51D both have a 6x.50 gun package, however the 51s primary set of .50s is the inboard pair whereas the F4U's primary set is the outboard pair. Its a good idea to goto the Training arena or offline just to familarize yourself with your favorite rides gun packages. Doesn't cost but a few rounds so you can do it in the MA if your not stat consious.

[Schatzi]

Primary: primary weapon - duh!

Secondary: secondary weapon, bombs, rocket and/or drop tank - they can be swiched with backspace.

The who is who (cannon, MG) is already covered .

One note on firing both: on a plane with one type of gun IMHO its better to fire all at once. You go through the ammo faster, but *when* you hit you do considerable more damage. Sometimes, when its not a good shot (for ex 'spook' someone into turning from d800) i only fire one weapon to save ammo.

Planes with two different gun types, for example Spit, i think its better to fire them seperatly. Since the MGs and the canon have a very different ballistic, even at the same convergence they wont hit both at the same time except in very close (

[Schutt]

Fire, look which ammo counter goes down, thats the weapon fired.

Check in hangar which wepon ha how much ammo, then find the corresponding value on the ammo counter to see which counter is which weapon.

With this two tasks you can figure it out.

Spit: MGs primary, canon secondary.

Mostly the more ammo gun is primary.

Also works to look at the wing which guns loosen ammo when you fire, so you can see which gun is triggerd by which trigger. Then you can find out which gun is which line in the convergence setting.

Generally fireing all guns with one trigger might work out in some planes but in most its a bad idea. It works ok on planes with equal ammo load on all guns and equal guns.

It also works good on planes that have all guns in the nose.

Its pretty bad on planes that have lots of ammo in one pairs and few in the other pair, in this case you want to use the ammo rich guns for pings, sure shots and straffing and keep the few ammo guns so you can fire with all guns on snapshots or when you need max damage.

Its bad on planes that have verry diffrent guns, since you tend to hit with the light guns, see the pings and keep shooting at this lead/direction. BUT you miss with the canons, which would actually do the damage.
Or you shoot all guns at big distance, where the chance to hit with the canons is slim, but you waste the ammo.

When you have more than one secondary, like rockets, bombs,droptanks etc. you can cycle through the secondary weaps with backspace key and fire them off with secondary gun button. Primary gun always stays the same, other cycles between gun/rocket/bombs/droptank when they are on the plane.

You can not fire primary and secondary and rocket at the same time.

[Iceman24]

Planes with two different gun types, for example Spit, i think its better to fire them seperatly. Since the MGs and the canon have a very different ballistic, even at the same convergence they wont hit both at the same time except in very close (


I am in total agreement here, if using 2 diff gun types I would recommend only firing 1 at a time, as the cannons and MG's have diff ballistics, also you can use your MG's to range, once you start seeing pings from your MG's put a few cannons out there with a lil extra lead. IMHO thats the best way to do it.

[Fry]

That's interesting.  So you're saying that even though I may have my machine guns and cannons set to 400yds convergence, the cannons converge horizontally at 400yds, but not vertically where they actually hit a bit lower that machine guns at 400yds?

That poses the question on those a/c that have ONLY cannons, does one just have to lead the target a bit more in anticipation of a lower convergence point?

I would think that my online "mechanic" would account for such a cannon drop and have them converge properly at 400yds;)

I think I'm going to have to re-think the "file both" solution that I considered earlier;)

[fuzeman]

Your convergence point should take into account the horizontal and vertical aspects of the trajectory. If an mg and a cannon have the same convergence they should hit the same point.
Before and after that point they will have slightly different ballistics and trajectories.

[Schutt]

I did not talk about convergence.

I said when you hit with mgs you probably dont hit with canons at the same time, the other way round pretty similar.

The reason is that due to the diffrent speed of the projectile one needs you to pull more lead than the other.

Another try: The bullets need time to travel to the target. During that time the target moves. Thats why you shoot at the point where you expect the target to be when the bullets have traveld the distance to the target. Slower bullits need more time, you need to aim at another point.

Now, when you have all weapons  set to the same convergence point and fire at that convergence at a stationary target you would hit with all weapons. But most times the target moves. So what you want is to fire at convergence at a target that is there once your bullet is there. But, when the slower bullet arrives, considering the first bullet was right, the target has moved away.

The next thing, that fuzeman pointed out is a diffrence in trajectory. So when you want to hit a stationary target that is not at your convergence point, since the bullits travel diffrent ways, you would have to aim at a diffrent altitude for the diffrent guns. This is a verry slim margin, but together with the already mentioned other problem it doesnt make it better.


Anyways... when you fire at big targets, stationary targets or just hope that out of the sheer amount of lead something will hit all guns is not a bad option. Also verry close in you can fire and hit with all guns no problem. I sometimes fire all guns on attacking bombers.

But against fighters:
1. its hard to get all guns to hit.
2. when i hit with my canon the fighter is dead or disabled anyway
3. i dont waste canon on spray shots.

So i only fire one gun type at a time against fighters and gvs.

planes with same weapons primary and secondary it makes sense to fire both at a time, but i like to have it as option not always.

[Fry]

Thanks for clearing that up, Schutt.  Now things make sense and I probably will separate my trigger preferences....and start a list of what a/c has what:)

[Schatzi]

Regarding different Aircrafts.

When i started flying - after a few days of getting a taste of everything -  i settled onto one or two planes that i tried to learn inside out. Their guns, their speeds, their turning abilities, their prefered tactic, their loop handling, their stall handling their... you get the picture. When i felt comfortable, i went on to the next. Now, after one year, at the beginning of each tour i 'choose' a main ride i want to learn that tour. That doesnt mean i dont fly anything else, but its my most flown.

This saved me from having to 'learn' all planes and their abilities and perks all at once, in theory. But it also means that now there are few planes im good in, some im decent and the rest... oh well . (this doesnt mean i cant take off a given plane and fly it, maybe even get a kill or two in it, but i dont know its particularities or strenght/weakness).


But its always important to know your enemy and his strenght/weakness, so a short overview on all planes is always a good thing.