303's ....

[skernsk]

I am sure this has been discussed and argued about but I am wondering if these guns are modelled correctly.  I am no expert on guns, aircraft or making games.

After flying in the Battle of Britain scenario and emptying my 303's into Ju's and 109's with little or no effect I felt compelled to post about it.  With CT coming out I gotta say I aint looking forward to flying early war RAF birds with these pathetic guns.

So, here is my take.

50 cals at convergence take very few rounds to saw a wing off.  303 rounds at convergence MIGHT put a hole in the wing but won't even take off an aileron.

Does anyone else feel these 303's need some tweaking?

[Stang]

Yes.  Take 8 .303's and shoot them at something and see what happens to it.  Especially with the RoF they have.

[Golfer]

it's all about convergence there skernsk.

For me...I think 150 is as close as they get and that's what I use.  Fly right up behind the bad guy and let him have it from close range.

[Tony Williams]

How it's modelled in the sim I don't know, but THIS gives you a glimpse of RL.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by skernsk
Does anyone else feel these 303's need some tweaking?

Usually folks make the mistake of thinking that .303s should act like 20mm cannon or .50 MGs.  They don't.  After all, they are .30 caliber cartridges, almost the same as in your hunting rifle.

Set your convergence to 175.  Take no shot over 200.  Forget about snap shots.  But once you get on someone's six, and close up, .303s really chop the poor man to pieces.

- oldman

[skernsk]

I understand they are rifle calibre and not as heavy as a 50 cal.  And they are not even close to a 20mm so we won't even bring them up.

I guess for me, I looked at my film and had some shots right around the covergence (I set mine at 200) and the bloody plane didn't even lose a scrap of metal or smoke or nothing.

Like I said, I aint no expert, it just doesn't seem right.  I've seen BoB film and the plane is being torn by 303's.

[Krusty]

Aces high has an "all or nothing" damage model. You hit a part of the plane (say, the inner wing) and you do X damage. That part has a Y threshold for damage. When X is equal to or greater than Y that part falls off. Oh sure there's internal parts like gas tanks and whatnot, but that's the VERY basic description of it.

Historically there were lots of things to hit. Vital parts. No part of the airplane's wings or nose went un-used. Sometimes the tails had some room left, but not always. So historically when you shot at a plane you would:

1) scare the pilot, because he's being shot at and wants to live badly, and he will exit the fight and go home

2) damage important systems, like oil, gas, hydraulics, air equipment, fuel lines, control rods, instruments, you name it. If any part of the plane was damaged, chances are the pilot would run for home quickly.

3) .303 bullets do damage from kinetic energy. That is, they move real fast and smash into something. If they move slower, they don't smash as hard. This means if you fire at ranges above 200 yards, you lose a lot of the "punch" these guns had. Remember, they were historically fired at 150 yards or less, sometimes.

4) bombers in real life didn't "cruise" at full throttle, as they do in Aces High. AH has bomber speeds WAY too high, because nobody cruises. Historically they would cruise the entire time, because fuel was life, and ranges were not scaled down like AH has. Because they're going almost twice as fast, your attack on them has a slower relative closing rate. This means that if the enemy bomber were going 200mph and you dove in at 400mph, your bullets would do more damage (at the same range) than they would if the bomber were doing 300mph and you were doing 400mph. Less punch, diminished fire, and they're bombers so I'm guessing you opened fire at longer range.

All this means you get the feeling that these guns aren't doing anything. That's because, while they may be modeled accurately (who knows), they are NOT being used historically, so the results are not going to be the same. I like to think AH2 tries to be accurate, but not historic. That's part of the fun

[Kweassa]

It's actually combination of three related problems, skernsk.

* convergence issues
* the "all or nothing" DM
* easy gunnery

1. Convergence Issues
 The convergence problem is as described by many, including Mr. Tony Williams in his web article. The .303 are able to do meaningful damage in the game as well, but most often convergence issues are a probelm as the Spit1 and Hurr1 both equips the guns at the wings. Because the 30cal rounds are much weaker in destructive power than compared to the 50cals, the problem of "hitting distance" is pretty serious when flying those two planes. In other words, the shots must be fired at close ranges, all guns converged at target, in a concentrated stream of fire.

 If any of these three conditions are not met, than it is most likely you won't be able to shoot anything down.


2. DM problem
 The Damage Modelling problem is as Krusty mentioned. AH deals damage in "all or nothing" manner. A certain part functions to its 100% efficiency before it is destroyed. Your wing could be "1 bullet" away from being destroyed and yet it will function perfectly, whereas in real life the results could be very different.

 Due to the convergence problems stated above it is quite possible an enemy plane might not face immediate destruction despite prolonged exposure to 30cal fire. It is very possible that you "light up the enemy plane like Christmas tree" and he is still flying. However, the barrage of bullets SHOULD take its toll at some point. All those bullets landed might have missed a critical component absolutely necessary for flight, but it is bound to have hit something that at least effects the plane in some manner. The control cables, rods, internal spars, various engine components, not to mention the exterior skin of the plane being serious tattered and flimsy.. etc etc..

 All of this leads to loss of various performance, speed.. stability.. control effectiveness.. etc etc.. which will ultimately act in favor of the attacker, making it possible to finally land a "close range, all guns converged, concentrated stream of fire" as a coup-de-grace.

 However, there's no such thing in AH. Scrape the entire plane surface with a whole lot of bullets, and still if it is not enough to cause a structural damage, then the enemy plane flies fine.


3. Easy Gunnery

 This problem is not as much recognized as the previous two problems listed, but it also subtley effects the outcome.

 AH gunnery is easy - in terms of general hitting distance, that is. Shots fired from 300~400 yard ranges are common, and the probability of a killing blow landing on the plane is pretty high. Now, this is an improvement when compared with AH1 - which I remember to have a average "killing distance" of bout 500~600 yards. When you look behind and see an enemy plane at 500~600 yards you were practically dead in AH1. Nowadays this "killing distance" has been reduced to 200~400 yard ranges.

 However, this range is still much too long. The real life maximum distance where a kill may be obtained, has been estimated to 200m for a fighter, and 400m for a bomber, when flying straight and level. Yes, there are occasional "freak shots" happening sometimes even out to 1000yards, but commonplace reality is that you should be within at least 200 yards to be able to expect a kill by shooting at an enemy plane. and inside 100 yards, if he is maneuvering.

 Now, how does this involve the 30cal problem? It is because the 30cals are the only weapons that require a very close vicinity, which only then it will be able to land converged shots with enough destructive force to bring down a plane.  The 50cals and 20mms, do not require such distances in AH. You can spray with the 50cals or 20mms from 400~600 yards out and it will still bring a plane down. Yes, 50cals and 20mms are powerful enough to bring a plane down at those distances, but the frequency of such incidients happening is way too high in AH that it is considered a 'normal killing distance', when in reality it should be considered as a very far distance to try and bring down an enemy plane.

 Therefore, when you are armed with 30cals, you should fly within 200yards to expect a heavily grouped hit, but the same should also apply to 50cals and 20mms - it doesn't matter what weapon you are armed with in aerial combat. The reality is long distance shots just don't happen. 50cals and 20mms should also fly inside 200yards to be able to hit something - but this is not the case in AH, and therefore, the relative effectiveness between 30cals and 50cal/20mms are amplified to abnormal levels - 50cals/20mms are too effective over long distances.

[Stoney74]

Just expanding the question a little here, based on your post Kweassa, regarding easy gunnery.  Could you expound on that a little.  I know U.S. planes generally set their convergence at 300m and most of the aces say they quickly learned to not shoot beyond that range.  Some even say to get closer before the shot.  What's missing in AHII that makes the gunnery so much different?  Is there a way to accurately model that difference?

I always love that 1.0K 20mm shot that pops my wing off.

[HoHun]

Hi Tony,

>How it's modelled in the sim I don't know, but THIS gives you a glimpse of RL.

Interesting article!

Two comments: There were hardly any Me 109E-3 lost during the Battle of Britain, just a fair number of E-1 versions and a large number of E-4s. Conversion of the E-3s to E-4s seems to have been almost complete when the battle commenced.

And what does "in total muzzle energy there was nothing to choose between them" mean? (My knowledge of English seems to suggest that this is a way of saying "total muzzle energy was equal", but I'm not certain that's correct.) In terms of total muzzle energy, the 2x MG17 + 2x MG FF actually yielded about 2.5 times the firepower of 8x Browning 0.303 ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Krusty]

I read it as saying between the .303 and the 7.9mm rounds, muzzle velocity of the round was basically the same.

[Tony Williams]

Originally posted by HoHun
And what does "in total muzzle energy there was nothing to choose between them" mean? (My knowledge of English seems to suggest that this is a way of saying "total muzzle energy was equal", but I'm not certain that's correct.) In terms of total muzzle energy, the 2x MG17 + 2x MG FF actually yielded about 2.5 times the firepower of 8x Browning 0.303 ...
 

I was comparing the total kinetic energy delivered per second of firing.

Muzzle energy of one shot from a .303 was around 3,200 Joules, for a 7.92mm 4,000 J and for the 20x80RB 22,500 J.

Shots fired in one second: 8 x .303 = 160, x 3,200 = 512,000 J

(2 x 7.92mm = 33, x 4,000 = 132,000 J) + (2 x 20mm = 17, x 22,500 = 382,000) = 514,000 J

So, effectively no difference. Of course, as the article says, you then need to add the chemical energy of the projectile contents, which gives the cannon a big advantage.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

[Saxman]

I'd love to see stuff like shredding a guy's wing, even if it stays attached, leads to loss of lift and control because the airfoil is torn up.

[Charge]

"The Bf 109E-4, which entered service in May 1940 and was therefore the latest model used at the time of the BoB, introduced the MG-FFM cannon. "

Interesting, I wonder which cannon our E4 has?

-C+

PS. Check this out, some weird data here:

http://www.hoofsperformance.wwiionline.com/weapammo.htm

[HoHun]

Hi Tony,

>I was comparing the total kinetic energy delivered per second of firing.

Ah, I see! I had mentally pictured "total total" energy, which lead me to arrive at a different comparison :-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)