Bigs Guns Vs. Ammo count

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by BaldEagl
You're all are forgetting a couple of key points here.  Those being ballistics and gun placement.  Gun size and ammo count are only part of the total package.

Ballistics make a big difference in your gunning accuracy.  I fly about every type of aircraft every camp and jumping between the various gun packages I have to constantly remember to adjust my aim (or in some cases my convergences so that I can maintain my aim points).

Jumping between center mounted and wing guns also affects accuracy.  Oddly, I personally have a more difficult time with center mounted guns (hub or cowl) than wing mounted guns, often having to bring convergences in on center mounted guns (just the opposite of what I would expect).

In general, I find I have to set convergences shorter in Japanese and Russian planes than in any others.

Now on to your question.  I prefer cannons to load-out in general but don't have a problem with any of the gun packages in the game.  Even the 8 .303's on the Hurri I or the 2 .50's on the P-51B or FM2 are deadly if brought to bear and accuracy will make any gun package go a long way (not that I'm nessesarily accurate).  As examples I've landed 5 kills in a Yak-9U before (120 rounds of 20mm) and the other night I landed 6 kills in a N1K2 having used only 150 of 400 rounds of 20mm.  Likewise, I've landed 3 buff kills (B-26's) in a Hurri I and sawed the wings off of B-24's in an FM2.

I will say that the 8 .50's on the Jugs are about as deadly as any cannoned plane except maybe the FW190A-8 or the BF110-G2.

If your aim sucks to begin with, the wall of text is useless.

[BaldEagl]

Originally posted by Masherbrum
If your aim sucks to begin with, the wall of text is useless.

Thanks Karaya, I knew I could count on you.

That may be but it's still 405th best in the arenas right now after losing almost 100 positions last night... and this coming from a guy who's gunnery is 583rd.

[Lusche]

Originally posted by BaldEagl
That may be but it's still 405th best in the arenas right now after losing almost 100 positions last night... and this coming from a guy who's gunnery is 583rd.

I know you don't mean it that serious, but for possible noobs reading this thread:

You have to be careful when compairing hit% between players. There are way too many modifiers to account for. Your playing style, your standard plane's armament and last but not least your targets all have a big influence. IF you have more buff kills, your hit% goes up without being a better gunner per se.
A hit% difference of only 1% absolute (like it is the case between those two gentlemen here) is not enough to determine which one is actually the "better" shooter. (And btw, #583 places you in the top 10% of all players at the end of a month )

You can, in my opinion, only roughly divide players into lousy, below average, average, good, and excellent.


And now back to the thread

[Krusty]

Stoney, mate.... I respect ya and all, but you cannot kill ships with 50cal, no matter how much 50cal you have. It doesn't work without some explosive (cannon) round.

I've unloaded thousands of rounds of 50cal into a wounded DD a few times. Nothing. Nada. I probably had a hit% in the upper 80s (just when firing on that target).


Ground objects don't "work" the same as aircraft/vehicles in this game. That's a fact. So using a flawed system to test weapons, the premise itself leads to flawed results. That's my opinion and why I don't trust those numbers. Also HTC said before that 1 20mm round is about as effective as 3 50cal rounds. The RtKH numbers are way way off compared to that. I'd rather get my info from the horse's mouth.

[DoLbY]

Oh, and for the record, i don't care how big or low my hit % is, just as long as i eventually hit what i'm aiming for

[hammer]

Originally posted by Krusty
I wouldn't really trust that much, trotter...

It's got certain... issues.... that I don't agree with. Especially the entire premise of killing a hangar. Ground objects don't react to MGs the same way they do to cannon. Fleet ship hulls are invulnerable to 50cal fire, for example, but a plane with even 1x20mm can kill them (with enough ammo).

I don't think it's a good relative test, nor do I agree with some of the "ranks" listed there. From personal experience I've had more planes survive a hit from a NS37 than I have from a Mk108.


Suffice it to say I don't trust that test in any way.

First, you can in fact destroy a ship with .50s. I recently killed a destroyer with a P47's mgs. You can test it off-line, too, by turning off the object protection and going to town on a friendly ship.

I agree that objects react with rounds differently than planes. There's not even a good way to determine the relative effectiveness in real life. That's why there are a couple of different expected powers on Tony William's site. However, the data for killing the hangars lines up pretty well with his data (1st column) with the exception of the larger rounds. I know the 40mm doesn't kill planes well (I'm doing a "kill in every fighter" tour and used lots of rounds from the HurriII on a lanc with little effect!) and I'll get the 37mm soon!

Unless someone comes up with a better way to check it or HiTech just tells us the relative effectiveness, we're stuck with killing stationary objects.

Regards,

Hammer

[hammer]

Originally posted by Krusty
... Also HTC said before that 1 20mm round is about as effective as 3 50cal rounds. The RtKH numbers are way way off compared to that. I'd rather get my info from the horse's mouth.

Actually, the 20mms range from 2.8 - 3.5 .50's/20mm. That's hardly "way off". In fact, that's right there. Assuming that every 20mm has the same value doesn't match with anecdotal evidence from the arenas or test results.

There is also the problem of the "average" round that AH uses vs the wide variety of rounds available to most of these weapons in real life. Certainly makes it hard to determine if we're getting the results we should expect.

Bottom line is that we have what we have. To accurately test rounds against planes, we'd need to be able to track hit %, where the round strikes, at what specific round fatal damage occurred, etc. Not possible with the tools we have now and not worth HTC's time to develop. If he's happy with the results, that's good enough for me! As for the numbers needed to kill hangars, that is exactly what it is - the rounds required to kill a hangar. It still gives a general idea of how rounds stack up against each other. The major deviation from these stats should be explosive (cannon) vs non-explosive rounds' effects on planes and objects. The difference between these in the game is an unknown.

Regards,

Hammer

[Furball]

Originally posted by Krusty
I wouldn't really trust that much, trotter...

It's got certain... issues.... that I don't agree with. Especially the entire premise of killing a hangar. Ground objects don't react to MGs the same way they do to cannon. Fleet ship hulls are invulnerable to 50cal fire, for example, but a plane with even 1x20mm can kill them (with enough ammo).

I don't think it's a good relative test, nor do I agree with some of the "ranks" listed there. From personal experience I've had more planes survive a hit from a NS37 than I have from a Mk108.


Suffice it to say I don't trust that test in any way.

I do, that was a good test.

That test was done pre-armoured ship days where rounds would always take effect.  

You know the target has a set number of hitpoints, the rounds it takes to destroy the hanger = power of round.

Hammer's test is probably the best, most accurate way of judging in game gun power.  Not only that, but he compares it to the historical power of the rounds.