Gun sights

[Saxman]

Not technically a bug, but a modeling issue I think should be addressed:

In some aircraft, and numerous people have agreed, the gun sight is almost RIDICULOUSLY small, in some cases to the extent of nearly being useless. While I haven't done detailed checks with these other aircraft, I HAVE done so with the bubble-top F4Us (and frankly, the gun sights in the F4U are INSANELY small).

As a benchmark I used the USN Mk.8 gunsight (full version, with the extended cross hair and hash marks used for ground attack) which was the historical sight used in the F4Us. This sight had a 100mil outer ring, 50mil center ring, and 25mil inner ring. It was calibrated so that at 200yds range an aircraft with a 30ft wingspan would have its wingtips touching each side of the center ring. At 100yds, the wingtips would touch the 100mil outer ring.

I used the Fw-190D to calibrate as its wingspan is 34ft, close enough to the historical calibration of the sight to suit the purposes of the test, which was performed offline using the .target command for confirmation. The ranges at which the wingtips touched each ring on the sight was EXACTLY double the historical ranges (so, 50mil ring at 400yds, and the 100mil ring at 200yds).

Therefore, in order to use the full USN Mk.8 gun sight in the bubble-top Hogs and have it correctly calibrated, the sight would need to be DOUBLE the size it currently appears in the game (as a comparison, in the F6F and FM-2, which used the same Mk.8 sight, the calibration is only slightly off, though I've not done an exact measure). This test was not performed in the birdcage, however as it shares the same sight picture as the bubble-tops it would likely apply to it, as well.

There are other aircraft that are even more significantly affected (and yes, I do have images that show my calculations and will be happy to repost them if requested, I just don't have the time to hunt them down right now).

Changing the dimensions of the sight's BMP file has NO effect. The sight in-game is the same size at the maximum-allowed 256x256 as it is at 64x64. The exception I've found (at least in the F4Us) is a sight that's 32x32, in which case any part that touches the edge of the image is stretched to fit the ENTIRETY of the sight picture (the NoSkill sight is an excellent example of this, where the vertical and horizontal bars of the cross hair are stretched to fill the image).

Can we please have the sight pictures addressed? A LARGE number of aircraft--and their pilots--would benefit greatly from having this corrected.

[straffo]

as a Yak/La pilot I completely agree with you.

[Keiler]

The issue with the displayed gunsights in AH2 is that, in case of reflector sights, reticle changes size when moving the POV forward or backward as if they were painted to the glass (except for side- and up/down movement). With real reflector-sights this just doesnt happen, the reticle remains the same size no matter how you look through them, and as a result will always cover the same area of the target at any given distance.
In AH2 the sight changes the covered area on target depending on where your head is.

Regards,
Matt

[Saxman]

That's part of it.However at least in the case of the F4Us the view has to be set so far forward to get an accurately calibrated Mk.8 sight as to be virtually impossible to fly effectively. This must certainly come into effect on other aircraft, as well.

[Forker]

I don't use any sights..........black dot on screen only.

[Saxman]

Well, some people like to use something more complex, either out of history (in my case. I try to match all the sights to what they used historically) or because the sight helps them with leading, etc.

[Sketch]

Originally posted by Saxman
Well, some people like to use something more complex, either out of history (in my case. I try to match all the sights to what they used historically) or because the sight helps them with leading, etc.

This doesn't help me one bit.... I close my eyes when I shoot....   That's probably why I miss so much.  I use to use a black dot on my monitor but my wife always cleaned it off cause it drove her nuts.... oh well.... she was already half way there. I just finished the process!

[Xargos]

I made a sight with a single dot in the middle that is slightly enlarged because many members of my squad do not zoom in when shooting the MK108 in the Bf109K4.  You can find it on the Das Muppets website.

[Xargos]

Problem with the link for the gunsight WinRar file has been fixed on Das Muppets wesite.

[Saxman]

Xargos,

The point of my post is that in some aircraft the gun sights are absolutely MICROSCOPIC, and even with such a "clean" sight as the one you linked can be difficult to aim with. The sights in the bubble-top F4Us are exactly 50% the size they SHOULD appear, while other aircraft are even WORSE.

I've dug up my images to show what I was talking about:



Three aircraft that used the Mk.8: F6F, FM-2 and F4U. Note how the same sight in the F6F and FM2 are SIGNIFICANTLY larger, nearly double the size of the F4U. All three screenshots were taken at default head position with no zoom. This is EXACTLY as they appear for me in-game.



Fw-190D over the target (distance set to 0 yards). Note that the wing tips fill just over 75% of the second circle. The Fw-190D has a wingspan of 34ft. The Mk.8 gunsight was calibrated so that an aircraft with a 30ft wingspan would have its wingtips touching the inner circle and 200yds, the outer ring at 100yds.

The following screens were taken offline using the drone as a target, from the default head position in an F4U-1A. Zoom was used to line up for the screenshot, but note that zooming increases the size of the ENTIRE image, and does not affect the size of the sights vs. the target as moving the head position forward does.



Dora filling the inner ring.



Dora filling the outer ring.

Note that in both cases, the range counter shows EXACTLY double the actual calibrated range for the Mk.8

However, allowing for the fact the range counter doesn't give exact range, I also took a screenshot using the target set to 200yds (default head position, with zoom only for ease of lining up).



Since the Fw-190D's wingtips were just short of the second ring on the target,  this shows that at 200yds, the INNER ring of the gunsight should be JUST smaller than the second ring of the target. Again, showing that the sight is roughly 50% the size it should be.

Compare to the same sight picture from the FM-2:



Again, default head position, zoomed. This is obviously a composite image, but  matched up carefully with the appearance of the target in the FM-2's site.  The target was calibrated for 200yds, and the screenshot of the Dora and target from above was super-imposed. Note that the FM-2's gunsight is still SLIGHTLY undersized, but still a much closer match to the correct calibration.

Taking all this into consideration, the F4U's sight should look something like this:

[Hazard69]

Thats a pretty sight, now my question is what do all those notches signify? Can you use them to pull lead? Inquiring minds wanna know!:D

[FTJR]

Hazard go here


http://www.simhq.com/_air/air_028a.html

[Saxman]

Hazard,

As I understand it, the Mk8 is designed to do the following:

The rings, as indicated, are to help with ranging the target. The sight is calibrated so an aircraft with a 30ft wingspan will fill the inner ring at 200yds, the outer at 100yds (naturally, a 60ft span at 400 and 200, respectively).

The horizontal part of the cross helps indicate your wing angle (bank) in relation to your target.

The vertical part of the cross does two things: The solid line extending towards the top shows your lift vector. The hash marks are in 5mil increments and both assist with estimating lead, and with aiming ordinance (each hash mark below the cross indicates where to place the target at a given airspeed, altitude and dive angle. Exactly how this is calculated I'm not sure).

I'm not sure what the 45-degree lines below the cross mean.