Effective Guns Range

[Jinx]

I don’t think some of you guys realize the power of a .50 cal slug.. An AP round will still have more then enough energy to crack an engine block at a thousand yards, even without the closing speed of 600MPH in a HO.

Note that I don’t defend headons against fighters, its incredibly stupid in most situations. When I see someone fixated on the headon I know I almost certainly will win that fight, since I already have a huge advantage at the merge. The only time I can think of when a HO is an option is basically when Im already dead, as in severely outnumbered on the deck. Forward quarter shots is something different, but intentionally getting in front of someone’s guns is not my idea of smart flying.

  -Jinx
  The Flying Pigs

[juzz]

And a 20mm shell will just bounce off the same engine block I suppose? 20mm AP would be far more damaging than a .50 AP, at any range.

I have no idea why the MK108 should be scattering so much, after all it is installed in the engine block, and firing through the prop spinner. I would think any recoil effects would be minimised in such an installation? Even the B17G shakes around when you fire the guns, it's just too funny.

[StarKnite]

Just my own 2 cents.. but..

I personally think it has nothing to do with the flight model, or zoom. It has to do with there not being a REAL officer to stand you down after a stupid move. There's NO real death when you are shot down. There's no ammo shortage at your base. You aren't in sorties with 24 B17s and 30 odd fighters blazing in. I think that a lot of these long range kills can be attributed to the fact that you can hold that fire button down, go back to base, and be up in the air in a couple minutes max. As opposed to Real life wastage of ammuntion, nessicity to fly with a wing, less flight hours (we have seen more action than most real pilots). etc etc etc.

*shrug*
course, I could be completely wrong :-)

[Hristo]

Juzz, MK 108 was a light cannon, with heavy shell. It had very short barrell indeed. Shell velocity was fairly low, as well as rate of fire.

I expected it to perform the worst in regard of dispersion and snapshot abilities.

If it is too much, I really don't know. I just know how other guns feel after you use MK 108 for a while  

[Jinx]

Eh, juzz..
I didn’t mention 20mm or Mk108 (30mm btw).

However, the .50 Cal shell had very good ballistic properties, some of the German cannon shells had bad, even artificially bad (to improve fusing) ballistics and they where calculated to ‘work’ within a predetermined range.
The 20 and 30 mm HE rounds where even time fused to go off and so limited the range of the rounds.

I don’t think the 20mm AP round was flat nosed and I don’t know of any 30mm AP round for the Mk108, but mixing shells with very different ballistics in the same belt makes for a wide dispersion pattern..

  -Jinx

[Hristo]

Umm, Jinx, don't judge things by WB (especially 2.6) modelling  

MG 151/20 anti bomber loadout had rounds with flattened nose, to improve fusing, most likely.

But German explosive rounds did not have impact detonator. They had rotational type, which would activate the charge when shell rotation slowed down (inside the target, of course).

However, I am not sure if those shells that detonated by themsleves if they missed were activated by rotaional or timing detonator, but rotational would make more sense.

Still, there are documents on MW loadouts, but I think those warried from one field commander to another. I can't wait for AH to model different ammo mixes.

[Jinx]

Hristo,
I thought that was what I said..?  

I didn’t even think about WB gunnery, I got the info from many other sources.
I read the fuse was timed, but I guess it could have meant “It goes BOOM after some time in the air”.  

  -Jinx
 (having a slow day at work..)

[Pyro]

Hristo, German explosive rounds did use percussion fuzes.  The ZZ 1505 centrifigal fuze was supposedly used for air to ground firing although I've read the opposite claim as well.  It is easily discernible from an impact fuzed round because it is rounded instead of having a flat top.  This was a sensitive fuze that was to function on a 2mm paper screen at 100 meters.  The self destroying feature on this fuze was just a factor of the rotational speed dropping, within 2000 meters.

The engineering of the centrifugal fuze is pretty neat.  The round has a spring loaded plunger that drives the firing pin.  A brass spiral ribbon holds this in place.  When the round is fired the ribbon unwinds which allows the firing pin to pass through it to the primer.  This arms the round within a few meters of leaving the barrel.  At the same time little steel balls are forced out to a position where they they retain the plunger.  Once the rotational velocity decreases enough, the balls moves out of position and the spring drives the firing pin into the primer.

Here's a question for German munition experts.  Are ZZ fuze designations for centrifigal types and AZ for impact types?

I don't know if we'll model different ammo types for the smaller caliber weapons.  If we do it will probably be in general terms, i.e. you can select a loadout that favors AP or HE more.



------------------
Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations

"The side with the fanciest uniforms loses."

[juzz]

Hmmm. Even with different ammo types in a single belt, the dispertion would be more in the vertical due to different ballistic arcs, not the sideways spraying the MK108 does now. Plus only "Mine" HE rounds were used in the MK108(without any sort of self-destruction fuse). Hristo's short barrel explaination makes some sense though. But it still seems a bit extreme to me.

Ooh! Look at this: http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Base/1852/Other1.htm  The 20mm shown(20x138B) are AAA, but probably similar to the aircraft shells in construction I guess.

[Laika]

>Plus only "Mine" HE rounds were used in the MK108(without any sort of self-destruction fuse). <


Quote from "The Great Book of WWII Airplanes"
(ISBN 0-517-16024-2)

Mk108

Mine/Tracer shell for air-to-air combat.
Electric Primer. Self-destructive. Fuse ZZ1589A.
Muzzle vel 500m/sec (1640fps)


Incendiary shell for air-to-air combat. Electric primer.
Self-destructive. Fuse ZZ1589B.
Muzzle vel 500m/sec (1640fps)

I cant comment on the accuracy of this book but I thought it maybe of interest.

laika

 

[Hristo]

Pyro, thanks for clearing these things to me.

Now, few questions. What type of MG 151/20 rounds does AH model ? The ones with percussion or centrifugal fuzes ?

Does damage model take into account that some rounds might bounce off at a certain angle ? Would such modeling favor the ZZ fuzes ?

I would really like to try the centrifugal ones.


[This message has been edited by Hristo (edited 12-18-1999).]

[CRASH]

I've seen some of the original training manuals for the p38.  Max effective range of the 50's was listed as 650m. The cone of fire as diagramed in the manual covered the target with rounds practically from wing tip to wing tip.  I'm sure that with ur conversion set farther out, and a willingness to use half a clip u could do some serious damage. You could increase effective range to 800m easy. Wether u can hit at that range is up to u  
     I think the damage model may be a hair generous.  I'm constantly taking damage or losing wings and tails in head ons that i'm actually trying to avoid.  It seems that one burst from a nik or spit from a head on or therebouts tends to cause the various parts of my aircraft to seperate from one another   If its actually modeled correctly then I'm just gonna hafta to deal with it, rather than trying to get Hitech to alter their sim to suit my preferences.  I think the more preferable solution would be for me to alter my tactics to more aggressivly avoid giving the nme a good head on shot.  Along the same line, if ur gettin' killed at 800m then u need to work on ur evasives and or start them sooner.  
CRASH

[BBGunn]

I thought that Jekyll made several very good posts with legitimate concerns.  There seems to be some kind of "magic" surrounding the 1000 yard figure for armament in WW2 aircraft. I have read a bunch of books on WW2 air combat and I cannot think of one that mentions a kill at 1000yds or even 600yds.
There are no magic bullets.  Each projectile is affected by wind and gravity as soon as it leaves the barrel.  The basic 30cal M-1 round starts out at around 2410 ft/sec and at 500yds is only doing 1246fps.  It had 2837 ft lbs of energy at the muzzle but only 758 at 500 yards and has dropped almost 8 feet!  At 1000 yards you might as well be throwing darts at the enemy.  
From what I've read the average defensive gunner on US bombers could not get hits much past 400 yards.  The sim auto-gunning from bombers which starts at 1000yds (like in WB's) and gets hits is just fantasy land.
Lots of fighter to fighter kills were made at 100 yards or much less.  Kurt Buehligen, 3rd highest scoring German Ace(western front) stated that "the best shooting distance was from 300 ft to 150 ft or less".  Feet not yards.  He should know he was an expert.  He further stated that his sight ring would fill with a spit at 1100 feet(366yds) but that that was too far to shoot for a 6 oclock approach. He had to wait until the spits wings  far exceeded the diameter of his sight ring.  British pilots made similar statements.  So I don't think Jekyll made any over-statements at all- I only hope that the programers will listen.  In my opinion the half mile kill crap only takes the quality away from flight combat simulations.

[This message has been edited by BBGunn (edited 12-29-1999).]

[Minotaur]

I just read an article on CombatSim, about "George Beurling".  I believe George was flying a Spit V at the time of this kill.

   

But George used Ernst Udet's own tricks on his pilots, he circled tightly and caught a 109 with a long burst from 800 yards and at a nearly impossible angle. He hit the fuel tanks and the 109 went down in flames. In one day he increased his kill to 5.

Under - "WW2 Bio: George Beurling"
 http://www.combatsim.com/  

<Sigh>

It never really ends, does it BBGun?    

Mino

[This message has been edited by Minotaur (edited 12-31-1999).]

[Jekyll]

Actually, George's own description of the battle states that he hit the 109's glycol tanks, and the plane dropped away streaming white vapour  

But you're right about the 800yds, a simply amazing shot bearing in mind it was a 90 degree deflection shot with substantial cannon drop at that range.

Then again, Buzz Buerling was considered as perhaps the best shot of all pilots, on either side, during the war.

My original point stands:  that you cannot model one aspect of a sim with perfect realism (gunnery model), while at the same time having another aspect imperfectly modelled (auto ranging gunsight), and still expect that the overall outcome of the sim will be realistic.

It's like a huge balancing act... the overall result you want to achieve IMHO is to make the 'feel' of the sim realistic....  Now to do that with the current limitations of technology means we have to incorporate some kind of icon display to identify enemy targets, particularly in an 'MA' style arena where you are likely to be fighting P51-v-P51 etc.

But does the incorporation of a perfect radar ranging gunsight make the feel of the sim more or less realistic?  In fact, what we have in AH, and other sims, is in some ways worse than just a radar ranging gunsight.  We actually have an unjammable spherical 8000yd radar device which shows range and closure perfectly.  I'll bet the USAF would love something like that for their top-of-the-line F22 Raptor  

So does our current icon system make those 800yd shots easier, or harder, to accomplish than it was in real life?

And if it makes it easier, then my point is made:  that either the icon system or the gunnery model has to be 'tweaked' in order to establish the right balance.

Frankly, I'd prefer the icon system to change:  Make estimation of target range a skill which has to be acquired.

Any suggestions??

------------------
C.O. Phoenix Squadron www.users.bigpond.com/afinlayson/index.htm
'feel the heat .......'


[This message has been edited by Jekyll (edited 01-01-2000).]