Bf109E-4

[BaldEagl]

I've been flying this thing a little bit the past two camps, mostly furballing in it, as I had some pretty decent success in it several months ago.  I really like it.  It's very manouverable but slow and it also has pretty weak guns.

So anyway, I upped one today and got a kill and a couple of assists (I thought I should have had a kill on a Yak but got the assist instead), then saw a set of B-17's.  I took chase because I really wanted to test the Emil's cannons and durability under direct fire.  I approached from dead six with less than 50 cannon rounds left and beat one of the 17's up pretty bad but lost a wing.  I think if I had a full clip and the right approach angle I could have taken out one of the 17's but probably not more than that.

Has anyone else tried going after 17's/24's in the Emil?  How did you do?

 

[1pLUs44]

I love going into the DA with it, shooting off all my cannons, and THEN furballing.

[Chalenge]

You managed to catch a B17 with a 109E? Was he stuck in the mud? 

[Urchin]

MG-FF are modelled as being little better than .50s as far as hitting power goes.  They do maybe 50-60% of the damage a 'normal' 20mm (i.e. Mg-151 or comparable), and maybe 20-30% of a Hizooka.

They also have the ballistics of a watermelon.

[mg1942]

109E = poorman's Spit 5.

[Noir]

109E = poorman's Spit 5.

the 109E is to compare with spit1/hurri1, the spit5 enemy is the F4.

[titanic3]

"Sheep in wolf's clothing"

Quote by Sodaman's Aircraft Evaluation.

[Krusty]

A while back I took out 3x B17s in a 109E and still had 24 cannon rounds left afterwards. I didn't really have a super great advantage (remember, 109E we're talking about) but I didn't sit in dead 6 tail chases. They seemed to be going slower than full throttle, so I could overtake them a little better.


P.S. Urchin GREATLY exaggerates the weak power of MG/FF. They are one of the weakest 20mm cannons, but still far more powerful than a 50cal round and are explosive so they set fires nicely if they ladn in the right spot.

[Monty405]

the seem about par with the a6m2's cannons

[Motherland]

the seem about par with the a6m2's cannons

It's ironic that you say that, as they're actually exactly based on the same design as the A6M2's cannons.

[BaldEagl]

It's ironic that you say that, as they're actually exactly based on the same design as the A6M2's cannons.

That's odd.  To me the Emil's cannons seem weaker.  I never have problems with the kill shot in the A6M2 but I do in the E-4.

[Motherland]

"The Type 99 cannon was adapted from the Oerlikon FF by the Imperial Japanese Navy and served as their standard aircraft autocannon during World War II."
Actually, the Type 99 fires a smaller round at a higher velocity than the German MG/FF (which was also based on the Oerlikon FF).

[BaldEagl]

"The Type 99 cannon was adapted from the Oerlikon FF by the Imperial Japanese Navy and served as their standard aircraft autocannon during World War II."
Actually, the Type 99 fires a smaller round at a higher velocity than the German MG/FF (which was also based on the Oerlikon FF).

That explains it.

[Anaxogoras]

Give the 110C-4 a try.  It's a lot, lot easier to hit with the low velocity cannon when they're in the nose.

[Denniss]

The Oerlikon FF (later known as FF-F) used 20x72 cartridges as did the japanese Type 99-1 gun. The japanese Type 99-2 gun was based on the Oerlikon FF-L and both used a 20x101 cartridge. The type 99 guns were probably direct copies or license production of the respective Oerlikon cannons.

The german MG FF was an improved/redesigned version of the FF-F using longer cartridges (20x80). The Bf 109 E-4 used the MF FF/M with the capability to fire the high-capacity explosive Mine shells, those Mine shells were the same projectiles as later used in the MG 151/20 thus the explosive damage of these two should be the same. Only the kinetic energy was lower due to the lower muzzle velocity of the MG FF/M. Bf 109E prior to the E-4 used either 7.92mm machineguns (E-1)  or the older MG FF (E-3) with a standard capacity explosive shell.

BTW - the Hispano 20mm cannon was also based on the Oerlikon FF but on the largest of all three, the FF-S with 20x110 cartridges.