Does this look quite right to you

[Serenity]

Direct hit with a 30mm and no damage. I would expect at least the rudder to be lost. Is it just me? Or is the B-26 a tad too tough?

[Gianlupo]

Look:



This spit took a flak hit in fuselage and survived. I'm not trying to say that what happened to you is right, I'm just trying to make sense of it. I guess there's an amount of damage before the vertical stab/rudder complex is tore apart. In RL you would have made a hole in it, but haven't destroyed it. It's something that's not graphically shown in AH, but just recorded, as only certain kind of damage are shown and result in an effective reduction of aircraft airworthiness. So, maybe (just maybe, mind you, I'm not sure), that's what happened, you did damage, but not enough damage to go beyond the threshold of damage that would trigger the loss of any part. Some times a 30mm is not enough, I just logged out of MAs after hitting a T34 with no less than 11 37mm shells with an IL2. And I got the kill because the guy towered out after I got his turret!

EDIT: here's what I mean



This B-17 was damaged by a FW190. Maybe your shell did the same thing, went through the vertical stab punching a hole in it, but without tearing the rudder apart or the stab itself. And since that kind of damaged is not graphically shown by the game, nothing seems to have happened. I think it's more a matter of graphical limitation of the game than a matter of damage modeling.

[Xasthur]

The same thing happened in my 262 lastnight too, I peppered the tail section of a B-25 with the 30mm, saw at least 3 hit sprites and it still flew on.

I got a frigging assist on it too! 

Hahah.

No film, so it could have been anything really. Just seemed a little odd at the time.

[Ghosth]

Gianlupo nailed it IMO.

You can see the hit, and obviously the tail would have taken damage. You might even be able to see some of that damage.

That does not mean the tail was damaged to the point of causing enough damage to cause parts to fall off, lose a tail, etc.

Plus your hit looks high, better chance IMO if you'd hit low on the tail closer to the fuse.

In real life the top of the fin would have been shredded, but good chance of stab and rudder hanging in there to return home.

[Saxman]

Doesn't even look like a "solid" hit to me, either.

[Anaxogoras]

All of the American bombers are ridiculously resistant to 30mm shells.  I have a good film where I take down a formation of B-24s in a 262.  The number of hits they soak up is astounding.  Unless you set the engines on fire, it takes around 10 30mm hits to down a 4 engine bomber in this game, and frequently much more.  Historically, Luftwaffe tests determined that 2-3 30mm shell hits were usually enough to bring down a 4 engine bomber.  That was the justification for giving up the good ballistics of the MG 151/20 for the hitting power of the Mk 108.

As for the pic, instead of a big gaping hole in the v-stab, in AH you damage nothing at all.

[Gooss]

Looks like the bomber was just singed by muzzle blast.   

HONK!
Gooss

[TwinBoom]

30MM Test

[Motherland]

And another.

[Nisky]

Ive always seen it with german 30mm that if u hit the same spot that the part falls off except the fuselage it absorbs like a brawny paper towel. Its got to be wing or tail hits to knock them off. Ive a hoed a spit 16 with tators and all they got was oil hits so idk anymore.

[glock89]

And another.
(Image removed from quote.)

Holy $!#@!.

[Steve]

All of the American bombers are ridiculously resistant to 30mm shells.  I have a good film where I take down a formation of B-24s in a 262.  The number of hits they soak up is astounding.  Unless you set the engines on fire, it takes around 10 30mm hits to down a 4 engine bomber in this game, and frequently much more.  Historically, Luftwaffe tests determined that 2-3 30mm shell hits were usually enough to bring down a 4 engine bomber.  That was the justification for giving up the good ballistics of the MG 151/20 for the hitting power of the Mk 108.

As for the pic, instead of a big gaping hole in the v-stab, in AH you damage nothing at all.

Man, it's fairly consistent and feasible to down buffs w/ .50's.  I don't waste ammo on fuselage and wings though... just wingroot to wingroot..... canopy. One advantage to the ballistics of the .50, I guess.

[Newman5]

"Does this look quite right to you?"

No it doesn't.  There's no-one piloting that B-26!         

[Gianlupo]

TB, Bubi, no matter the 30 was a hard hitting cannon, prolly the best A2A used in WWII (IIRC Tony Williams said so in one of the articles on his website), but, on the other hand, no matter the B-17/B-24 were hard to shoot down. Take a look at the page from where I took the second picture:

http://www.daveswarbirds.com/b-17/

I'm not saying that hit shouldn't have left damage, I'm just convinced that damage was correctly recorded by game but it wasn't enough for the game to display it graphically. It's a matter of graphical detail, not damage recording.

And, yes, I'd like to have a better damage displaying system in the game, something like the IL2 system (talking about graphics only!); and I'm confident we'll get hit, in the end, HTC already begun updating it with the redone planes. Last week I was flying an IL2 chasing tanks, I was (pleasantly) surprised when I took a hit on my aileron, turned the head to see it and, instead of the usual square gap, I saw twisted metal ribs coming out of the spot where the aileron should have been. Give them time, I'm sure they're working on this issue, too.

(Can you confirm that it's just a graphical issue, HTC? And, about the bill for my performance as your lawyer, I'll just accept a lifetime long free subscription, thanks. )

[Serenity]

TB, Bubi, no matter the 30 was a hard hitting cannon, prolly the best A2A used in WWII (IIRC Tony Williams said so in one of the articles on his website), but, on the other hand, no matter the B-17/B-24 were hard to shoot down. Take a look at the page from where I took the second picture:

http://www.daveswarbirds.com/b-17/

I'm not saying that hit shouldn't have left damage, I'm just convinced that damage was correctly recorded by game but it wasn't enough for the game to display it graphically. It's a matter of graphical detail, not damage recording.

And, yes, I'd like to have a better damage displaying system in the game, something like the IL2 system (talking about graphics only!); and I'm confident we'll get hit, in the end, HTC already begun updating it with the redone planes. Last week I was flying an IL2 chasing tanks, I was (pleasantly) surprised when I took a hit on my aileron, turned the head to see it and, instead of the usual square gap, I saw twisted metal ribs coming out of the spot where the aileron should have been. Give them time, I'm sure they're working on this issue, too.

(Can you confirm that it's just a graphical issue, HTC? And, about the bill for my performance as your lawyer, I'll just accept a lifetime long free subscription, thanks. )

Yeah, I get what your saying. I guess I just expected that a mk 108 hit at the joint between rudder and vertical stabalizer would have knocked the rudder off. Not the who stabalizer, no, but at least the rudder. Oh well.

Ive always seen it with german 30mm that if u hit the same spot that the part falls off except the fuselage it absorbs like a brawny paper towel. Its got to be wing or tail hits to knock them off. Ive a hoed a spit 16 with tators and all they got was oil hits so idk anymore.

Ive had a similar incident with a P-47. I knocked him right in the nose with a tater, and just knocked out his oil. That makes perfect sense though, as there is a HUGE chunk of metal, namely the engine, between the nose and anything else.