Guns Too Strong?

[funked]

All I know is that way too many engagements are settled at 750 yards or so.  Not a whole lot of ACM required to do well in this sim.  Point nose in general enemy direction, spray and pray, get kill, repeat.

It seems like very few hits are needed for a kill.  On my end I usually hear two or three.  Maybe five at the outside.  I can't remember the last time I needed more than 10 hits to down an enemy.

There are many of anectdotes of fighters coming back home after taking dozens of MG hits.  The most hits I've heard of by a 20mm gun is 20 or so.  These real events simply could not occur in AH with the current settings.

[This message has been edited by funked (edited 02-14-2000).]

[Rocket]

Is the number of hits = number of bullit hits or is it a generalization? I don't think that the bullits are too strong or go too far myself.  IMHO there are ALOT of pilots here that log more hours than the combined total of every ace in WWII.  
Also take into account your ammo load doesn't really count overall.  If you run out get down fast replane and get going again.  IRL you didn't have that luxury and had to make sure you had enough ammo to protect yourself on the flight home.  
If you were on bomber escort just chasing away the fighters was good enough.  If ya got a kill outta it then great!
If wind was modeled then a cross wind would really through the aim off. Or a strong headwind.  But the bullits are modeled exactly to the gun HTC has stated before so IMHO it is just the great gunnery of our community overall.  <Cept for me <G> >

S!

Rocket


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The Red Dragons
Fierce and Bold
With Honour and Courage
_______________________
www.reddragons.de

[Fishu]

You can double those pings that you hear, never expect to hear exact amount of hits (coz of lag & code)

You might get hit 10 times, but you might only hear 2 pings.

Though, one thing is for sure, theres too many gunboats flying  
Any plane has some superb 2x20mm or less and more superb 4x20mm.... what do you expect  

But one thing is for sure, planes must be too stable, which makes it possible to do long range shots.
It's also what rocket says, alot more experience...

IMO, I don't care of planes with lotsa big guns, I like more those ones with below average armament (like 109s, specially earlier ones, of course, without pods)

Though, I have got B-17 down with 60 rounds remaining on one 20mm, with 750-850 yards shots (bouncing from below few times)

[juzz]

Rocket; modelling a constant "wind" would have no effect whatsoever on air-to-air gunnery. Air-to-ground, that's another story...

Funked; I don't think the guns are too strong, more like the planes are too weak!  

I am yet to see a sim with a DM that gives results that resemble guncam footage, pilot accounts, photos etc...

EG: FIRE! - It simply isn't modelled as a destructive force. Only as a graphical nicety.  

[MiG Eater]

Was just reading some information about the development of the M61 20mm Gatling gun in a study done by the Air Force.  Their data showed that with five 20mm cannon strikes, enough damage would result to reliably disable or destroy a fighter sized aircraft.  There was no date for the report, but it was during or prior to the Korean war and before the development of the M61.  

I recall that Hans-Joachim Marseille shot down 6 (if memory serves) airplanes with only 14 cannon shells and a small number of MG rounds (40?) on one mission.  I wish I could remember the source to verify the numbers (Aces Of the Luftwaffe, maybe).  It was an amazingly low qty of shells owing to his deflection shooting prowess.  Erich Hartmann found that only a few 20mm rounds to the IL-2's oil cooler would result in a kill on an otherwise heavily armored airplane.  They are the exception rather than the rule but showed how effective a few cannon hits could be against single engine aircraft.

It seems that in AH, not unlike history/RL, rewards accurate cannon fire with a lot of damage. Take a .303 armed Spit up, though, and it will likely take a lot more than 10 hits to do any damage much less critical damage;  Especially beyond convergence range.  Don't fire the 20mm secondary weapons, only the primary four .303's to aprreciate how many hits it takes to do serious damage.  

Spray and pray is prevelent in any sim because "lives" are easy to come by.  Get shot down and a new airplane with a full load of ammo is ready.  Unlimited lives, airplanes and ammunition for a low monthly fee <G>.  When scenerios start, however, (where you have one life to live) people will be a lot more conservative and careful with their maneuvering and shooting.  
MiG

[Sorrow[S=A]]

Heres a question:

Currently the majority of the planes flying score their kills with cannon, 20mm being the most common. This I find is fairly correct, 20mm has been documented many times as being able to disable a plane in 3-6 hits especially in somewhere vital.
  But are our .50 cal and 13mm machine guns in fact being treated in AH as mini cannons?

I find it extremely hard to swallow when I see 6 .50 cals blow wings off a B17 or when 2 .50 cal bomber turrets knock off the wing off  a chasing plane. While I have no doubts it was possible to do I think the amount of MG bullets required to literally saw off a wing would have been tremendous!
 But here is the real question! Is in fact the MG being used as mini cannon's because AH doesn't have any pilot deaths?? I started wondering about this when I flew the G2 and .205 MG only version for awhile. Several times I had shots where I was blown away by the effects of the small caliber MG. With the veltro I  caught a spit going up as I banked sideways. I raked him going vertically by me from just behind his prop right back to his tail with 13mm and 7mm with little apparent damage. I bent his stab and rudder a bit but I was shocked his pilot was still alive.
The other occasion was when I came down ontop of a climbing 190. I hammerred the top of his cockpit with a very long burst of 7.9 mm. It passed right through =his cockpit and killed his engine. Afterwards he told me the only damage he had was a dead engine and "Pilot wounded"..  wounded my arse, more like a hunk of leaky meat!

  HTC is this why .50 cal do so much plane damage? Because it cannot kill the pilot? I am fairly sure from what I have read and seen in gun cams this was in fact the most common way of killing with MG. Not by smashing the plane apart but rather by using the hi powered .50 cal to kill the pilot.

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If your in range, so is the enemy.

[janneh]

In AGW there is loud discussion of 109K4's 30mm gun effectiviness.
It took only 3-4 shells to blow B-17, Lancaster or Halifax, prolly only 1 shell for fighters.

Hard to say if modelling is porked, but if HTC will change it, it means HUGE flame war!
Same effect as W*B had after gunnery changes.
I don't have anything negative to say about current gunnery. I fly 109G-2 only and I know I have to be very close and hit something to make kill. Recently I've surprised myself of thinking about getting some gun position before spraying, and that's good thing  

[Pongo]

Sorrow[S=A]
I was under the impression that the pilots death was modeled. I attributed the leathality of a top view snap shot to the pilots vulnerability to it. I had also noticed that the defensive fire of the B17 seemed very likly to totaly destroy my AC befor I could bail. (as apposed to disabaling it so that I could spiral down and bail.) I attributed this to all those MGs coordinating on my AC making bail impossible.

Funked I can not hit anything on a routine basis at over d500 except bombers. When I see people behind me at d1000 spraying me and getting occasional hits I realize that their FE is saying d700 or so. If I was able to jink at all then the long shots are ineffective. Not a WW2 pilot but the engagment ranges and the effects of good and bad shots seem good to me.


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Pongo
The Wrecking Crew

[Lephturn]

I fly the cannon Hog and I can't get hits out past about 500 with any reliability.  Sure, if an enemy is running straight and level at high speed I can spray enough cannon to hurt him at 700-900 yards, but it takes a TON of ammo, even in the F4U-1C.

Everybody keeps complaining about long range gunnery, but I STILL haven't seen a single film that shows a kill I think is un-reasonable.

I find the lethality of all the weapons to be very well modelled.  I don't think any of them are too strong or too weak.  The BUFF guns are a bit weird because they will have 7-8 .50's converging on a single point, so it's very hard to judge.

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Lephturn
The Flying Pigs
Visit Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH news, resources, and training data.
 http://users.andara.com/~sconrad/

[Ripsnort]

Flew the P51 for first time since V.34, seemed too "Uber" before, I prefer a challenging A/C.

Anyway, I had a Niki in front of me that I hit with .50 cal. from a distance of 800yds, yes, he was flying straight and level, I saw about 5 strikes on him and POOF, he was gone.

In regards to Leph's post, I too have never had success in the FW's or the F4U's cannons over 500 yards, probably my bad aim not compensating for bullet drop enough, one thing is for sure, that .50 cal on the 'stang sure is a lazer reaching out.

Just reporting, not complaining, not saying its right or wrong, just reporting.

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Brian "Ripsnort" Nelson
++JG2++ ~Richthofen~ XO
(Formerly VF-101 Grim Reapers~Rip1~Warbirds~)

"In training, upon being told it was time to
solo, the instructor said, “You tried to kill
me enough times, now try it with a check pilot.”"

[This message has been edited by Ripsnort (edited 02-15-2000).]

[Vermillion]

Are Guns too Strong?

I guess I have to respectfully disagree.

Not sure exactly who you have been up against in the arena or what kinds of planes, but maybe I have been lucky and encountering all the baby seals  

Yes if you are flying a .50 cal plane, you can get light weight hits on a badguy from far away, but only if he is flying straight and level for a long time. A low G turn will defeat long range gunnery every time. And it still takes a crap load of ammo to do it. And the .50's are not that lethal (most of my sorties are in Pony's). They take solid bursts at convergence to do serious damage.

Now I won't argue that 20mm's (especially with x4 of em) will rip you a new orifice in a heartbeat, but isn't that the way it should be? And to be honest, I find the 20mm's hard to hit with beyond 400-500, even if the other guy is not defending himself (ie impossible, unless a buff). Anytime I fly the N1K2, C-Hog, or La5, I have to seriously readjust my gunnery, because of the much more pronounced drop in velocity, and slow rate of fire.

Then again it may all just be a matter of flying style. I fly BnZ, and E style, so I prefer guns to be lethal. One pass, One kill is a must if you want to survive in a E-Fighter.

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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure,
"Real Men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires"

[funked]

You guys must be playing a different game...

[Dingy]

To give another example of how long range 50cal shots arent inordinately lethal, I was in a fite with a Stang which was about 1.2k behind me and I was in the process of roping him.  He finally figured out what I was doing and began trying to spray me from long range.   Tracers were flying all around my cockpit and I even heard a total of about 5 or 6 pings.  No critical damage whatsoever.  

If he had been closer, it woulda been curtains for me but since he was so far back, I was safe.  Sure you can get an occasional ping from long distance but he had probably fired 15 seconds to manage those 5 or 6 flashes.

-Ding

[Lephturn]

RipSnort sez: "Anyway, I had a Niki in front of me that I hit with .50 cal. from a distance of 800yds, yes, he was flying straight and level, I saw about 5 strikes on him and POOF, he was gone."

That my friend, was a pilot kill.  You can certainly throw a huge number of .50 cal bullets in a short time, and it only takes one lucky shot for a pilot kill.  It happens.  Just remember you didn't do very much damage at all, you just got lucky and hit the soft squishy bit.  

Also Ripsnort, the F4U's cannons are much better than the FW's, trajectory wise.  The Hispanos are damn near equal to the .50 cals in that regard, but there are far fewer rounds being thrown out there.

funked sez: "You guys must be playing a different game..."

Don't know what you mean.  Please show us by posting a film.  Until you do we don't know if there is really an issue or if it's just your perceptions that are out of whack.


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Lephturn
The Flying Pigs
Visit Lephturn's Aerodrome for AH news, resources, and training data.
 http://users.andara.com/~sconrad/

[Toad]

Re: Ripping off a wing with .50's

Remember, the wing has a lot of load on it and the spar is the part really carrying the load. Load increases when pulling G. Hit the spar with a good burst and it _should_ rip off.

Once again, I'll submit anecdotal information from my father. He tells of sawing small Japanese coastal freighters and supply barges in half with the 8 .50's in the nose of his B-25 using 8-10 second bursts. No doubt, the load on a hull helps split them as well.

The 51 is spitting out 800 round/min from 6 guns. A 5 second burst will definitely "do" any part of an airplane you hit near convergence.