Author Topic: Guns Too Strong? (Read 687 times)

funked · « **Reply #30 on:** February 17, 2000, 02:07:00 PM »

GManP - I'm not sure 3 rounds was enough to explode a Spitfire in real life.

Vermillion · « **Reply #31 on:** February 17, 2000, 05:22:00 PM »

3 rounds of 20mm HEI or API into the main fuel tank could potentially cause an explosion wouldn't it? And doesn't the Spits main tank sit right behind the pilot?

And aren't pilot kills, effectively "explosions" in AH?

I am pretty sure that HiTech and Pyro have some kind of "golden BB" type of effect in the damage model. At least my Pony feels that way sometimes.

Just asking

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

juzz · « **Reply #32 on:** February 17, 2000, 06:53:00 PM »

The Spitfires fuel tanks are right between the engine and the pilot.

Robert · « **Reply #33 on:** February 18, 2000, 07:25:00 AM »

here is the film that everyones been looking for. i get serveral hits on a 51 at 900 to 950 distance http://members.xoom.com/awcon99/long.zip

Lephturn · « **Reply #34 on:** February 18, 2000, 11:02:00 AM »

Uh.. I don't think this demonstrates the point.

The hits you get don't really do any damage. You hosed that guy down for a LONG time, and you really don't do any damage until you get in closer. Remember that the P51 is quite weak, one of the easier planes to damage right now in AH, but it still takes a lot of time for you to even slightly damage this guy. If you spray enough ammo you will eventually do some damage... but nothing in this film looks "wrong" to me.

Thanks for posting the film though Robert.

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

funked · « **Reply #35 on:** February 18, 2000, 11:10:00 AM »

Verm - Yeah 3 lucky pings might blow up a real fighter. Not sure you have to be lucky in AH though.

Of course all I have to go on in AH is my "perception" - no numbers.

And to compare with real life, I have even less to go on! Just pilot accounts and a few photos.

[This message has been edited by funked (edited 02-18-2000).]

Vermillion · « **Reply #36 on:** February 18, 2000, 12:44:00 PM »

Its an extremely difficult issue to quantify.

I remember back when I did my original lethality calculations for WB's (back before hoof, was HOOF).

There really isn't a very good scientific or engineering method to use that I ever found to quantify "toughness" in a relationship to "lethality".

The only thing I ever did find, was that old luftwaffe study that gets thrown around endlessly.

I do know that its a real life issue even today. I found during a websearch that the US Air Force has a whole set of laboratory's that study the issue currently in depth, they had a really neat website showing some of their current work (wish I still had the URL). I wrote email to several of the people working there, hoping they would comment about the WWII aspects of it. Unfortunately none of them wrote me back, or even acknowledged getting my mail.

Bastiches!

Basically its fairly easy to quantify how "lethal" guns should be (simple application of force). But trying to decide the "toughness" of just about any aircraft is guesswork and "feel".

Which is basically known as the SWAG method.
Scientific Wild bellybutton Guess.

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

funked · « **Reply #37 on:** February 18, 2000, 02:39:00 PM »

I'll tell you what I do know for sure. There are a lot of WB guys who don't like to fly here because the guns make a lot of ACM useless.

Vermillion · « **Reply #38 on:** February 18, 2000, 05:55:00 PM »

Jeez I hate disagreeing with a squaddie

But to be honest funked, one of the reasons I hate flying WB's anymore is that there the guns are so weak, every fight ends up a conga line on the deck with a train of fighters (friend, enemy, friend, enemy) back and forth between bases.

Honestly, lets get together and test this. But I can't think of a single offensive or defensive ACM move in the book that I can't or haven't used in Combat in AH.

Horizontal Scissors, Vertical Scissors, Barrel Rolls, Bunts, Snap rolls, Spiral Climbs and Dives, Loops, Split S's, Immelmans, Hi Yo Yo's, Low Yo Yo's, Hammerheads, Chandelle's, lead pursuit, pure pursuit, lag pursuit.... what am I missing?

Now true, with the more demanding Energy Model, you can't do endless defensive manuevers and continue too run away like in WBs, because manuevers saps your speed and the bandit sucks right up your six and nails you.

You have to think ahead, plan out your defensive strategy, and hope it works. No manuever I know of is a "sure thing", but thats good.

But what am I missing, what specific parts or types of ACM don't work here? To be honest this really confuses me, since I KNOW your twice the pilot I am, and I have had pretty fair success in the arena. This makes me fell as if I am missing something. Realistically, I wouldn't expect to win 20% of any 1 v 1's with you in equal planes.

So

please Explain slowly but fully, in simple terms, how the ACM is not effective because the guns are too deadly (and this is from a pilot of the "Glass Tailed Mustang Species").

I'm just a poor dumb ingamuneeer

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

Toad · « **Reply #39 on:** February 18, 2000, 10:29:00 PM »

I watched this film and saw the long range pings too. I didn't see any killin', though, till things got a lot closer.

As far as making ACM useless, the ONLY guys even getting hit at long ranges (and I'll leave damage out of it here) are the ones going steadily away either straight and level or in shallow climbs or dives. Is that ACM? Any kind of jinking pretty well renders long range gunnery pointless.

Instead of ACM, that seems more like trying to be the perfect long-range gunnery test target! Give the guy 5 minutes of shots to try various holdovers, fer pete's sake!

If the thought is that the guns are too strong at short ranges, I disagree. A 2 sec burst from a -51 at any convergence inside 500 yards will put 160 big, high energy slugs into a small area. Those will simply trash ANYTHING made of aluminum or magnesium like engine blocks, wing spars, flight controls..in short any part of an airplane that isn't armor plated and a lot of the armored parts too.

If you don't think so, you haven't spent much time shooting high-powered centerfire ammo at stuff like old cars and trucks. It's a great way to mis-spend some youth.

As far as the WB guys...hey, ya pays yer $1.50/hour and ya takes yer choice. <Or maybe you pay something like .30/hour if you play AH and ONLY spend 100 hours online a month.

>

A long, long time ago in a thread very similar to this (da DAH da da DAH DAH!) I mentioned that it MAY not be the guns. It COULD be the damage model. As Vermillion points out, that is very tuff to quantify and program. The ballistics are really pretty cut and dried and generally easy to quantify.

Let's make sure we hang the right guilty man before we go stretching ropes!

hblair · « **Reply #40 on:** February 19, 2000, 04:12:00 AM »

Quote

I'll tell you what I do know for sure. There are a lot of WB guys who don't like to fly here because the guns make a lot of ACM useless.

I *know* that this is true. The guns on all the planes in general seem too deadly to me too.

A couple pings and that wing folds every time. Doesn't seem to matter if it is .50 cals or what.

Just opinion, not facts.

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hblair
JG 77 WB's Historical Arena & Events
The ASSASSINS WB's Main Arena, ACA
Luftwoobies Sturmgruppe Kommando Aces High

[This message has been edited by hblair (edited 02-19-2000).]

funked · « **Reply #41 on:** February 19, 2000, 08:17:00 AM »

Vermillion do you have Shaw's book? There is a balance between weapons envelope, turn radius and turn rate that makes WW2 combat unique. IMHO the current guns envelope screws up this balance. The set of useful ACM in here is a lot more like what is described in the sections on all-aspect missile environments than the sections on a guns-only environments.

There were a lot of maneuvers used in the war that were effective only at ranges where AH guns would shred a con. Why were they effective in the war? Because a plane couldn't be easily shredded at that range in the war. Zoom climbs, spiral climbs, rope a dope, scissors, etc. You can only do these in AH if the other guy is a poor shot.

Lephturn · « **Reply #42 on:** February 19, 2000, 08:54:00 AM »

I use all of the moves you mention with success online funked.. on a regular basis. Ok, I need to leave a bunch more leeway than I expect because of netlag.. but all of these maneuvers work, and work well. I also see these moves use against me on a regular basis, and they seem to work VERY well for the other guys!

You need to remember that everyone in this sim is a FANTASTIC gunner compared to your average WWII pilot. (Save some of the very expericenced Luftwaffe pilots.) Just because we have some crack gunners in this sim doesn't mean the model is wrong. I also don't think we should mess with the modeling to try and "play balance" against the crack shots in the arena.

Now remember, I started out on your side of this argument. It was not until I took up Pyro's challenge to film it and tried a bunch of long-range gunnery myself that I came around to this side of the debate. The testing I did and the films I tried to get, simply confirmed that the real issue was that I was under-estimating the effects of lag. Once I started factoring more of a buffer into the timing of my moves to account for lag, I had no problem. I almost never get hit in head-ons, and I pull off defensive moves and turn the tables on the enemy a reasonable amount of the time. If it was as you insist, I shouldn't be able to turn the tables like that, or even survive a 15 minute scrap with a better turning plane as we work down to the deck. I think the problem is you are used to the WB gunnery model that is not as realistic and has been "play balanced" to try and compensate for lag and the great shots we have in these sims. I think the way AH does it is the right way, and I don't see a problem with any form of ACM in this sim as a result.

I hate to keep harping on this but... somebody please show me a film of this behaviour. I respect your opinion, but I just don't see what you are seeing. If we can get a film of it, we can all review it and examine it from our different points of view. If we see something that's out of whack, I'll gladly admit I am wrong! However, if nobody can show my point to be wrong, then I think those of you on the other side of the debate need to admit that maybe you were mistaken.

Just FYI, I have been conducting lots of training sessions in the training arena. I generally fly the F4U-1D (yes D) and although I can sometimes get hits out to 900 or so, I never seem to be able to do any damage at that range. Even in the C hog, I can sometimes get a ping or three out to 900, but nothing much happens as a result.

I've got a ton of experience, testing, and films that support my position in this debate. If somebody will show me some evidence to the contrary I would love to see it.

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

Vermillion · « **Reply #43 on:** February 19, 2000, 10:27:00 AM »

Sure do Funked, and I always end up going back and reading it again every several months. Usuallly when my luck starts too turn bad

What sections are you refering too in particular?

I think Lephturn may have right of it. Its my experience (and I have always flown both AW and WB's concurrently) that each game has its own individual timing. And usually its a matter of which one you fly the most, as too which one feels "right", because this is how you have trained your reflexes.

Come to think of it, when I started to fly AH, I died alot when I thought I shouldn't from my WB's perspective. It was frustrating. But I guess, I gradually adjusted my timing to fit this game, and now it feels right too me.

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

Toad · « **Reply #44 on:** February 19, 2000, 01:03:00 PM »

There's two recurring themes here:

1. It's too easy to hit at long range <"the guns shoot too far/too accurately">.

2. The guns are "too lethal (strong)."

HT has repeatedly said he feels the ballistics are as close as we are likely to see. Ballistics are, in fact, the characteristics _most likely_ to be accurately modeled in any sim. The data is plentiful and proven equations are readily available.

Yet there is continued "flak" that the AH ballistics are "off".

I'm going with HT on this one. No one has posted ANY ballistic data for these weapons that would contradict HT. All we've had is speculation, primarily from people that have never shot such weapons. The comments we HAVE had from military guys that actually USED these guns pretty much supports HT's position.

If the ballistics are right, then if you get a hit you should be getting a hit. Ballistics are pretty simple computations and I trust HTC on this.

The leathality issue is much harder. We've seen the photos of "test shots" and the damage is huge...from single cannon rounds.

Having helped restore several WW2 aircraft, I can attest to the fact that they are built to minimize weight with sufficient strength for the task at hand. Generally, strength is always sacrificed to save weight and increase performance. They are only "built tough" where they have to be and "built tough" is an aircraft relative term. Everything else is slanted towards minimum weight/sufficent strength.

Drop an engine's magnesium camshaft cover on a concrete floor from waist high and it will probably crack. Smack it with a ball peen hammer and it will split.

Modeling damage is very subjective. There are too many "it depends". Depends on where the shot hits, type of projectile, range, strength of structure hit and on and on and on.

Comparisons to other sims are meaningless in terms of "realism" too. The other sims are wagging damage and playbalancing to suit their idea of how long/how many hits it takes to destroy an aircraft.

They <any of them> don't know for sure either. They've just tinkered until it "seems right" to their audience. That doesn't make it the standard by which others should be judged.

Show me where the ballistics are incorrect. If muzzle velocity, trajectory, bullet's ballistic coeficient, sectional density, etc. are WRONG then we need to see some changes.

If you want to argue DAMAGE, then admit it is subjective and no one really knows. As someone said in one of these threads, even the USAF is working hard on programs to model damage and they're having a tough time.

Damage is a "playbalance" thing and probably always will be. You just can't get exact data.

This is not true of ballistics.

Have a nice day!