What Zigrat said! Big monitors! Even better, full dome projection!
Jekyll
Once again, the main point is that modern ballistics programs very accurately predict where a bullet will hit. Magnus Effect may be a player, but it doesn't affect the ability of program to compute where the bullet will land. I haven't done much research into ME simply because of that. It doesn't matter WHY a bullet does what it does as long as you can accurately predict the path. THAT is very easy to do if you have the ballistic coefficent of the projectile and the muzzle velocity.
As for the 7.62 Nato, I can tell you it is one of the most accurate rifle/lmg rounds ever produced. That's why it's a National Match benchrest favorite.
http://home.snafu.de/l.moeller/Longrangeballistics.html That's an excellent page on ballisitics. It explains a lot of things, including gyroscopic precession in bullets (that's what you are trying to get at in the ME, right?)
"Like a gyroscope, the bullet will yaw and precess as it spins on its way down the range. A certain minimal amount of this precession is required to keep the bullet 'tracking', keeping it pointing along its trajectory. If the bullet did not precess and went completely to sleep' then it would maintain its launch angle throughout its trajectory, which means that on the final part of the flight, when it is descending, it would still be pointing up, thus presenting a much larger cross section and substantially increasing drag. This is the extreme case of what happens when the bullet is spun so fast that the stability factor 's' is greater than about 3. The gyroscopic forces will prevent the bullet from tracking and the drag goes through the roof for the final part of the trajectory. If the precession is greater than that required to keep the bullet tracking then the result is again an increased effective cross section, giving increased drag and leading to disappointing ballistic performance.
To keep precession at the right level the first thing is to keep the stability factor from around 1.1 to 1.5 for your bullet of choice. Do not use the Greenhill formula to calculate the rate of twist you need, use of this formula is pretty much guaranteed to give you a twist that will stabilize the bullet. But, especially with secant ogive or VLD bullets, Greenhill's formula can suggest twists that will overstabilize the bullet, preventing it tracking well at long range. The computation is not a trivial one, but there are computer programs available which will do this. (See the 'Programs' section of this website.)
" So, as you can see, it can be determined an accounted for in bullet design.
As for accuracy of the .308, I haven't seen data for it a 4500 yards. I can give you this from a benchrest however:
From the same site:
"This technique is much favored by 1000 yards bench rest shooters, who look for
ten shot group sizes of the order of 3" or better!
".
As I mentioned, the round itself is very accurate. Shooting from an aircraft mounted MG would of course give different, somewhat poorer results. I think it's impossible and irresponsible to guess at that here.
I'd like to see your source for the 4500 yard data. I'd think that 4500 is way beyond "accurate" range for the .308 and very possibly beyond "effective" range for the round as well. I've seen various sources put the .308's "effective" range at either 800m or 2000 m; nothing over that. Most of the .30's would have the same problem, I'd think. Sounds like an interesting site, though.
I will again point out the .50 BMG data mentioned above:
"The original military purpose of these weapons was to destroy jeeps, tanks, personnel carriers, and other vehicles...
Fifty caliber rifles are “accurate” up to 2,000 yards, meaning they will strike the intended target within this range. These weapons are “effective” up to 7,500 yards, meaning that, although accuracy cannot be guaranteed, the round will cause its intended effect at this distance if it strikes the target."
So 2000 yards is most certainly within the "accurate" capability of this round on things as small as jeeps. I suspect the similar rounds from other countries are close in performance.
As for the incorrect math, sorry. Glad you caught it. I do make unintentional mistakes, like everyone else.
Now, all the above being said, my initial comments in this thread and a few others like it have been made for one reason.
There's too much flaming about realism. This is a game. Compromises and unrealistic elements have to be made. That should be obvious to anyone.
Of course we ALL want it "as real as possible". That brings up the problem of "selective realism". We all seem to want the "real things" that we personally feel are the most vital, most important. We just don't agree on what those are.
...and so the flamefests begin.
The point of the whole exercise is to highlight the fact that compromises have to be made and there is no one "realism" or "groups of realism" that are going to be perfect.
We all know it. I hope we can all be rational rather than "selective" about realism.
Thank you and good day.
[This message has been edited by Toad (edited 05-08-2001).]
