G limitations on guns and engines

[Krusty]

I'm tired of all the stick stirring, flopping around, unrealistic, gamey angles that most of the ho-dweebs use, including the one I've seen so much lately which is to zoom inverted (pushing down on stick) upwards 7k while spraying thousands of rounds at you.

P51s had guns that would jam if fired in negative Gs. Other weapons had similar issues. The belts and feeds and mechanisms did not function while spiking from -5G to +8G, so why do they in this game?


Extreme case, knock those guns out in the damage screen. Easy case, make firing the trigger do NOTHING until positive Gs are restored.

There's a story of a P51 pilot that did something (I'm hazy on the exact manuver) and by the time he was ready to shoot at his target only one of his six guns was working because he jammed them all prior to lining up his shot.



While we're at it, all of the engines in the planes in this game relied on gravity to feed the oil pump to keep the engine functioning. Manuals on specific planes state the engines could be run no longer than x seconds inverted (F4u I believe is 15 seconds -- please correct me if I'm wrong), after which you ran the risk of siezing the engine up because it had no oil. Going hand-in-hand with the negative-G fish-flopping stick stirrers, let them try it with realistic engine limitations, and the engine dies, and you get a nice proxy kill.

Let's have a few more realistic G limitations. It would go a LONG way to limiting a lot of the gamey manuvers that the newbies (and some vets) use nonstop.

[Karnak]

I understood that the .50 cal installation on the P-51 was particularly prone to G induced jamming.

Not saying that an Fw190 or Spitfire wouldn't suffer jams due to G forces, just that the P-51 isn't exactly the most representative example.


Sustained negative Gs would be an issue for WWII engines.

[Krusty]

Naturally different guns would have different tolerances, but most of these are known somewhere, documented, limitations printed in operations manuals and so forth.

It would be possible to take a P-51D for example, and if the gun setup is almost identical in the F6F, the P47, and the F4u, to say the same limitations exist in those airframes as well (same guns, same layout, same feed, same ammo box positions, orientation, etc).

As for the oil, just take the operating limit and when you're inverted or in negative Gs run the temps up very quickly as if there's no oil, until the engine dies.

So the oil leak code can be used, only without the time delay for the leak itself, just toggle the "heat engine til it dies" code and it's already in-game.

[Karnak]

Actually, I suspect that we know few of those tolerances.  Maybe we have them for most US aircraft and some British or German aircraft, but I bet Russian, Italian and Japanese tolerances are probably completely unknown.

[Krusty]

Let's not forget we have a resident weapons expert on the forums. Maybe Tony Williams might chime in on this subject?

[BnZs]

Krusty, this was only a problem in the P-51B.

"In previous P-51s, the M2s were mounted at an extreme side angle to allow access to the feed chutes from the ammunition trays. This angled mounting had caused problems of congestion and jamming of the ammunition and spent casings and links, leading to frequent complaints of jamming during combat maneuvers.[24] The new arrangement allowed the M2s to be mounted upright, remedying most of the jamming problems."

In real life neg Gs are much more painful than positive Gs and in very extreme cases can result in eye damage. As an alternative to your suggestion I think we should perhaps consider making the screen blanking for red-out more severe, perhaps a lasting few seconds as is the case with black-outs. Guns refusing to fire under Neg Gs would make rapid oscillations in the pitch axis MORE effective as a defense, not less.

[Krusty]

Not if it killed the gun for the duration of that sortie. It's one thing to stir madly if you know you can turn around and kill the guy if you are successful in shaking him, but it's another to do it knowing you will have to end your sortie to get a new plane with working guns.

As far as the P51, I had read the story about losing all but 1 gun from a P51D, not a B.


P.S. I agree about the redouts, almost never see those. Should kick in more.

[BnZs]

Welp, you were mad about stick stirring...I'm just saying that fixing it to where you can't fire guns under neg Gs will make gamey usage of neg Gs more effective as a gun defense, not less.

And the chances of gun jamming from hard maneuvering while you were NOT attempting to fire them seems very unlikely.

So basically your suggestion would mean that someone attempting to follow a flopper in front of them through maneuvers would have THEIR guns pack up on them.

Not if it killed the gun for the duration of that sortie. It's one thing to stir madly if you know you can turn around and kill the guy if you are successful in shaking him, but it's another to do it knowing you will have to end your sortie to get a new plane with working guns.

As far as the P51, I had read the story about losing all but 1 gun from a P51D, not a B.


P.S. I agree about the redouts, almost never see those. Should kick in more.

[RipChord929]

By the time of WWII 99% of aero engines used
drysump lubrication... Separate oiltank, and scavanging
scrapers for the crank/rods, with a scavanging pump...

Radials didn't have a oil sump, just by the nature of
their design...

You are absolutely right about the guns tho...

RC

[Yossarian]

If this is historically accurate, I'd certainly like to see it in-game.  +1

[FYB]

I completely agree, there were many cases in which both P51b's and P51d's would jam guns when popping -G's against 262's and in many cases it led to an shameful defeat. 

They did fix the gun jams, right? The stories of gun jams ended at 1945 and i can't remember what month.

-FYB

[chewie86]

Actually, I suspect that we know few of those tolerances.  Maybe we have them for most US aircraft and some British or German aircraft, but I bet Russian, Italian and Japanese tolerances are probably completely unknown.

Breda's MGs were completely unreliable, they could jam very easily and without pulling -/+ G's .. they were built like s**t... I heard that Yak's 37mm couldn have been fired more than 2 / 3 rounds per time, the overheating could have led to a "gun barrel failure" (forgive my awful english).. And I'm not a chief in weapons, indeed I dont know anything about them.

But I would be more interested in engines' realism. Most of them used to overheat at 100% throttle and then experienced failures. WEP was very dangerous if engaged.. (oh and the wep engagement, isnt it too much arcade-style?).  I would also add something about "our" engines reliabilty:  they are perfect! I suggest some kind of randomized engine "failure" or "performance decrease" based on a statistic calculus about how much time you fly, not in a single plane (may be for long range bombers in mission tho) but for the whole time u're playing AH.  We already have that!

I know most of the Gamers wouldnt like this, it's a provocation.

just some of my intricated thoughts. Throw me tomatoes but not rocks pls

<S>
chewi

[B4Buster]

Chewi I'm 100% for anything that will make this game more realistic but I think there there were engine failures people would whine like crazy..I can see it now:

"i was going to land my 10 pick/gang sortie when my engine died and I couldn't land hurting my score"
I'm 100% for it, but I think all the whining would cause HTC greif

[BnZs]

We already have engine failures when the engine overheats when you run out of coolant or oil.

The game will not *allow* you to run WEP long enough to overheat the engine is the thing.

Breda's MGs were completely unreliable, they could jam very easily and without pulling -/+ G's .. they were built like s**t... I heard that Yak's 37mm couldn have been fired more than 2 / 3 rounds per time, the overheating could have led to a "gun barrel failure" (forgive my awful english).. And I'm not a chief in weapons, indeed I dont know anything about them.

But I would be more interested in engines' realism. Most of them used to overheat at 100% throttle and then experienced failures. WEP was very dangerous if engaged.. (oh and the wep engagement, isnt it too much arcade-style?).  I would also add something about "our" engines reliabilty:  they are perfect! I suggest some kind of randomized engine "failure" or "performance decrease" based on a statistic calculus about how much time you fly, not in a single plane (may be for long range bombers in mission tho) but for the whole time u're playing AH.  We already have that!

I know most of the Gamers wouldnt like this, it's a provocation.

just some of my intricated thoughts. Throw me tomatoes but not rocks pls

<S>
chewi

[B4Buster]

The game will not *allow* you to run WEP long enough to overheat the engine is the thing.

gotcha