Grunherz, the like Funked said earlier, the tests were conducted by Hooligan and Dingy.
If I remember correctly they were done back in either 1.02 or 1.03 (but I could be wrong) and they were done for most if not all of the primary guns in AH.
But you should remember there hasn't been any changes to the guns in AH since then. Except the Hispanos were turned down a little bit in one revision, and dispersion was changed in another (this wouldn't have any effect for our purposes however in regards to comparitive lethality since its usually done at close range).
If I remember right, it was done offline by firing at hangers and counting the number of shells it takes to destroy the building. And I also believe that Hooligan and Dingy did the tests seperately, and their results confirmed one another. I think maybe Juzz did some testing too, but its been quite some time ago.
Are there ways to potentially improve the tests? Sure.
1.) You could do them in the TA instead of offline, but I don't think it would have any effect, since your looking to compare each type of gun to each other, under the same testing conditions. ie comparitive lethality.
2.) You could do them by firing at a specific aircraft part (instead of a hanger) for instance the wing or tail of a B-17. This potentially could show some differences than earlier tests, since I remember Pyro a long time ago stating that Aces High had 3 different kinds of targets (from my memory) soft, hard, and armor. He would have to confirm that to be sure though. The biggest problem is that you would have to do these tests in the Training Arena with a second player, and they would have to be repeated many times with the same gun to remove variability and error (at least 10 times each gun or maybe more). In other words its going to take a long time, and two people.
3.) You could conduct the tests at different ranges to see what effect the drop off in kinetic energy is causing, for instance at 50, 300, and 500 yards. This will be difficult to do however as you must insure that your test setup, insures a 100% hit rate of whatever target you are shooting at.
And then you could begin to combine all these concepts into a single test where you fire at hangers and plane parts, from three different distances, all while online.
Also it would have to be done with all the different guns. From the MG/FF, MG151/20, Mk108, M2 Hispano (English & American if you want to get technical), ShVak, NS-37, B-20 (should be same as ShVak, but to be technically complete it should be done), Type 99-1 , Type 99-2, and those are just the cannons. The Machine Guns add a whole lot more.
Plus you have to plan your testing regime out ahead of time, pay extreme attention to detail while conducting such tests, and keep meticulous notes and data entries.
So yes, the tests could be redone with the current version, and could theoretically have an improved methodology. But we are talking about a huge time and effort investment.
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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure
