IL-2 is a useless plane as it is

[2Late4U]

The IL-2, allegedly a "flying tank" is as easy to kill as the zero.  The tail falls off as if glues on with elmers®.

Ive flow it several times now, and one burst typically blows off a major component (lets say oh....a wing)

Also, how the heck are people killing the engine from dead 6 shots again?

[juzz]

Well, historically the tail and outer wings were the "weakest link" on the Il-2... and the oil cooler too - problem is the Luftwobbles™ know this and will shoot accordingly.  

[funked]

Well I tried a strafing run on a panzer with it.  Hits all over him but no damage.  He gets one M61 err MG34 hit on me and my engine is gone...  End of that experiment.  If you want to kill tanks, get a tank.  

[Mathman]

Well, after some initial problems with this plane, I have really come to appreciate it.  There are 2 things that you need to have in order to be successful in it.  You need to have local air superiority (that is a given considering the low speed).  Also, the best thing you can have is surprise.  It is tough to get with the icons the way they are, but it IS possible, you just got to figure out how to do it.

Oh, and all my kills in it have come via the guns only.  No other ordnance was used.

-math

[This message has been edited by Mathman (edited 05-25-2001).]

[GRUNHERZ]

The "MG34" on the Panzers turret is extremly over modeled. An Mg34 is a single 7.62mm 850rpm macine gun, its comporable to the the British .303 or US .30cal Browning. It should nobt do anyhting to an IL2 especially to the IL2s engine as that was the most heavily armored part of the plane with actual rolled armor plate encasing it.


This overmodeling of defensive weapons like the buff guns or panzer guns is one of the worst and most unfortunate aspects of this game. Why is this so? Because it assumes that one vehicle like a bomber or tank should be able to kill anyting it wants and have effective self-defense vs enemy fighters/attackers all by itself. In RL bombers needed escorts to survive and tanks needed aircover. HTC please stop over-doing defensive weapons and encourage team work and realism!

[Fishu]

Grunherz,

Thats just a balancing feature to offset the disadvantage caused by hispanos  

[Regurge]

Well it works great for me. Hitting frontal armor doesnt seem to do much but those 23mm open em up great from the rear. I just finished a sortie where i strafed a panzer from the front with no effect. I turned around and hammered him from the rear and he exploded. I kept going straight toward and ostie also from the rear. He opened up around 1.2k bust wasnt a great shot. Anyhow i ended up killing him even though I couldnt have been an easier target. He got 1 hit on me and it only killed my engine.

[Betown]

Funked.
    You wana kill a panzer? Get a tiffy!
(even though it flys like a tank)

[Fatty]

I am extremely pleased with this plane.

[Animal]

As am I.
Every bit the attack plane I expected.
A very stable gun platform, well armored and suited for its specific role: attacking ground vehicles.

It takes plenty of damage from A2A fire, but as I expected it will not survive long against other planes.

It is strictly for ground attack.

I have never flown a plane and managed to get out alive after 3 ostie direct hits.

[ra]

<<<I have never flown a plane and managed to get out alive after 3 ostie direct hits.>>>

No single engine plane would survive even 1 37mm hit, not even an Il-2.  Maybe those 3 pings were from a 20mm field ack or a fighter you didn't see?

ra

[flakbait]

Just being anal here Grun:

The MG-34 fired at 850-1,100 rounds a minute shooting a 7.92x57mm Mauser round. That works out to between 14 and 18 bullets hitting an aircraft per second.

As for the glass tail on the Il-2, I know too well that it's there. Had my horizontal stabs shot off two times in a row de-acking a field offline. Had the same thing happen to my Ki-61 at 430mph once over a medium field. I wanted to buzz the place and instead some lucky bastage with a 37mm knocked off both horizontal stabs. One shot too. But don't go feeling too harsh about it, I had an ack remove my tail wheel on my fourth Il-2 run.

-----------------------
Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"With all due respect Chaplian, I don't think God wants to hear from me right now.
I'm gonna go out there and remove one of His creations from this universe.
And when I get back I'm gonna drink a bottle of Scotch like it was Chiggy von
Richthofen's blood and celebrate his death."
Col. McQueen, Space: Above and Beyond
   

[This message has been edited by flakbait (edited 05-26-2001).]

[SFRT - Frenchy]

 

Originally posted by funked:
Well I tried a strafing run on a panzer with it.  Hits all over him but no damage.  He gets one M61 err MG34 hit on me and my engine is gone...  End of that experiment.  If you want to kill tanks, get a tank.    

that's definitly not true, yesterday I had my IL2/yak/Pz war for 1 hour. As well on the Yak or the IL2, when firing with the commander turret I scored hit on the incoming straffing aircraft from D700 till D000. All I could do was to hit the oil on both planes but that's all. I recall repeating that 4 times in a row on a Yak and he was still flying around, I couldn't ripp his wing.

I even wondered if HTC neutered the MG on the tank to encourage to straff Tanks. In the other hand, the Yak/IL2 where cheing parts of my tank. Usually it was a track who was hit, terminating my mission and putting me on G2A mode.

BTW, I love the no ext view for the tank, more immersive.

[GRUNHERZ]

Flakbait at either rate of fire the MG34 on Panzers turret would run out of ammo between 3-6 seconds if using the 50 round drum or a 100 round ammo "gurtsack" as they called it.

The other basic problem with Panzer MG, beyond the overmodeled power, is the apparent lack of ability to kill the commander firing it. I know of no German tank commander stupid eneungh to get outside and fire a single 7.62mm gun at a strafing Sturmovik or P47.

Here is an excerpt from an interview of Ernst Barkmann, a famous 2nd SS "Das Reich" Panther Ace, dealing with anti aircraft defense by tanks. This is from a Ryton pub. book on the Panther.

Q. What defense did you have against air attacks?

A. None, smoke was our only defense.

NONE

The current Mg modeling allowes the Panzer far too much self-defense ability, and its single 7.62mm is certainly more affective in AH than the Spit's 4 .303 or the 109's 2 Mg17. I can only honestly disagree with this policy and hope it gets changed. Single 7.62 mm should do nothing to Il2s. These aircraft are simply too well armored in the frontal lower quarter to be affected by it.

The only chance I see of Mg34 having an effect on Il2 armour is if our Mg34 models the special AP ammo Panzers had for their Mg34s. Apprently this ammo was so powerful it was used to penetrate the gunshields of British AT guns in North Africa from ranges of 500meters or so. Maybe if this ammo was used then Il2 might get hit harder. But even this is unlikely.

[MadBirdCZ]

I was really looking forward to the Il-2 and although it still has some bugs and flaws (in the game) I really like it. But Im just wondering... If it is the "Type 3" Iljuschin then it should have the 37mm variant and also the rack for 200 AP antitank bomblets... Or am I wrong?

 

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MBirdCZ
CO of Sudden Death Squadron