30mm cannon not always damaging planes

[mechanic]

HTC doesn't care about this bug.

Personaly i think they kind of enjoy how much the odd dud tater makes some people cry  

[kilo2]

Yeah not all 30mm exploded IRL.

[RTHolmes]

1. hit: right wing root. no further damage. Sorry, but at least the flaps in that area should have been toast on the first hit.
2. hit: left h-stab. it just looses the attached rudder. Seriously, a 37 mm blast should have removed the entire h-stab, and possibly the left elevator too.
3. hit: right wing root. roughly the same location as hit one. Now the flap is gone, but I think with that hit, the wing should have come off completely.
4. hit: left inner engine cowling. enigne (or fuel tank) catches fire. I'm ok with that.
5. hit: left wing middle. no further effect. not even flap damage, quite similar to hit 1.
6. hit: left inner engine: second direct hit. this engine shoube be frikin' dead now, but still runs like a champ. at least the flap comes off though.

thats not quite what I see in the film.

1. hit on fuselage just aft of wing root
2. hit on rudder - rudder lost
3. hit on right flap - flap lost
4. hit on left inner engine rear cowling - fuselage flames up
5. hit on left wing middle - chunks of debris from wing so damage registered
6. hit on left inner engine cowling - cowling lost and flap lost

the 37mm seems to do splash damage but not a massive amount. so hit (1) may have done some splash damage to the right flap but not enough to take it off. the left flap is a case in point - no direct hits but 2 hits to the engine cowling cause enough splash damage to the flap to remove it. how the engine cowling survives a direct hit is another question. the fuselage has taken a direct hit (1) and the splash from (3) and (4) so flames up. iirc it takes quite a few 20mm to flame up a lanc fuselage so a good result for the 37mm there.

overall that looks ok to me.


edit: quite hard to see exactly where the left engine hits land because of the black underside camo.

[Boozeman]

thats not quite what I see in the film.

1. hit on fuselage just aft of wing root
2. hit on rudder - rudder lost
3. hit on right flap - flap lost
4. hit on left inner engine rear cowling - fuselage flames up
5. hit on left wing middle - chunks of debris from wing so damage registered
6. hit on left inner engine cowling - cowling lost and flap lost

the 37mm seems to do splash damage but not a massive amount. so hit (1) may have done some splash damage to the right flap but not enough to take it off. the left flap is a case in point - no direct hits but 2 hits to the engine cowling cause enough splash damage to the flap to remove it. how the engine cowling survives a direct hit is another question. the fuselage has taken a direct hit (1) and the splash from (3) and (4) so flames up. iirc it takes quite a few 20mm to flame up a lanc fuselage so a good result for the 37mm there.

overall that looks ok to me.


edit: quite hard to see exactly where the left engine hits land because of the black underside camo.

Well, I dunno if splash damage is modeled at all. If it is, it's strange in many respects. See, the hit in the rudder then should have made an effect to the elevator and the h-stab then, yet it didn't. 2 engine cowling hits damage the flaps but not the engine itself? I'm quite puzzled. I will try to get some more fimls, but usually you do not survive long enough in that position to get good footage. 

[Ardy123]

In RL, if you hit any control surface with a 30mm, you would probably f'up the control mechanism of the airplane so bad that not only the surface would fall off but most of the control cables for neighboring control surfaces would all be busted too.

[RTHolmes]

spash from cannons is definitely modelled to some degree - eg. you dont need a direct cannon hit on an ack gun to take it out.

hit (4) shows that there is splash damage to nearby areas - the fuselage which has already taken a direct hit (1) flames up, even though it wasnt hit directly this time. the hit to the rudder might have done damage to the surrounding surfaces, just not enough to remove them completely. the engine cowling/flap hits are hard to make out with the camo but the rear part of the cowling is part of the flap, then theres the bulk of the cowling, then in front the engine itself, so theres 3 parts to kill not just an engine.

still looks ok to me.

[kilo2]

Yeah true but if they don't explode the damage is greatly reduced. There is videos of a 109 shooting 30mm into spitfire wings and they both stay on albeit the pilot did have to bail.

[sunfan1121]

Yeah not all 30mm exploded IRL.

you see them explode but no damage.

[Boozeman]

spash from cannons is definitely modelled to some degree - eg. you dont need a direct cannon hit on an ack gun to take it out.

hit (4) shows that there is splash damage to nearby areas - the fuselage which has already taken a direct hit (1) flames up, even though it wasnt hit directly this time. the hit to the rudder might have done damage to the surrounding surfaces, just not enough to remove them completely. the engine cowling/flap hits are hard to make out with the camo but the rear part of the cowling is part of the flap, then theres the bulk of the cowling, then in front the engine itself, so theres 3 parts to kill not just an engine.

still looks ok to me.

Thats all good, but honestly, if a round is capable of completely removing a P-47 Wing with one hit, I do expect a bit more effectivity on bombers too. I'd venture a bet that the P-47 wing is a much more rigid structure as the v-stab of the Lanc.

[RTHolmes]

it may be, and I'm pretty sure the tail fin would have come off if you'd hit it directly, rather than the rudder.

[Krusty]

A 30mm hit isn't going to stop at a rudder.. it's going through the rudder and blowing the entire v-stab, and H-stabs near it, and tail near THAT, clear off the airframe.

Yes, because fabric covered rudders "really" sheild the rest of the plane from blast damage, eh?

I think splash damage is kind of messed up in this game. It's laggy. Your "hit" registers, but the splash damage at that registered point doesn't kick in til the plane has moved "past that point" if you see what I mean.

This explains how HO shots that land on noses can take off rudders (quite common in this game) and how I can have screenshots and film of myself landing 20mm rounds on the wing of a spitfire, but the spitfire losing it's H-stabs instead. The rounds hit, register with the server, meanwhile the plane is moving forward, the server says "boom happened here" but the plane is microseconds past that point, and the damage ends up elsewhere.

It's the only explanation I can think of, and I have given it a lot of thought. I think that's also one reason why the bigger rounds impact, and leave a fireball on films, but that fireball almost always trails behind the plane rather than where it hits. Makes for annoying screenshots.

I wish the server would track the fireball with the motion of the plane, or just have no delay with the explosion (make it client side or whatever, I don't know how it really works), but that "delay" has been there since forever.