Any of you sharp shooting piolts care to share your skills with this newby

[Ghosth]

Don't let RTR fool you, he's been offered the training job a few times and was always smart enough to turn it down.

He'd be a very good choice for getting you up to speed.

[Dichotomy]

I'm going to add in here a couple of points that I think may be useful.

1.  Attitude is key.

So far you have shown both a willingness to learn and polite mannerisms.  These will earn you a ton of respect from the more seasoned players who will do more than you can possibly expect to get you up to speed and really enjoying this game.  Training is the obvious thing but that's not all.  Buy CH gear or any other and ask for help setting it up? You'll get a ton of help.  Sometimes more than you can digest in one sitting.

2.  Print out to hard copy anything you don't think you can digest reading once.  I have three loose leaf binders full of information at home that I sometimes grab just before a flight to 'refresh' myself on something I don't normally do.  The 'quick reference' page of . commands is one of my favorites.

3. Have fun.  I enjoy the game a lot.  I enjoy the people more.  Remember that you're doing this for fun and don't make a job of it or you'll risk burning yourself out.  Then you'll get the itch in a week, month, year, and come back to find that you don't remember how to work the radio.  Very frustrating (trust me)

4. Contribute.  Everybody brings something to the table.  I'm a simply horrible cartoon pilot but I enjoy being a part of the community so if it's making avatars, helping somebody with photo editing, or something simple that I know by rote that somebody is having a tough time grasping I'm more than happy to help them with it.  Even if you're just a warm body to fill an event you are contributing in some way. 

I'm a pm away if you have a question.  If I don't know the answer I bet I know someone who does.

Again.. welcome to your new addiction. 

[Muzzy]

Another bit of homework: Read the plane information on AHwiki.  (The link is on this page).  That will give you a rough idea on each plane's strengths and weaknesses.  

[dtrip61]

One more thing (not that I'm a sharpshooter by any stretch of the imagination!) but film your sorties and then go back and study your gunnery passes in slow motion and zoomed in.  Compare the lead angle you have with the speed/G and overall dynamics of the merge and see where your bullets pass the bad guy's plane.  When you do have a few good "spot on" engagements, SAVE THEM!!!  You will have gunnery slumps.  When you do it's time to review the "good pass" films and reprogram your brain for the correct sight pictures.  Oh, and if you notice the plane jumping up and down and sideways when you set up the firing pass and pull the trigger then you need to adjust your stick scaling until your control touch/stick scaling combination lets you maneuver and fire with little to no "jump".

One more thing.....learn to move your head all the way to one side of the cockpit on hi G tracking shots.  You gain a small additional bit of over the nose view that way.  There was (and probably still is) a link in the training forum describing the technique.

-dtrip

[bustr]

Offline gunnery.

Take up your favorite airplane with about 50% fuel. Whatever gunsight you are using that week. Set your convergence where ever it works for you. Then do the following and keep notes.

Go to an airfield offline that you can take off and head north for a long way over water. Climb to about 1-2k. and auto level your plane so it's traveling north. Bring up the offline target. You do this by opening the text buffer and typing (.target xxxx ). You can type in any whole number from 3-1000. You will only want to start with 100 and go to 600 in 100 yard incraments. Then use full zoom to look at the target. Before doing anything wait for the aircraft to reach it's max level speed. You can tell by the fact that the center of your gunsight has stopped slowly moving up or down on the target.

Don't worry that the center of your gunsight never points at the center of the target. That is locked to the center line of your airplane. Now once everything has stabalised, use the (J) and (L) keys to move your nose left or right to get your gunsight near the center line of the target. Then leave it alone unless as you increase the target distance the center of the gunsight walks off one side of the target. Just move the center back over on it.

Make the following grid on paper to take down impact points relative to the center of the gunsight. Fire one set of guns at a time. Even draw a picture of the gunsight and put some refrence points on it that you can use as measurments. I use mils and have gunsights setup in mils for doing this procedure.

Here are my results from the Yak9U set to 650 convergence. Plus(+) means above the gunsight center and (-) means below. Because my convergence is 650 I didn't sample at 600.

Yak9U - Convergence - 650
-----------100--- 200----300----400----500---600---650 yards
MG-------(+7)---(+7)--(+6)---(+5)---(+3)---------(0.0)
Cannon---(+5)---(+7)--(+6)---(+5)---(+1)---------(-9)

Why do this?

1. Going through the mechanics of getting all of the data will give you a good memory for where your rounds will be relative to the center of your gunsight at any range.

2. Leaving aside for how much to lead a moving target. Most of your shots level from the back 8 to 4 o'clock are aimed from about the same 15mil space below center out to 600 yards. You can open your gunsight bitmap files and put a 15mil mark or 30mil circle around the center. Zoom to about 800% and remember 2pixels = 1mil.

You could really just use a 30mil circle or cross to do most of your shooting in the game once you map your convergence ranges and the resulting bullet trajectories.

Oh yeah Lead shooting....here thry this for awhile:
------------------------------------------------------
How to calculate gunsight Lead by the numbers.

Aces High General Types of Guns

MG
Brit.303...762m/s...Bullet=11.3g
MG17 7.92..865m/s...Bullet=11.5g
MG131.13mm.750m/s...Bullet=76g
AN/M2.50...850m/s...Bullet=112g
UB-12.7....850m/s...Bullet=64g

20mm
Type 99....600m/s...Bullet=200g
MG151/20...720m/s...Bullet=205g
Ho-1 20mm..750m/s...Bullet=164g
Ho-5 20mm..750m/s...Bullet=84g
ShVAK 20mm.750m/s...Bullet=96g
Type 99-2..750m/s...Bullet=200g
Hs404 20mm.880m/s...Bullet=257g

30-37mm
Mk108 30mm.500m/s...Bullet=336g
NS-37 37mm.880m/s...Bullet=760g
------------------------------------------------

Time to Target in seconds.
---Target---100---200---300---400---500---600--yards
Bullet Speed
---500m/s---.20---.40---.60---.80---1.0---1.2--seconds
---600m/s---.16---.36---.54---.72---.91---1.0
---720m/s---.15---.31---.45---.61---.76---.91
---750m/s---.14---.29---.44---.59---.72---.87
---762m/s---
---850m/s---.13---.26---.39---.52---.65---.77
---865m/s---
---880m/s---.12---.25---.38---.51---.64---.76
-------------------------------------------------

Combat Speeds 90 degree left<--->right Travel in Yards.
--Time---.10---.20---.30--.40--.50--.60--.70--.80---.90--1.0---1.5--seconds
Speed
250mph---11---22---33---45---56---67---78---89---100--112--168--yards
300mph---14---29---43---58---73---87--102--116--131--146--219
350mph---17---34---51---68---85--102--119--136--153--171--256
400mph---19---39---58---78---97--117--136--156--175--195--292
-------------------------------------------------
Conversions
Speed mph to yd/sec
250mph = 112 yd/sec
300mph = 146 yd/sec
350mph = 171 yd/sec
400mph = 195 yd/sec
450mph = 220 yd/sec
-------------------------------------------------
Field of View 120mil and 60mil gunsight rings in Mil at Distance.

60mil at 100yds = 6.5yds
60mil at 200yds = 13 yds
60mil at 400yds = 26 yds
60mil at 650yds = 43 yds

120mil at 100yds = 13yds
120mil at 200yds = 26yds
120mil at 400yds = 52yds
120mil at 600yds = 66yds
-------------------------------------------------
120mil gunsight Lead values

Measure from center dot of your gunsight.

Target Speed & Distance
350mph--------200---400---600---Yards
Bullet speed
----500m/s----2.6---2.6---3.2---Lead in 120Mil rings.
----600m/s----1.6---2.4---2.5---
----720m/s----------------------
----750m/s----1.8---1.9---2.3---
----762m/s----------------------
----850m/s----1.5---1.8---2.0---
----865m/s----------------------
----880m/s----1.4---1.6---1.9---
----------------------------------------------------
A 120mil ring lead of 2.6 at 200 yards is shorter than a lead of 2.6 at 400  yards.

120mil at 200yds = 26yds X 2.6 = 67yds
120mil at 400yds = 52yds X 2.6 = 135yds

1mil = 3.6 inch at 100yds.
1mil at 1000yds = 36 inches.

Personaly Kentuky Windage is alot more fun than the headach the data collection and calculation I did for tose tables gave me. And I don't have any clue what values are really being used in the game. This was a big step into the unknown.....

[Muzzy]

 

So where do I point my 30mm?

[Simaril]

Buster -

That's impressive data collection. And I like the way you analyzed the problem - makes sense to my head.

But the bottom line question is, did it improve your gunnery?

Dave

[VonMessa]

So where do I point my 30mm?

Waaayyyyy above the target.

You don't so much aim the tater at the target as you aim for the tater to be in front of the airplane you wish to hit with it...

You are really just trying to make the tater and target occupy the same location at the same time  

[bustr]

Muzzy you looking for someone to do the work for you?

Make the effort to collect the data. Then you will have a better starting point for your intial guess in the game to be right when you pull the trigger.

You guys can make your own data collection gunsight. Mine looks like a 164mil diameter waffle in 1pixel 10mil lines 8x8 centered on 4. 512x512 bitmap. I have 5mil ticks on the horizontal and verticle center lines. 256 in the mil file. Just remember to multiply by 25 instead of 100 in your angular mil formula. I think all gunsights are presented in 128 no matter your starting bitmap size.

109k4 - conv - 250
----------100---200---300---400---500---650---yards
MK108--(-2)--(0.0)---(-2)--(-10)--(-18)-(-35)--Mil below gunsight center.

---------------100----150-----400---yards
Dispersion--2.5x5--3.5x4.5--3.5x5--(hxw)-dispersion cloud grid.

That dispersion cloud grid may have more to do with why it's hard to hit anything with the single Mk108 than your aim. The cannon was never intended to shoot at fighters. Just bombers because a 100ft wingspan is inside of the real parabolic dispersion cone.

Parabolic Dispersion Cone MK108 German Test Trials

---100----150---200----300---400---meters
---9.4m--15m---21m---35m---49.7m-radius

Bomber wingspan 100 feet = 30 meters
Fighter wingspan 30 feet = 9 meters

You can hit a bomber out to 400 meters.

This is why the two MK108 in the 110 and Fw190A-8 or, 4 in the Me262 are more efficient. A single Mk108 kind of shoots all over the place at 100 meters.

[mtnman]

Parabolic Dispersion Cone MK108 German Test Trials

---100----150---200----300---400---meters
---9.4m--15m---21m---35m---49.7m-radius

Bomber wingspan 100 feet = 30 meters
Fighter wingspan 30 feet = 9 meters

You can hit a bomber out to 400 meters.

This is why the two MK108 in the 110 and Fw190A-8 or, 4 in the Me262 are more efficient. A single Mk108 kind of shoots all over the place at 100 meters.

That alone makes it look like it's counter-productive for a person to set their convergence past 300yds, or take shots further than that (unless they're just relying on luck to score a hit).

[bustr]

Here is how to watch german gun camera footage.

If you are lucky a Revi gunsight is super imposed so you can judge distances. If not the field of view circle in the film is about the same as the ring on a Revi.

When a fighter or bomber's wings fill the camera or graticule these are the distance from the camera.

10m wingspan = 100m -- Half graticule circle-- fighter = 300m
30m wingspan = 300m -- Half graticule circle-- bomber = 600m

There is some YouTube german guncam footage with MK108 rounds being fired at bombers. In one of them a 190 opens at 300m. The big day tracer flares go everywhere but the bomber. Eventualy one hits the tip of the right wing. He does not get good hits until inside of 200m. This is with the 2 MK108 package.

Kind of like trying to hit a tossed dinner platter at 50 yards with a 3 inch 45colt snubnose revolver. Now if you had 4 barrels like a pepperbox derringer....that would be an Me262.....

[Simaril]

Bustr -


I'd love to use the ring circle accurately sized for those lead estimations - but with different planes, sometimes the reflectors' different sizes make the circle look bigger or smaller. How do you make sure that the circle is sized appropriately for the plane you're in?

A few years back I resized a dot-and -circle sight (was it the British mark II??) so that the ring was the same size as the wingspan of a P51 at 200 meters. How can that kind of sizing be turned into the mil system you use, and that so many references talk about?

Thanks for your help

Dave

[bustr]

Hitech made the POV in all of the gunsights the same recently. A 180ft ring at 1000yards is 60mil in all aircrafts gunsights. And the offline target just happens to be 180ft in dimater.

-------------------------------------------------------
63mil circle at 200yds(183m) based on the MKII 100mph ring.

or

61mil at 200yds(183m). P51D - 37ft wingspan. 37feet at 200 yards.
-------------------------------------------------------
215x215 black bitmap.
Orange and Yellow show best.

Put 256 in the mil file. If you name the file BritMKII.bmp, create a txt file called BritMKII.txt. Put the number 256 in it. Rename it to BritMKII.mil and place it in the sights directory with the BritMKII.bmp file. This is one of the changes to the gunsight function FOV.
 
2pixel = 1mil in a 512x512 file.

122 pixel diameter circle wil yeild a 61mil circle in the game.(round down to 60 by this point)
126 pixel diamter circle will yeild a 63mil circle in the game.
-------------------------------------------------------

The real MkII* post 1940 used a 114mm X 114mm square plate. The best I can calculate from pictures was 60-65mm ring about 120mil at 100yds. The cross bar open space was for distances past 200 generally 300 or 600 yards.

-------------------------------------------------------

Now if we go with the 100mph ring used in the Barr & Stroud MKII*.

161 km/hr (100 mph), target crossing speed - 161 km/hr (100 mph 90 degrees across the pilot's line of sight), range 183 m (200 yds). In this situation the bullet would take 0.254 sec to reach the target, which would have travelled 11.5 m (37.7 ft).

Or 1150cm needed for size in the Angular mil formula as S(size) and 183m as D(distance) to return mil.

62.8mil or round it up 63mil is the diameter of the 100mph ring in the MKII* used in spitfires.
---------------------------------------------------------
I tried to be helpful. Really................

Field of View 120mil and 60mil gunsight rings in Mil at Distance.

60mil at 100yds = 6.5yds
60mil at 200yds = 13 yds<---39 feet......weeeeee
60mil at 400yds = 26 yds
60mil at 650yds = 43 yds

120mil at 100yds = 13yds
120mil at 200yds = 26yds
120mil at 400yds = 52yds
120mil at 600yds = 66yds