Author Topic: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)  (Read 1132 times)

Offline smoe

  • Silver Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 941
Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« on: April 08, 2012, 10:58:09 AM »
Does anyone know if guns were adjustable vertically as well as horizontally?

Most probably know where I'm going with this.

Offline icepac

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 7317
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #1 on: April 08, 2012, 11:22:17 AM »
I use the target command to get vertical convergence where I want and ignore horizontal convergence.

Offline Getback

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6467
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2012, 11:56:19 AM »
The further you set your convergence the higher the round will go if physics is calculated correctly. Tators on the other hand always seem a bit lower than the lower caliber rounds.

  Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Calorie Counter

Offline --)SF----

  • Copper Member
  • **
  • Posts: 262
      • Musketeers Squadron
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #3 on: April 08, 2012, 12:41:22 PM »
Tators on the other hand always seem a bit lower than the lower caliber rounds.

Lower muzzle velocity.

Offline titanic3

  • Persona Non Grata
  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 4235
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #4 on: April 08, 2012, 12:56:07 PM »
Set them all to 250 or 300. Open fire at D400 or less.

  the game is concentrated on combat, not on shaking the screen.

semp

Offline bustr

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 12436
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #5 on: April 08, 2012, 01:00:00 PM »
Historicly yes.

Hood, wing and gondola had some adjustment. Motor cannon were locked inline with the airscrew shaft and the gunsight was adjusted.

In our game the motor cannon tilt up to the white hood MG line and slide up/out along that from 150-650. The Ta152 is the only motor cannon that apperes to be locked into the motor line while the green 20mm line slides angled up to it 150-650.

If you set your K4 30mm to 200 it will average a flat kind of shot to about 400 becasue of the slight loft in the uptilted barrel. Fly the K4 at 290 true airspeed auto leveled against the the target and shoot at full zoom 200, 300 and 400. The dispersion pattern and slow velocity is your bigger problem. Not the drop when you set it's convergence to 200.

I beleive it's the green gun line for most of our aircraft in the game that your gunsight is zeroed to when you change convergence. The closest you will get to changing the vertical is to create gunsights where you place the reticle center higher or lower in the bitmap mask. But, then thats a bit of the reason some gunsights had tick marks below the center mark aside from bombing and rockets.

I think the center line of sight for the gunsight mirrors the green gun line sliding down the white hood MG line or an invisible line for wing only guns. It's the only way I can account for your gunsight center being zeroed at any convergence point you pick.

Is it realistic?

Test it this way.

Set a 190D9 20mm to 275. Fly against the offline target and auto level at 280 true airspeed. Shoot at 275, 400 and 550 while on full zoom. Do your rounds zero at 275, shoot high at 400 and pattern center at 550? Yes it would be nice once you pull your convergence out to 275 that you can lock your gunsight center and 20mm elevation there. Then angle out your 20mm to cross at 550.

Try a P51D convergence 300, auto level 285 true. Shoot at 300, 500 and 800.

In the game consider how often you really kill any cons past 200-300 in a fighter. The verticle componet is slightly irrelevent becasue the game models your nose dipping when you fire wing guns. Check the La's when you fire their guns against the offline target. Your nose raises. Motor mounted gun fighters stay steady becasue the recoil is inside of the engine line. I've failed to test what gondolas do to 109's though.
bustr - POTW 1st Wing


This is like the old joke that voters are harsher to their beer brewer if he has an outage, than their politicians after raising their taxes. Death and taxes are certain but, fun and sex is only now.

Offline RTHolmes

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 8260
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2012, 01:00:12 PM »
Does anyone know if guns were adjustable vertically as well as horizontally?

Most probably know where I'm going with this.

yes they generally were, and no ours arent ...
71 (Eagle) Squadron

What most of us want to do is simply shoot stuff and look good doing it - Chilli

Offline mtnman

  • Gold Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2438
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #7 on: April 08, 2012, 01:06:11 PM »
Does anyone know if guns were adjustable vertically as well as horizontally?

Most probably know where I'm going with this.

Yes they were.

The guns were aligned vertically and horizontally so that the trajectory of the rounds would converge with the LoS at the desired range.

MtnMan

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not". Thomas Jefferson

Offline mtnman

  • Gold Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2438
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #8 on: April 08, 2012, 01:07:21 PM »
I use the target command to get vertical convergence where I want and ignore horizontal convergence.

When you adjust convergence in AH it has an effect on both vertical and horizontal components.  There's no way to separate them, and/or adjust one aspect without affecting the other.

You may only be paying attention to one aspect or another, but you're effecting both (at least with wing-mounted guns).
MtnMan

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not". Thomas Jefferson

Offline bustr

  • Plutonium Member
  • *******
  • Posts: 12436
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #9 on: April 08, 2012, 02:39:25 PM »
Hitech is your armeror and knows best what you need to destroy the little red goobers on your screen. His silence speaks to the faith we all need in his delivery systems of our piu, piu, piu, happiness.

May the Hitech be with you, and within all of your caliberistic endevors.

Go Boom is the mantra of those who piu, piu, piu.

Blessed are those who piu.
bustr - POTW 1st Wing


This is like the old joke that voters are harsher to their beer brewer if he has an outage, than their politicians after raising their taxes. Death and taxes are certain but, fun and sex is only now.

Offline icepac

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 7317
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #10 on: April 08, 2012, 05:10:42 PM »
When you adjust convergence in AH it has an effect on both vertical and horizontal components.  There's no way to separate them, and/or adjust one aspect without affecting the other.

You may only be paying attention to one aspect or another, but you're effecting both (at least with wing-mounted guns).

That wasn't clear from my post you quoted?

Offline mtnman

  • Gold Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2438
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #11 on: April 08, 2012, 05:21:41 PM »
That wasn't clear from my post you quoted?

Not really, from my end.  Or, maybe more accurately, I could easily read multiple meanings into your phrase.

I see what you mean, now, of course, but worded the way you had it it looked to me like you purposely "skipped" adjusting the horizontal aspect.

Had you stated that you only adjust the horizontal convergence and ignore vertical, I would have thought it equally odd.

MtnMan

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not". Thomas Jefferson

Offline mtnman

  • Gold Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2438
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #12 on: April 08, 2012, 05:24:52 PM »
The further you set your convergence the higher the round will go if physics is calculated correctly.

Because physics is modeled pretty accurately, this isn't true of wing-mounted guns.

Setting your wing-mounted guns at 150yds convergence will cause your bullets to fly much higher than they would with a 600yd convergence.
MtnMan

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not". Thomas Jefferson

Offline SmokinLoon

  • Platinum Member
  • ******
  • Posts: 6168
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #13 on: April 09, 2012, 08:08:20 AM »
Set them all to 250 or 300. Open fire at D400 or less.

Nothing else needs to be said if the discussion is about air to air combat. 

If the mission is to hammer ground targets or hunt bombers, then maybe 400-450 yards.

Set guns to the SAME convergence point.  There is some real idiocy and off the wall theories out there in regards to this.  Some guys hold the theory that the P47 can spread apart 2 banks of .50 cals by 50 yards I wont argue against that, and the same goes for the quad 30mm on the Me262.  Otherwise... there really isnt an airplane that shouldn't have all guns set at the same convergence at all times for air to air combat.
Proud grandson of the late Lt. Col. Darrell M. "Bud" Gray, USAF (ret.), B24D pilot, 5th BG/72nd BS. 28 combat missions within the "slot", PTO.

Offline Peyton

  • Copper Member
  • **
  • Posts: 228
Re: Gun Convergence (Vertical Adjust)
« Reply #14 on: April 09, 2012, 08:20:27 AM »
Historicly yes.

Hood, wing and gondola had some adjustment. Motor cannon were locked inline with the airscrew shaft and the gunsight was adjusted.

In our game the motor cannon tilt up to the white hood MG line and slide up/out along that from 150-650. The Ta152 is the only motor cannon that apperes to be locked into the motor line while the green 20mm line slides angled up to it 150-650.

If you set your K4 30mm to 200 it will average a flat kind of shot to about 400 becasue of the slight loft in the uptilted barrel. Fly the K4 at 290 true airspeed auto leveled against the the target and shoot at full zoom 200, 300 and 400. The dispersion pattern and slow velocity is your bigger problem. Not the drop when you set it's convergence to 200.

I beleive it's the green gun line for most of our aircraft in the game that your gunsight is zeroed to when you change convergence. The closest you will get to changing the vertical is to create gunsights where you place the reticle center higher or lower in the bitmap mask. But, then thats a bit of the reason some gunsights had tick marks below the center mark aside from bombing and rockets.

I think the center line of sight for the gunsight mirrors the green gun line sliding down the white hood MG line or an invisible line for wing only guns. It's the only way I can account for your gunsight center being zeroed at any convergence point you pick.

Is it realistic?

Test it this way.

Set a 190D9 20mm to 275. Fly against the offline target and auto level at 280 true airspeed. Shoot at 275, 400 and 550 while on full zoom. Do your rounds zero at 275, shoot high at 400 and pattern center at 550? Yes it would be nice once you pull your convergence out to 275 that you can lock your gunsight center and 20mm elevation there. Then angle out your 20mm to cross at 550.

Try a P51D convergence 300, auto level 285 true. Shoot at 300, 500 and 800.

In the game consider how often you really kill any cons past 200-300 in a fighter. The verticle componet is slightly irrelevent becasue the game models your nose dipping when you fire wing guns. Check the La's when you fire their guns against the offline target. Your nose raises. Motor mounted gun fighters stay steady becasue the recoil is inside of the engine line. I've failed to test what gondolas do to 109's though.





bstr,

What is the target .dot command to bring up the target?
I used it a long time ago but cannot remember....and how do you reset the target once you have fired a few rounds.  After a while the target gets a lot of holes in it and you can't see where the bulllets are hitting.