I have to say it... One of the biggest problems with 410 right now (with proof).

[Krusty]

I finally have taken the time to compile a detailed and thorough post to explain one of the largest problems with our Me410.

The Me410 had several key design criteria to meet, including: It must be able to shoot beneath its own tail to defend itself. This was a problem with the 110 and this criteria was required to solve that problem.

In theory this makes the 410 capable of defending itself to some extent. With massive effort on my part I have earned a few kills with the tail guns in the LWA. However, there is a massively glaring problem with how AH has the 410 modeled that handicaps the rear guns.

This is the problem: The framing we have is all wrong. It's just totally inaccurate. Try moving to either "side" gunsight and look around. Your view is horribly cluttered and blocked. Try aiming down. You can't! Your massive bulbous canopy framing blocks you from doing so! This shouldn't be there.

It looks like when the AH cockpit was modeled the rigid frame in the center part of the canopy was taken and extended all the way back when this was put into 3D shape. Sadly, this ruins a few things about the 410's windows. Allow me to explain: The Me410 canopy is divided into 3 sections. The front windscreen. The aft-most portion. The length in between these to.





The middle section has a thick frame inside it. It was attached with explosive bolts and could be blown off as 1 piece to bail out in emergencies. This rigid frame was NOT part of the canopy framing itself, and simply sat inside the framing. The fore-most and aft-most segments of canopy were built into the airframe and had quite slender framework. Further, the jettisonable section, where it met the fuselage, had a MUCH thicker framework, seemingly more than 2x as thick, than both "fixed" sections. In our version you can see the thin forward frames and then the transition to the rigid tube framework when in the pilot's seat. This doesn't transition BACK to thin framework in the aft gunner position, though.

Pictures of the real framework, showing thinner frames fore and aft on the "fixed" portions but thicker in the middle:

[Krusty]

Here are screenshots showing the framework, with red outlining what it would (more likely) look like on the real thing.





What does this mean? It means our rear gunner view is horrifically handicapped and the frames from the side positions should be about 30%-40% of what they are now. Reducing the existing size of the frames would allow you to properly aim "downward" -- as currently the only thing preventing you is the over-sized framework! And then there's more, but back to that later in this post.

Another problem that exacerbates this rear gunner view is the "ring" around the flat panel. You look through this ring framework when looking straight aft on either side's gunsight. Not only is this ring far too thick but it is facing you. It is flat to your perspective, taking up far more of your visibility than it should. In reality there is very little of this frame presented flat to you. Instead, it has a very slim lip (half as thin as the "thin framework") around the view pane that is flat to you, and the rest wraps around the outside of the curved view panes. This means that relative to your perspective the thickness is parallel to your view, not perpendicular as it is modeled in AH.

And then there's one other problem with these left and right gun positions... The curvature of the left and right "bulged" panes is wrong as well. They slope too steeply on the top and bottom. They look too "pointed" when viewed from the rear.

The rear as seen in Aces High:


They are in reality wide loops with high tops and low bottoms, maximizing available room for the reflector gunsights. In our version the gunsights are cramped and maybe because of this they are seemingly modeled too close together. The shape of the rear glass is off, so I'm not judging by the slope of the "side" panels just aft of the gunsight. I'm judging from the best guess at where the aiming point for the reflector is, vs the lowest part of the view pane where it touches the fuselage. By this I am determining clearance from the fuselage for any downward angle the gunner may require. It looks quite clearly like our AH gunsights are too close to the fuselage, hindering any view downward. Considering that one of the main requirements was to be able to shoot down, one must be able to SEE down, as well. I compared an AH screenshot with wartime photos, taken at a similar angle. I drew lines from the gunsight down past the frames.



I did my best guess in all wartime pics based on the shadow inside the glazing. Even with leeway for my "best guess" being off on some of them, ALL of them show a much wider stance than our in-game gunsight. I think this is due to the 3D shape of the canopy being wrong, the 3D position of the gunsights were placed incorrectly, because of inaccurate data on available headroom and viewpoint position.

This is in addition to the extra wide canopy framing. Together it is a double reduction, or a double hinderance, to aiming out the rear guns.

What this means is that you can't use the rear guns nearly as well as you should be able to. In essence, they are nearly useless. It also means the interior cockpit framing is very inaccurate on the 410.

Also, as a parting shot, I must also point out another canopy framework error, but this one is from the front seat. There is an extra bar on the right and left. This shouldn't be on the left.



This is part of the rigid framework, and the pilot and gunner's hatches opened on the left side. That bar would have stayed in place after the hatches were opened thus blocking entry/exit, so it wasn't found on the left side. You can see it from the outside when viewing the right side of the canopy. It is inside the cockpit glazing, and is not a frame. In-game it shouldn't be there on the left. In fact is ISN'T there, if you look at it from the outside. From the inside it is. I suppose this is to reduce detail to only what's needed, so that's understandable, but can we fix this on the inside view?


This rear gunner canopy issue needs to be fixed, definitely.

[Krusty]

I have also just come to the realization of another problem:

The rear facing flat angled panes that you look through when you look straight aft in either side position aren't nearly angled enough. This moves the lower edge of the cockpit framing up into the middle of your aiming point, making it harder to aim down by the wing root area.



The red line is an estimation of what it ought to be, give or take. That moves the interior frames further out of your line of fire, ESPECIALLY if you're trying to aim down.

Just to give a rough idea of the corrected "rounder" shape (not pointed) plus moving the lower edge down to show the proper angle.....




That puts the gunsight closer to the flat pane of glass, and also means it looks "over" the edge instead of "into" the edge of the thinner, more accurate, framework as well. A definite improvement.

EDIT: Note that doesn't take into account moving the gunsights out slight, either. I couldn't do that on a simple screenshot edit.

[bustr]

If the new P40 was shown to be innacurate and they pulled it and corrected the cosmetics. I hope the same happens here. It's obvious the shaping is off once the game model is held up to the real pictures and structure diagrams.

Your observation on the cutback angle may not be accurate for the gunsight bumpouts. Increasing the bell may be the issue to make more viewing area available.

Also the rear trailing top section of the canopy in the game has a slight top curve spanning as an arch across it and out over each bump out. In the real aircraft it's a flat panel while the bumpouts curve from the common mount bar.

There was a left upper pilot side strengthening strap in the canopy.




HTC has the gunsight bumpouts cross section and rear flat panel shaped incorrectly. Theirs angles up correctly but points, then more angularly, rather than bells downward




Let the viewer be the judge of the angle and the strengthening strap.

[Krusty]

Only the wheel size on P-40s were fixed. The gunsights are still rather hosed vs actual P-40 references. But... that's another topic I've already posted about.

[bustr]

There is some argument for: You cannot hit what you cannot see.

Note in both cases the center of the reticle, available reveal over the trailing edge of the wing, and the rounds in the water. This is the maximum outward swing but, by no means the max down. Anymore down and you are guessing at what is below the aircraft. I will venture the pilot and navigator worked as a team to account for fighters moving into the low 6 blind spot. The game allows you to deflect much farther down. I tested that while in F3 and firing. But, you are guessing by this point what the attacking fighter is doing, and this aircraft was never issued a periscope for the navigator. I thought some crews found the barbetts to be mostly worthless.

[icepac]

Nice work Krusty.

Hope they take your suggestions and run with it.

[Krusty]

My secondary comment about the slope of the rear facing glass wasn't quite accurate. I leveled a photo so the canopy bottom edge was "level" in photoshop, then drew a 40-degree line using photoshop (typing it in, 40.00 degrees, not eyeballing it). I drew a line through the estimated gunsight.



Then I did the same with a 410 shot from the film viewer. Tried to get the side view from further away to avoid fisheye.

Here we see the 40 degrees is still correct on the flat face, only they are just in the wrong place. Why 40 degrees? Because that's the max down angle on the guns. It also happens to be the perfect angle lined up from the gunsight to the wing root, beyond wich they have no need to shoot. I put a crossbar on the second pic to show that the window is the right angle, just perhaps not the right place. The real thing has the gunsight very close to the more-swept-back glass so that you get an unobstructed view when looking down.



So the angle is correct, it's just that the window placement is not.


Note: My yellow line in the top pic might be a tad high. I think those gunsights are placed differently than ours, but I drew it as if looking from the flat glass's lower edge.

[nrshida]

Maybe I can help here, not that I'm actually interested in the 410, but that can be an asset because I've never really studied the shape in detail and I have to deal with 3d shaping a lot for my work.

If you look at the top left and second from the top left photo in Krusty's photo, you can see the origin of the AH models difference:-




I direct you to the distinctive ridge in the AH model which marks the shape of the fuselage expanding to meet the canopy. This ridge isn't present on the real thing, but forget that for now, compare the shape of the AH fuselage in this area to the real plane, using the bottom horizontal frame of the rear window for reference. The glass of the rear window on the real thing looks way broader, but it's not, the fusalage is thinner, much thinner.

I believe that the AH fuselage has not started tapering early enough as you move rearward through the cockpit area, if it did then those rails which mark the bottom horizontal line of the canopy would move in too & you would be able to see downwards more easily as shown in Krusty's second post above. Also there would be then plenty of room to accommodate the obviously semi-circular windows in the real thing and could see both rearwards and downwards better through them.

Consider the angle of the base of the semi-circular glass, on the real thing it is much more upright, something like 15 degrees. On the AH model they look about 35-40 degrees, allowing for the different presentation of the two images. If they jigged the body of the aircraft in a bit more, that would reflect the real thing more accurately and wouldn't need to squash the semi-circular windows out of shape. Actually the second from the top rightmost picture, with the man leaning against it is more close to the angle of presentation of the top left picture, and this seems to confirm my observations.

Finally, look at the shape of the top on the canopy glass, on the AH model it already starts rounding downwards about two-thirds across top frame of the rear window, but on the real thing it is quite quite flat and doesn't curve at all until you are firmly into the area of the bulged part.


Hope it helps, Luftloons!

[bustr]

Is it possible this is a limitation of the modeling program to getting the skin that represents the glass to wrap correctly across the the combined bumpouts and the top of the rear canopy? Also the last bit of glass past the bottom of the bumpout looks like in the game is a tad longer than from the photos. I'm not sure if the last bit of glass is too long or if the bumpouts need to be move slightly farther back.

[Krusty]

Shida's got a good observation. I noticed the rear-most point where the fuselage blends into the canopy wasn't accurate, but I didn't take into consideration how badly that would affect the rest of the canopy.

Bustr, I don't think it's a modelling limitation, per se. It's easier to make a flat panel than a curved one.

I think part of what nrshida is saying is that the central pane of "glass" (persepex, or whatever it was) is wider on the real thing, pushing the "bumpouts" as you call them into strange shapes. That makes them look longer but really it's just that they have to stretch farther inward to reach the thinner central section.

[Krusty]

What shida said got me thinking about how 1 small difference can throw off the entire thing. So I did a side by side comparison, literally. I scaled them matching such points as the front of the canopy, the upper canopy where it "bumps out" to match the fuselage, and the size and shape of the gun barbettes. It shows a radically off shape for the in-game model. The rear "bumpouts" are way too far aft and way too shallow compared to the real thing.

This is zoomed to 200%, so please forgive the poor quality. The red lines indicate points on the canopy of the real plane and where they might be on the AH model. The yellow lines indicate points on the AH model and how it does not line up at all with the real thing.





What really irks me is that well before the 410 work was begun, I started a thread or two showing close up details of the real plane especially in this area, as well as in other areas, in an attempt to provide HTC with as much references as possible to get the correct shape of it in aces high. I posted photos and references and diagrams with cross-section-slices and all manner of info that would have prevented much of this rear-gunner problem.

[bustr]

Why not build a 3D canopy frame representing the HTC model and place it next to the real one. HTC's dosen't have the pronounced equal radius bulge as in the manufactures diagrams at the canopy midpoint.

[Krusty]

that's a thought

[bustr]

Krusty,

Go into F3 mode and walk around the canopy.

The cross sectional radius in the side shapes in each major structure are off becasue the proper semi half round bulge shape does not exist in the aft section that the bump outs are attached to. If you look from inside your game cockpit picture of the front left stantion of the windscreen it's a straight line angled from the top flat with a tad of arch imposed on it. In the real frame there is a pronouched quarter round coming off the top then it angle drops to the deck connection for the last half of the down run.

The lack of the semi half round bulge at the back frame of the crewman's hatch is whats throwing off the whole shape of the canopy and causing the bumpouts to not have the half round shape you see in the photos of the real aircraft. The artist may have opted to stay away from half rounds to get away from a pronounced stepping look that would not look very realistic with this one being created in the most current cockpit generation modeling.

You see a similar issue in the B29 cockpit or when you get up close to any tire. Circles are built with straight lines in segments.