190 gondolas or lack there of

[Tank-Ace]

Might have been modular in nature. Take off the gun pod, open up the wing and install the single cannon, and hook up the wires left from the gun pod.

Sorta like replacing a blown speaker in your car. You don't necessary have to run new wires, you unhook the battery, remove the old speaker, drop the new one in, and hook it up to the old wires.

[morfiend]

 Upon some further checking I found the arming system could only arm 4 weapons at a time!  It would overload the system otherwise.

  It appears they used the same electrical connection for either the inwing guns or the gondolas. The gondola's ammo was stored inthe wing to take advantage of the heating system in place for the onboard guns.

 The main trigger fired mg's and inboard 20's as they were on 1 system and the secondary trigger fired the outboard guns or gondies,they use a sepperate electrical panel and wired a seperate trigger for either bombs or rockets,this was on the A models.


   

[save]

6x20mms...If I am at 25k (which could burn the drop tank getting there) and the buffs are 17-10k, I could get three good, clean passes. That would mean I have the E to blow through the escorts, pull up, nose over and get two more passes.

After that, maybe even before that, it is a race to the deck and ack-cover with limited ability to fight.

My guess is this was learned the hardway and why only a few examples were used.

Flying smart you HO the mid plane in the buff set, then proceed to the next buff set in the Tonga line, do not get greedy, since high 11-1 clock  attacks is the only option, if you don't want an oily engine or worse.
90% I fly with 4*20mm.
 If higher escorts bug you, enter dive, if they know what they are doing.

Lived by these rules this TOD against buffs ( except Lancs,B26 that begs to be killed from underneath) and I have only lost one airframe to a collision against them.

[Krusty]

In WW2 the bombers cruised even during combat. Luftwaffe pilots could and DID repeatedly attack the front, turn around and overtake the bombers again, and attack from the front again, all in a single engagement.

In here it's totally not the same.

[Tank-Ace]

If I had x1.0 fuel I know that's how I would take on B17s

More of a time issue, IMO. Hard to make repeated head-on passes before they reach target.

[LCADolby]

Fuel is a time issue in the MA.

[Tank-Ace]

You know what I mean.

[Zacherof]

So could they be added.

[MK-84]

I have asked, in wishlist for more realism in flying in formation, ie if you want a set of buff flying formation you have to go throttled down, or lose drones.

You get totally molested flying parallel with a buff set 9 o'clock at 1.5k out, which is totally BS.

Staying there only for some seconds always gives an oily engine (like there is no other place to get shot at) and then wing-tip go away.

I've been shooting with pretty much everything IRL, 7mm,12.7mm 20mm 9cm and up. and there is not a snowball in hell that anyone  can shoot from a moving platform at 1.5k out on a small moving object and hit with any precision without radar and computer aid.

Were you shooting multiple MG's at once though?

And could you instead fly oh I dunno, 2.0k parallel instead?

[Krusty]

More of a time issue, IMO. Hard to make repeated head-on passes before they reach target.

It wasn't a time issue, but rather a speed issue. In this game often bombers have only a small margin of speed difference between attackers and bombers, but in WW2 it was more like the fighters were twice as fast.

Same as overtaking a yugo in your car vs overtaking a pedestrian.

[Megalodon]

In the A-8 hand book the wr-21 are considered "Special Weapons" but we have those.  

The gondolas are just part of the armament installation A8/R1.

[Krusty]

Sure, but they were seldom used, and only with one or two JGs for a short while. It was a short gap between the A-4 or A-5 and when the A-6 introduced internal MG151/20s. Once those came around the gunpod, while still technically something you could install and mount, wasn't used anymore.

The performance drop was just that bad. They opted for less guns but mounted internally for no extra drag.


Overall it was a minor footnote in LW history, but I do admit a slight fascination with this setup and would like to see it in-game someday.

[Babalonian]

HTCs, can we get a 190 revamp?  I think it would be very fruitful, as is:

(from Lusche's thread http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,345669.msg4564380.html#msg4564380 )

In all seriousness, the 190 lineup doesn't need it as badly as other aircraft (key term: need), but at 10%-use but umpty-% under-polished in AH... very fruitful I wager.  Hopefuly someday soon.

[Tank-Ace]

It wasn't a time issue, but rather a speed issue. In this game often bombers have only a small margin of speed difference between attackers and bombers, but in WW2 it was more like the fighters were twice as fast.

Same as overtaking a yugo in your car vs overtaking a pedestrian.

The cause of the problem is speed,  but it still manifests itself as lack of time.

When I said that to Dolby, he was originally claiming fuel as the reason he doesn't head-on bombers. Personally, I don't because,  even in my K4 which is arguably the best low-mid alt interceptor in the game, I lack time to make repeated head-on passes before they drop.

[Krusty]

It's not just time. It's speed. It wasn't always a head-on pass. Often it was climbing over a formation and very carefully attacking from a side angle where the guns didn't aim as well. Italian pilots put a lot of thought into it when attacking with C.202s and C.205s (yes, C.202s... One pilot had 6 B24 claims in his C.202, and earned 2 more after moving to C.205s later on). In this game when your tail chase gives you a closure rate of 20mph or less, any single movement removes you from firing position. If you dive on a bomber, you can't catch them again. Slashing attacks are ruled out after your first pass.

Time is one of the secondary aspects of it. The speed is the real issue. Even if you had 10 hours and unlimited gas you still wouldn't come remotely close to historic ww2 fighters' ability to reposition for repeated runs. Not when bombers in this game run full throttle WEP speeds all the time.