Author Topic: Can someone recomend me a gunsight?  (Read 726 times)

Offline HornetUK

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Can someone recomend me a gunsight?
« on: January 31, 2014, 03:55:15 AM »
Hi all, I have now got a thrustmaster Warthog and my fighter skills have improved a great deal.

BUT I can not dive bomb or hit anything with rockets, as a good start point can some recomend me a good all round ground attack sight?
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Offline uptown

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Re: Can someone recomend me a gunsight?
« Reply #1 on: January 31, 2014, 04:38:17 AM »
I'd give the P51K sight a try. It looks like this...............


It works well in the ponys, 38s and jugs. not so well in the f4us or f6fs IIRC.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2014, 04:40:49 AM by uptown »
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Offline Randy1

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Re: Can someone recomend me a gunsight?
« Reply #2 on: January 31, 2014, 05:42:23 AM »
I use the same one as Uptown on the P51 and P47.

The pair of circles below the center is for rockets and the bottom two circles are for bombs. 

For the P38 I use the "L" sight in Bustr's Historic gunsight package with the rocket ladder.

Offline HornetUK

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Re: Can someone recomend me a gunsight?
« Reply #3 on: January 31, 2014, 06:34:54 AM »
And at what sort of range do you use the lower markings?
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Offline Randy1

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Re: Can someone recomend me a gunsight?
« Reply #4 on: January 31, 2014, 08:34:25 AM »
And at what sort of range do you use the lower markings?

A good question.  And what angle would be another.

I get close enough to be able to see the details of say a hanger or radar.  I come in at about 45 degrees.  On a hanger I fire a salvo of six rockets, two blips on weapon select then drop the bombs in one pass.  Takes a bit of practice.  I fire rockets first since the rocket ladder comes up first on a 45 degree dive.  Pull up quickly.  Stay flat and you will blow yourself up.

Mustng2 has some good practice packages in staged missions.  You can turn on the green rocket and bomb marker too.

Offline bustr

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Re: Can someone recomend me a gunsight?
« Reply #5 on: January 31, 2014, 04:45:27 PM »
Problem with rockets and bombs from fighters is speed and angle at the moment you fire or release. In both cases a 70 to 90 degree attack is the most accurate regardless of the speed. But, most of us come in below 60 degrees where speed becomes an issue to how the structures in your gunsight will work.

For rockets, the rule of thumb speed is to be at 300 - 350 to make most of the rocket aid structures work that are about halfway down from the center of the gunsight. Those structures in ww2 represented 30 to 60 degrees. You can test this offline with the dive bombing lead computing green cross turned on. If you are slower, your rockets will hit short. The Russian rockets are low powered and not very accurate so don't fire farther out than 400 unless you are diving 70 to 90 degrees.

Bombs are interesting. 70 to 90 degrees is called dive bombing, while 60 to 30 is called glide bombing. Below 30 becomes skip bombing or fling bombing. Totally different subject. From 30 to 60 degrees you will be aiming from about the bottom of the rocket aid down to the bottom of your gunsight ring or whatever you aim with down at the bottom of the gunsight's reflector plate.

The Brits had two modifications of the MKII and MkI Type I. The MkIIL had a tilting head that lowered the gunsight reflection 5 degrees while the Beumont modification lowered a single dot by 5 degrees. And the Germans had a base plate that could tilt the Revi for jabo. The Russians just had all those tick marks and told their pilots to get close.

In the end, offline with the green dive bombing computing cross turned on is how you do this. For the most part the gunsight is irrelevant. You can check my latest gunsight package in the Aircraft and Vehicles forum. There is the N9 with rocket aid which was used in the P38L and P47 including a modification to the K14's fixed 70Mil ring, then with the lower quarter as the fixed sight in the K14A. There is a British sight I placed extra dots in to take the place of the tilting sight head. There are the NAVY Mk8 sights which all the NAVY and Marine aircraft used to great effect.

The consistent thing players have done over the years when they make their own. They use the offline dive bombing green cross. Set a button to take a screen capture. Press that instead of firing a rocket or dropping a bomb. Then updating their gunsight with the screen captured impact points. And for the most part ever after, attack at the same speed and angle each time. So when you get hold of a copy years later, you have to figure out what the original speed and angle of attack was.

Moral of this story. If you use the historic gunsights with rocket\bomb aid stuctures. Rockets be 300 or faster 30 to 60 degrees. 800 to 400. Bombs 30 to 60 degrees. 1000 for the rockets if you are 70 to 90 degrees. Probably something similar for the player created special sights. Just test it all offline with the green dive bombing cross turned on.

Just like our game, no real world ww2 pilot could be told: do x, y, z and you will hit every time. That's why they had bombing ranges and why we have the offline dive bombing green cross. After all, this is classified as a skill of arms.
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Offline Randy1

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Re: Can someone recomend me a gunsight?
« Reply #6 on: February 01, 2014, 08:18:35 AM »
Got the answer.  Deleting the post.
« Last Edit: February 01, 2014, 10:40:36 AM by Randy1 »