Russian Fighter Gun Convergences

[bustr]

Recently I spent a weekend doing Russian language searches to find any pictures of Yak or La on hard stands being bore sighted from WW2 like we see for many allied aircraft. As far as I can tell, there are none. Instead I found references from interviews with VVS pilots about the guns being set at the factory. And what the VVS tactical doctrine was for air combat related to effective guns range.

The tactical doctrine was max shooting range for air to air combat, 200m. Past that your chances of getting enough rounds on a maneuvering target are very small. While you are expending a very small magazine of rounds for your guns. The PBP-1A reticle by the time of the La5Fn was able to be used for lead at 500m. But, just like the Germans, longer ranges described in tactical documents were for level flying bombers.

Both the UB 12.7 MG and the ShVAK\B-20 20mm have a similar ballistic to the AN\M2 50 cal. 200m or 218yds or 656ft, your rounds drop about 8 inches. The PBP1 two ring reticle reflects the 200m tactical doctrine with the inner ring is the average Mil diameter of the 109 and 190 wingspans at 200m.

Yak and IL2 props had a 200m zero mark on the back of the props. The PBP-1 had an elevation dial which the pilot could change the aimpoint for things like the NS-37 shooting at ground targets, bombs and rockets. But, otherwise all of the guns mounted for forward firing shot flat to 200m. I could find nothing that the factories set Yak and La guns other than shooting level and parallel forward. Even the P38 guns were set parallel but, harmonized to 2000ft. Same with the P39 hood guns, parallel and harmonized to 1000ft. German hood MG were also set parallel.

One interview of a Yak 7B pilot, he explained that the two 12.7 UB were used for air to air while the ShVAK 20mm was saved for ground strafing. He also talked about 200m and air combat. The twin 12.7 at close range were satisfactory for 109. The 20mm ballistics became different than the 12.7 past 200m.

I tested this with the Yak 9U and all guns set to 225. My first sortie was a 4 kill. I held fire in all cases until the range marker was 200. 

[Oldman731]

The tactical doctrine was max shooting range for air to air combat, 200m.

Thanks for this research, Bustr.  Interesting stuff.

Also confirms that these computer games let you shoot accurately from way too far out.

- oldman

[bustr]

WW2 air to air combat was not fought from 600 yards and farther unless you were attacking bombers. Actual HOing was taught that you opened fire at 2000ft or 666yds because you wanted your target to flying into your rounds in their most concentrated pattern around 1000-1200ft. Allied discussions about fighter convergence for wing guns, AAF gunnery harmonics manuals, and after action reports\films show fighter to fighter shooting on both sides happened under 1200ft(400yds).

It's only in modern games where your life is not on the line and no one wants to spend any time developing ACM and gunnery skills that you see fighter to fighter kills, or at least hits, 600 and past as a norm. I regularly hit runners from dead 6, 600 and 800 only because I've spent so much time researching and creating gunsights for the game. And it's only on good Internet traffic nights.

I have wondered if gunnery suffers the same issues as we see with collisions in terms of who you are really shooting\colliding with. If that is the case, I can see gunnery needing help from the programmer, or half of us would never hit anything in motion air to air. I have a 100% hit ratio against all of my offline drones. And yes your distant competitor behind his PC is simply remote controlling your local drones visa proxy pointer updates for him being in the room with you on a direct link. Yet no one in our game has much higher than a 20% hit ratio.   

[Wiley]

WW2 air to air combat was not fought from 600 yards and farther unless you were attacking bombers. Actual HOing was taught that you opened fire at 2000ft or 666yds because you wanted your target to flying into your rounds in their most concentrated pattern around 1000-1200ft. Allied discussions about fighter convergence for wing guns, AAF gunnery harmonics manuals, and after action reports\films show fighter to fighter shooting on both sides happened under 1200ft(400yds).

It's only in modern games where your life is not on the line and no one wants to spend any time developing ACM and gunnery skills that you see fighter to fighter kills, or at least hits, 600 and past as a norm. I regularly hit runners from dead 6, 600 and 800 only because I've spent so much time researching and creating gunsights for the game. And it's only on good Internet traffic nights.

I have wondered if gunnery suffers the same issues as we see with collisions in terms of who you are really shooting\colliding with. If that is the case, I can see gunnery needing help from the programmer, or half of us would never hit anything in motion air to air. I have a 100% hit ratio against all of my offline drones. And yes your distant competitor behind his PC is simply remote controlling your local drones visa proxy pointer updates for him being in the room with you on a direct link. Yet no one in our game has much higher than a 20% hit ratio.   

I'm pretty sure offline drones work differently from online player controlled aircraft.  They don't stop flying until they're destroyed, I seem to recall a post from way back that said there was more to it than that as well.

As to gunnery, it's all calculated on your FE.  If you put bullets on a guy and see hit sprites, the hits counted, period.  Warping can make gunnery more difficult, but that's the only way your connection can affect whether you do damage or not.

Wiley.

[Mongoose]

WW2 air to air combat was not fought from 600 yards and farther unless you were attacking bombers.

  Not entirely true.  Pilots flying the P-38 (yes, my favorite plane ) reported that they could sometimes get fighter kills out to 800 yards.  With the guns in the nose, and thus limited or no convergence issues, they were able to get the kills at longer ranges.

[bustr]

Every air force in WW2 had their kappa, Grizz, and Zazen equivalent. And things like 800yd kills happened, pilots were not trained for them as SOP. Their training and protocols were developed from the largest number of repeatable successes with the hardware of the time, is the research results I'm presenting.

The AN\M2 .50cal lost 1\2 of it's penetration power by 1200ft(400yd). The Russians experience from their technology, 200m was their maximum fighter to fighter combat distance due to the limited number of guns and small ammo load. You could not expect a very high percentage of your rounds contacting the enemy past 200m while maneuvering. P38's due to the configuration of guns, and amount of ammo, were able to make 600yd shots as a standard if very little deflection was involved.

The point to this is the common element, all of the protagonists mounted their hood and nose guns to shoot parallel to each other. Not to some point convergence because dispersion took care of any need for it. And for timing to shoot between the props, you wanted the rounds going straight out.

Mongoose please feel free to start a post edifying all of the P38 pilots who made 800 yard kills as their SOP. I'm sure it will be well received, especially with all the historic info you have collected.

[BnZs]

Bustr, you may be over looking one factor. We fly in *perfectly* still air all the time. This probably aids long-range hits on un-maneuvering targets, while not changing close range gunnery all that much. It also serves to make flex mounted guns on everything from the F.2B to the B-29 far more accurate than they ever could be, because a bomber on auto-level is essentially as stable as the ground. OTOH, while fighters are operating in the same perfectly still air, their guns still have to be *flown* on target.

[bustr]

We have a virtual turbulence substitute. The Internet and it's peccadillos.

[BnZs]

We have a virtual turbulence substitute. The Internet and it's peccadillos.

I thought any pings you see on your front end would be assessed as damage to the opponent?
Anyway, happenstances of bad internet don't change what I'm saying though, amazing shots are made. The dispersion of flex-mounted aircraft guns should probably be turned up to compensate for the fact they are mounted on a surface that in the game is essentially equivalent to being mounted on the ground.

[BnZs]

Another thing: I have been told that when the range meter goes from saying "400" to "200", you're actually at 300 yards. Not sure if that is correct, but if so it could have an effect on results.

[bustr]

Hitech had to remind me once, meters are longer than yards. By the time most players start shooting at "200", it's -200.

It's great that you gents are uber sharpshooters in the game with P38s. Think about the new player who wants to rely on something that isn't: "Hi there, I'm Ubershot in the game. Let me tell you how I do it, because I always hit em past 600."

Because Hitech is using the physics from the manuals and WW2 research I'm sharing. The basic SOP works in our game as described. Bet I'm the only AH player who has bothered to understand why the PBP1 is constructed the way it was. And how that relates to Hitech's rather faithful interpretation of those physics factors that resulted in that specific reticle as the VVS standard for WW2 and into the 90's still for anti aircraft guns.

The French used the Revi16A reticle with a minor adjustment into the 60's. The Russians simply borrowed the Revi1 German reticle from the 30's and updated it to their needs along with pirating the Revi1 as the PAK1.

[Mongoose]

Mongoose please feel free to start a post edifying all of the P38 pilots who made 800 yard kills as their SOP. I'm sure it will be well received, especially with all the historic info you have collected.

  Oh, it definitely was not SOP.  But it was done.  Your statement was, "WW2 air to air combat was not fought from 600 yards and farther unless you were attacking bombers."  I was just pointing out that there were cases when air combat was fought against fighters from 600 yards and farther.  It was not normal, it was rare, but it did happen.  Your statement sounded as if it never happened.

  Standard Operating Procedure was to get as close as you can before pulling the trigger.  I remember when I was first learning, I was told not to shoot until I was two to three hundred yards out. 

   My own SOP is to spray bullets all over the sky and get an occasional lucky hit. 

[BnZs]

My own SOP is to spray bullets all over the sky and get an occasional lucky hit. 

This is a lot of us so don't feel alone!
Bustr, consider that the difficulty in getting fighter gun platform stability when using a small plastic joystick to simulate the controls may be a factor reducing player hit percentages.

[bustr]

You guys are heck bent on adding your personal exceptions to muddy the history message here.

You are free to cruise the Internet and other sources like I have in many different languages and bring your message to the game. I had to do that to present as historically accurate reticles as I could by researching how they were used and why. The process required learning that kills 600 yards and longer of fighters by fighters was the exception by exceptional pilots or very lucky pilots. You guys for some reason want that to be the topic of this conversation while leading down a rabbit hole inferring it normal in the game because you do it your self or you have read accounts from WW2.

The AAF reviewed the combat films of 701 individual combats in England that resulted in the destruction of 186 enemy planes. Of the 701 pilots, 39% shot down the 186 planes. The single commonality of those 39%, was shooting from under 400 yards. The P38 was active in the ETO at this time.

P38's could hit at 600 yards because the standard second drop in harmonization point was 666 yards. It was not the norm nor was taught as the norm. You only had 120 20mm HE rounds(hmmm how many does a Yak have, and why the 7b pilots saved them??) and by 600 yards the AN\M2 had lost more than half its kinetic penetration power. It was a tool if needed, if you could afford the ammo. I've seen more references to 600 and longer shooting in the PTO than the ETO where luft planes had some armor and self sealing tanks. Still, we don't die permanently in AH if we goof.

As I said you gentlemen should feel free to start your own Aces High P38 mutual self admiration POST. Nothing I'm posting is historically inaccurate. You have decided to take umbrage with the P38 information to infer to the audience how great you can shoot with it in the game. If you like I can start it for you with the title:

BNZ and Mongoose's Excellent Adventure with P38 shooting in a kiddy game.

I look forward to reading Mongoose's 600 and farther sources for P38 combat that resulted in the AAF gunnery school at Foster Field TX teaching 600 yards as SOP for the whole AAF. Remember, the German standard harmonization range for the MG151\20 in FW was 500 to 550 meters. But, that was to shoot at bombers as the second drop in. The MG and 20mm had a first harmonic pattern at: Oh My Gosh!!!! 225 meters. Let alone the 109 MG and 20mm including gondola, the first harmonic point was about 250 meters.

Now what was the opening point of this almost derailed POST because I didn't talk about the P38 in the proper slavish south bound end kissing psychophantry??

And you wonder why our newbies run around so confused about this game.   

[CeeEff]

And you wonder why our newbies run around so confused about this game.    

IN my case it is because I am a bloody terrible pilot....