Interesting GunCamera Shots

[Vermillion]

I was leafing thru some new books I have picked up recently, and thought the following two pics are interesting.

Particularly because some people commonly claim that damage models are really bad because "large parts, like wings, just don't fly off".

Notice how in the first pic, the MiG hits the Sabre with a snapshot and the left outter wing section seperates cleanly from the aircraft.

In the second one, the rudder of this particular Sabre was removed almost surgically.

Well.. while these are NOT proof of either side of the debate, they do show that it does happen. Admittedly though they are both the results of heavy cannon hits (the MiG15 has a single 37mm and x2 23mm cannons)

[Wilbus]

Hey Verm, think you're have got my ideas a bit mixed up

I've been the one complaining about AH poor DM lately, and I still think it is. Note though, I've never said wings and big parts don't blow off, sure they do,I've got gun camera film of a 190 D9 losing about 40% of its wing, quickly puts it in a spin. However, it doesn't happen that often, specially not from 50 cal. In AH losing a wing or any other major part such as the tail are some of the very few reason you get killed, this was not the case in real life.

Enough of the ranting, very nice fotage you posted and as you said, the Mig 15 was equiped with 2x23mm and 1x37mm, all 3 nose mounted, a wing will most definatly blow off from a hit from that, specially since the Saber has got wingtanks

[Ouch]

Not sure exactly if it suports the idea of wings being blown off, because it's so spectacular, but one of the most common Guncamera footages that I've seen is the P51 shooting down a FW.

The FW is about 100 feet above the ground, and the  51 saws off his left wing with a burst.  

Another that I've seen a lot of is a high altitude encounter between a 190 and something.   The film shows the 190 being hit all over, the pilot exiting the plane along with about 4 feet of wing.

I'm not certain if HT has it right or not, but all it takes is a little structural damage on a wing to cause it to fail catastrophically.  I'd be willing to bet that they are closer than the nay-sayers think.

Ouc out

[Vermillion]

Is this the same "Ouch" from way way way back in WB's ?

[Wilbus]

CC Ouch, of course wings could be blown off, but it was quite rare, the gun fotage you see is often the most spectacular, I've got about 2 hours + of gun film, mostly LW fighters and it's very rare that planes loose wings, it happens, but most of the cases they go down due to too many holes, or just generally shot up, fuel tank exploding etc.

[akak]

Originally posted by Wilbus
Hey Verm, think you're have got my ideas a bit mixed up

I've been the one complaining about AH poor DM lately, and I still think it is. Note though, I've never said wings and big parts don't blow off, sure they do,I've got gun camera film of a 190 D9 losing about 40% of its wing, quickly puts it in a spin. However, it doesn't happen that often, specially not from 50 cal. In AH losing a wing or any other major part such as the tail are some of the very few reason you get killed, this was not the case in real life.

Enough of the ranting, very nice fotage you posted and as you said, the Mig 15 was equiped with 2x23mm and 1x37mm, all 3 nose mounted, a wing will most definatly blow off from a hit from that, specially since the Saber has got wingtanks

Everytime I seem to get shot down is because either my horizontal stabilizer has been blown off my P-38 or because I'm missing either the whole wing or part of it.  

As for blowing parts off other planes with my 4 .50 cals, I've seen it happen a lot but maybe since I don't have convergence issues, the full force of my .50's are pretty much concentrated in one spot.




Ack-Ack
479th FG - Riddle's Raiders

[paintmaw]

squeake Bicthe squeake, some people will never be happy

[streakeagle]

People are not necessarily unhappy...

All computer programs can always be improved in some way.

When I play a WWII flight sim and the images I see on my monitor match real footage perfectly, then it will finally be starting to approach the limits of improvement.

I was happy with Battlezone and Zaxxon, but I am much happier with OFP and AH. No reason why computer games can't keep improving this way.

HTC get hot!

[SageFIN]

Originally posted by Ouch
Not sure exactly if it suports the idea of wings being blown off, because it's so spectacular, but one of the most common Guncamera footages that I've seen is the P51 shooting down a FW.

The FW is about 100 feet above the ground, and the  51 saws off his left wing with a burst.  

Another that I've seen a lot of is a high altitude encounter between a 190 and something.   The film shows the 190 being hit all over, the pilot exiting the plane along with about 4 feet of wing.

I'm not certain if HT has it right or not, but all it takes is a little structural damage on a wing to cause it to fail catastrophically.  I'd be willing to bet that they are closer than the nay-sayers think.

Ouc out

Wasn't this discussed before in a similar thread? IIRC it was noted that the 190 sometimes shed it's wings easily because of hits to the unarmored (from behind?) ammo bays. Again IIRC particulary the 30mm ammos if detonated would blow the wing off.

Any shots of other planes (perhaps with no ammo/fuel in wings... say 109?) than 190's getting their wings sawed off by mg fire?

[-ammo-]

Originally posted by Wilbus
CC Ouch, of course wings could be blown off, but it was quite rare, the gun fotage you see is often the most spectacular, I've got about 2 hours + of gun film, mostly LW fighters and it's very rare that planes loose wings, it happens, but most of the cases they go down due to too many holes, or just generally shot up, fuel tank exploding etc.

Actually that is not quite true wil. MOST of those kills were pilots abandoning damaged AC, but not damaged so bad  that they could not fly. The pilot's own instinct for survival took over when he had enemy in his 6 and he heard the hits. I have seen alot footage of pilots bailing from "seemingly" stucturally sound AC. In AH, we dont have our lives to lose:) We will ride that thing to the end.

ALot of USAAF and LW film I have got. Lots of AC fires resulting in pilot bails. I bet there is nothing like flames licking at a pilot's body along with being sprayed in the face with hydraulic fluid, loss of guages, broken canopy's (now the pilot went from a fairly noisy, but familiar sound to a very different dramatic wind sound, kind of like being in a tornado), to prompt a pilot to leave his mount. While all the while we see maybe a few flames, some smoke trailing the AC.  This human effect is the biggest difference from AH to real life. When a flight sim can model this, then it will be alot closer to what we have seen in the footage. But how do they do that?

[Kweassa]

We can start by improving damage models

[StSanta]

Two ways a plane can lose a wing from being hit:

a) the wing is hit and the explosion causes a clean break.

b) the structural support for the wing is damaged. The pilot, putting g's on the wing as he tries to evade the enemy, overstresses the damaged wing and it simply folds and fall away.

Guncam film I seen show a LW fighter hitting the wingroot of an allied fighter with a very short burst with the result that the wing completely comes off and the plane starts rolling wildly.

Also seen LOTS (especially from the Pacific) of burning planes that just lose all control.

Not too implausible to me. However, it'd be nice if Ah had more of a gradual damage model instead of the binary one we currently have - i.e if(damage > maxSustainableDamage(){ripWingOff();}

Would take a lot of effort to redo it though. Would be worth it, too .

That'd give my c202 more killing power I believe, as the machine guns would degrade the enemys performance more and more, making 'um easier to hit with that 5 second sustained burst.

[J_A_B]

Ammo has the right idea; one thing that stands in the way of a truly realistic damage model is the fact that in AH there's no desire to survive--death means nothing.

AirWarrior tried using a fairly realistic damage model for a time--90% of the time a plane wouldn't explode, but it'd suffer something like a broken engine.   You had to really hose the heck out of a plane to make it actually explode.

Unfortunately this simply did not work online.  It totally messed up the game.   A real pilot will bail out when his engine is out of comission and his plane is spewing smoke; not so in a computer game.  Fights degenerated into planes flying around shooting out each other's engines then gliding away; kills became almost impossible to come by and in the end the system was unworkable, all because virtual pilots don't care if they "die".  In computer games, to end the fight you HAVE to render the enemy's plane un-flyable.

Perhaps the solution is to make a lot of thick black smoke block the foreward view when an engine is knocked out.  Deprive the damaged plane of any ability to fight.

J_A_B

[Vruth]

Speaking of realism, the only other game I found that models damage realistically was Fighter Squadron: SDOE. I found most enagements of enemy bombers a little heart wrenching. The physics/damage modelling was so real it felt like you were watching camera footage from a WWII plane. Great game with the community patches.  Fantastic damage modelling.

Last night I took up a 262 for craps and giggles around A5.  A Lancaster was making a bombing run on a strategic target (training camp?).  I made a loop around to his six, climbed above and behind to his 8 O'clock, and then dove down almost vertical onto the Lanc. I placed my gunsight just foward of the tail and made a 1 second burst and promply removed the ENTIRE tail section.

I watched in awe and a bit in horror as the Lancaster slowly tumbled to her death in a very realistic fashion.  Slowly tumbling as the tail end dropped down and she started to flip end-over-end.

Last night Vermillion, AH seems very real for me when I ripped the Lancaster apart.  I could only imagine what real WWII pilots went through on a daily basis...

Something to think about...

[Duckwing6]

Wil you're flying in RL, you've seen your share of A/C and their structures i think.

No imagine one of those traveling at high speeds and a large caliber machine gun firing bullets (and cal. 50 ain't a small one) into the structure.

i have seen a lot of airplane structure and i have seen what a heavy MG does to stuff i can clearly image in my mind what happens to an airplane getting shot at and hit by a burst of cal. 50 fire.

Cannons must be even worse and it's a miracle by what i understand that some airplanes survived multiple hits.

Oh and please nobody come up with armor and stuff like that .. to an airplane you ADD LIGHTNESS .. you can't armor wings and the like.

DW6