What is the trick to buff gunnery?

[Karnak]

The tail is also, if I recall correctly, electricly powered.  I know it wasn't aimed by holding the guns like the waist and cheek guns.

I pretty much dismiss the waist guns because their arcs only allow them to shoot at the most difficult to hit of targets, but the cheek guns should be affected and, furthermore, only 1 cheek gun should be able to fire at once.  The bombardier manned the chin turret and the navigator could fire one or the other of the cheek guns.  There's nobody else down there to fire the other gun.

[hitech]

AKWabbit: Yes and no on the same range, The balistics are identical, but do to drag , the range is farther shooting back then when you shoot forward.

[CptTrips]

>AKWabbit: Yes and no on the same range, The balistics are
>identical, but do to drag , the range is farther shooting back
>then when you shoot forward.


Ahh gotcha.   Thats fair enough.   That would be the real behavior.  

As long as there wasn't an addition fudge factor added in to help the buffs.  I thought I had seen one time that a little extra was added to compensate for net lag so the fighters couldn't climb up from 6 and be in range but the buff still see them out of range.  I would prolly argue agianst this, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Regards,
Wab

[MrLars]

Did the WWII .50's have truly static mounts? Seems to me that any completly static mount would cause failures due to the recoil of the gun. Having shot modern M2's I know for a fact that you cannot fire a sustained burst of over 1 second and expect to have any kind of accuracy at over 1k. That was with a tripod mount and sandbags. Now, in a plane I would suspect that there are rubber shock pads to keep the recoil from snapping bolts and rivets in the mount but I just don't know.

I'm glad HT set us straight regarding the lethality and range of the buffs guns but still I FEEL the gun model, or more correctly, the recoil is not modeled and if so it isn't correctly modeled.

The reason I brought this up is that I've noticed that when a bomber shoots at you there is no perceptable recoil dispersion...the tracers come at you in a nice consistant arc with no perceptible variances in the patern.

Just my observations, certanly not a slam on HTC's  product, just one old grunts .02

[hitech]

MrLars: That simply because only the shooter ever sees dispersion stuff.

As for dispersion paterns we have data on real dispersion paterns from each gun of a  b17. If anything our paterns are slightly bigger. If you wish to see the paterns take up a b17 off line and use the .target command.


HiTech

[Toad]

The B-17 tail guns were not a "powered turret" design IIRC. They were manually aimed and fired by the tail gunner.



Yes, that is a canvas "boot" around the two .50's.

No, that is NOT Toad leaning on the airplane.

Another view:



... and this note:
2nd Schweinfurt: Mission Overview

"In the very back of the plane was the tail gunner. He had to crawl around the tail wheel well and strut to get into his position. He sat on a large, semi-hard, canvas covered bicycle seat. Tail weaponry consisted of twin mounted [no turret] .50 caliber machine guns. Since he was so far from the waist door, a small escape hatch was located just behind him and to his left."


We Get Our Feet Wet

"The tail gunner reaches his position by climbing over the tail wheel and sits underneath the huge distinctive tall rudder. This is a cramped wedge at the end of the plane. He fires his two caliber 50 machine guns from a kneeling position facing German fighters boring in with the wings and noses alive with the winking of the firing 20 millimeter cannons."

[Dead Man Flying]

This doesn't look like a canvas boot to me, Toad.  

And yes, that's Mr. and Mrs. Leviathan in the picture.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[CptTrips]

Thats the "Cheyenne"  tail gun turret only on late model b17-gs.

Is this the version our buff is?

Wab

[MrLars]

Originally posted by hitech
MrLars: That simply because only the shooter ever sees dispersion stuff.

Oh, that explaines what I'm not seeing

[DmdNexus]

Thanks for the all the replies.
Didn't know ".target" existed! Any other not so well known "dot" commands?

Using .target I can see the dispersion with the Buff guns and I see the "stream" that guns from a fighter makes.

Now... from .target it's easy to see the buff guns make a shot gun-like pattern...

but the question is why are they so lethal?

I ask this because of the following impression - I know this is all anticdotal - and I don't have hard statistical data but here me out because based upon my own experience and some testing I've done (though probably not scientific) I can understand why other's feel that buff guns have a "laser-like" or greater damage factor than .50 on a fighter.

A friend and I did some testing the other night in H2H.

My friend flew the buff and I flew a fighter.

I trailed the buff at an angle off of about 7 to 8 o'clock. So it wasn't a true 6 approach.

When he ranged me at 1.2k he started firing. When I saw the tracers coming at me I started weaving and rolling, diving and climbing to avoid any stream landing on me.

We did 20 tests.

11 out of 20 times, on the very first ping I got pilot wounded.
Wasn't multiple pings... was the very first ping. The bomber was co-alt or below. And a few times, the planes belly was towards the bomber.

On 5 out of 20, engine, fuel, oil, or guns were damaged - again on the very first ping.

4 times I was able to close to with in about 500 to 300 yards before getting any damage or pinged, but at this range, once I did start getting pinged, major parts were falling off - the plane discentigrated.

With such a wide dispersion - sure I can see the higher chance of getting pinged.

What I don't understand is how easy it is to do major or critcal damage with such a wide dispersion.

Radiator, fuel, oil, guns - I can see that damage happening with 1 or 2 bullets.

What I don't understand is the high rate at which the golden Beebee wounds the pilot.

There's 3 to 4 feet of engine in front of the pilot, covering his chest, waist, and feet. Some planes have armor plating around the cockpit.

Shoulders and face are, in some planes, protected by armored glass in the front. The spitfire is one. Does the damage modeling take this into affect?

It makes me wonder if the damage model is set up so that any shot hitting the canopy is considered pilot wounding.

HiTech, is this so?

Isn't there a lot of space behind and to the side of the pilot that a bullet can travel through the cockpit and not hit the pilot.

Any ways that's my 2 cents.

DmdNexus

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by AKWabbit
Is this the version our buff is?

It certainly would appear so, Wab.  Here are some screenshots I took of the tailguns on the AH B-17.  Compare it to tailguns on the B-17 I'm standing next to, and I'd say it's a match.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[CptTrips]

>It certainly would appear so, Wab.

Ahh gotcha.  Guess I never got close enough to see that clearly.  They always nailed me at 1.5 out.

Wab

[MrLars]

I would think that modeling the canvas boot would require more polygons, so the 17 got a newer gunner position to help framerates. Just a thought.

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by MrLars
I would think that modeling the canvas boot would require more polygons, so the 17 got a newer gunner position to help framerates. Just a thought.

Possibly, but I think it's undeniable that it's not the canvas boot-style tailguns.  Note that the gunner's window extends out past the stabilizer a bit, like in my photo.  Conversely, the gunner's window on the B-17 with the canvas boot tailguns appears just below the stabilizer.

I'm not certain if this style of tailgun is appropriate for the particular B-17 modelled, but it's definitely the "Cheyenne" version.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[AmRaaM]

If you appear to be leading the target enough, you probably aren't elevating the guns enough to take into account bullet drop.