Request for "improvements" to AH...

[illo]

And, MANDOBLE a hardmounted .50 does not shake all that much, even when mounted on a light HUMVEE. 50s are in fact, rather boring to fire. The only time I saw a. 50 "shake" was when it was on a tripod in sandy soil without sandbagging the rear spades.

All wing mounted cannon/machineguns suffer from inaccuracy caused by vibrations in wing. It's not so much about recoil. Have you ever taken a look at wings when in airplane. They are no means steady. If AH models this..then ok.
But I really think it doesn't.

[mrfish]

aces high is my favorite game and will probaly be for a while to come. even if it got old i'd stick around just as repayment for all the hours i've spent having a blast here.

i like that the people behind the scenes don't get as mired in the trivialities as we players do and they still focus on creating a place that's fun...remember fun?

i do think the next revision needs some damage model changes for sure though. i don't know if it's a 109 thing or what but my plane seems to exist in 2 states: with wing or without. i'd love to see more complex damage.

the problem i guess is balancing the visuals against the fact that 400 people are online!i don't know much about programming but i've heard that.

 it's kinda like america though - the bigger the problem the bigger and more clever the solution. i'm sure they'll come up with something kick bellybutton

(but if not, keep throwing planes out - the natives aren't restless as long as they have stats to dispute)

[Karnak]

Saburo Sakai certainly had scathing things to say about the American gunnery he encountered in 1944.

[MANDOBLE]

Originally posted by illo
All wing mounted cannon/machineguns suffer from inaccuracy caused by vibrations in wing. It's not so much about recoil. Have you ever taken a look at wings when in airplane. They are no means steady. If AH models this..then ok.
But I really think it doesn't.

HiTech, can you clarify this point?

streakeagle, I found two main characteristics in the IL2 gunnery:

1 - A lot of nose jinking and yawing when firing, dificulting the gunnery a lot except when shooting shot by shot. But, in any case, similar bullet trajectories that AH.

2 - The bullets are extremely thin, that is, I may get very close to a P2 and fire a bullet that passes a pair of pixels above the P2 left wing that is almost filling all my screen. Tried that with AH and the drones, and the result is always a hit. Do we have bigger bullets? Or bigger hit boxes in the 3D objects? dont know ...

[illo]

Originally posted by Karnak
Saburo Sakai certainly had scathing things to say about the American gunnery he encountered in 1944.

Hehe...yes I remember reading about it too.  He was very suprised about gunnery of Hellcat pilots. I got impression he waited for Hellcats to open fire from long range as allways. He waited until he saw tracers coming close enough to his zero an started hard berrelroll to get snapshot on passing Hellcat. There were about 10 Hellcats above him attacking one after another(to avoid friedly fire) with no success(iirc saburo shot down few of them). Reason for this left barrel roll being so successful was because Hellcat pilots couldnt put lead to his maneuver since they pointed nose at him for long range spraying and when firing couldnt pull enough lead in time.

[Vector]

Originally posted by illo
And there were loads of pilots who got over 100 kills by shooting under 150m.  

It seems I have to explain my writings to you illo.
My point was that it was possible to get kills from that distance even thought 50cals maximum effective range was 750 yards (if my memory serves). You must understand that when comparing FAF fighters guns to P-47 guns there is big difference in amount of ammo and lethality, which will affect to gunnery training / gunnery.

Those RL Jagdfliegers must have been idiots(judging on gucams) closing close to b17 engines in dive and picking them off from close ranges.(under 200m/220yards for sure)
Also those 190 HOing b17 formations and opening up "as close as possible" and aiming front gunner/cockpit/wingroot must have had no idea what they were doing. Also again it was mentioned that new pilots usually lost their nerves and opened at too long ranges scoring no critical hits.
HA! Maybe they werent just aware of superb tactic..sit 1.4km(1531yards) away and let rock.  
Im not coinvinced.

Keep it coming, sounds great...



Few replies to your postings;
- FAF was not the only AF to train gunnery.
- About the russian pilots quality : "Not only were the Soviets still employing an outdated 3-plane fighter tactical doctrine, normally without the benefit of radios, but their overall level of pilot training was quite low, even though there were some experienced pilots available. As an illustration, it was not uncommon for wingmen to follow their leader around during an engagement and fire their guns whenever he did, whether they were pointed in the general vicinity of an enemy aircraft or not.." -Robert L. Shaw's writings from Winter War.
- Comparing AH and RL gunnery is simply foolish. Over 90% of all air to air kills were achieved without victim never saw it coming. So why to open up from 500 yards? No need to, because you could be pretty sure that you get him, before he sees you.

[Charon]

A reasonable effective maximum range for modern gun systems against fighter targets is about 3,000 ft. -- Robert L. Shaw, "Fighter Combat Tactics and Maneuvering"


Using tables from that reference for the lethality:
6 x 0.50 cal M2 = 6 x 6.4 = 38.4
1 x 20 mm M61 = 144.8

Given the lethality varies inversely with the square of range, if a modern fighter used 6 x M2, they should be able to be effective out to: SQR(38.4/144.8) x 3,000 ft = 1545 ft = 500 yards... of course against maneuvering targets WWII aircraft would be at a disadvantage, but against non-maneuvering targets, there would be no difference.

Funny how the math supports observed combat results

I have the Shaw book as well, so I reread that chapter. I noticed he did not define "reasonable effective maximum" in detail which kinda makes all the math useless when you are speaking in absolutes like “can’t” and “never”. You seem to contend that a hit or kill at distances over 500m should be nearly impossible. I would contend that it should be possible, but rare, which I believe it is in AH. There were cases in the war that support this.

However, I agree, 500m was about the maximum range you could "reasonably" expect to shoot down a plane with a couple of good bursts from anecdotal evidence. IMO, 500m is the maximum range you can reasonably expect to light up a target in AH that is doing even the slightest maneuvers. I do, however, think you can reasonably expect to score a few hits and maybe even kill on a non maneuvering target at longer ranges with a full ammo load, plenty of experience and no distractions. Having convergence set to 400m+, which is a-historical from a one size fits all policy, certainly helps.

In response to one of your earlier declarative statements about a high level of shooting expertise among WW2 pilots, The Shaw book provides some insight there, only a few pages away from where you pulled your material:

"I am not a good shot. Few of us are. To make up for that I hold my fire until I have a shot of less than 20 deg. deflection and I'm within 300 yards. Good discipline on this score can make up for a great deal.

Lt. Col. John C. Meyer, USAAF"

While I don't believe the ballistics are porked (there have been several exhaustive threads on this that I have followed in the short year I have been here), I do believe the ability to set convergence beyond 400m is a bit gamy. Perhaps that adjustment would realistically meet your concerns. Still, I fail to find this a problem.

All wing mounted cannon/machineguns suffer from inaccuracy caused by vibrations in wing. It's not so much about recoil. Have you ever taken a look at wings when in airplane. They are no means steady. If AH models this..then ok.

illo

A pintle mounted .50 is not stabilized in the vertical, except by your two hands. Most of the vibration I noticed when firing the weapon was front to rear, given the nature of the weapon's action. The vibration was not sufficient, even with a "loose" vertical axis to be a significant detriment to putting a reasonable number of rounds on target, even at long range. The only wild dispersion I noticed was a M2 with a shot-out barrel, that sent rounds corkscrewind down range. I would say that compared to convergence, vibration would be a relatively minor factor impacting dispersion -- IMO.

Charon

[illo]

To above post.

I was not saying vibrations are caused by firing guns. Airflow around wings makes them vibrate and i can't see how thiswouldn't affect accuracy.

[illo]

Also AHs distance counter and neon icons ease gunnery way too much. Personally i would prefer no icons if there was historical match up for planes.
At least that laser rangefinder should be made WAY less accurate. Add this to more detailed damage modelling (where you need to concentrate your fire more accurately.) and greater dispersion for wing mounted guns further away from wingroot.

After these changes, i think, AH gunnery would better represent RL conditions and effects.

[illo]

bump.

[Shuckins]

Saburo Sakai also made the statement that the Hellcat pilots appeared to be very green pilots...as green as the Zero pilots he was leading into combat.   That particular combat took place over Iwo Jima several months before the Marines landed on it.

Eighty zeros took off for that intercept mission...more than 40 were shot down.  The next day the survivors took off again for another intercept...and their numbers were again cut in half.  By the third day only a handful of Zeros were still flyable.

On another note, anyone who shoots rifles in the real world and studies ballistics charts knows that projectiles lose impact energy rapidly once they pass the 200 yard mark.  A .50 caliber projectile retains its energy quite well because of its weight, as does a 20mm cannon shell.  But their effectiveness should still be considerably less at 800 or 100 yards than they are at the muzzle.  Damage to an airframe should therefore be considerably less at those distances.  Is this effect modeled in Aces High?

Regards, Shuckins

[streakeagle]

Obviously we are free to interpret what we have read differently, but I will stand by my interpretation based on my experience and understanding of military defintions.

Shaws "reasonably effective range" applies to an aircraft that is using advance LCOS sights with precision range information, only marginally better than our neon icons.

"Effective range" is a well defined term when discussing weapons, i.e. the effective range of M-14 and M-16 rifles as opposed to their maximum ballistic range. It is the range which you can expect to be able to aim and reliably land hits on an assumed target area (a man for an infantry rifle, an aircraft for a fighter) with sufficient energy to do useful damage.

According to the defintion used in military specifications (which I am sure Shaw intended), "Effective range" does not account for target motion... that is not a limit of the weapon, but a limit of the shooter's skill. Even against a fighter flying straight and level with an LCOS sight and a Vulcan, with 940 rounds of ammo, a 1,000 yard shot is pretty much at the limit of the weapon's accuracy. Of course the shooter's skill level may even further degrade that range, but only luck will increase it... that is the defintion of effective range.

The A-10's GAU-8 Avenger cannon is unique among aircraft carried guns since its combination of weight, velocity, and barrel length actually give it double the typical effective range: 2,000 yards. However, it only has a simple fixed reticle sight with no range information, which requires substantial pilot skill to employ effectively. In exercises over the Red Flag range with computer calculated hit results that are about as realistic as it can get, A-10s get gun kills despite the poor sight thanks to rate of fire, the presumed need to score only one hit, and the invalid assumption of their non-evasive target that they are out of range and not a threat.

Now back to our flight sim: IL-2 and AH have similar goals in terms of realism and access to identical information, yet they yield different results. There are no precise equations, so different people will choose different ways to approximate the same physics. So of course there will be different results when testing the models. I happen to agree with many others that have posted on the BB that the increased difficulty in IL-2 appears to be closer to reality. You cited a quote that the average pilot should have to shoot inside 300 yards... I agree completely. But in AH, anyone (even a newbie) can win an HO by commencing fire outside of 1,000 yards and hitting outside of 500 yards. There is absolutely no precedent for this in reality. If AH's model was even within 10% of the truth, there would be a notable number of examples from real life matching the events that happen here. A lot of rounds were fired between 1939 and 1945 by hundreds of thousands of aircraft. Even novices spraying and praying at 500 yards should have returned quite a few long range successes the way it does here in AH. The tactics employed in WWII reflected the limitations imposed by reality, not the other way around.

[Charon]

What I think is the root of the problem: how WW2 was fought vs how AH is played.

Some of your earlier posts"

Maybe it is because I specialize in using 50 cals set to 650 yards convergence, but using any American aircraft so equipped, I can get good hits and even kills at that range when a target levels out to extend...

Pilots may want to conserve ammo, but they also want to live longer. If they could fire on, hit, and kill unsuspecting targets from their 6 at 1000+ yards, they would have done so...

Streakeagle

 

I don't recall ever reading of anybody setting convergence at 650m and playing the role of lone sniper in WW2. Was it because of ballistics? Or was it because it didn't fit with the combat environment? First off, formal policy dictated closer convergence (least common denomoniator) which suited the gunnery skills of most pilots, imporved the firing solution for any defllection shooting and maximized the damage of kenetic energy weapons. Get close, get the kill and move on was much preferred over sniping.  Again, there have been many threads on ballistics issues in AH that seem to support the general performance of the M2 (usually around the LW vs US weapon debates) as far as being able to hit a target at that range, though the point on damage at that range is an interesting one.

Sniping is A-historical, but for some very non-ballistic reasons. Sniping was just not part of the team focus of WW2 air combat. A good shooter sniping in the attack would have alerted an entire enemy formation of an attack beyond the effective range of most all of the other friendly pilots in a flight.  Also, with sniping once the close-in fighting starts you have a harder time covering you friends. And, with the element of surprise, why bother taking the lower percentage shot anyway? Even Hartmann chose to shoot from well within where he could get kills if the need arose. And ballistically, longer-ranged shots will tend to be lower percentage shots so why not move closer and get better overall results?

And, how many enemies, where it was life and death, just "assumed" they were safe with tracers flying by them and flew a totally wings-level extension at a low rate of seperation? A low-e manuver or two is all that it takes to make getting hit in AH almost impossible at these ranges. Similarly, how many allied pilots had the luxury of flying wings level in a furball combat environment for an extended period of time wasting ammo on such a low percentage shot?

Sniping and 650m convergence settings does make more sense for a good lone wulf pilot flying into a series of fights in AH in a ganging environment, or blowing through a furball or for the occasional 1v1 with a HO, etc. In AH surprise is seldom achieved and lone wulf tactics are as much the norm as squad flying, so getting close isn't really all that important if you practice the long shot sufficiently. I agree,with you that 500m should be the common range for an expert to have a better than 50/50 chance of scoring good kills with a longer convergence setting. However, I have read specific examples of pilots scoring hits at the 600m range with 300m convergence and as Ilio and vector point out kills WERE actually scored at 1000m+ range. But not commonly. I feel that's the same for AH too. even you note:
 

I presently can win several dogfights per 2 or 3 hour session using long range firing tactics. I have only flown about once a week or less for the past several months, so I am very rusty. It is not that I have any skill, it is that the ballistics are that easy...

Several kills in 2 or 3 hours of dogfighting doesn't sound like an awful lot to me.

According to the defintion used in military specifications (which I am sure Shaw intended), "Effective range" does not account for target motion...  

Again, we don't really know. I reread his section on gunnery and felt he was talking about how far away you could reasonably expect to get a gun kill before you started thinking about a Sidewinder, etc. As for the vulcan and the rest, apples to oranges. I've seen a maximum effective range listed at 2,000m, though I'm sure that would be a very low percentage range given the ballistic limitiations of the system. If somebody has more knowledge on this weapons system please chime in.

Again, I fail to see a real problem here, and I've been shot down a lot Perhaps locking convergence at a max of 400m would make the environment the most realistic. That doesnt bother me, since I need to get close anyway.

Charon

[streakeagle]

Historical aces went "sniping" they looked for lone aircraft and attacked from behind out of the sun. Those that had lesser gunner skills waited until point blank (< 150 yards) to fire. Those with the skills set their convergence out as far as their skill and physics permitted. The 0.30 cals were generally given much shorter convergence ranges to make up for their lack of lethality with more hits. Historically, convergence was either set based on doctrine (based on combat experience of what worked) or based on personal preference (also based on combat experience of what worked). I am certain there would be one or more known cases of 500+ yard convergence zones being preferentially used if the weapons had been effective at these ranges.

However, using infantry rifles as an example, the battle rifles were technically effective from 800 to 1200 yards. Postwar analysis showed that despite this fact, by far the majority of kills occurred at less than 400 yards for a large number of reasons. So rather than spend all of this money and weight on a weapon being underutilized, the assault rifle was born with the idea that it would be lighter and permit more rounds to be carried for a given weight with the theoretical range matching the actual one. So as you have inferred, maybe I am completely wrong in my assessment that it is a ballistics problem. But it doesn't change the fact that the results are wrong If the model is fed historical inputs but does not produce historical outputs, something in the model needs to be fixed. Of course since this is a game being marketed for profit, if the majority of customers are happy and keep paying, then it isn't broke.

But I would like to bring up the Ostwind again: it used the same model as everything else and produced unrealistic kill rates, so it was adjusted to compensate. I am fairly certain that this is also the case for the 0.50 cal and 20 mm Hispanos. I lack the depth of knowledge to evaluate axis weapons, so I never comment on them. As a paying customer who is only 99.9999% happy, I am asking for the other 0.0001% to be adjusted to my taste and I still believe the historical data supports my taste since that is where I acquired it in the first place.

It is not "immersive" for me if it just doesn't feel right. Every time I shoot off someone's elevator/rudder at 800+ yards and end up with a kill, it doesn't feel right. Since it is possible, I will continure doing it rather than give my opponent an advantage, but as the length of this thread indicates, I would really like to see this changed somehow.

[Vector]

Originally posted by illo
Personally i would prefer no icons if there was historical match up for planes.
 

Really?
Checked your CT stats, but couldn't find any, actually, couldn't find any stats on you... Wouldn't mind to share your handle?