LW's Gun choices?

[whels]

heard last night, the reason the LW chose to
put 20 and 30mm guns on thier planes, were
those guns could out range the 50cal on allied
Bombers. so therefore they could shoot at
the Buffs from outside thier defencive range.

true?

whels

[JoeCrip]

I know Wgr21 rockets were put on 190's and 109's for that exact reason, they could be fired outside the 50 cal range. IRL it wasnt so easy to aim the 50's cals on a buff, and the nme fighter had to be pretty close in order to get a good shot off. So, this could very well be ture, but i am not 100% sure.

[Mathman]

I thought that it was because the cannon rounds could do more damage per hit than a 50 cal could.  Also, don't the cannon rounds have a lower muzzle velocity than the 50 cals?  If so, I would also think that would preclude them from having a very large effective range, particularly compared to the 50.

Then again, I am probably wrong.

-math

[HFMudd]

No, you're not wrong Mathman.  The LW used heavy caliber cannon due to hitting power of a round large enough to contain a useful explosive charge (20mm seems to be the minimum) vs. one that depended only on kinetic energy (.303 and .50 cal).  The cut down 20mm and 30mm used in aircraft had poor ballistics compared to the Browning .50 but were capable of downing a B-17 with only handful of hits for the 30mm and maybe 20 hits with a 20mm.   On the other hand the LW did not consider anything less the 20mm to be effective against a B-17 and even the 20mm was considered by Galland to be marginal.

This then gets further complicated by the issues of what you can mount centerline vs. in wings and how good a shot you were.  IIRC Gobel felt the Bf-109F with the hub mounted 20mm was a superior gun platform to the Bf-109E with its two wing mounted 20mm... but Gobel was quite the marksman.  Galland felt the opposite since he knew the average pilot was not up to that standard of marksmanship.  In fact when Hilter asked Galland which he though was better, a centerline 20mm or a two wing mounted 20mm, Galland replied that all 3 20mm would be best.

Here is a very good link that goes into this in detail: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/8217/fgun/fgun-in.html

[streakeagle]

The LW obviously never played AH, or they would have gone with 4x20mm Hispanos

[Glasses]

Originally posted by streakeagle
The LW obviously never played AH, or they would have gone with 4x20mm Hispanos

LOL!  ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZING!

[Urchin]

I've heard that too Whels, but I think the reason that they went with cannon was to be able to do more damage with fewer hits.  

Now what surprises ME, at least based on how the cannon are modeled, is why the Germans went with the Mg151/20 as opposed to the Hispano.  Both designs were known to the Germans, and available.  It is clear to me from flying the 109E4 that the MG-FF was a very inferior cannon compared to either of the above, so it makes sense that it would have been replaced.  But why not replace it with the one that has twice the range and does about half again as much damage?  A 190A8 with 4 Hispanos would probably have to be perked just like the C-Hog was, because it would be a killing machine.

Just something that has puzzled me since I started playing Aces High.

[wulfie14]

I'm not going to get into AH vs. real life performance. I haven't done any testing and I have faith that the HTC guys want weapons performance to be accurate.

1. MG 151 series were electrically fired, and thus very reliable. More reliable than the Hispano. I'm not saying the Hispano was unreliable mind you.

Reliability isn't modeled by HTC (yet?), so this real life point is 'moot'.

2. I don't believe (but I do not know  either) that HTC has taken the time to model different types of ammunition per round. Makes sense if they haven't - they've been working on other things. I get the feeling that the cannon rounds are a little 'abstracted' (I have no problem with this - when the issue is addressed I bet it will be addressed top to bottom and done right).

The MG 151/20 (and most other fighter weapons) would be more effective overall if players could choose loadouts...i.e. 1 of 5 or 6 different types of loadouts. If you were expecting to be fighting enemy fighters, you'd load what the LW did in real life - mostly AP and API (and from '44 onward some APHE) - higher velocity rounds with a better ballistic coefficient than the pure HE and HEI used vs. bombers. Or you'd have 1 HE or HEI per 5, so if you got in close you'd tear a fighter up, but 80% of your rounds were still accurate and kept good hitting power at range. Hooligan did a study once that was dead on - hit a fighter with something powerful and you are going to mess it up. There's not enough room in a fighter for lots of 'dead air hits don't matter' space. You don't need big 2cm HE rounds to kill a Spitfire or Mustang. 1 2cm AP and 1 2cm API will probably do the trick if you hit center mass from the stern.

The Hispano most likely has AP ballistics with a little more killing power to simulate some HE rounds. But the Hispano was AP only  until some time after 1942 (I think it was late 1943, some RAF expert could probably easily get an exact date).

In other words, for the first half of the war the Hispano was a big very powerful .50 that overpenetrated. Deadly, but not as '1 hit' deadly when not hitting center mass as a Hispano firing a mixture of AP and HE (i.e. a 2cm Hispano HE round hitting a wing spar near the tip of a wing could blow 3' of wingtip off sometimes, whereas a 2cm Hispano AP round would almost never do this - losing 3' of wingtip at least makes you a mission kill...except in the AH MA ehehhe).

3. MG 151/20 was lighter than Hispano. Not as long a range, not as accurate at longer ranges, but you could put 2 on a fighter instead of 1 Hispano in terms of weight, etc. (talking about earlier Hispanos here). And the most important thing to remember...

99% of the players in AH have more 'thru the sight in flight' gunnery time than your average WW2 pilot did. Worrying about weather or not your pilot had super accurate cannons at 800 yds. when he only had 2 cannons in his wing roots - why worry about this? 1% of your pilots (probably less) were going have any chance of hitting an enemy fighter at 800 yds. with those 2 cannons. The numbers escape me but close to 50% (or more) of the air to air kills in WW2 were surprise attacks weren't they (i.e. Saburo Jones is looking at 1 F6F when another F6F he doesn't see lights him up). If your gun package could score lethal hits at 300 meters you had no worries in most cases. And as the war advanced - you didn't have 'riding the stall knife fights in the vertical between a P-47 and a Bf 109' from 1944 onward in real life. Make 2 passes. If the 109 lost 4000' of altitude he wasn't a threat to the bombers. If the P-47 lost 4000' he wasn't going to bounce the Fw 190A-8s before they could reach the B-17s. Why stay for the kill? Your wingmen are up above and you still have a mission to fly.

As the war went on - you zoom in, make a couple of gun passes, and get the hell out. You may take the Bf 109 in the knife fight. The odds of being caught by another 109 after you 'won', when you had no speed left, were too high.

.50 MGs are a different story. Fighting vs. A6Ms, with 6 or 8 .50s and a shotgun pattern convergance, where a single API hit can damage 2 or 3 critical systems on an A6M (pilot, fuel, etc.)...well then fanning at an A6M at 700 yds. with 6 or 8 .50 MGs makes some sense.

The point is moot. The damage model could be better. You take HTCs track record of improvements and it will be made better some day (as in 3 HE hits on a wing gives you some added drag for the rest of the mission, etc. - even if the wing itself doesn't critically fail).

When the damage model is revamped, the ammunition and ballistics, etc. will probably be done at the same time. You have to remember that the FM of AH in general might not be able to handle this yet. It might take some major coding. This was the reason you didn't have the effects of a 'lifting body' in WB, or so I heard - the base FM wasn't set up to do it right.

What you have now for gun modeling and damage modeling is the best they could give you given priorities and man hours available. That's more than most companies in this business offer in my experience. The numbers guy cares about getting the numbers right. The coder is a supergeek hard core coder. Things will be more realistic in 1 year than they are now. Don't sweat it. Remember the diference between real life WW2 air combat (especially when talking about post '42 aircraft and armament) and the AH MA.

Mike/wulfie14

[Hooligan]

Hispano's were significantly larger and heavier than Mg151s and I don't believe a synchronized version was ever produced.   I consider it very unlikely that the Germans could have made 4 Hispanos work in the wings of a FW-190 without a severe penalty of some kind.  Incidentally the weight of the wing guns of a Spit IX (i.e. 1x.50 and 1xHispano Mk II) is more than the weight of the 2 Mg151s in an A8s wing.  In the tradeoff between high muzzle velocity/high penetration and high explosive content, the British and US placed a premium on the former while the Germans placed a premium on the latter.  These decisions make a lot of sense given the targets that the respective airforces considered a priority.

Hooligan

[Urchin]

Thanks Wulfie, Hooligan.  Makes some sense.  I didn't know the Mg151 was so much smaller than the Hispano was.

[MANDOBLE]

Remember also that at the times where Hispano was considered as a unreliable weapon, some german fighters were built around the 151/20. Replacing 151/20 by reliable hispanos in 1943 would lead to redesing planes like 109s.

Some 190A used gondolas of pairs of 151/20, with a total of six 20mm guns per plane plus the MGs. This combo plus the ammo is heavier than 4 hispanos aswell as mk108 gondolas are, so, IMO, weight alone was not the cause to keep using their original guns.

[wulfie14]

Another good point I failed to mention by hooligan - synch of guns. Much easier in terms of equipment and more reliable as well when your guns are electrically fired (and the Fw 190, the primary user of synchd MG 151/20 was probably the most electrically advanced fighter of WW2).

MANDOBLE, the weight comparison of internal Hispanos vs. MK 108 and (2) MG 151/20 underwing pods isn't really an applicable one in my opinion.

The discussion here is about choice of internal armament. It was a given among German engineers and LW pilots that when you started placing big gun packages under the wings of the Bf 109 and Fw 190 you were opting to be a primarily 'bomber intercepting fighter' as opposed to an 'air superiority fighter'.

The (2) MG 151/20 pods were pretty rare, as they required more field work for usage than other pods (removal of outboard MG 151/20 in Fw 190A).

I've got some data from the Bundesarchiv, and some interviews of LW personnel by USAF in the 1950s - the general consensus was that the most effective and by far the most common gun modifications were:

1. Removal of outboard MG 151/20 in radial powered Fw 190;

1A. Experienced pilots took the outboard MG 151/20 off their A series aircraft for better performance (2 MG and 2 MG 151/20 was enough of a gun package for them).

1B. Removal of the outboard MG 151/20 for conversion of A series aircraft to F and G series aircraft.

2. Addition of 2cm gondolas to Bf 109G;

2A. Used to give an air to air gunner of average skill  enough '1 pass' firepower to cripple or destroy an Allied heavy bomber.

2B. Some Kdr. chose to give their newer (and undertrained) pilots the (3) MG 151/20 option to give them greater firepower to make up for lack of gunnery skill/training.

3. Replacement of outboard MG 151/20 with MK 108 in Fw 190A for conversion to bomber intercept role as a primary mission.

Those (2) MG 151/20 pods weren't all that common. When it comes to killing heavy bombers the MK 108 option (with its much lower drag and weight but very lethal individual shells) was preferred. Think of it like this - per sortie a Fw 190A pilot was looking at 1, maybe 2 good passes vs. some bombers. Those MK 108s, with a high rate of closure, were pretty relaible in terms of being able to score hits on a B-17, B-24, etc. And the 3cm shell of the MK 108 was more than 150% as destructive as the biggest 2cm HE shell a MG 151/20 could use. Plus you have less overall weight, zero added external drag, etc.

Mike/wulfie14

[hazed-]

you should also consider whether anyone dared claim hispanos were a better weapon than the mauser to Hitler etc. I doubt he would have accepted munitions being changed.
Wouldnt the mauser company have had government contracts worth a fortune? I thought during the many wars in history countries go for what is cheapest to make or easiest to aquire.
Once the mauser factories were built and set up and were contracted I would imagine change to another gun type wasnt exactly financially easy.Why change?
I mean if you look today at the fierce competition for contracts to supply arms and the fact that even today countries use weapons for more reasons than whether they are best.Why should WW2 be any different.

Having said that i am surprised to see time and again reference in books on the historical convergence settings for mg151/20's being so high.

550 meters etc! these were not short settings! id like to know why they would set them so high if it was so hard to hit at those sorts of ranges.

[Urchin]

Well Hazed, from what I gather of what these gentlemen have said, the convergence would be so high for two reasons-

1.  In a Bf-109, convergence wouldn't matter because the gun was nose mounted, and

2.  If it so happened that the 109 had wing gondolas or if it was a 190A then the primary target was a large, relatively unmanueverable bomber.  If you are attacking a big target like that, you can easily hit it out to 550-600 yards (at least I can no problem in Aces High).  They may have set the convergence up for such a long range because the fighters had a tendency to break off before they really should have, due to the size of the target.  

Of course, this is merely speculation on my end- perhaps someone knows better.

[hazed-]

urchin one of the sources is the report on the 190a4 captured by Great Britain in i think 1942 (or 43? cant remember without rereading book) it mentions that the mg151/20s convergence settings were set this high. As you know there was more fighter to fighter combats during those years than later when the US bombers attacked in earnest.

I think it must have had something to do with the trajectory of the bullets.If set lower perhaps it was harder to guage their path? it is definately quite strange considering how effective they seem in AH at this distance.I wonder if they are modeled as effective to these distances? I'd guess they must be.

I suppose another reason for keeping the mauser is probably the number they had built.Probably cheaper to keep using them?
or maybe what with Germanies shortage of certain materials or metals the hispano needed more of what they didnt have?
id guess mausers would have different types of metals than hispano but im not well read on these guns.I just think there is much more to a Countries choice in weapons they manufacture and use than a pilots prefered type or whether a certain type is better for the job.

I mean look at the m16 rifle in the US. The squables over the government contracts for its new rifle in the 60's were quite complicated in terms of performance vs how much or how easily produced.