50cal vs osty (50 cal vs armor BS part 2)

[Kweassa]

Actually, this discussion is about the frequentness of armoured ground vehicles getting destroyed/immobilized/disarmed by simple machine gun/20mm cannon strafing in one~two passes from planes.

 This particular 'sub-thread' just happens to use .50s and Ostwinds for a particlar example.

 The real purpose of this thread is to demonstrate the absurdness of current AH method of attacking GVs, especially something like Panzers. People don't need, and don't use the special planes HTC took time to model in the game - such as the IL-2 or Hurri2D, Yak-9T - because every plane is virtually a multi-purpose plane when they can knock out armoured tank with simple few passes. Pardon me if this is subjective, but for the couple of years I've been in AH, almost 90% of the Panzers I've seen killed were by strafing.

 People don't even take a bomb or rocket up anymore when they find out "Panzers are otw".

[Shiva]

At 1000 yards the beaten zone of the 50 would be starting to kick in and a certain amount of drop of the bullets will occur.
at 1000 yards lets say it drops 10 meters and arrives in 1 second.
that beaten zone will kill your open topped ostwind.

Is there a mathematician in the house?

Pongo, look at the geometry of the situation. A drop of 10 meters in a distance of 500 meters gives a drop angle of atan(10/500), or 1.15°.  Hardly gives much of a 'beaten zone', does it? The margin within which a round could pass over the front lip of the turret and still hit the back side of the turret is a 2.4" high window, assuming the turret top is 10' wide; a variation in gun elevation of 0.0035° means the difference between dropping a round into the turret and flying over the top of the turret and missing completely. I'd bet that a pintle-mount .50 jerks a lot more than that from shot to shot, except that most of the AH light weapons are all clamped into bench rests so they can't jerk from recoil.

Then you have to consider whether a .50 round dropping into the turret on that flat a trajectory wouldn't just punch its way out through the back wall of the turret, doing no real damage.

[john9001]

[Then you have to consider whether a .50 round dropping into the turret on that flat a trajectory wouldn't just punch its way out through the back wall of the turret, doing no real damage. [/B]

you defeat your own argrument, if it will punch through the back wall , why won't it punch through the front wall??

[Toad]

I'm not a mathematician but I did sleep in a Holiday Inn....

500 Meters equals 546.807 Yards, right?

Didn't Pongo say "1000 yards"? So 1000 Yards equals 914.4 Meters, right?

OK, back to the chalkboard. Shouldn't take long to rework it.

[AdmRose]

Sure it wasn't an LVT-4 firing both howitzer and .50 cal?

[Kweassa]

That still won't explain M16s knocking out Panzers at those distances with .50 spraying like hell's rain on Armageddon day, Adam.

[brady]

They were LVTA2's and the 75 mm on the LVTA4 is usless aganst armor.

[Shiva]

you defeat your own argrument, if it will punch through the back wall , why won't it punch through the front wall??

Pongo was referring to dropping rounds into the turret via the open top, with the additional damage that it would do to the turret contents from not having to punch through the turret armor first. Regardless of whether it's 1000 yards or 1000 meters, the angle at which the round is dropping is sufficiently small that 'plunging fire into the open turret top' isn't a viable consideration for how fast the turret dies.

[Toad]

Well, you were the one calling for the mathematician.

It's not a question of "whether whether it's 1000 yards or 1000 meters" it's a question of whether you're going to work the problem at 1000 yards as Pongo stipulated or if you're going to work the problem at 500 yards, which is the range you chose.

I'd think you'd want to work the problem as specified by the initial poster, wouldn't you?

Even though your point may or may not still be valid.

I'm just saying if you're going to show Pongo how misguided he is, I'd probably use the conditions he stipulated. If I were a mathematician, I mean.  But I'm not, as i stipulated.

[AKDejaVu]

I don't quite get the "armor" discussion here.  Seems to me the guns aren't protected by any armor at all.  I'm pretty sure a .50 cal striking most gun barrels is going to result in enough damage to cause a serious misfire.

AKDejaVu

[sling322]

Originally posted by brady
The whole point of this thread is to further illustrate the OVER effectivenns of the 50 cal in AH. I personaly feal the 50 cal's uberness in terms of it's general effectivenns vs every thing in AH is simply a game play function to enhance the usefullness of US aircraft/ vehicals.

Wow...can you say 'conspiracy'?  

And another thing....how about a dictionary....or at least a Brady decoder ring?  

[eddiek]

but a definite BIAS........

[Shiva]

the osty has a 6 inch gap in the front of the turret for the gun. are we sure that the round even penetrated? did a round get through that gap and miss the inner armour and get to the crew?

A 6" gap for the gun, which was filled behind the gap by a curved armor plate mounted on the gun itself, through which the barrel protruded.

It's not a question of "whether whether it's 1000 yards or 1000 meters" it's a question of whether you're going to work the problem at 1000 yards as Pongo stipulated or if you're going to work the problem at 500 yards, which is the range you chose.

You're right; I made a mistake. If the round is dropping 10 meters in the approximately 1000 meters of flight, then a bullet trajectory that went from roughly ground-level to ground-level would only be five meters off the ground at the midpoint of the trajectory (at which point it would be moving horizontally), which means that, computing the drop angle as the angle between the bullet at the point it was flying horizontally (halfway to target, or roughly 500 meters from the target) and the point of impact, the drop angle at the point of impact would be 0.57°, not 1.15°, and the 'window' for getting a round to clear the front of the turret and hit the inside of the back of the turret would only be 1.15" high, reducing the angular width of the trajectories that would do that from 0.0035° to 0.0017°.

I want to thank you for pointing out my error, Toad; it created the impression that the open turret top of the Ostwind was more vulnerable to direct machine-gun fire than it really was.

[brady]

eddiek, I am not Biased, I have posted on other threads about the problem with the MG 34 and other rifle caliber weapons being over effective, I have also posted on low velocity 30 and 20mm canons being over effective aganst armor, those are Axis weapons. This post is about the 50 cal, I am trying to stay on subject m8t.

 I also cahmpion plane and Vehical adation from all nations.

 I am pro Sherman

 I am pro Tu-2

 I am pro H8K

 I am pro proper ammo for the LVTA4

 I am pro Coranado

 I am pro early model P 38

 I am pro He 162

 I am pro Cant z.1007

 I am pro PT smoke generator

 I am pro Beaufighter

 I am pro He 177

 I am pro Grace

 I am not Biased, I try very hard to be objective, you can look up past post's on the above topics and you will see I have backed all these and more.

 Prety much I want it all:)

       

[Toad]

Originally posted by Shiva
If the round is dropping 10 meters in the approximately 1000 meters of flight,  

Well is this the correct hypothesis to start with?

After all, if the gun is sighted in to be "on" at 500 yards, then the drop at 500 will be essentially zero. That is, it is sighted to be dead on at 500. In this case, using the .50 BMG, the bullet would be "on" at 500 yards,  drop -18.6" at 600 yards, -45.2" at 700, -80.2" at 800, -126.5 at 900 and -183.4 at 1000 yards.

Nice Ballistic calculator at:

Trajectory (Basic) Input

Ballistic Coefficient for the .50 BMG is .685. Muzzle Velocity for the 36" gun is 2845.  It's amazing how closely the Calculator matches the old Navy chart that HT put up.

Enjoy.