Shooting

[Wotan]

Hey Rude I got an idea how stf and dont read the threads that bother you so.

Look who brought the squeakiness to this thread Gman Oep and now you.

If you dont wanna read then dont. Is your fediddleing life so pathetic that you gotta take every opportunity to insert yourself into something you deem below you? Its quite obvious you only enter these threads (and you do ever one) to prop yourself up.

Back to the topic

Maximum range and Effective range different things. There cant be any doudt that any round can hit at 1000yrds. The ballistics arent what the original thread brought up. As for pilot anecdotes they are just that. They also claim to have bounced rounds off the ground and penetrated the underside of armor kill folks inside. They claimed to have welded guys in the tank by hitting the hatch lips "entombing" the tank crews. Also bomber gunners claimed so many kills I doudt how any can believe umm.

In that thread I linked Tony Williams and Henning get into range and velocity and the like.

[Wotan]

Lazs

Dont think to hard about that because I shot a total of 6 different planes but only killed 3. In a 109e4 you get 120 rounds of mgff/m and 2000 rounds of 7mm.

I get about the same number kills in one ammo load in AH flying the 109e4 here as I did in that il2 session. The best I got was 5 in Cap in a 109e.

I can post another sturmlog of me killing a p39 with 5 rounds. Or a DF session showing that the guys getting kills average about 15 -25 rounds of all types.

[eskimo2]

OnePunch,
Don't take this stuff too seriously.  Also keep in mind that in these threads one topic leads to another, and that one leads again to another, etc.  

eskimo

[Gman]

Maximum range and Effective range different things. There cant be any doudt that any round can hit at 1000yrds. The ballistics arent what the original thread brought up.

I'm sorry to say but being killed from d-1000 d900 d-800 d-700 d-600 is all but impossible.

Doesn't look he said anything about being hit, he specifically said being killed.

Tell you what Wotan.  Why don't you come to the range with Onepunch, Fork can drive us.

d600 is extremely close for precision rifle fire.  Every sniper/service rifle shoot I've participated in, at that range with any of my precision rifles, headshots are VERY possible, and usually used for tie breakers.  A mounted .50 M2 on the ground would obliterate any WW2 fighter sized target at this distance in short order.  I fail to see how 6 or 8 wing mounted 50's couldn't do the same in a stern chase situation, which is where most of the non-HO kills at long distance in AH occur.

I can understand the argument that it is unfair to the L/W, because I personally feel that the L/W guns are far, far inferior at mid and long range to Allied .50 cal armed planes, and I've seen it written many places where this supposedly wasn't the case.

But don't attack that problem by cooking up attacks on the .50 and Hispano 20mm capabilities.  Wotan, you're in Florida, there is a bazillion long range rifle ranges there.  Get someone to shoot some tracer from a 30 or 50 cal rifle at 1000 yards for you, you'll see it isn't that big of a deal, and if you stopwatch the flight time, and observe the ballistic track, you'll see that it looks quite similar to the flight line the .50 takes in AH out to 1000.

[GRUNHERZ]

Why do you guys bring up "precision rifle fire"  to justify hits from anything but a precision firing platform?   That doesnt make any sense...

[Gman]

Well, as an example only now.  I originally brought it up because the way Onepunch worded his first post, I thought he was reffering to the energy in the round being to weak to kill at long range.1 shot per 3 or 4 seconds from a rifle compared to 80 shots per second + from a fighter, the point is that "precision" isn't really going to matter.   Even if the fighter is slighty less stable, and I'm not so sure that it is, I fly a 172 in the roughest air in North America, and watching my wing flex around the bit that it does, I don't think that firing mounted guns from it would be all that big a deal at these ranges, particularly with the fire rate involved.

Sure, the % chance of killing a target is going to be far less, but if the guns were harmonized at 650, hitting wouldn't be too hard.  I've done a bit of formation stuff, and coming up behind another aircraft at a range of 600, you can hold a spot on the windshield fairly steadily on it.  With such a huge volume of fire, I really don't see how you could have a clean miss.  Sure many rounds wouldn't strike, but a fair number would.

[OnePunch]

Nah I never take things to seriously eskimo especially here. What i tried to do was create the topic of firing from a moving platform and Grunheuz response on page 1 of this thread was spot on in my opinion.

[Wotan]

what makes you think I dont shoot?

effective range doesnt mean the range at which damage is lethal in this context. It refers to the ability of one plane to shoot and hit another.  Are you saying that a plane is as stable a platform as shooting a rifle off a rest?

From a dead six a plane has what maybe 5 to 6ft (height) of target area? The fuselage and horizontal surfaces can cause rounds to skip off at if hit at the correct angle.
Some posted a while back a test of bombers gun (b17 or b24s dont remember). From the on the ground the side gunners at 600 yrds had a dispersion of 30+ feet. The tail gunner was 20+.

Trying to compare firing a rifle to wing mounted guns at 300 mph + and hitting a target 10 9 8 7 football fields away is a bit much.

Pilot interviews posted on the board asked specific question about range. Galland and other interviewed german pilots were asked about range. None umm said "well we could hit but our bullets did no damage". They said at ranges beyond 300-400yrds you had no reasonable expectation of hitting.

Heres what Tony Williams says in that other thread at AGW

Range was not such a big issue in actual air fighting in WW2, so the ballistic coefficients of the rounds were not generally considered too important (when Spitfires were first fitted with two Hispanos, the RAF was annoyed that gun bay restrictions prevented the guns' fire from converging at less than 300 yards; they wanted 200!).

The comparison with hunting rifles in not valid, IMO, because in that case you are always using the same type of bullet, so the relationship in destructiveness has a much clearer link to muzzle energy. Introduce high-explosive shells into the equations and the results would be very different, which is why cannon rrate better than the .50. This is realistic, believe me!

Similarly, the difference between the .303 and .50 should not be too exaggerated in the air-to-air context. Before the war, the RAF tested .50 v .303 extensively, and pointed out that for the most part the .50 just made slightly bigger holes through the structure without doing significantly more damage. Of course, that was before armour and self-sealing tanks, etc, which gave the .50 a clear lead.

[Gman]

The comparison with hunting rifles in not valid, IMO, because in that case you are always using the same type of bullet, so the relationship in destructiveness has a much clearer link to muzzle energy. Introduce high-explosive shells into the equations and the results would be very different, which is why cannon rrate better than the .50. This is realistic, believe me!

Always using the same type of bullet invalidates rifle comparisons?  This guy must be british and not get to the range much.  This entire statement only further proves my point.  Of course destructiveness has a "clear link to energy".  Wow, what a scientist!  Without an explosives package in the round, what else would cause damage.  His statement about explosive shells only further proves MY points.

Also, there is nothing in this quote saying anything about it being impossible to hit at long range.  It merely says that it wasn't an issue, because most noted pilots wanted to be very close when firing (they wanted 200 instead of 300 convergence, so this quote from Tony says).  All well and good.  Everyone knows that being closer is better than farther, but that certainly didin't eliminate the fact that pilots did fire AND hit AND kill at longer ranges.

Trying to compare firing a rifle to wing mounted guns at 300 mph + and hitting a target 10 9 8 7 football fields away is a bit much.

Why exactly?  Having such a huge rate of fire would IMO more than make up for lack of accuracy.  With so many tracers flying, I'd think it'd be easy to adjust fire.  Again, I'm just going off what it feels like when I fly, when I've been within 1k of other planes, like any other simmer I look out the cockpit windows and try and visualize what firing on that plane would look like.  When comparing it to what it looks like firing at targets from 200 to 1500 meters on my rifle range, it just doesn't look all that hard.

I'd like to hear what Toad or Eagl or any other fighter pilots (Andy Bush would be great too) have to say about shooting drones or towed targets with air to air cannon at long range (does the USAF even do this?).  Modern day 20mm Vulcan cannons have a higher fire rate (sure a bit more but not 5x much more or anything) than say a Chog, and the round isn't all that much more lethal now than it was back in WW2.  I wonder if any of these guys has some personal experience and info regarding long range a2a gunnery.

[Wotan]

read the thread I am not gonna cross post everything. Tony is published and his book is a good read and he has another coming out. I will look for your book as well.

What he says balances perfectly with what I read from other pilots in regards to firing range.

But hey if you are saying that  firing a rifle from a bench and hitting a stationary target at 1000yrds is equal to doing the same in the air I'll take your word for it

As for your points I have yet to figure what they are. Either you except that pilots have np getting hits at the ranges referred to. Or you dont. What happens when hit is not the question. Or not the one I am considering anyway.

Anyway this threads come full circle.........

We have name calling, generally disagreements and even Rude graced us with his presence. I guess we can call this one done?

[GRUNHERZ]

You cant compare a post war gatling gun with all sorts of advanced sighting and radar aids to WW2 guns... First you use sniper rifles now gatling guns, wht not discuss WW2 aircraft guns fitted in aircraft in the wings with everything vibrating and shaking.

Gee whats next on the comparison AMRAAM?

[Mathman]

Well, IMO, there are several things that make it seem like gunnery in AH is very simple.

1.  Range thingamabob.  It tells us exactly how far an enemy plane is from us.  I have my convergence set to 500 on all my 50 cal planes in here.  When I am chasing a plane, I am constantly trying to figure out where to place the center of my sight to squeeze off a burst to ping someone.  There is no guessing how far a plane is away.  The icon says 450, the plane is 450 and I know it.

2.  Experience.  This is probably as important as anything else.  This month alone I have shot down more planes than anyone else in "real life" ever did.  I am almost certain I have been in more fights this month than anyone else in "real life" ever has.  What does this mean?  It means that I have had more practice than those guys ever had (please note that I am not saying that I am better than any real fighter pilot or that my playing a game is anywhere near comparable to what they were doing, just that I have had more time to practice my trade than they did).  I would be willing to bet that I have fired more rounds than anyone in "real life" ever has.  Hence, I have more experience with my "world" than they did with theirs.

3.  Game vs. Reality.  As many people have pointed out, this is a game.  Because of this, I don't worry about running out of ammo while firing.  Worst case scenario is that I don't get to land some kills.  I know exactly what they other plane is going to do or is capable of.  Why?  because I have the chance to fly the planes that I am going to fight.

4.  Real world issues.  There are external factors in the real world that can't be modelled until everyone has a computer on their desk that exceeds the capabilities of a super cray.  Environmental effects on bullet trajectory.  Turbulence.  Barrel wear.  Barrel heating.  Bad rounds.  Difference in tracer ballistics vs. non-tracer rounds.  Altitude.

5.  And everything else...

Anyways, the bottom line is this:  Bullets don't kill planes, people pulling the trigger in their planes kill other planes.

[Toad]

Originally posted by Wotan
But hey if you are saying that  firing a rifle from a bench and hitting a stationary target at 1000yrds is equal to doing the same in the air I'll take your word for it

What if there is little or no relative motion between the two aircraft?

IE: Buff on autopilot at 250 knots, fighter steady and level behind him at 250 knots?

[palef]

I've read the whole thread and ignoring some of the vitriol that has appeared, there is one point that everybody seems to be ignoring.

Deflection Angle.

Shooting at a moving target from a moving platform is not the same as shooting at a stationary ground target from a stationary ground platform. I've played with a few weapons including a Barret Light .50 sniper's rifle, and I can confirm what Hades55 said about that particular round's flat trajectory at up to 2000m. The sight on the particular weapon I tried was graduated in 100m increments and the difference in angle between the sight and the bore line of the weapon was not detectable by the naked eye (well my one anyway).

Add in the variables of firing at a target manouvering in 3 dimensions from a platform moving in 3 dimensions and I don't reckon I could hit a damn thing. Bomber gunners had to deal with differing closure rates from different angles as well as tracking with a moving turret. Deflection shooting is not something that comes naturally to most people. Human beings are designed to hit moving targets from a relatively stationary platform. We're really good at calculating the trajectory of an object from a stationary position. But it takes practice to be able to move and make the continuous 3 dimensional adjustments that for instance Tennis players eventually take for granted.

Thats why there were so few "Aces" in relation to the huge number of Pilots and Air Gunners in WWII. Only a few people had either developed the necessary skills for deflection shooting, or were born with a natural advantage to be able to accurately guess where an opponent would be when the rounds they fired arrived. That's why many Aces favoured the Point Blank method, Even then they would have had to deal either conciously or intuitively with the aerodynamic "wash" from the aircraft in front bouncing them around.

In AH we also don't have to deal with the physical effects of flying either. You don't get that nauseous feeling after being tumbled around the sky in vicious moves. You don't have to deal with the after effects of a red out or blackout which can leave even experienced pilots disoriented. Flying in an unpressurised aircraft at 8000ft in turbulent conditions can be absolute hell. Especially if you have a very slight cold.

I think the bullet "disappearing" issue is at least an attempt to tone down the effect of the "perfect" flying conditions we get in AH.

palef

[eskimo2]

Well said Mathman.

eskimo