Tracers --

[hblair]

I turned mine off the night the option came out and I like it.   It's really not that hard without them. Doesn't take as long as ya think to get used to it either.

Good luck skernsk.  

[-towd_]

just got a book about the black sheep squadron ,pappys group . on of the fellows discovered that tracers were actually more effective ( cause of zekes propensity to explode )

[skernsk]

Hangtime and jigster.....thanks for the lesson.  I know that its not roadkille if its coming from you.

A new question though......do the tracers in AH fly different from those in real life?

What aboput Towd's comment.......will they help incinerate the con in AH?

And Hangtime .........where do you come up with this stuff??  

Good discussion.


------------------
.................
Skernsk
Fat Drunk Bastards

[This message has been edited by skernsk (edited 08-03-2000).]

[Hangtime]

Fighter Combat; Tactics and Maneuvering. Robert "Mouse" Shaw. On page 10. The book falls open to that page now.. it's the first chapter.. on fighter weapons, gunsights and gunnery tactics.  

If you only have one Airplane book in your house... this one should be it.  

As for AH tracer trajectories.. I dunno. I think they are the same as the rest of the gun ammo; but Pyro would have to answer that one.. as well as the one on incendary effect.

On that note.. anybody have any refrences to the use of the fuel tanks as an incendary weapon.. like droppin them on troops or tracks and then comming back and lighting 'em up with tracers??

Just curious.. (and I'd like to see drop tank damage potential increased, btw)

Hang

 

 

[Jigster]

 

Originally posted by Hangtime:
Fighter Combat; Tactics and Maneuvering. Robert "Mouse" Shaw. On page 10. The book falls open to that page now.. it's the first chapter.. on fighter weapons, gunsights and gunnery tactics.  

If you only have one Airplane book in your house... this one should be it.  

As for AH tracer trajectories.. I dunno. I think they are the same as the rest of the gun ammo; but Pyro would have to answer that one.. as well as the one on incendary effect.

On that note.. anybody have any refrences to the use of the fuel tanks as an incendary weapon.. like droppin them on troops or tracks and then comming back and lighting 'em up with tracers??

Just curious.. (and I'd like to see drop tank damage potential increased, btw)

Hang

 

 

Generalization, sorry don't have the book here.

Chuck Yeager and Bud Anderson were flying spares on what was the last mission for both of them before going back to the US. After buzzing through Switzerland, visiting where Chuck was asked to help plan a mission to rescue interened  allied pilots there, they flew over France, and found the Spot where the Fw had shot down Yeager. They made their way to the Perrines (I think that is to spell it) and found the cabin Yeager and a very sick Liberator gunner were hiding when a German patrol came along and fired at them. About this point He and Andy punched their wing tanks, and for fun strafed them up trying to set them on fire. They used up all their ammo trying but never got them to light up on the ground.

Andy stated that this was due to the tanks having little fuel left in them anyway, and I dunno if they had tracer or AP Incd rounds.

Now Andy also said that whenever Yeager or he was flyin as a spare and had no aborts they would drop their full tanks into the channel and they floated well enough that they could zoom in and strafe them in the water and set them afire. (I guess the dropped because landing with two full drop tanks is kinda a fire hazard).

So...probably could be done, but if it ever was in a combat situation I dunno.

- Jig                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

[Suave1]

I think tracer is actually kind of slang for incendiary ammo. According to US army study guides and field manuals there is no tracer ammo for m16's or any of the other small arms, there is however incendiary ammo .

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Yep, I turned tracers off as soon as that was possible.  My hit% dropped from 8% to 5%.    But now, after 8 sorties in tour 7 it is at 20%.    Lets see how long I can keep that up!

But to be honest, I did a LOT of JaBo and strafing in the last tour. That might be one possibility that my hit% dropped so much.

Switching tracers off has helped me in getting closer to the prey before killing. Three reasons:
-I get to sneak closer in a surprise attack
-In a fight, he evades less if he thinks I'm not shooting
-I can't hit a damn thing from afar so I have to get close.  

Camo

------------------
Camouflage
XO, Lentolaivue 34
 www.muodos.fi/LLv34

Brewster into AH!

"The really good pilots use their superior judgement to keep them out of situations
where they might be required to demonstrate their superior skill."

[Revvin]

I have flown without tracers since the ability to turn them off was created. My gunnery is by no means perfect but I don't really feel at any loss in gunnery than when I had tracers.

One thing I do miss is being able to spook a con on a friendlies 6 by giving him a short burst of fire when just out of range to try and make him turn and break his pursuit, that is one disadvantage of having no tracers, of course the advantage is the possibility of sneaking up on a con and opening fire without the tell tale "look at me i'm on your six shooting at you" tracer warning   although if the con is a good pilot then his SA is good enough for him to have seen me coming anyway.

[easymo]

 Suave1. The m60 MG tracer ammo had a copper tail. As the copper burned it left a bright red trail. You couldnt use to many though. it fouled the barral

[AKFokerFoder+]

One question, how do you turn Icons off?  It would be a nice feature to turn it off as I get ready to shoot.

As for tracers on?  I can't hit nothing anyways LOL but when I get 1.04 with drones I will dissappear until my gunnery is decent.  then in all probablity I will turn off tracers.

I Vietnam,if I was assigned the Pig, I would often take the tracer rounds out of my M60's ammo.  At night the freakin things helped the enemy locate your gun postition better than it helped you hit any targets.  It was a bit of a pain, but gettin hit is an even bigger pain LOL.

I think that the advantage of adjusting fire will be more than offset by the advance warning it will give a bogey.  But I am only specualting for now.  I will have an opion as soon as I get drones.  

I believe that the three most important things in gunnery are:

A get close.
B get too close, and when you are too close,
C get even closer still, and then fire.

Bubbi Hartman said he never fired until he had a windscreen full of the bogey.  He had 360 some kills.  Musta known what he wuz talkin about  

Now if I could only practice what I preach LOL.

[This message has been edited by AKFokerFoder+ (edited 08-04-2000).]

[skernsk]

For what its worth I turned off tracers last night.


I liked the tracers being off in the buff, but I couldn't hit toejame without tracer in a fighter unless I was right behind the enemy.


One thing I liked about tracers from a defensive point of view is waiting till the guy opens up before manouvering and bleeding off airspeed!  

[Suave1]

Easymo are you sure ? The entire jacket of ball ammo is copper. Matter of fact unless you are using lead slugs, all rifle ammo uses copper jackets . It's the burning magnesium that will deteriorate the barrel in time . Beside, copper burns green .

[Baddawg]

Hangtime On the drop tank issue

 Jim McCubbin a P51 pilot of the 364th fighter group Eighth air force.
"Because all our missions were long range." remembers McCubbin, "our planes carried two drop tanks of 110 gallons each. We often lamented the waste in dropping  those tanks indiscriminately-that is  wouldnt it be great  if we could  drop them on some kruats head?-better defined as a target. A crude plan evolved  where if the lead plane  would jettison his tankson a target, the following plane would ignite the fuel by firing his armor piercing incendiary ammunition. This bit  of phosphorus was so effective that it would flash whatever it struck. Then the second plane would add his tanks as he overflew the same target. The whole idea was rather juvenile since the tanks would not fly  like bombs and were difficult to place.
Also it was hard to  concentrate on firing ones guns while trying to determine when to let go of his tanks."

Taken from the fantastic book  THE MIGHTY EIGHTH
Gerald Astor
Copyright 1997
Currently published by Dell books

I highly recomend this book for the  first hand stories in this book.

[This message has been edited by Baddawg (edited 08-09-2000).]

[Tac]

Flew without tracers last night. I loved it!

It doesnt give the target any warning that it is being fired upon if you miss the initial burst (due to trimming or stick spike or something). Snneeeaky!  

The only reason I would get tracers back is that they are usefull to make a running target turn to evade and thus bleed speed, allowing me to catch up.

And its cool to press trigger and watch the pings pop up like magic..weee..    

[Renfield]

Yup - a lot of fresh death is being served... cold.  

I turned mine off a while back. Especially effective when you come up under the nose of a guy in autoclimb. They see nothing until the boom  

I turn mine on to sight the guns and get a good default head position then it is back off now for combat.

Hmmm, maybe this will fool people into thinking they are getting a clean 1st pass... until, once again, the boom.