The Void between Machine guns and cannons.

[Charon]

Well, it depends on which Pong.

The German version of Pong had much better machining on the face of the paddles to give a much truer bounce and the balls were true spheres of much more consistent density. Thus, you got much more accurate gameplay.

The US version use the sloppy massed produce paddles and pong balls of dubious quality.

Toad

Even though they were sloppy, used by "average" players and four out of five broke under hard play... there was always a truckload of pong systems waiting at the loading dock to flood the shelves. Thus glaring mediocrity managed to defeat genius, skill and precision engineering.

Charon

[Kweassa]

I could care less about ballistics. I care about the damage caused by each round.

We are bombarded with infra red and gamma rays from the sun everyday. But is does not blow big pieces of us off. The sun is not porked, thats just the way it is.

The cannons in AH could be accurate to 2,000yards, it doesn't mean your wing should fall off everytime they hit you.

 It just means everytime you've been hit ONE time, you're probably being hit with multiple shells from multiple cannons on the same spot. Thus, your wing will fall off everytime they hit you.

 Soooo...

 How the hell do they hit like that?

 That's where ballistics, or rather, the long-range gunnery aspect of AH inevitably comes into discussion.

[MANDOBLE]

All and every bullet fired to me from dead six ricochet everywhere, even birds nearby, just to land into my radiator.

[MANDOBLE]

Kweassa, your point may be true if every single tracer represents several rounds hitting on the same spot.

[Toad]

Originally posted by Charon
Thus glaring mediocrity managed to defeat genius, skill and precision engineering.

Charon

You forgot  "once again".  

[Tony Williams]

This might be of interest (from 'Flying Guns: WW2' again):

"The factors described in this section make any simple assessment of effective range very difficult. For example, one British Air Ministry document assessed the kill probability of a 2.5 second burst from a quartet of Hispano Mk II as 80% at 275 m and 60% at 365 m. This is rather meaningless, however, without knowing the nature of the assumed target and the circumstances of the attack. "

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

[niklas]

Originally posted by Hooligan
 Of course, the much better ballistics of the Hispano rounds means that is significantly easier to hit with more of them, particularly at longer ranges...  But this simple fact confuses a lot of people.

Hooligan

Read what i wrote. I once tested the deceleration of the Hispano shell, and it was comparable to the .50cal AP. So i´m sure that the Hispano shell has the high inital muzzle velocity of the HE shell (correct), but the low decelaration of the AP shell (incorrect) due to higher weight and better shape.
And this would mean that all Hispano fliers go out since 2 years with highly overmodelled weapons for long range shots...
The Hispano shell does definitly NOT slow down by 40% the first 600 yards in AH! Another hint...

niklas

[F4UDOA]

Thus, your wing will fall off everytime they hit you.

Say's who?

The Ballistics Gods?

There is a huge leap with ballistics modeling that says if I'm shot then I die. This is simply not true.

Every object that is shot is not completely destroyed no matter what kind of round or rounds hits (except maybe 88MM). Objects of varying degrees of hardness in real life and have amazing degree of durability, even those that seem fragile.

I can produce a million stories and pictures of A/C that have had parts shot off or through that have no earthly business flying.

Also at 300+yards (well within the killing range of all cannons in AH) on a maneuvering target how hard would it be to but multiple rounds in a small enough area to cause catosrophic damage IRL? Then you make the assumption that the cannon hit or hits have done enough damage to destroy the vehicle. This is not true.

I would say that most A/C that are hit are not hit in an area that is

1. Critical- Such as a main spar, gas tank or pilot.

2. Most hits do not kill the pilot.

3. Even if the engine is hit it does not destroy the structure of the airplane or even stop the engine.

4. Most hits do not occur in optimal range IE less than 200 yards.

Then from that point where the aircraft is hit you have to sustain some amount of damage. This is where I disagree with the current AH model.

I believe the occurance of complete explosions is way to high. And the occurance of catostrophic damage is way to high based on a over calculation of damage sustained for each round.

Remember we have the same damage model that allowed Panzers to be destroyed by .50 cal. The damage hardness was changed in the vehicals but was not in the A/C (to my knowledge).

What makes you think that having your wing fall off after 1 or 2 cannon hits is anymore realistic than a tank being destroyed by heavy MG fire?

[Rude]

What difference does any of this even make?

It's a game....killin folks is fun...fly what you like and learn to kill with it...it's simple.

[brady]

Well if your a history buff and an exwargame geek it makes a huge differance, I mean heck why not just fly FA or play Pong, the Reasion I fly AH is because it is (or was) one of the most realistic and chalanging of all flight sim's, the more I have played the game the more I have realised that their are wholes in the realism, some are obviously game play conshions and I realy dont have a big problem with those in general since they are nescessary evial's:


 Examples of those:

  Not being able to kill the troops in the back of the M3/LVT,goon.

  Not having AP in the Osty.

 Generic ordance(torps, AP bombs,missing ect).

 Ship damage model or the lack their of.

 Cockpits, being non historical.

 

 Howeaver things that distrack for the Historical aspect of the game like the way the guns are modeled are very anoying, since they could be adjusted to better represent thier Historical values/effect's.

 All those little A historic aspect's realy bug some people thats why you see SO many threads like this one, form people who like the history of these planes people like F4U who love the history of this stuff, they post preformance numbers and they debate them, the guns are another area, the load out options are yet anoter ect, people who are realy into these planes want to be able to use them the way were in the war, they want to be able to put 4 60KG bombs on the N1K2-J and wounder why they cant have that load out option, smae goes for all the other planes they wounder why the P47D-30 is still carying all that ordance when it never did in real life, it might seam small and trival to the cashual observer but it begins to bug some folks.

[Dr Zhivago]

[Toad]

What this casual observer doesn't see is any proof that HTC's modeling is wrong.

This is from two different points of view.

I haven't seen HTC publish the data from which they derive their formulas/gameplay.

I haven't seen those that contend it's wrong publish the data from which they arrive at the conclusion that HT is wrong.

For example, before anyone can even begin to talk ballistics, you have to know the ballistic coefficient of the projectile. These numbers are available on the net for some of the Allied rounds, notably the .50BMG (which has an outstanding BC) but they are extremely difficult to find for the Axis rounds.

Basically, everyone here floats their opinions. Some people have more knowledge than others in the area of ballistics/gunnery but NO ONE knows how HT actually has it set up. All comments are based on perception from playing the game and perception of what it should be based on ........ not much at all.

[brady]

I know Pyro has the TM 1985 series (in part since I sent him a coppy of the Japanese Volums), this series gives very precise details on Japanese(other volums cover other countries) ordance virtualy all of the info anyone could want on all WW2 explosive ordance is contained in these book's(they are readly available for order as well) and this seris covers all countries involved in the war, I may be mistaken but I beleave he has the German books as well, as far as the info being scarse I dont realy think this can be said to be true espicahly with great sources available on these weapons from noted auther's/experts like Tony, and the above mentioned refrences.

       I think their have been several arguments above that have been put forth that seam to make valaid cases, at least one, my case for the descrepancy in the Type 99's MKI and MK II effect on impact is clearly presented, and it clearly differes from what one would expect it to based on know data and the openions of expert's.

 It is true we do not know exactly how HTC has set it up, but we also, or some of us, have some issue/ questions regarding the outcome of that set up process, namely the effect's were seeing apear to not jive with what we would expect.

[Sable]

The Air Force ran a study of WWII aircraft losses.  I've got a copy of it, and in one portion of the study they focus on what particular systems of aircraft resulted in their loss etc.  The did this by looking at losses of navy aircraft (F6F, F4U, TBM, SB2C) over a period of time which included hundreds of aircraft damaged and lost as a result of 7.7mm, 12.7mm, 20mm, 37mm etc fire  (they do a breakdown of differences between results from flak damage and aircraft fire damagem, but the differences aren't too noticeable).  

I think most will agree that in AH structural failure (a wing being blown off) or loss of control surfaces (elevator, horizontal stabilizer etc.) are the leading causes of death.  In the study they found that only in a very small percentage of cases did hits to these system lead to a loss of the aircraft.  In fact I think there wasn't a single case of an aircraft loss due to a control surface hit in the period of their study.  What they did find was that the overwhelming majority of aircraft losses were the result of hits to the pilot or cockpit controls, engine, fuel or oil systems.  Also they found that in the majority of cases (like 75% or so IIRC), any damage to these lead to the loss of the aircraft.  Hits to the fuel system almost invariably lead to fires, oil and engine hits caused engine failure most of the time even on these durable radial engined aircraft.  And hits to the pilot/cockpit area usually killed the pilot or rendered the aircraft unflyable.  

Another thing they found was that hits to the hydraulic system usually resulted in the loss of the aircraft, but after it returned to base (flaps and gear not functioning).  It's a pretty interesting read.  I think you can still order reprints of it through the Rand Corporation.

[john9001]

very interresting sable , but exactly how do they know how a plane was shot down and what systems were hit? did the NTSB do a investigation of each crash site, or did the Air Force just make a "educated guess"?