The Void between Machine guns and cannons.

[flakbait]

Ok HT, here's another set of numbers to run. An aircraft is heading 060 at 300mph, with a side-slip of 30 degrees east (making the rocket point towards 090), and fires a single rocket. How much force is created by the 300mph headwind? How much lateral force is exerted on the rocket from a 30º sideslip from the left? I'll bet money that the headwind's force is stronger than that of the wind created by a sideslip. That force, acting on not only the rocket body, but also the fins, will make it fly in the direction the aircraft is facing. I believe this is the part your calculations do not include.

With my bomb example I failed to clarify a point: According to your thinking, bombs dropped from a level aircraft with no sideslip or crosswind will weathervane the instant they come into contact with a crosswind at any altitude. This is not the case with bombs, or rockets. A bomb dropped from an aircraft with any degree of yaw will fly according to the aircraft's heading at the time of release. The bomb is attached to the aircraft, so it always faces the exact same heading as the aircraft. When released, the bomb will roughly hold that heading (+- 10º or so) though any wind acting upon the bomb will cause it to drift laterally, not weathervane. Why? Because the wind is hitting the whole bomb and not just a section or certain piece of it.

As for the bullets, no I'm not picturing a round being fired from the ground. It was a noted occurance during Vietnam that rounds fired from either door of a Huey in level flight required a completely different lead. The rotor wash from a Huey at 100 knots comes down behind the crew compartment, and does not effect the flight of a bullet. What does create an effect is the sudden 100 knot crosswind the bullet encounters after leaving the barrel of a 7.62x51mm M60D machine gun mounted in the door and firing between 60º and 120º relative to the wind. Here's what Chuck Carlock said about this...

 Our door gunners fired from ammo belts that were straight tracer rounds. I found it interesting that firing a door gun from the left side required a different aim than firing from the right. The twisting of the bullet meeting the rushing air as the helicopter flew forward caused the bullets to react differently. The bullets fired from the right door curved and dropped to the right. The bullets fired from the left rose and veered to the right. For this reason, the door gunners needed straight tracer bullets in order to "walk" the rounds up onto the target.

Because there is no curveball effect, something is obviously not modeled or modeled incorrectly.




-----------------------
Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High

[Toad]

Urch and I spent a pleasant 15 minutes in the DA fooling with buff .50's and a trailing Spit. Urch in the buff, me in the Spit.

At 15k off A1, WITH THE SPIT ON AUTOPILOT STRAIGHT AND LEVEL ON HIS SIX, he could land hits on the Spit at about 1.6K, which is entirely within the RL range of the .50BMG. He didn't land a lot of hits, in fact very, very few. Then I closed in and hung around 1.2 to 1.4. His hit rate increased but, significantly, after a lot of shooting and maybe 25-35 pings on my Spit, I had NO DAMAGE. None.

With a new aircraft, still at 15K, I started out at 2.0 and slowly closed on him doing a low weaving maneuver on his six. Sometimes I'd jink hard to throw him off and sometimes I'd just smoothly bank left and right adding a bit of vertical.

Using this method, I got into about 1.2 before any pings landed and closed to inside 1.0 with only the occasional ping. I hung around 1.0, bobbing and weaving while he shot for quite a while. A few pings, but no damage. Then I added power and closed straight in on his tail from 1.0, level flight with barely any jinking. He shot me down before I got to 800.

The conclusion we both drew from this is no real suprise. Buff guns CAN hit you out to 1.6 but they did no damage in this instance. I got hit more at 1.2 but still no damage. Any sort of decent evasives as you close make the fighter tough to hit but greatly increase the closure time of he fighter and require the fighter to have much more patience. Inside 1.0 hits were causing damage and if the fighter is foolish enough to fly straight at a buff inside 1.0, he's going to get hosed and die.

On the flip side (I just remapped my stick and I meant to use .50 and 20mm independently but I used the "old" mapping in my brain and ended up shooting both.) I could not land hits until about 1.3 and those were very few (longer convergence might have helped, I was set at 300) and did no damage to Urch's buff. Around 1.0 I could get more hits but still no damage. I shot an entire ammo load at him between 1.6 and 1.0 and didn't do any serious damage at all.

Anyway, we both enjoyed it and if we repeat it, I'll use .50's and 20mm separately. However, the conclusion we both drew it that it's hard for a buff to kill a maneuvering fighter outside of 1k but easy if he flies straight and level. It's also tough for the fighter to kill the buff outside 1k.

Now, go crazy.  

[Kweassa]

Actually, pretty much what everybody expected. Nothing to go crazy about at all.

 If you moved in with any serious intent of shooting down the buff, maneuvering at a solid point albeit a short time, instead of playing waltz with the tracers, then I have a sneaking suscpicion that you'd have some reds in the CTRL+D checklist.

 Also, if there was any serious pressure on you to stop the buff from doing its critical run against your field objects, you might have been more hasty to aim, rather than evade. Which, by your account, you were also shot down.

 IMO the most critical moment is when you stop to evade and close in briefly to open fire - the moment you described from 1.0d and closing in, and start aiming.

 Anyhow, I think what you did could be a good training material for solo fighters to engage a buff which can cover its low-6 area. It sort of shows that solo fighters can't expect to really kill a buff alone.. just weave around, get into range, fire briefly while maneuvering, and then get out, do it again. Again and again until a part on the buff is knocked out, and hope the pings stacking up don't kill you first.

 I appreciate the effort you put in for testing purposes. Any intent on posting the films, if it was filmed at all?

ps) was it a single B-17, or a formation?

ps2) The test also pretty much shows, that a fighter plane approaching a buff, will have to maneuver its way to the buff in a non-linear pattern from as far as 1.6k out. It's not so hard to do that if you have significant alt adv over the buff, but meet a plane like that at 25k, and you'll have a real hard time catching it up. Ouch.. chills down my spine!

[Shane]

a) single 17 or box?
b) single gun firing or all available guns (on the buff(s?))?

[Toad]

Single buff, don't know how he shot the guns. Lots of tracer flying though.

Actually, when I closed I was out of ammo, having done the long range test of shooting at him. But I felt I had ample opportunity to kill him inside 1000 yards when I maneuvered. It would have been several squirts as I maneuvered, not one long one holding steady. If you hold steady, you die. So you have to maneuver in a way that you know is going to offer shooting opportunities and then take them as they come.

I think a single fighter can take a single buff IF the fighter is not in a hurry and puts himself in a position of advantage to start with. You're not going to do a slow climb up the six and live.

I have a film, nowhere to post it. A couple of films I think.

[hitech]

Flacbait:This statment "but also the fins, will make it fly in the direction the aircraft is facing"  

Is just backwards the fins make  it return to the direction the plane is travaling, not facing. It would behaive simalar to when you would let off the rudder, and the plane would track back into the wind.

On the bullet case you are correct that we do not model the rise or sink do to cross wind on a bullet. But this does not effect forward or rear fireing guns with a cross wind,(the case i was pointing out). Only when guns are fired to the side of a plane like you sight.


HiTech

[Rude]

Toad....

Take the 51 out on the same trip....different results you will find:)

As to killing buffs with a single fighter...easily done, especially at the alts we all find buffs flying these days.

[Rude]

Does that mean realism cant be fun? Does that mean "interest" into a high realism game cant generate fun? If so, we better ask for sidewinders and proton torpedoes to make the MA funnier.

Sure realism can be fun....just not profitable:)

[Hooligan]

MANDOBLE:

Certain kinds of "fun" certainly outweigh "realism" for most of the player base.  The next time you get shot down you can quit the game forever.  This would be "realistic" but would probably compromise your fun.

The second point is that what you promote as "realism" is invariably a very poorly veiled attempt to make the game less realistic (let's pork gun range) to give your favorite aircraft an advantage that they did not have.  A simulation that lets people practice shooting down thousands of aircraft is going to produce a lot of players that are excellent shots at long range.  If you concentrate less on asking the designers to reduce the realism in their game and more on learning how to ruin a gun solution for those rare episodes when you inconveniently find an enemy player that has enough patience to actually catch your dora at an energy disadvantage, then you will probably be more content.

Hooligan

[MANDOBLE]

Hooligan, I can kill with D9 at 500 yards, even with high deflexion shots without spraying'n praying. No matter whether that is due my game experience or not, but I dont find that as any recreation of WWII kills.

[Kweassa]

I really didn't want the "unfair advantage to your plane" stink getting into this thread.. but since Hooligan opens the box..

 

The second point is that what you promote as "realism" is invariably a very poorly veiled attempt to make the game less realistic (let's pork gun range) to give your favorite aircraft an advantage that they did not have

 Advantage they did not have... like ammo counters, right?

 Or large white blob of a hitmark, rather than a quickly disappearing small impact flash, for machine gun rounds?


 ..

 Mando didn't promote any realism. Me and Batz did.

 Mando suggested neutering bullets and ballistics for purpose of gameplay closer to historic accounts.

 Some might not find that attractive.. but hey, there's already selective realism, according to some people who explain AH as "more centered on gameplay than simulation". If it improves gameplay, then no problem whether or not it is unrealistic, right?

 So, in that logic, Mando's suggestion is equally valid as any other - Purposely neuter the ranges to match historic accounts, eh? You say Mando is on selective realism which is wanting unfair advantages to planes that did not have them, but guess what, AH is already like that, so that's a non-issue. (Note: uh-uh, not by intent I truly believe. I don't support "conspiracies")

 So which would sell  better - a realistic ballistics with unhistoric gunnery, or unrealistic ballistics with a historical twist? I don't see why the latter won't have a good chance. Besides, people always flock to something that smells more historical. It would be a good attraction, don't you think?

 Also, people will have hard time blowing things from 500, 600 yards, so many will be forced to fight harder to achieve actual kills. Yipes, sounds like the good ACM heaven some people want, doesn't it? Instead of the Bore and Zoom snap shot/sniping fights?

  Nobody would ever want to take on a Spit9 or a N1k2 aggressively, when they know they will die as far as 500~600 yards out.. but if the gunnery is neutered like Mando suggests, then hey, we could try more aggressive fighting even in P-47s, P-51s, Bf109s and Fw190s.. with just about enough E advantage to stay 300~400 yards ahead of the Spit or N1K2... Instead of climb like an angel and secure a huge E-adv which will always pull us through more than 1k extension within 5 seconds - hence, "Bore and Zoom".

 Sounds like good gameplay to me, wouldn't you think?

 Or do you not like this one? Because it's unrealistic?

[Hooligan]

The simple fact is that we shoot a lot better than our WWII counterparts because we have thousands of times as much shooting experience than they did.  Shooting in this game is actually VERY HARD.  If you can remember what it was like to try to get a kill back when you only had 30 sorties under your belt, you will realize this was true.  There is nothing historic about artificially neutering gunnery.

Nobody would ever want to take on a Spit9 or a N1k2 aggressively…

Well that statement is clearly wrong.  I do that in whatever I am flying and I know plenty of people who do the same.  If gunnery is neutered, Mandy will still “bore and zoom”, he will just do it with less risk.  The “Bore and zoom” behavior will in fact probably increase.  It is after all, a behavior chosen because it reduces risk and you are advocating reducing the risk even further.  And somehow you want us to believe that it will discourage it?

So in answer to you question:  I am interested in a combat flight sim.  I want the pertinent aspects, i.e. weapon modeling, FMs and so on modeled as realistically as they can within the constraints of available computing power, programming resources etc...  Also some things just aren't significant enough to care about:  Maybe the landing gear retraction sounds are all wrong, and if they are I hope they don't spend a second's effort fixing them.

I think that neutering something that is accurate is an idiotic idea.  I don’t want to see the gunnery or the FMs or anything else that falls in the realm of simulation dorked with to “enhance” game play.  Enhancements to gameplay should come from changes to “game” aspects such as arena design, base capture, the AH2 system etc…  

Hooligan

[Toad]

Originally posted by Kweassa
Besides, people always flock to something that smells more historical. It would be a good attraction, don't you think?

 

Good point. If we just had an arena that had say an axis V allied setup and used actual terrain maps and shortened up icon ranges and stuff like that, people would just flock to that.

It'd soon outdraw the MA on the order of 20 to 1 or so, I'd think.

Because all that stuff that smells so much more historical is just more popular and attractive.

Oh. Wait a minute.

Selective Realism? So you want to get to your computer two hours early to brief for your interceptor mission, do a preflight and take off and patrol right? And, once in about every few missions you'll even expect to at least see enemy aircraft, right?

You guys.  Figure it out;  EVERYBODY is selective to some degree or another. HT has to be, the rest of us just are.

[hitech]

Hooligan: You pretty much stated the way we try to do things.

The only addition to your view has to do with  task such as changing fuel tanks, start procedures of a plane. Controling mixture and such things, which realy do not effect combat.

HiTech

[Batz]

The simple fact is that we shoot a lot better than our WWII counterparts because we have thousands of times as much shooting experience than they did. Shooting in this game is actually VERY HARD. If you can remember what it was like to try to get a kill back when you only had 30 sorties under your belt, you will realize this was true. There is nothing historic about artificially neutering gunnery.

Thats non-sense. I have as much flying Fb this past year as i did flying ah. With similiar ballistics I am not able to kill consistantly above 450 yrds.

There are as many folks flying in HL as on Ah any night. I rarely ever get even pinged out side 300 yrds. The people playing that game have played since it Il2 was 1st released. The ballistics there arent "nuetered". Hissos are the same as here "hizookas". 50s shred just like here. The difference is range.

I agree with Hohun that it comes down to "how well you aim". Which isnt simple ballistics. I mentioned what I think it is but either way in Ah I find that the effective kill range is 450-550 yrds. Thats normal kill range. 800- 1k is above average.1k or more falls into "rare" but so are kills inside 250yrds.

If you are just comparing Ah to the 80% lethality that wbs had then you have a slanted view. Theres no mistake that in old wbs with not every bullet modelled and 80% lethality that the 50 cal were weak. In ah 50s are the best weapon in the game.

Besides when I was new (pre 1.04) It never took me 30 sorties to learn to shoot nor did I find it "hard" in any sense. What was hard was surviving but not getting bullets on target.

You may like/prefer AH as is but thats a far cry from saying thats the only way it can be. I dont care one way or the other but the "we are just that good" is  bs.

I prefer the main to be a meat grinding furball. I like blowing things up but as I said I dont think long range gunnery relates much to "skillz".