Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Jasta on July 26, 2004, 09:01:44 PM
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Ive noticed that 99.9% of the time when I die, my tail comes off. I dont know if people are always aiming for it or what, but ive noticed this the most in Patch 6. The tail always seems to be the first thing to go, and it negates the sturdy qualities of the Hellcat for me.
Anyone else notice this? Am I dreaming? or do people just aim for the tail?
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I've flown the F6F fairly often since patch 6, and my tail hasn't come off yet. I'd just say that you have bad luck.
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I don't know about the tail but the Hellcat does seem a little fragile compared to its historical reputation. Conversely the Yak seems to be VERY tough in AH, I didn't know they were so much like the Il2.
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I believe the real F6F suffered a few tailplane failures in high G manouevres, not sure if that was just the F6F-3 though. I've not really noticed this in AH though, most common damage seems to be to guns, oil or pilot wounds. The latter may be down to me raising the seat position, not sure if the damage model accounts for head position. I tend to lose wingtips more than tails.
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I very much agree that the tail seems alot weaker.....i have flown the hellcat since i started playing this game and 99% of the time i die it is from my tail popping off from a few rounds of 20mm
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/23_1090950904_shot_up.jpg)
kinda beat up eh? (Edward "Butch" O'Hare's F6F after being shot up by 20mm from A6M)
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When coming to a complete stop after landing in f6f, if my tail is off the ground when it touches down it bounces and breaks off every time. Then it tips up on its nose. The tail only has to be off the ground a little for this to occur.
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Originally posted by Wadke
I very much agree that the tail seems alot weaker.....i have flown the hellcat since i started playing this game and 99% of the time i die it is from my tail popping off from a few rounds of 20mm
(http://www.onpoi.net/ah/pics/users/23_1090950904_shot_up.jpg)
kinda beat up eh? (Edward "Butch" O'Hare's F6F after being shot up by 20mm from A6M)
a few rounds of 20mm is all it takes most of the time to rip anyones tail off in a fighter
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Overall I consider the F6F to be very rugged in AH2, it's a rare thing for me to land without some sort damage or holes in my plane (even rarer than landing in the first place). The one weak spot on the plane (relatively speaking) is the tail... With the nose bounce bug the tail would shear off nearly every time. I'm currently running the AHtest version and the nose bounce seems to be gone but even now if I step on the brakes too hard the tail will often times snap off when the end comes down.... seems like it's a bug still, I dunno if that is affecting the whole damage model, or if there is even a bug in the damage model or if this is how HTC intended it to be. I suppose the only thing to do is discuss it here like we're doing, sooner or later someone at HTC will happen upon the thread and look into it further and making any changes nessesary in a fiuture patch.
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I can understand taking that much damage from a Zero's 20mm cannon. The ballistics on it are terrible.
I've taken a lot of damage in an F6F, and still managed to land safely, even after being shot to hell by an La-7.
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I'd bet those were not 20mm hits. More likely to be 12.7mm hits from an IJAAF fighter or 13mm hits from an A6M5b or A6M5c.
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Ive had my tail pop off from a few rounds from 51s, Lalas, Spits, hurricanes, everything.
Tail always seems to go first for me.
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math?:D
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Originally posted by Karnak
I'd bet those were not 20mm hits. More likely to be 12.7mm hits from an IJAAF fighter or 13mm hits from an A6M5b or A6M5c.
The holes look far too big for either of those, and there seem to be burn marks on the perimeter like a HE round would leave, could they have been incendiary rounds? But I agree they look awfully small for a 20mm.
You know what the picture reminds me of is IL2/FB/AEP. I always thought the level of damage required to down a plane in IL2 was too high, AH just "felt" right to me. One good long solid burts from almost any plane would cripple almost any plane (obvious exceptions notwithstanding). But looking at that F6f makes me wonder.
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Those were probably long shots on that F6F. As you know, the ballistics on the A6M2's 20mm were horrible, so if a long shot actually hit, it wouldn't do much damage.
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One round from a Mark 10H will knock the vert stab off any plane in the game, or both horizontal stabs (take your pick). Since a good 50% of the planes flying around in the MA are equipped with the Mk10H... a lot of "tough" planes seem to have weak tails.
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I dunno, how other people are defining it, but when I say I lost the tail I mean the plane vanishes from just aft of the cockpit back.
the Mk10H would be the hispano gun correct?
I would imagine that 1-2 hits from some 20mm or larger would render either the vert tab/rudder or part of the horizontal stab useless... but I would think it would take something much larger than that to break a plane's back.
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Oh, I've always defined "losing the tail" as above. Usually takes more than 1 round to do that, but I've seen it before.
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20mm was an explosive round...so any hit within a reasonable range will cause considerable damage.
Some early F6F-3s had their tail structures fail when the tailhook grabbed the wire during carrier qualifications. As with any such problem involving a Grumman aircraft, Roy Grumman and crew used the Swindler factor to fix it...i.e. doubling the strength of the part in question. After they did so no undamaged Hellcat tail would fail during a carrier landing. Catastrophic failures of any kind on any Grumman product were almost unknown.
The only other problem involving the Hellcat's structure was the tendency of the horizontal stabilizers to warp if the aircraft exceeded it's posted dive limit speed. One stabilizer would bend up by 15 degrees and the other would bend down by 15 degrees. This problem was handled in the same way as the other...the aluminum skinning was strengthened on two different occasions on test aircraft until the stabilizers no longer warped. The dive limit speed of the F6F-5 could thus be raised by about 40 knots over that of the F6F-3 without the stabilizer problem reappearing.
I've seen photographs of Spitfires that took multiple 15 and 20mm hits in the after fuselage without the empennage failing. The Hellcat's structure was even stronger. I can't image two or three 20mm hits would cause it to fail unless the fuselage was already under tremendous stress.
Enemy pilots were often dumbfounded by the amount of damage American radial-engined fighters could take. Hellcat, Corsair, and Thunderbolt airframes could take a severe beating and continue to fly. The same could not be said for the ballerina-like in-line engine fighters.
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Those cannot be 20mm hits.
Russian 20mm damage on a Finnish Hurri:
(http://www.byterapers.com/~grendel/photos/hallinportti052003/HPIM0004.JPG)
This is from a single 30mm:
(http://pages.ykt.ru/il2/Hronika/photohronika/30mm%20mk108%20on%20blenheim.jpg)
(http://www.x-plane.org/users/isegrim/Bordwaffen/MK108MGeffectonSpit.jpg)
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Note that the metal-ribbed structure of the Hurricane is still intact. The fabric skinning has, however, been peeled away. Whether that was the result of the 20mm hits or high-speed wind damage or a combination of the two is impossible to tell.
The 20mm hits on metal-skinning that I have seen aren't nearly as dramatic as that but still cause considerable damage. Holes in the metal skinning were about a foot wide.
Have you ever seen the picture of Robert Johnson's Razorback P-47 that was hit by a 20mm behind the cockpit. The aluminum had a hole about that size with the edges curled up...preventing Johnson from being able to jettison his canopy and bail out. On his return flight to England he was also shot up by an FW-190...whose pilot apparently ran out of ammunition. He flew a wingtip-to-wingtip formation with Johnson for a time, shaking his head at the condition of the Thunderbolt, then waggled his wings and returned to base, leaving a relieved Johnson to return unmolested to England
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That was Egon Meyer. He only had 7.92mm ammo left and emptied his guns into that P-47, then escorted the Jug out of flak range.
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Perhaps in a case of ultimate irony, Meyer was later shot dwn and killed by a P-47.
J_A_B
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Nah, it would only be "ultimate irony" if Johnson did it.
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That was "Long flight home" from Johnsons Thunderbolt.really good read too.
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Originally posted by Jasta
Ive noticed that 99.9% of the time when I die, my tail comes off. I dont know if people are always aiming for it or what, but ive noticed this the most in Patch 6. The tail always seems to be the first thing to go, and it negates the sturdy qualities of the Hellcat for me.
Anyone else notice this? Am I dreaming? or do people just aim for the tail?
Ditto
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i would like mathman to wheigh in on this...
so if you please mathman.
also, im looking for some lessons in the kitty if you want to help :D
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Originally posted by GScholz
Those cannot be 20mm hits.....
Russian 20mm damage on a Finnish Hurri:
Those are actually pics of a French-built Morane-Saulnier fighter, probably an MS-406 registered as MS-650, as is hand written on the photos (just FYI).
http://www.histaviation.com/Ms_406_photoarchive.html
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Ok, thanks! It looks so deceptivly like a Hurri in those pictures. :)