Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: frank3 on March 10, 2007, 10:26:10 AM
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Were tracer rounds actuall bullets that can do the same damage like regular rounds, or just a bright light?
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They were bullets with white phosphorus behind them that would light when the bullet was fired. Having the phosphorus, they were a tad bit heavier so they fell a little more then non-tracer rounds.
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But they were nonetheless regular bullets, and did the same damage on impact?
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It's doubtful that they would do the same damage due to the fact that they are hollow, but getting hit by a tracer bullet is still getting hit by a chunk of metal moving faster than the speed of sound.
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Oops forgot to mention that. As Benny pointed out, it's still a fast piece of metal careening towards you so I'd imagine it would still do damage of some sort.
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Hmm, then the question for me would be-is this modelled in as well? E.g. does turning off tracers improve the ballistics of your bullet stream?
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I doubt it. In reality, if you are shooting at high deflection angles and your tracers are hitting the target, most of your bullets are probably missing the target because of the different ballistics. However, in Aces High, as far as I can tell they have the same ballistics because all my bullets seem to hit at the same time and place, tracers and all.
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Tracers arent entirely hollow. The are in fact a bit longer than regular bullets so can carry the tracer compound plus have roughly the same average weight (50-60% is still lead), thus having a comparable exterior ballistic. Of course it isnt exactly the same but at short ranges (i.e. 400 or 300yds) it doesnt differ that much to be worried.
Matt
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One of our fellow AHer (even though it's a long time I don't see him posting), it's Tony Williams, an expert in weapons and ammunition, Frank. You can find a lot of info in his website: (http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/)
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AFAIK, WW2 pilots generally did not prefer shooting at a target from a distance where the ballistics differences between tracer rounds and normal rounds would show.
Ofcourse, pilots in planes armed with HMGs with some thousands of rounds may be more compelled to try long distance shooting, and there are some spectacular cases of people claiming to have shot down enemy planes at more than 500, even upto 1000 yards. However these instances are very anecdotal in its nature and it is rarely possible to actually verify if the pilot really had tabs on the exact distance to target. Not to mention such instances are as rare as can be, and the basic methodology during WW2 was to get in as close as possible, preferably under 100m for maximum effect.
Mr. Tony Williams estimates 200m maximum practical range to shoot down enemy fighters when the target is flying level, and upto 400m against larger targets such as bombers. When the enemy plane is maneuvering you need to be even closer than that.
Therefore, in WW2 pilots would rarely ever need to worry about their tracer rounds falling short of normal rounds - it doesn't matter when the distance to enemy is less than 150m apart.
(Also, this same logic applies to the HMG vs cannons debate; the proponents of HMGs would suggest that heavy machine gun rounds (50cals usually) had better ballistics and thus would be more effective against enemy fighters than cannon rounds, except they forget that in reality pilots shot from close distances where the ballistics didn't matter all that much.)
ps) Such is the reason why I want AH to drop distance counters in the icon under a certain range, and the ammunition counters removed from the planes. I find it extremely difficult to believe that the frequent long-range shots happening in the game can be explained purely by skill/experience factor alone.
From my own experiences with other games such as IL2 series that offers an alternative icon/IFF setup, the absence of distance indicators and ammunition counters have a very large impact in the gamer's gunnery as a whole. IMO the whole "game pilots have more experience" theory falls apart in that game.
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The average fighter pilot did that. The aces, especially the ones with great gunnery, took long-range and high deflection shots. Some squadrons did not use tracer at all specifically because of the mentioned discrepancy between tracer and armor-piercing incendiary.
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Someone dig up Hartmann and Marseille, apparently they took long range sniporz shots :D
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The average fighter pilot did that. The aces, especially the ones with great gunnery, took long-range and high deflection shots. Some squadrons did not use tracer at all specifically because of the mentioned discrepancy between tracer and armor-piercing incendiary.
On the other side of the front there were 'aces' galore with 100+ kills, with pilots at 'merely' 20~30 kills coming by the dozens. Many of these guys fought since the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 until VE day, and the sheer amount of combat experience led to the most complete set of studies in air-to-air gunnery; which conclusion was "get in close, then get in closer"
By far most of them, if not all, preferred to shoot at ranges as close as possible. It was a maxim laid out since the beginning of WWI and they stuck to it. Almost every famed pilot one might be able to think of had a tendency to shoot at those specific ranges.
Not to mention most of the airforces had their basic gun convergence distances set to within 300yards tops, with the Luftwaffe using about 200m as a standard and the RAF being 250yards after BoB. The USAAF and USN had their 50cals preferred slightly further out to 300yards or so (1000ft., being 333yds). The Finnish Airforce used 150m, Hans Wind preferred 30m (!).
Quoting Andy from the SimHQ;
"In Aces High, we can set our own convergence values...a typical setting is 300 yards. At the start of WW2, this would have been an accepted value. In fact, the Royal Air Force standard for convergence in 1939 was 400 yards...despite hard evidence from intelligence coming from the Spanish Civil War that the Luftwaffe was using a value of half that.
Let's stop here and understand why the RAF arrived at that 400 yard convergence figure. Simply put, they believed this to be the proper range to gain the maximum number of hits on a target...but you must realize that the "target" in the mind of the RAF leadership in 1939 was not a Me-109. Instead, it was a He-111 or Do-17. Prior to the Battle of Britain, the RAF made the near-fatal error of thinking that any air war with Germany would be against a Luftwaffe operating from German bases. The mission of the RAF would be to intercept bomber attacks over England...and because of the distances involved, that tended to rule out the bombers being escorted by fighters. Few imagined that the Luftwaffe might operate from bases in France and the Low Countries, thereby permitting the use of fighters over England.
The RAF's narrow victory in 1940 may not have immediately changed the "official view" of convergence, but it certainly changed many a pilot's mind. There, and for the remainder of the war, regardless of nationality, the mantra of "get in close" was universally acknowledged. While no one established exactly what that meant in specific numbers, most pilots understood the advantages of point blank firing ranges!
- Andy Bush, "Air To Air Gunnery Revisited - Guns, Gunsights, and Convergence (http://www.simhq.com/_air/air_031a.html)"
The logic that "close distances" were only required by the average, and the 'experts' were free to shoot at much longer ranges with ease, is entirely false. It basically relies on a few tall tales from some of the aces in which they fondly remember how they shot down an enemy fighter at 1000 yards. Unfortunately people often disregard how unusual such a thing was to happen.
It would be fallacy to say all pilots abided by the "get in close, then closer" rule all the time, and long range shots did happen, particularly in some of the planes with centralized armament which didn't need convergence adjustment. The general convergence distances indicate many pilots routinely shot at targets upto 300yards or so, but like Andy Bush says "getting in close enough for the kill" is what makes an excellent fighter pilot. Adolf Galland, in his revised Luftwaffe A2A gunnery manual (1944), picks the number one reason why inexperienced pilots miss their targets as; "1. You shoot from too far away."
In other words, it's the 'aces' who preferred close ranges most of all, with those lesser in skill and experience often shooting at distances too far away. It was NOT the other way around.
Here's one more final quote, from one of the aces of your very own beloved P-38, and arguably one of the best combat pilots there was in the US during WW2. It's from his own words the proverb, "get in close, then closer" comes from in the first place;
"Go in close, and then when you think you are too close, go in closer."
- TM "Tommy" McGuire, USAAF, 38 victories
Someone dig up Hartmann and Marseille, apparently they took long range sniporz shots
Is that a fact?
"When you begin flying combat and you are a hundred meters from the enemy machine, you get jittery because you are too close to him. That is what you feel in the beginning. By experience you come to know that when you are a hundred meters from the other machine you are still too far away. The inexperienced pilot breaks away for fear of mid-air collision. The experienced pilot brings his machine in much closer, and when he fires, the other machine goes down."
- Erich Hartmann, 352 kills
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Is English not your primary language Kweassa?
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Perhaps your attempt at cynicism sucks, quint.
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Cynicism? Thats like not even close. I suppose that answers my question though.
I'll start posting parenthesis at the bottom of all my posts explaining what point it is I'm trying to convey when I'm being even the least bit oblique. As a community service. I doubt a single other poster, even those who have English as a second or third language, would have confused my previous post with anything other than a jab at what I think is Benny's incorrect conclusion.
(note: the sentence about performing a community service has a sarcastic twinge)
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Then your attempt at sarcasm sucks too, quint.
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I'm glad you found your dictionary.
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Thanks everyone for the replies! I never knew there was so much about tracer rounds :)
Thanks!
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"Go in close, and then when you think you are too close, go in closer."
- TM "Tommy" McGuire, USAAF, 38 victories
He also said never to turn fight a Zeke, and yet he did just that regularly in his big '38 (quite succesfully, I might add; his undoing was trying it once while carrying drop tanks, which disrupted the airflow under the wing and negated the P-38's perfect stalling characteristics). Dick Bong also turned with Zekes, despite his own advice to never do so. Advice to green pilots does not at all equate to a description of one's own tactics. Just as they did, so do I; I shoot from long ranges in the game and turn fight with Zekes, but I tell new pilots not to do either.
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Originally posted by quintv
Someone dig up Hartmann and Marseille, apparently they took long range sniporz shots :D
They're nothing, look up Gunther Rall. Is supposed to have killed a Yak with a deflection shot at about 750 yards while inverted.
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He also said never to turn fight a Zeke, and yet he did just that regularly in his big '38 (quite succesfully, I might add; his undoing was trying it once while carrying drop tanks, which disrupted the airflow under the wing and negated the P-38's perfect stalling characteristics). Dick Bong also turned with Zekes, despite his own advice to never do so. Advice to green pilots does not at all equate to a description of one's own tactics. Just as they did, so do I; I shoot from long ranges in the game and turn fight with Zekes, but I tell new pilots not to do either.
These 'vets' have a peculiar tendency to come up with a strict set of rules which allowed them to become such excellent pilots in the first place, and then get cocky and start ignoring it immediately. Unfortunately, that usually gets them killed.
So lets ponder about just how convincing this "vets don't need to keep to the advice they give out to n00bs" argument of yours is.
Hmmm.. let's see...
Nope. Not convincing at all.
Besides, the worlds highest scoring ace has some more advice on close-range gunnery and aerial combat tactics. He served in the airforce a lot longer than Allied pilots, but not particularly longer than any one of his peers in the Luftwaffe. It's him who scored 352 kills, not them.
You can have computer sights of anything you like, but I think you have to go to the enemy on the shortest distance and knock him down from point-blank range. You'll get him from in close. At long distance, it's questionable.
I opened fire when the whole windshield was black with the enemy . . . at minimum range . . . it doesn't matter what your angle is to him or whether you are in a turn or any other maneuver.
He stuck to his own advice he gave out to the 'greens' - and he survived the war. Not only did he survive, but all of his wingmen also survived.
That tells a lot about what happens when a vet ignores any one of the advices he gives out to the 'greens'.
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Amen, Kweassa! All of your statements are quite right. And they are true for RL and game: I begun playing AH with a convergence of 400 yards, I've cut it to 250/200 (depending on the weapon type) and I'm thinking about cutting it even more.
And, quint, sorry buddy, but your sarcasm may not be immediately clear, especially for people whose first language is not English. ;)
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Hi,
in the Book regarding Hartmann the writer did refer to other Pilots, like Rall, who did count as snipers and was able to get kills regulary on 200-500m range. Some of Hartmanns wingis wrote that Hartmann did so as well, but preferred his usual tactic to close in to 30-50m to get the kill for sure.
The preferred tactic of Willi Reschke and his wingis while attacking 4 Mots was to start to shoot only with the MG´s to the tailgunner from around 600m, at around 300m he shifted the aim toward the inner wing or engine and he did enable the MK108 as well.
Pilots did start to dissable the tracerrounds cause they was visible for the target pilot as well, so when the 1st shot wasnt good, the target normaly started to evade.
There are not a few, there are plenty of pilot storys about kills between 200 and 500m.
Since the Brits did use 250yards and the US 300 yards convergence, i would consider this as a normal shootingdistance.
Of course its logical that a closer distance bring much advantage, but not always a pilot could sneak in that close.
Greetíngs,
Knegel
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Well, with MK108 it was not wise to go very close as one unfortunate German ace noticed when pieces of exploded IL2 hit his plane and he had to ditch...
The tracers have one more drawback which is that the burning of the tracer substance sometimes tends to burn unevenly and the projectile stumbles as the mass division becomes uneven and the rotation is disturbed. Well, even if every one out of ten would do this its effect would be insignificant.
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Originally posted by Charge
The tracers have one more drawback which is that the burning of the tracer substance sometimes tends to burn unevenly and the projectile stumbles as the mass division becomes uneven and the rotation is disturbed. Well, even if every one out of ten would do this its effect would be insignificant.
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Charge, just asking, have you witnessed this personly? Because my assumption would be that the extreme rotational speed would equal this out as soon as it happens. We're talking about 10000s to 100000s RPM at least. Very interesting point!
Regards,
Matt
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Unfortunately I haven't. I just read about it in an old airforce gunnery manual.
A projectile does not fly perfectly straight anyway and that is caused by minor differences in material so quality is a factor if this happens.
It would be interesting to know how often these "tumbles" happen anyway.. say, out of hundred tracers or so....
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Originally posted by Charge
Unfortunately I haven't. I just read about it in an old airforce gunnery manual.
A projectile does not fly perfectly straight anyway and that is caused by minor differences in material so quality is a factor if this happens.
It would be interesting to know how often these "tumbles" happen anyway.. say, out of hundred tracers or so....
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I've seen quite a bit of 5.56, 7.62, and caliber .50 tracer usage, especially at night. I've fired weapons using all the above calibers. I've never noticed any appreciable "tumbling" from tracers, nor an appreciable difference in ballistics, especially over ranges lower than 500 meters--even more. I've tracked tracer rounds from a Ma Deuce at a target 800 meters away that hit the target just like the ball rounds.
One thing Ken Walsh did mention in "Corsair Aces of WWII" was that convergence settings would change every time the trigger was pulled due to recoil, so he always tried to fire as close as possible to marginalize the incremental error each time he fired.
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http://www.xs4all.nl/~robdebie/me163/images/large/weapon23.jpg
In this picture a bent steel stick is visible which was meant to throw off the projectiles balance shortly after firing. Of course this is an extreme example but it should give an idea what kind of imbalance we are talking about. A light projectile with higher rotational speed does not need to have such imbalance to cause the tumbling.
I guess modern ammo is much more homogenous than war time ammo which was rather hastily manufactured and, probably, sometimes even of lower quality materials than present day projectiles.
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