Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: hazed- on October 31, 2001, 04:47:00 PM
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Please give the LW (and any others that had them) aircraft the ability to select individual cannons or set them to all firing.The aircraft we have had them, Ive read about the electric selectors the LW incorperated.It is very usefull(in fact it is incredibly important on the 190a8 with its 30mm)
I often waste 30mm because im forced to fire them in the first few seconds of a fight when I really need to save them for later.(de-acking is a prime example)
the final approach when attacking bombers is another.Having to hold fire as you run in is a problem with the effective range of bomber guns being so good.firing 20mm from distance then activating 30mm close in would be a fantastic addition.
I ask in all respect, this is not a whine or complaint. merely a request.
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Hazed,
Next time you're de-acking try using the cowl guns only. They work almost as well and will save you both 20mm and 30mm.
ra
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ra is correct there hazed cowl guns kill aa with ease.
however a "selector" switch would be great.
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Sorry 190A8 fans, but you don't want the way the gun selectors worked in real life.
According to the 190A8 pilots manual, the electrical firing circuit had two "on/off" switches. Switch #1 controlled the Cowl guns and the inner cannons. Switch #2 controlled the outboard cannons and any gondola's.
At least in AH you can fire only cannons or only MG's.
Me and R4M went round and round about this, until I finally mailed him a copy of the manual. :)
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Vermillion,
If that was how it was, that is how I would like it.
It seems that this is one of the things we can have be as historically accurate as possible without putting an undue burden on the pilot/player.
Now that I know this it seems very "gamey". Was it selectable or programmable in the field?
F.
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if thats how real 190s worked I would like this change as well.
link the 20mm and cowl mg fire together and give outer cannons their own separate fire toggle
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Originally posted by Vermillion:
Sorry 190A8 fans, but you don't want the way the gun selectors worked in real life.
According to the 190A8 pilots manual, the electrical firing circuit had two "on/off" switches. Switch #1 controlled the Cowl guns and the inner cannons. Switch #2 controlled the outboard cannons and any gondola's.
At least in AH you can fire only cannons or only MG's.
Me and R4M went round and round about this, until I finally mailed him a copy of the manual. :)
I agree, you are right on how the guns worked. But you are wrong on that we dont want it. I'd rather get the historical setting, as bad it may be :).
BTW I'd also like to get the chance NOT to fly with 13mm MGs (as lots of real life 190s did :))
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Using the arming panel the pilot could only choose between either cowl + inner or outer guns to fire individually, but - I think the pilot could also manipulate the circuit breakers on the side console and be able to fire any combination of guns you want. :)
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or have whole other ammo counter....1rst, 2nd, and 3rd weapons. just a thought
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Exactly that's what i'm thinking using the backspace key when togling between bombs and Cannon,and also to be used in the fashion that you can control which guns you would fire first.
[ 11-02-2001: Message edited by: Glasses ]
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I'll look and see what I can find on that juzz :) I've never heard that before. Interesting.
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Maybe HTC should redo whole armament selection, to more flexible one.
Instead of having solid amount of armament slots that are either empty or filled up to last slot, have a pulldown menu for each gun group.
Maybe not as 'cool' hangar screen, but it would be better interface when you could see list of all guns at same time rather than pointing mouse over all of them and only have limited amount of selections due to current slot system there is..
This would also give more flexibility with bomb/rocket selections.
No need to make up settings within limits of the 'slot' system.
oh well, radical thoughts.. hey, current system has already lived over two years, why not a little overhaul... theres already been other overhauls ;)
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Currently when you hit the backspace key you cycle through secondary weapons. It actually probably wouldn't be too horrible a job to change definitions for various aircraft as to what consitutes "primary" and "secondary" weapons and to allow overlap (i.e. one set "secondary" weapons might include a subset or superset of some other "secondary" selection).
It seems like a worthwhile change to me.
Hooligan
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Agreed. Although I don't fly LW aircraft, if they had it, then so should AH LW. I can see why these guys would want this ability. It does seem a waste to fire 30mm on a target that doesn't need it. Apparently the RL LW did too?
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<PUNT>
The reason i asked for this was that selectable weapons was a unique characteristic of LW aircraft.It was an advantage over spitfires etc and therefore should be part of the make-up of the 190s etc
If I'm mistaken and other aircraft also had this ability to switch then they should get them too.
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Just curious, if the Spit happens to be a one with machineguns and cannons, how could the selector switch give you an advantage over that? AFAIK a Spit pilot can choose between firing mgs, cannons or both at will.
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NO sage more firing individual cannons or pairs of cannons to fire. Means ammunition runs out a lot less faster and means not wasting the "special kind" in some la7.
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Hi Sage,
>Just curious, if the Spit happens to be a one with machineguns and cannons, how could the selector switch give you an advantage over that? AFAIK a Spit pilot can choose between firing mgs, cannons or both at will.
The Spitfire's trigger was a pneumatical valve situated on the steering yoke. Pushing down either end of the button would trigger MGs only respectively cannon only, pushing down the entire button would trigger both sets of weapons simultaneously.
(Why pneumatically triggered? It was much better than the WW1-style bowden cable trigger which would have some delay due to the elasticity of the cable. Cyclists will know that effect :-)
The Luftwaffe fighters used electrical triggers with "A-Knopf" and "B-Knopf" (trigger and pushbutton on top, respectively).
Later grips had even more buttons - the first hints of HOTAS :-) I'd speculate that these could be used for a third weapon set as well. (At least, one of them was used for air-to-ground ordnance.)
Willy Reschke's "JG 301/302" describes quite clearly attacks with 13 mm, 20 mm and 30 mm cannon fire each triggered at a certain distance to the target. I don't think he was manipulating circuit breakers in a switchbox while making a life-or-death gunnery pass at a Flying Fortress :-)
Alfred Price' "Fw 190 in Combat" describes Sturmgruppen attacks, including a failed one where a pilot doesn't get the weapons to fire since the heavily armed replacement plane he flew for the first time incorporated an additional arming switch in the gunnery circuit. Obviously, there was some freedom for the units to arrange electrics as required :-)
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
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Allready exists to some extend in AH, only plane it works is the P51 D though, the thing is called "select weapon", by using it you can select wether you want to fire primary guns or the 4 guns with the secondary fire button in the P51. It's been there for as long as I can remember.
Verm, most A8's had it like that, although some had extra buttons etc that made it possible to chose other combinations, this was however, just for some planes and not all that was built.
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Hi Wilbus,
>Allready exists to some extend in AH, only plane it works is the P51 D though, the thing is called "select weapon", by using it you can select wether you want to fire primary guns or the 4 guns with the secondary fire button in the P51.
Historically, the pilot of the P-51D had no way of firing anything less than the full complement of weapons, which could be either 6 or (if the inboard guns were removed) 4 guns.
Here's a quote from the P-51 Pilot Training Manual:
"This manual isn't intended to give you instructions in gunnery, but here's a tip - before you take off on a gunnery mission, be sure your guns are correctly loaded and charged, and that you know how fully loaded they are. There's no way of counting the number of rounds once you're in the air."
(There was no way of charging the guns once in the air, either.)
Other American aircraft differed - in the FM-2 Wildcat for example, the pilot had remote gun charging handles for his 4 machine guns besides his seat, which he could use to charge individual guns or even to clear jams, albeit manually handling the 0.50"s probably detracted somewhat from flying. The pilot also could select either firing inboard, outboard, or both pairs of guns simultaneously by a seperate selector switches. He only had a single trigger, though.
The Luftwaffe's gunnery equipment was a bit more sophisticated: Their aircraft not only had individual triggers for the different weapons, but also graphical (sometimes numerical) ammunition couters, breech position indicators, electrical (or, like in the case of the MK108, pneumatical) charging mechanisms, and their guns automatically cleared jams as soon as the pilot released the associated fire button when the weapon stopped firing.
>Verm, most A8's had it like that, although some had extra buttons etc that made it possible to chose other combinations, this was however, just for some planes and not all that was built.
Since not all that were built featured the extra weapons, this makes sense :-)
Looking at the Fw 190A-8 stick grip, it's obvious that it features A-Knopf, B-Knopf, and B2-Knopf, which is addressed as "bomb release button". It would be logical to assume that on aircraft that were not intended to carry bombs, the B2-Knopf button was used to individually trigger the extra armament, like for example the 30 mm outboard cannon.
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
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No wonder about the P51 guns...... :rolleyes:
Its easy to fix for the FW190 tho. Just set up the backspace key to do the following.
Trigger 1 can fire either 13mm MG131 / 7.9mm MG17 (like we have now) or the inboard pair of 20mm MG151 cannon.
Trigger 2 can fire all cannon (like we have now) or just the outer pair of cannon.
That should be very simple, HTC have allready done this on F4U1C, Typhoon, N1K2J, and Tempest. The 190 is the only multi wing cannon plane that cannot seperate its cannon fire on two different triggers and its prolly the only one in AH that really needs it and prolly the only one in RL with this degree of selection anyway.
Its clear that this needs a simple change.
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<<<Other American aircraft differed - in the FM-2 Wildcat for example, the pilot had remote gun charging handles>>>
All US carrier fighters had this arrangement. They didn't want armorers charging the guns below decks where an accidental discharge could blow up the carrier.
ra
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--- ra ---
They didn't want armorers charging the guns below decks where an accidental discharge could blow up the carrier.
--- end ---
That's some nasty Hispano damage model they had in WWII...
// fats