General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: haggerty on August 31, 2017, 06:32:43 AM
Title: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: haggerty on August 31, 2017, 06:32:43 AM
Please make them jettisonable if enemy fighter comes in icon range.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Krusty on August 31, 2017, 07:55:46 AM
Nope.
The entire point of the jettison was that it was only for absolute emergencies. There was a war on, resources were scarce, they didn't drop them when enemy showed up just to try and dogfight.
Hitech himself has said that if he added it, it would be 100% every sortie used, instead of only in rare emergency cases, so he's not adding it. There should be a penalty if you choose to fly with them, and they stay after you fire.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: haggerty on August 31, 2017, 11:38:14 AM
The entire point of the jettison was that it was only for absolute emergencies. There was a war on, resources were scarce, they didn't drop them when enemy showed up just to try and dogfight.
If an enemy shows up, thats an emergency. Its a metal tube, the country will recover. Rather lose that than a plane and pilot.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: icepac on August 31, 2017, 12:27:28 PM
I guess original poster hasn't tested speeds with and without rockets.
Once fired, there is little to no drag from the rockets.
I will up a 110g without the cannon pod and two rockets to chase down B29s.
If they have a significant altitude advantage when I find them, I fire off the rockets and enjoy a pretty fast 110.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Krusty on August 31, 2017, 12:33:21 PM
If an enemy shows up, thats an emergency. Its a metal tube, the country will recover. Rather lose that than a plane and pilot.
That's just not true. Encountering the enemy = normal. Emergency = going down, damaged horribly, need to crash safely and need to get those off the wings. In AH terms if that's happening you've already been shot down.
P.S. Those "metal tubes" weren't cheap and they had a significant shortage of certain metals in Germany. As far as I recall: There was never a recorded case that those tubes were jettisoned like you describe.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: haggerty on August 31, 2017, 03:39:07 PM
That's just not true. Encountering the enemy = normal. Emergency = going down, damaged horribly, need to crash safely and need to get those off the wings. In AH terms if that's happening you've already been shot down.
They carried the rockets for bomber intercepting, if they were in a dogfight with a fighter you better believe they'd jettison for a cleaner plane. Which is why I request it only be allowed if a fighter is in range of you.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: MWL on August 31, 2017, 03:51:57 PM
Remember - Germans won't cross the road as long as Red Man is lit up - even if there isn't a vehicle in sight for miles . . . :bolt:
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Devil 505 on August 31, 2017, 05:57:29 PM
The entire point of the jettison was that it was only for absolute emergencies. There was a war on, resources were scarce, they didn't drop them when enemy showed up just to try and dogfight.
By this argument, drop tanks should not be able to be jettisoned either.
Quote
Hitech himself has said that if he added it, it would be 100% every sortie used, instead of only in rare emergency cases, so he's not adding it. There should be a penalty if you choose to fly with them, and they stay after you fire.
Hitech's reasoning makes much more sense.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: haggerty on August 31, 2017, 06:14:48 PM
By this argument, drop tanks should not be able to be jettisoned either.
Hitech's reasoning makes much more sense.
In the current state of affairs there is no reason to take the rockets. They are extremely hard to hit with and have a big speed reduction. And on the single engine fighters its better to just take the gun pods. I'm taking them just to be different, but if I wanted to min/max my effectiveness I'd take the gun pods.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: icepac on August 31, 2017, 07:18:37 PM
By this argument, drop tanks should not be able to be jettisoned either.
Hitech's reasoning makes much more sense.
Pardon a stupid question, but I was under the impression drop tanks were meant to be jettisoned on every sortie? I was always under the impression the rocket tubes were meant to stay on the plane ideally.
Wiley.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Devil 505 on August 31, 2017, 08:14:45 PM
The external tanks would be retained unless combat was entered, or in some cases retained even while in combat. We like to call them "drop tanks" because they can be dropped if needed, but they were not dropped every sortie.
The logic behind deciding to drop a tank or rocket tube was the same - save them if you can, but drop them to help save the plane/pilot.
Let's look at it as a matter of practicality, it takes much more time, money, and material to make a plane than it does a rocket tube or an external tank.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: JimmyC on August 31, 2017, 10:57:50 PM
spitty drop tanks where made of paper....just a titbit of information
usefull tools....
“One morning Sgt. Sing, our Squadron cook, asked me if I would help him with a project to which I agreed of course. He sawed a panel from the top of a paper gas tank in which we carried extra fuel – one that had not been used. He took the baffles out of the inside and hinged the panel he’d cut out so that it could be opened and closed. Into the tank he poured 50 gallons of powdered milk mix, ten gallons of mixed, canned fruit, ten pounds of sugar, some vanilla extract and a few other ingredients that I don’t remember. All this was mixed thoroughly and the tank was hung under the wing of my plane. Sgt. Sing told me to fly up to 30,000 feet where the temperature would be about 30 degrees below zero F. I was to slip and skid the airplane around for half an hour to keep the contents mixed up until it froze, then dive down and land as quickly as possible. When I parked the airplane Sgt. Sing dropped the tank off the wing and opened it up to reveal ICE CREAM. Everyone had a feast.”
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Krusty on August 31, 2017, 11:18:45 PM
Depends on which nation. Germans tried to hold onto their tanks only when they were operating in an area where German forces controlled the sky because they had so few of them. US escorts dropped them every time before any kind of combat because the stresses on the airframe and the wing would significantly degrade combat. They were also expendable and made from laminated paper so no loss was felt (unlike metal tanks). If you ran into combat, you dropped the tanks. That's the norm. Holding them was abnormal. In fact, if one of them hung on the wing it was dangerous and some planes would turn back or stay back from the fight if they couldn't dislodge it with sharp maneuvers.
For the WGr tubes, dropping them was not something done just because "enemies showed up" -- that's projecting your own desires for AH onto the real thing. The actual manuals that explain how to operate the explosive bolts warn not to use but in the most dire of circumstances (because the war materials were so scarce they couldn't replace them). That doesn't mean you want to dogfight with something so you drop them, which let's face it would be every single sortie in Aces High.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: EagleDNY on September 01, 2017, 06:55:24 PM
Laminated Paper Drop Tanks were designed for one-time use - you did NOT come into land with them as it was expected they would be leaking by then. If a mission was scrubbed they would drop the still full tanks in a dump near the field before landing. A pretty amazing invention overall.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Mongoose on September 01, 2017, 08:37:15 PM
Hitech himself has said that if he added it, it would be 100% every sortie used, instead of only in rare emergency cases, so he's not adding it. There should be a penalty if you choose to fly with them, and they stay after you fire.
Since they didn't jettison the tubes because it was so expensive, make it expensive in game. Jettisoning the tubes costs 100 perk points. For some folks that would give them negative perk points. Now some people have lots of perks saved up, so you could make it 100 perk points, or half your perk points, whichever is greater.
And no, this would not be applied to drop tanks, because drops tanks were meant to be dropped.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Krusty on September 01, 2017, 11:12:55 PM
Not sure the game is set up that way... Perks are tied to the sortie, not to the state of a weapon when you land. Because what if you KEEP the tubes and get shot down? You lose perks for not landing safely, but you never "used" the perks because the tubes were still on...
Perks don't work that way. You'd have to find a different way to "cost" something for the effort.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: icepac on September 02, 2017, 09:35:38 PM
Asking HTC to address rocket pods and drop tank modeling will likely net you less performance since they are already too generous concerning drag and weight.
Test it yourself, be thankful when you realize this, and hope this thread sinks.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Karnak on September 03, 2017, 12:40:30 PM
Asking HTC to address rocket pods and drop tank modeling will likely net you less performance since they are already too generous concerning drag and weight.
Test it yourself, be thankful when you realize this, and hope this thread sinks.
Can't speak to other planes, but the drag numbers for the Mossie's external stores match the documented numbers exactly.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: haggerty on September 04, 2017, 03:12:52 PM
circumstantial evidence, but in my 110 I did a shallow dive to match speed of TU-2's at 23k and hit the WEP. 3 sectors later I had only gained .5k on him. Hitech's charts show I should have a top speed of about 368 in level flight vs his ~325. I think those empty tubes hurt my speed quite a bit. I wish I had saved the video see my actual top speed, if I remember right it was around 330.
I was able to catch him when he turned to land, but a base ack got my engine and the punk ended up finding me again 3 sectors away NOE and shot me down :(
Edit: Just did some actual testing.
In offline practice I took a 110 with 25% fuel and rockets to 2k and leveled out. Was able to get to 287mph IAS, then fired my rockets and was able to get up to 295mph. I then took off without the rockets and acceleration was much faster after getting to 2k and was able to get to 310mph. I probably wont be taking rockets anymore as a 15mph penalty on the deck is pretty brutal.
And just finished some A5 testing. 308 with rockets, 311 after firing, and 328 clean. 50% fuel.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: icepac on September 04, 2017, 04:07:08 PM
If you want to go fast in a 110, the it's better to delete the gunpod.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Karnak on September 05, 2017, 12:45:34 AM
circumstantial evidence, but in my 110 I did a shallow dive to match speed of TU-2's at 23k and hit the WEP. 3 sectors later I had only gained .5k on him. Hitech's charts show I should have a top speed of about 368 in level flight vs his ~325. I think those empty tubes hurt my speed quite a bit. I wish I had saved the video see my actual top speed, if I remember right it was around 330.
I was able to catch him when he turned to land, but a base ack got my engine and the punk ended up finding me again 3 sectors away NOE and shot me down :(
Edit: Just did some actual testing.
In offline practice I took a 110 with 25% fuel and rockets to 2k and leveled out. Was able to get to 287mph IAS, then fired my rockets and was able to get up to 295mph. I then took off without the rockets and acceleration was much faster after getting to 2k and was able to get to 310mph. I probably wont be taking rockets anymore as a 15mph penalty on the deck is pretty brutal.
And just finished some A5 testing. 308 with rockets, 311 after firing, and 328 clean. 50% fuel.
Yeah, this is why I never took the rockets on the Mossie VI. The rails just had too much drag. If I had to take external stores I took the 500lb bombs as the shackles only cost a few miles per hour once the bombs were gone, better was just taking the internal bombs.
Here is a link to the fighter-bomber performance spreadsheet I was working on. It is incomplete, but perhaps some will find it interesting.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Krusty on September 05, 2017, 08:55:11 AM
Yes, the drag from the tubes has always been modeled. They're angled upward, so they're not just letting the air pass through. They're slamming into the airflow and slowing you down (that and the braces/struts).
If you want straight up speed on a 110G-2, definitely leave the gunpod at home, or take a Me410. The Me410 gets the gun packages but without the extra drag for anything up to the big gun. Only issue is the handling is different. On the plus side you get better top speed, though.
Cockpits cause a lot of drag. On the Spitfire, for example, the cockpit is (I don't recall which) the first or second largest source of drag, the radiator being the other.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: icepac on September 06, 2017, 01:38:12 PM
Haggerty, my testing yielded very different results.
I tested ME110 in all configurations and fuel levels and waited long time periods for speed to stabilize during the testing.
I posted them here about 5 years ago.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Vinkman on September 06, 2017, 04:10:00 PM
That's just not true. Encountering the enemy = normal. Emergency = going down, damaged horribly, need to crash safely and need to get those off the wings. In AH terms if that's happening you've already been shot down.
P.S. Those "metal tubes" weren't cheap and they had a significant shortage of certain metals in Germany. As far as I recall: There was never a recorded case that those tubes were jettisoned like you describe.
Crusty your logic makes no sense. Plane and pilot easily out weigh the price of an empty Rocket holder. Stop digging. :salute
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Krusty on September 07, 2017, 10:55:37 AM
Vink, the historic realities are what they were. You're trying to change the details to suit what you want. Just say you want it. Don't try to change why X was X, just say you want Y instead. And if you get denied, so be it.
Ice: Not sure about your testing, but ever since I've been playing the WGr tubes have added drag.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Vinkman on September 07, 2017, 12:57:55 PM
Vink, the historic realities are what they were. You're trying to change the details to suit what you want. Just say you want it. Don't try to change why X was X, just say you want Y instead. And if you get denied, so be it.
Ice: Not sure about your testing, but ever since I've been playing the WGr tubes have added drag.
I don't want anything, I'm a neutral observer. From what I can gleen from the Thread, the Rocket pods were jettisonable. The OP asked for them to be modelled so they were Jettisonable. Very logical.
Your answer was ~ 'They were so valuable in real life that pilots wouldn't drop them, Unless it was an "emergency." therefore in AH they were modelled so they couldn't be dropped.'
That answer makes no logical sense to anyone who's read it as to why they can't be dropped in game. Are you sure that was HiTech's reason? :salute
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: wil3ur on September 07, 2017, 01:29:33 PM
If they use explosive bolts to release themselves from the airframe, this seems like a very dangerous thing to do, and would be something done only in extreme circumstances.
Can you imagine the stress on the wings a plane blowing off parts of it would take... some of these pilots doing multiple sorties a day.... just blowing up crap off their wings repeatedly. I dunno, sounds like a bad idea.
OR!!!!
We could add the ability to release these, but also add in a %chance to cause critical damage to the wing upon activating the exploding bolts. :bolt:
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Vinkman on September 07, 2017, 01:55:59 PM
If they use explosive bolts to release themselves from the airframe, this seems like a very dangerous thing to do, and would be something done only in extreme circumstances.
Can you imagine the stress on the wings a plane blowing off parts of it would take... some of these pilots doing multiple sorties a day.... just blowing up crap off their wings repeatedly. I dunno, sounds like a bad idea.
OR!!!!
We could add the ability to release these, but also add in a %chance to cause critical damage to the wing upon activating the exploding bolts. :bolt:
Proof would help. What number of these were jettisoned in real life. What percent of the ones Jettisoned resulted in plane damage? How critical was the damage? Then we could understand the proper modelling choice. :salute
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: Vraciu on September 07, 2017, 02:00:25 PM
Depends on which nation. Germans tried to hold onto their tanks only when they were operating in an area where German forces controlled the sky because they had so few of them. US escorts dropped them every time before any kind of combat because the stresses on the airframe and the wing would significantly degrade combat. They were also expendable and made from laminated paper so no loss was felt (unlike metal tanks). If you ran into combat, you dropped the tanks. That's the norm. Holding them was abnormal. In fact, if one of them hung on the wing it was dangerous and some planes would turn back or stay back from the fight if they couldn't dislodge it with sharp maneuvers.
For the WGr tubes, dropping them was not something done just because "enemies showed up" -- that's projecting your own desires for AH onto the real thing. The actual manuals that explain how to operate the explosive bolts warn not to use but in the most dire of circumstances (because the war materials were so scarce they couldn't replace them). That doesn't mean you want to dogfight with something so you drop them, which let's face it would be every single sortie in Aces High.
Allied drop tak use is a little more nuanced than this. Initially they were metal and used for ferrying. Over time they were used for escort missions and jettisoned, again metal first...paper later.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: morfiend on September 07, 2017, 05:27:01 PM
I did some testing last night and found that with the 4 rocket loadout you get a speed lost of aprox.30 mph once fired off the speed was just 20 mph slower. The 20mm gondie added aprox 4mph difference in speed.
All tests were done at aprox FTH of 22700 ft where I got a max speed of 366 True,gondie gave 362,tubes were empty and the speed was 344,rockets in tubes gave 334. I did not test with both rockets and the 20mm gondie and I did not test with just a single rocket tube on each wing.....ran out of time!
YMMV!
:salute
PS: I wont comment on whether they should be jettison-able or not as there simply isnt enough information on the subject,I do know explosive bolts were used and the pilot had to set a breaker to arm the switch but it's actual use is almost impossible to find anything on.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: USCH on September 12, 2017, 08:55:42 AM
If this was a one life game i would say have at it... but ill tell you what will happen...
You will have everyone who can, learning how to HO with the rockets, then dumping the tubes if they miss, and trying to dogfight after...
I got good at using the rockets years ago on buffs (the intended purpose). Vary rarely in the MA do buffs have escorts. If they do your attack is different anyway. Unless you intend to reinvent the way you attack with them (coming from any other direction than 6 or 12 O'clock).
Also most any escort will not follow more than a few thousand feet under the bomber stream. Or away past 6k..
If you like the rockets fire at 1100ft or so (that's just before 1K turns to 1000) at 6 o'clock.
Or learn to use them at 12 0'clock. if escorts are present dive 2k lower after attack and 7k wide of the bombers... note the direction and fly out in front for another head on attack from 12 o clock high.. If escorts engage you try to drag them as far as possible and as low as possible away from the bombers as you use defencive maneuvers.
Does it suce we cant blow them off? Yes. But we cant blow off the Stukas wheels either. It would be abused. simple as that.
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: haggerty on September 13, 2017, 04:29:59 AM
I actually need to fire at 600-800 when attacking from the rear in order to get hits, but if I try that with APP75 i'm already missing a wing at 1.5k For head on I get hits firing at 2k.
And for the Stuka, just clip a hanger after taking off, it will remove your wheels.
Here is my first kill in Aces High, three achievements :)
Title: Re: WGr21 Rocket Pods
Post by: icepac on September 14, 2017, 06:19:49 PM
From behind, when you fire is also determined by your speed.
I am often coming in at 450mph so I fire at 1100....maybe more.
Coming in head on, I've been firing at 2500 when going 300mph head on to 300mph bombers.