Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: fdiron on April 23, 2002, 09:41:55 PM
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Obviously Aces High is quite unrealistic in its modeling of turret and hand held machine guns. In real life bombers consistently were mauled by fighters when not escorted. However, I have never read why bombers were not able to defend themselves adequately. Can anyone give me some insite as to why bomber gunners scored very few kills?
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I wasnt there..But I have shot at remote control drones with a ground mount 50cal.
It is very hard to do. Even a little plane at 60 miles an hour is hard to hit.
Hitting a plane from a buffeting bomber, peeping through a little window in the freezing cold when you are moving 230 mph and he is moving 400 must have been brutal to acomplish.
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even harder than hitting a moving vehicle. try hitting anything when shooting from a moving vehicle
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Was inadequate training a problem for gunners? I think I remember someone in Aces High saying that their father-in-law was a pilot of an armored P63 that was used for target practice. He went on to say that the gunner instructors were very accurate gunners.
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Certainly training was important. It is also worth noting that guns in a good, powered turret were far more accurate than hand-held ones (the waist guns on US bombers were really waste guns :)).
Even accepting their claims (and the claims for shootdowns from US bombers were way, way over reality) guns mounted on fighters were about ten times as effective in terms of number of bullets fired for each kill.
Tony Williams
Author: "Rapid Fire: The development of automatic cannon, heavy machine
guns and their ammunition for armies, navies and air forces"
Details on my military gun and ammunition website:
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Military gun and ammunition discussion forum:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/
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I can think of 8 reasons why my buff gunning is better that it would be in real life:
1) My barrel never heats up.
2) The mounting of my gun never loosens.
3) My guns never jam.
4) The buff flys perfectly smooth, even with a aileron missing.
5) I'm not 18 and scared witless.
6) I'm not in a bulky parka with thick gloves.
7) I have not been up since 2am and in the air since 4.
8) I'm not 18 and scared witless.
Now I know that 5 and 8 are the same, but I figured that one was worth mentioning twice.
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No unescorted bomber force survived a mission against determined fighter opposition without taking heavy losses. Period. The AAF took prohibitive losses in its' daylight raids against the Third Reich until the advent of long range fighter escorts. By 1943 there was talk of suspending the raids because of the heavy losses being inflicted by the Luftwaffe.
Claims for fighters shot down were wildly exaggerated by the bomber crews. The actual losses by the Germans were far less than the AAF had hoped for. Until the arrival of the Mustang and long-range drop tanks for all fighters the prospects for the bomber offensive were bleak indeed.
In Aces High, by comparison, it almost impossible to attack a group of bombers without incurring heavy losses among the attacking fighter force. Had real life been like this, the Luftwaffe's fighter force would have been bled white in 1942.
Some fixes, obviously, are necessary to restore a little realism.
Regards, Shuckins
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plus you gotta see just how easily you kill with 2 .50's in buffs when compared with 2 .50's in fighters at convergence. Gimme a break!
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Yea it's pretty messed up one way or another no matter what the powers to be may say..... I just hope that the buff guns are readdressed in the new version with 4 buff formations. Otherwise it will really be messed up.
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well...........alot of the ratteling of a .50 even hand gun is impossibel to handle expecailly as a machine gun........i can remeber gunners of larger size and streangh gettin 7 kill some times because they could move the .50 around easily while it was firein..............and to tell u the truth alot of guns like 20mm should basically just rattle a fighter back and forth.....partially y the tracers u see in old plane films are all over the place..............
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Originally posted by H. Godwineson
In Aces High, by comparison, it almost impossible to attack a group of bombers without incurring heavy losses among the attacking fighter force.
Scenarios are where AH comes closest to actual WW2 conditions. In scenarios, unescorted bombers are toast if they are attacked by enemy fighters.
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Originally posted by H. Godwineson
In Aces High, by comparison, it almost impossible to attack a group of bombers without incurring heavy losses among the attacking fighter force.
More often than not, the "attacking fighter force" consists of one guy attacking from the low 6 (The famous please kill me, I don't want to fly anymore attack). Get two guys who are working together, and they can take down a buff with little difficulty. Get 4 of them sprinting through a formation and... well, that's why we have Scenarios (although, as Invasion Sicily proved, the M.202 isn't the best interceptor out there lol) Do they tweak bomber lethality in Scenarios?
-Sikboy
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HiTech talks "Buff Guns" (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51057)
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Hi Mates
Although I was a pilot in the service I have not fired .50
cal's from one plane at another. Have fired them on the ground at targets and believe me, they kick bellybutton at 1000 yards.
If they ever really model a slipstream from the bombers, the fighters will find out quickly just how hard it would be to shoot one down from the direct six position. Would be like riding a bucking bronco. Operating within the bomber box would be very rough flying indeed.
Believe the LW liked head on's at very high speed. Could get some cannon hits in and get by the gunners. If you note a lot of LW gun camera film from the bombers six, the gunners are dead by the time the LW gets in close for the kill. Also believe ack killed a lot of bombers.
There was a game out a couple of years ago that had slipstream, was it Janes WWII fighters? Something like that.
Would make bomber warfare much more interesting.
Majors
249RAF
Oldest Yank in the RAF
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Hi everyone,
for a good perspective on the difficulties of firing from gunners' positions, have a look at "Operation Pinball" by Ivan Hickman.
How ineffective bomber guns really were is evident from the results of the 1943 Schweinfurth raids.
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)
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Thanks for the replies guys, but I still havent got the answer I was looking for. There has to be either one or a few major reasons gunners couldn't defend themselves. I have a sneaking supsicion that the time that German fighters were within firing range must have been measured in mili-seconds. I think I might try looking on amazon.com to see if there are any books written by gunners. I'm sure that there has to be one.
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Try "Half a wing, 3 engines and a prayer". It talks a good bit about gunnery and gettin gunned. Some of the gunners were pretty darn good, others just didn't have it for some reason. I believe another reason was the German pilots were pretty scared themselves and prefered the head on attack as they were in the guns only for a split second. The B-17 turrets couldn't track a high speed attack. Anyway, ISBN 0-07-134145-5.
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You can fire a rifle from an aircraft more accurately than a pintle mounted mg . One reason is that the mg's aren't shoulder fired . You're basically aiming them like a big pistol, a big pistol that is conected to a moving vibrating airframe . The sights are pretty much useless. Even if you did get to zero them before take off you're not going to be able to get a decent sight picture in the aircraft . You have to rely on aiming reactively with the tracers as if it were a water hose . When you consider this with the multitude of other factors affecting the gunners adversely it's easy to understand why freehand fired aircraft mounted machine guns are so innacurate .
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Did anyone realize there are absolutely no vibrations whatsoever with buff guns?? :confused: :eek:
Okay, maybe the electric ball turrets were stable platforms solidly planted into the buff itself.. but absolutely no vibration at all?? This seems to make aiming at an flying target very easy compared to fighter guns, especially when all guns within shooting angle converge to a single guided point in buffs with high accuracy.
See how a meager 7.92mm planted at the nose of the Ju-88A gives off vibration. And then, compare how 4~6 .50 barrels firing all at once gives absolutely no vibration at all!
I say add vibration levels to buff guns! Hand held waist guns, and maybe some turrets like tail, chin turret should give off vibration making it a bit difficult to aim accurately. Maybe the ball turrets should give minimum (but not 'no') vibration.
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Ups, wrong thread, sorry :)
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http://www.b17warhorse.fws1.com/shopping_page.html
The gunner has been taught to fire an estimated 8 to 10 rounds in a burst to prevent the gun from overheating and melting the barrel. Each gun carried enough ammo in a storage bin for about a minute and a half of firing before the bin must be refilled.
The 50 cal machine gun was accurate for a distance of 1,000 yards - over a half-mile. The weapon would place a bullet pattern of about 3-feet at a distance of 1,000 yards - if placed in a bolt-down devise. However - the vibration of the gun firing cause a slight movement in the gun mounts and the actuall bullet pattern was assumed to be about 30-feet in diameter. Of course - the 50 cal projectal would travel a deadly distance of more than a mile but the pattern was much larger due to vibration of the mounts. Tracer bullets were not an effective method of aiming as the projectal strayed due to the burning of the chemical inside the projectal. Tracers were primarly for effect of letting the enemy know he was being fired upon and nothing more than a warning in some cases.
I just wonder why buff 50 cal guns got no vibration and overheating at all :eek:
And why Ju88 got only one mg firing forward :mad::o:(
Real armament of Ju88 A4 was two MG 81 or one MG 81 and one MG 131 firing forward, twin MG 81 or one MG 131 upper rear, one or two MG 81 at rear of ventral gondola and (later aircraft) two MG 81 at front of gondola
And heres pick showing Ju88 A4 armament...
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B26 and B17 are really the only buffs that seem to kill you with ridiculous ease.
Especially B17 with its guns shooting through the fuselage at ridiculous angles..
IMO buff gunner overleathality would be fixed if the gunners would die like in real life.. One spray in the back of the fuselage with light mg and the rear gunner should be dead.
Historically gunners were the first ones targeted to get peace to work the rest of the buff. In Aces High the gunners die randomly, not even a good spray of 20mm cannon rounds in the tail usually kill the rear gunner. He keeps on spraying even when the tail has been shot off practically.
Make buff gunners vulnerable in AH!
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Originally posted by Dr Zhivago
And why Ju88 got only one mg firing forward :mad::o:(
Real armament of Ju88 A4 was two MG 81 or one MG 81 and one MG 131 firing forward, twin MG 81 or one MG 131 upper rear, one or two MG 81 at rear of ventral gondola and (later aircraft) two MG 81 at front of gondola
I watched Discovery Wings Channel last night, the featured aircraft on Wings of the Luftwaffe was the He-111.
A few reasons for light defensive armaments in Luftwaffe medium bombers stem from the fact that the He-111 and Do-17 were designed in the early 1930s as commercial passenger/cargo aircraft to meet the treaty limitations.
The Luftwaffe High Command believed that a fast bomber like the He-111 or the later JU-88 should be able to out run fighters.
At the start of the war the He-111 could do exactly that.
Also the Luftwaffe worked so closely with the army that medium bombers nicely filled the support role required. The He-111 could even dive bomb, although level bombing worked better.
And as you add defensive arms to an aircraft , you increase weight and drag as well as decrease range payload, and manueverability.
The show went on to speculate that had the Germans developed and produced heavy four engine bombers like the Ural Bomber, the Germans could have chased the factory equipment the Russians moved east of the Urals.
With as few as a 1000 heavy bombers they may have been able to hamper the Russian weapon production just enough as to extend the war another twelve months.
Allowing the German Jet and Rocket programs time to stem Allied air power and slow the ground advance, which may have resulted in the Germans having the ability to surrender much as they did in WW1, with thier country intact.
Interesting hypothosis, however I believe the Allies wanted the same unconditional surrender from the Germans that they wanted from the Japanese, and so although heavy bombers may have extended the war, raised the death toll, and allowed the Me262 to slow the Allied Air Forces, utimately the Allies still would have pushed thru to Berlin to insure Hitler's removal.
As for the On-Topic response
The pilots of WW1 were grateful when A/C started having MGs mounted facing forward, as this allowed them to point the plane at the target.
Imagine you're in a turret behind the pilot, he's jinking and diving, climbing and rolling, he wants to keep from getting shot down.
You're in the back trying to line up a shot, and he's twisting the plane around, throwing off your aim 99% of the time.
Being a gunner in WW2 would not have been a whole lot different, although a pilot would not move the A/C so radically, the pilot is gonna still have A/C buffet, side slipping and avoidance of falling debris to contend with.
Does it sound easy?
Makes ya kinda wonder how many WW1 gunners reached around and slapped the pilot in da back o da head don't it?