Author Topic: Gunnery and Barn Doors  (Read 3371 times)

Offline Sparks

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« on: June 25, 2000, 06:08:00 PM »
OK so I'm now getting into a postion more nowadays of getting onto someones 6 and EVEN into guns range and here is the next problem - how in chuffing heck do you hit the other a/c??
I am waiting to see 400 - 450 before opening up now but I am finding that in a turn even having the target in the bottom of the sight is not pulling enough lead - I have even tried having the target under the nose out of sight but that did'nt work.
I have tried using zoom but I find the target jumps around the sight too much and then if I have to do a yoyo or something then I lose sight in other views because the zoom is in.
I have tried getting closer - like 200-300 yds but then the target is flying top to bottom and side to side across the sights soooo fast that I start over controlling because I always react that bit too slow and finally overshoot.
So where is the balance ??
Does anyone have any films or screen shots they could send me of what it should look like??
How did you all perfect your gunnery?

If I can work out how to get the round lead things in the aircraft thing in front then I think I'll have the last piece of the puzzle.

Offline Spatula

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« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2000, 06:57:00 PM »
Firstly, there is no silver bullet, or anything that can be written here that will solve your gunnery problems. The best thing to do is practice, practice, practice, get experience, get more experience, and then even more.

   
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Originally posted by Sparks:

I am waiting to see 400 - 450 before opening up now but I am finding that in a turn even having the target in the bottom of the sight is not pulling enough lead - I have even tried having the target under the nose out of sight but that did'nt work.
I have tried using zoom but I find the target jumps around the sight too much and then if I have to do a yoyo or something then I lose sight in other views because the zoom is in.

Firstly loose the zoom, that feks my gunnery up so much, and like ya said ya cant track him if you do need to re-adjust (yoyos etc).
The lead factor depends on so much. Type of guns your using, the muzzle velocity, the speed of your plane, the speed of his, his turn rate etc etc. 50 cals (like in the mustang, D hog, and p47) are very stright firing, where as cannons are slower and less straight. You'll need to allow more lead for cannons than MGs.
Your plane type plays a big, planes that dont turn so well, you'll be looking for lo-G deflection shots or snap-shots. Planes that turn well you can go for a more prolonged deflection shot.
Some shots, in fact a lot of em, are well out of the gun sight and are below the nose of the plane, this is where the subtle combination of experience and good guess work come into play. Its all about 'guessing' where your NME will be 1/4 of a second into the future and firing there.

   
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I have tried getting closer - like 200-300 yds but then the target is flying top to bottom and side to side across the sights soooo fast that I start over controlling because I always react that bit too slow and finally overshoot.

Closer is better, but leaves little time to react. Espc if you have little ammo (109) or 50 cals, you need to be close to do effective damage/waste as little ammo as possible.

   
Quote

So where is the balance ??
Does anyone have any films or screen shots they could send me of what it should look like??
How did you all perfect your gunnery?

It should look like little hit sprites on nme plane     there is no right looking gun solution, just the one that kills the NME.

Takes patience, experience.

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if you adhere to all the rules you miss out on all the fun
   

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[This message has been edited by Spatula (edited 06-25-2000).]
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Offline Sharky

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« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2000, 07:01:00 PM »
Sparks,

Sorry I can't help ya here, my gunnery sucks.  But will I will add is that a lot of lead you are seeing especially in turns is being caused by pulling hvy Gs.  The more G force you are pulling the larger amount of lead you'll need.

I've found something that helps a little for me.  When pulling hard for a shot, pull significantly more lead than you think you need early in your firing pass.  When you get your nose way out in front relax your pull as the bogey comes into gun range, kinda like going from lead pursuit to a pure pursuit but not quite.

The object is to have to be pulling as little as possible for the shot and be able to track the bogey as long as possible.  Remember the larger the crossing angle of the target the more lead will be required and the smaller firing window you'll have.  Try to get a crossing angle of 30 degress or less.

As for the zoom thing, I mapped it to a button on my joystick so I can click in and out of zoom real quick.

Sharky

Offline terracota

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« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2000, 10:18:00 AM »
sparks
I had the same problem , now I still suck but now I have better aiming,
1)practice
2) you should adjust your joystick, options like, pitch, yaw, etc, now this works for me and the target is almost centered I reduced joy sensivity , just try it

please excuse my poor english

Offline snafu

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« Reply #4 on: June 26, 2000, 05:13:00 PM »
Hi Sparks,
 I couldn't have written that better myself. I can't hit anything either. I wouldn't even suggest I could be of any assistance in providing advice but I'm more than willing to let you use me for target practice.

 Perhaps we could get together in the TA, I'm in the UK as well so time shouldn't be a problem. Maybye we could crack this together  

Mail me if you are interested

TTFN
snafu

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Offline Andy Bush

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« Reply #5 on: June 26, 2000, 08:34:00 PM »
Sparks

Trial and error are the best teachers when it comes to sim gunnery. People can recommend techniques based on real world conditions but unless the sim is programmed for the 'real world', these techniques may not help much.

Here's one thing that you can do with AH...get familiar with the tracer path for the airplane that you want to fly. Do this by going to the training arena and firing off some shots to watch the tracer path.

What are you to look for? The relationship between the tracer path and the crosshairs of the gunsight. The tracer path will appear to bend away from the gunsight + when you are pulling G. The more G you pull, the more the tracer path will 'bend'.

Practice flying at specific G levels while you fire a burst. Then observe the position of the tracer path for the first 1/2 second or so. Ignore the tracers that you can see after the first half second since those rounds are really too far away...1/2 second equals about a 1000' range in real rough figures. So if you only concentrate on the tracer path for the first 1/2 second or so, you get an idea where your rounds are going depending on the G you are pulling.

Make a mental picture of that. What you end up with is an idea of where the target has to be with regard to the gunsight + for a given G load and typical firing ranges of 1000' or less. If you want to know more about A2A gunnery, see my A2A Gunnery series in the Air Combat Corner at www.simhq.com.

A2A gunnery is probably the most difficult task to teach in the real world...there are too many variables to make the problem simple. Practice makes perfect. There is no free lunch in this part of A2A combat.

Andy  

Offline Waxer

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« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2000, 10:53:00 PM »
I think my gunnery sucks too, but it's getting better. One thing that helped me was to film as many of my shots as possible. My personal buggaboo is aiming too low...it showed up clearly in the films.

Offline tshred

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« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2000, 06:35:00 AM »
Heya Sparks! <S> buddy. First, make sure your convergence is set for each plane you fly. I prefer setting mine up in the 375 to 400 range. Sounds like you are waiting to take your shot at the right time, i.e. 450 and closer. Like everyone else said, practice and lots more practice. Taken me 2 years to get my gunnery a consistent .10% lol.

"but I am finding that in a turn even having the target in the bottom of the sight is not pulling enough lead - I have even tried having the target under the nose out of sight but that did'nt work."

Keep trying and remember that gravity is affecting your bullet path, and also in a turn your bullet is going the direction the plane was at the instant of firing, while your a/c continues through the turn. In a hard banking, hi speed snap shot such as this, I also aim a little hi as well as have the bogey completely out of sight under the nose, the icon just barely visible, and this is in zoom. You can see the hits (an obvious bug, but usefull hehe) through your instrument panel, and occasionally the enemy will 'ghost' in and out of view. Just keep adjusting your lead until you see the hit sprites, then I pull a touch more and relax back pressure so the bullets are more concentrated and not spread out, and let the enemy fly into your bullet stream. Carefull not to go to far and bleed all your E trying to follow him, just straighten out, extend and come back for another pass. And as was stated earlier, the cannons are more susceptable to gravity and drop off a lot quicker than do MG's. Most of my snap shots the cannon shells miss and the .50s do all the work.

I use the zoom religously, and effectively I think. I have it mapped to a button on my throttle to quickly toggle it on and off. I set the amount of zoom to about half of what is available(P38, adjust if differently for other a/c), still affording me a small amount of instrument visibility, mainly the airspeed indicator and the ammo count. I'm only zoomed in when I'm on his six ready to fire, or need to see which direction his a/c is pointed, then it's back to regular view. It's easy to get 'target fixation' tho in zoom mode, and that has caused a quick ending to many of my flights LOL.

As far as when you are closer and

 "the target is flying top to bottom and side to side across the sights soooo fast that I start over controlling because I always react that bit too slow and finally overshoot."

you either need to chop the throttle, dump flaps and slow to match his manuevers, adjust your attack ahead of time, or you have to anticipate where he will be and try to get your shot at that point. Or you overshoot,extend, make another pass and see if he will do the same thing again, if so, you've got him because you can set up your shot. Most of the time it's better just to extend (or us a vertical manuever) and come back when this happens, so you don't blow all your E and find yourself in a deffensive position.

Something else that is important is having your trim set properly for the speed you are at when taking/correcting your shots. If you are badly out of trim, the nose is gonna be 'jumpy', not quite corresponding to your intended stick inputs. I also have my trims, all of them, mapped to a couple of hats on my throttle and am constantly ajusting aileron and elevator trim through out my engagements. Sure helps for 'steadying' the nose so to speak for shooting.

And last but not least, use short bursts, don't just 'spray and pray'   If you see the hits, keep pouring it on till they go down or move out of range, but just don't hose away at will. Pump out a couple of short bursts and hope for a lucky shot until your confindent a steady shot is there.

Oh yeah, more practice and lots of patience.

ts

Offline Sparks

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« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2000, 09:39:00 AM »
Thanks for all of this guys - first thing I've realised is that I am not allowing for bullet drop, only lead. Second, reading your posts I'm still not leading enough.
As for stability in the sights - I think you are right ts - I am always retrimming but probably not enough and, I don't know why, but I seem to forget the throttle during a dogfight - daaft I know but I do remember thinking several times on overshoots "CHOP THE DAMN THROTTLE....!" as I sail past the now beeming oppo.
I'm hoping that practice will slow things down in my mind so I have time to think about the fight more and flying the plane less. At the moment 90% of my brain processing power is spent on flying the a/c accurately and well enough to put it where I want it and 10% goes on what I should be doing next. If I try to shift that percentage then the flying goes to hell and I spin/stall etc and lose but of course only 10% on thinking the next move is not enough.
If another con comes onto the scene then brain processing goes to 110% which I can sustain for about 5 secs then shutdown occurs   .
I think that is why winging is easier - the wingleader is processing for where to be so I can put 100% into flying the plane.
Thanx again all.

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« Reply #9 on: June 29, 2000, 01:22:00 PM »
Sparks, one little trick I've learned is to raise my seat a bit which lowers the relative position of the gunsight. Now my bullet stream passes through the upper part of the sight when sitting on the runway (0-g turn). The sight is much closer to "on target" since more times than not I am pulling some g's when firing. FWIW I don't think this would work on a real "virtual image" sight, since the projected image is at infinity... which raises the question why isn't this so in AH?

Dhog

Offline Ripsnort

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« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2000, 01:29:00 PM »
My gunnery was an avg. of .18-.25 in Warbirds, here it is .04.  But ask any current WB'er, the gunnery here is sooooo easy!(Actually it is more LETHAL, but not easy)

funked

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« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2000, 03:30:00 PM »
Furball A LOT Sparks.  Learn the tools (shooting, stick and rudder).  Then worry about your score.

Offline Andy Bush

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« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2000, 03:50:00 PM »
Tshred

Lots of good points in your post...but one little thing has to be mentioned!!

Galileo figured out a long time ago that all things fall under gravity at the same rate...and that fact even applies to cannon and machine gun fire.

The difference in perceived depression below the gun line between the two is a result of the cannon's lower muzzle velocity. The effect is that the cannon rounds seem to fall faster...they don't...it just appears that way in the gunsight.

Andy

Offline Wardog

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« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2000, 06:55:00 PM »
Sparks..

Gunnery is mostly practice..

But ya can watch this,should be 8 kills in a p51. Lost to many parts to ACK by the end of the sortie,but youll get the idea of gunnery.
 http://mypage.direct.ca/w/wardog/p51.exe