Efficacy of .303's

[Butcher]

There was a video a while back shooting a 303 into steel and a german 20mm.

303 creates such a small hole, its laughable compared to the 20mm.
Hitting power doesn't mean much when the whole is barely big enough to fit a pencil inside.

Here's the damage 303s do:


HEre's the damage 20mm do:

[Noir]

well the 109 you shot was crippled. Oil, radiator, probably pilot and wing guns also. It was just not enough for the wing structure to give up.


as butcher showed, the 303 pierce stuff alright, but will have trouble doing actual damage to the structure

[titanic3]

I think it's great if you can aim for the cockpit area. The amount of bullets you have and the rate of fire makes it the most likely to kill the pilot, since you only need 1 or 2.

[icepac]

lancasters have no trouble removing me110 wings with them at d900.

[Noir]

lancasters have no trouble removing me110 wings with them at d900.

lancasters fire 50cals

[Butcher]

I think it's great if you can aim for the cockpit area. The amount of bullets you have and the rate of fire makes it the most likely to kill the pilot, since you only need 1 or 2.

I'd have to find my film, but caught a few Stukas in a turn fight trying to evade my hurri, 2-3 blew up by aiming for cockpit with less then 50 rounds fired, it can be done but to aim you need to be well under 200 yards and nailing the cockpit each time.

Easier said then done

[Wiley]

Two things:

They would penetrate both side of a Krupp German steel helmet and the head in between at 600+

Effective out to 1000yds fatal at 2 miles

Sure, on a human being.  People are made of meat.  Now compare that to an airframe that has much of the vital stuff armored heavier than the aforementioned helmet, and also consider that those guns are firing with an effective crosswind around 300mph a few degrees off of straight ahead. Dispersion is going to be a factor.

in truth they were almost certainly still in the acceleration phase at 200 yards.

No offense but that statement right there tells me you may not have the greatest understanding of how bullets work.  The only 'acceleration phase' that happens with a bullet occurs in the barrel it is shot out of.  Immediately upon leaving the muzzle, a bullet begins to slow down.

Don't forget, it's mass x velocity ^2.  That is to say, a drop in velocity makes a huge difference to the amount of energy a round imparts.

Quick googlage to illustrate, http://www.sportsmansguide.com/Outdoors/resource/remington_charts/303bribal.htm.  Yes, it's a hunting round, but the fine specifics of the military rounds is a quibble, I'm talking about relative power.

A round that leaves the muzzle at around 2460 fps has slowed down to around 1311 fps at 400 yards.  Energy has dropped off from 2418 foot-lbs at the muzzle to 687 at 400 yards.  That's just over 1/4 of the energy at the muzzle left, and just over 1/3 of the energy it had at 100 yards.

That's a major difference on an armored target.  That's handily the difference between full penetration and leaving a dent.  Light rifle rounds slow down relatively fast, that's why they work ok in close, and less well the further out you get.

Wiley.

[RTHolmes]

they work just fine set at d200

although I had them set to d250 for the SEC BoB because we were going to be hunting Ju88s, I reckon 250 is about the useful limit.


(remember this is about double the distance they were generally used at in WWII ...)

[icepac]

lancasters fire 50cals

I was referencing the 303s.

[Squire]

Aircraft losses were not always catastrophic. Many planes flew for awhile before eventually succumbing to the damage inflicted to them. Sometimes resulting in a ditch, a crew bailout, a forced landing or a crash while attempting to land. Some rtb'd ok to be written off for too much damage. Sometimes the pilot was wounded and died later or perhaps was never able to fly operationally again. Being hit by a battery of .30 caliber machine guns firing at 1000rpm in a twin engined bomber or a small fighter was no joke...you would likely crap your pants and pray to your maker in real life. They were also responsible for hundreds and hundreds of kills despite not being anywhere near the equal of a 20mm. They were still machine guns not toys. There was a gradual evolvement of weaponry from 1939 onwards and you have to put the planes into their proper timeframe.  

They also do this (crashed Do-17 brought down in the BoB by a Hurricane Mk I):

[Noir]

I was referencing the 303s.

ok, but still the tail guns of the lancaster we have ingame are dual browning .50

[Noir]

+1 squire, in aces high we are focused on the instant kill, an enemy ditching often goes unnoticed.

[Oldman731]

A round that leaves the muzzle at around 2460 fps has slowed down to around 1311 fps at 400 yards.  Energy has dropped off from 2418 foot-lbs at the muzzle to 687 at 400 yards.  That's just over 1/4 of the energy at the muzzle left, and just over 1/3 of the energy it had at 100 yards.

That's a major difference on an armored target.  That's handily the difference between full penetration and leaving a dent.  Light rifle rounds slow down relatively fast, that's why they work ok in close, and less well the further out you get.

This (thanks, Wiley, I always have trouble finding those frigging tables).  You'd have the same issue with the .30s on the P-39D, if there were a way to fire only the .30s.  The British .303, German 7.92 and US .30/06 all had virtually the same ballistics.  They make great deer and people rifles, but not so much good metal choppers.  That's why, as others have said, you have to set your convergence down to 200 (or 175, which I use) and don't bother taking shots past 200 or from any angle but the rear.

That said, if you DO get on his six at 200 yards for a few moments, the 8-gunned British planes will really chew up an enemy aircraft.

- oldman

[Wiley]

That said, if you DO get on his six at 200 yards for a few moments, the 8-gunned British planes will really chew up an enemy aircraft.

- oldman

At convergence in close, it's a sawzall.  75 yards from convergence, it depends how you're oriented and what the two groups of bullets hit.

If the icon isn't showing 200, so the guy is inside 300, I hold fire with the small MGs.

Wiley.

[R 105]

 I collected Lee Enfield rifle for the last 40 years. My first bolt action rifle I ever owned was a No.4 MK 1 I ordered from a magazine for $19.95 shipped to the door. The good old guns days before the 1968 gun (grab) act was pasted. I had over 30 of them over the years. I think I have 8 now counting the 22cal. I shot a massive amount of 303 over the years. You could get a 1000 rds $40.00 in the 70s so it was dirt cheap to blast away at Woodchucks and Prairie Dogs with as well as shooting rocks at long distance at an old gravel pit we went to..

 Just this spring I was shooting my No.4 MK.1 at a 5 ft wide steel buffalo at 900 yrds from a bench with military sights and hit it every time I pulled the trigger. I think the Lee Enfield was the best bolt action rifle in military history but the 303 round was not the best rifle cartridge. That was in my opinion the 30-06. That said no rifle caliber machine gun mounted in a WWII fighter was very effective at 300 mph. The 303 British the US 30-06 the German 7.92X57 and the Jap 7.7 and Italian 7.7 were all about the same weight bullet about 165gr at from 2400 to 2700 fps give or take. All these rounds were exceptionally good infantry cartridges they did not have the same luck against aircraft even firing incendiaries but the Luftwaffe may have disagreed with me in the summer of 1940 over England.