Machine Guns versus Cannons, Relative Lethality

[Vermillion]

NOTE: This is NOT a post about the -1C, and please don't corrupt the thread. First one to mention the F4U-1C gets a thorough spanking and sent to bed without dinner    

There have been many complaints lately about certain aircrafts high lethality level. Personally I have nothing against a high lethality level (I believe this is realistic), as long as the relative lethalities is comparitive across the board. In other words different cannons and machine guns are believeable in comparison to one another.

Now when AH started, one thing I really enjoyed was the fact that an aircraft armed with .50 Machine Guns was actually a competitive ride, unlike in the other brands of online sims. Now don't get me wrong. I don't expect a x4 20mm type of lethality. But I do expect that if I fire at convergence for the MG's to be very lethal.

Unfortunately, as the beta progressed, either the MG's got weaker, the aircraft got harder, or some other change occurred causing unforseen lethality effects. I don't know what caused it, but to use CavemanJ's term the .50 MG's have been "nerfed" as in the Nerf foam rubber toys for children.

All I know is that I am now the "king of assists", and am so sick of working a bandit for 10 minutes, hitting him on multiple passes, and then see someone come in and make a single pass with cannons to get the kill of the plane I have been working over.

Now some may argue this fact, and I could go in and perform an extensive and time consuming comparitive study in the training arena on how many of each shell type does it take to remove the wing of a B-17, or something along those lines.

Another way to look at this is to compare MG's and Cannons under actual arena combat conditions.

So what I did was compare my own statistics, I fly the P-51 almost exclusively (.50's only), to a pilot that flys a similar flying style, and a similar aircraft but one armed with cannons.

I ended up picking DuckWing, of the Skeleton Crew squadron (handle: SCDuckw). We both fly for Rooks, usually during the same times of day, and fly the same basic style. I land 57% of my sorties' and he lands 55% of his sortie's. He shoots 5.2% and I shoot slightly worse at 3.9% (but I admittedly spray at long ranges occaisonally, especially at bombers). The only major difference in our totals is that he has flown 3 times the number of missions (159 sorties vs 56 sorties) I have, but we both have flown enough to be statistically valid. Look under "Verm" and "SCDuckw" if you wish to look at the raw numbers. And Duck, don't take this as a insult against you     I picked you because I felt we were very similar in our flying and under the same conditions.

So effectively the major difference between the two of us is that my aircraft is armed exclusively with x6 .50 MG's, and his is armed with x4 20mm's.

Now, I have scored 35 kills and 23 assists for a 1.52 to 1 kill/assist(k/a) ratio. Duck has scored 229 kills and 44 assists, for a 5.2 to 1 k/a ratio.

If you take a look at the number of weapons mounted on the aircraft, the disparity is even worse. (1.52/6) = 0.25:1 gun per k/a, and (5.2/4) = 1.3:1 gun per k/a.

That means that under actual combat conditions, you are 5.2 times as likely to score a kill instead of an assist, if you fly a cannon armed aircraft in comparison to a .50 MG aircraft.

Now I understand statistics, and realize all the other factors involved. But I don't know how to remove many more factors without the entire player database at my disposal, to do a blind test.

I also understand how to calculate relative Lethality, of different armaments given their ballistic variables. Where this becomes complicated is how much percentwise of the explosive energy in the cannon shell do you apply to the airframe? This is very debatable, and the modern day US Air Force spends millons of dollars a year on the subject.

My point is that right now the cannons are way too powerful in comparison to machine guns, and its disrupting gameplay.

Two times as powerful, I can understand. Three times as powerful I think is pushing the realistic envelope.

But a single 20mm cannon being 5.2 times as effective as a single .50 cal MG, is definitely out of wack.

[edit: Oh I will quitely shutup if Pyro will give my Pony the equivalent firepower of 21 .50 cals, which is about what its like if your flying the ...  ]
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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure
Carpe Jugulum
"Real Men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires"


[This message has been edited by Vermillion (edited 03-27-2000).]

[Kieren]

If I followed your reasoning correctly, I agree until the point on the math- are forgetting there are 4x20mm and 6x.50's? I think the gun package is 5.2 times more likely to kill, but not per gun.

And does it count that you alluded so strongly to the taboo plane? Spanking time?  

[This message has been edited by Kieren (edited 03-27-2000).]

[Mox]

Great post Verm!


Mox
The Wrecking Crew

[RAM]

Hehehe Verm I also want to have the Corsair C's firepower...

hey and I didnt say those letters and numbers!! so you cant make true ur taboo!!!  

IMHO I believe that 50cals have some less firepower than they had...and Hispano 20mm some MORE than it had...
matter of tastes on the 20mm...but not on the 50 cals, at least in P51.

[Ripsnort]

   

First one to mention the F4U-1C gets a thorough spanking and sent to bed without dinner

First off, your spankings are considered to be undermodeled, therefore, this form of punishment would be fruitless.

Secondly, the dinners you cook may have a higer lethality  than the 1C, so this form of punishment might be best if served, rather than NOT served.
   

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Ripsnort(-rip1-)
=CO=II/JG2~Richthofen~
Aces High Training Corps
JG2 "Richthofen"
   
"Experience is a hard teacher because she
gives the test first, the lesson afterwards"



[This message has been edited by Ripsnort (edited 03-27-2000).]

[Pyton]

Bad math there. ONLY thing that you proved is he gets 5.2 times the amount of kills per assists. ANYTHING can do it, it might be that he holds fire until closer than you, so he hits cons less often, but more effectively. Or perhaps the ballistics of 20mm cannons mean that you can hit only close, so nearly any hit is lethal, but any hit is much harder. Try claculating hits/kills, this kind of calculation shows absolutely NOTHING.

[Dnil]

F4u-1C Corsair, SPANK ME VERM, SPANK ME!!!!!

 



[This message has been edited by Dnil (edited 03-27-2000).]

[Vermillion]

Kieren I did consider the 4 gun versus 6 gun, if you'll look back at the post where I divided by the # of guns.

Pyton, I can sit here and debate statistics with you all day. But there are two basic different ways to do a valid comparison.

One is where you control as many independent variables as possible, and study the results. Like the "take this fighter and park it Y yards from the wingroot of a B-17 and calculate the exact # of rounds needed to remove the wing, and repeat it 100 times".  This is best to calculate the absolute lethality. For instance to find out it takes 15-20 20mm cannon shells needed to down a theoretical  "average B-17 Bomber" in Aces High.

Thats not what I was trying too do.

The other is the method I used in my example. I control the variables of aircraft types, flying styles, and relative skill levels (the dominant independent variables of the system) and then assume (rightly so) that over the large statistical sample the differences in minor independent variables (distances, shot angle, etc.) become insignificant or merely create "noise" (cancel out over time and number).

Actually, if I had the raw statistics for a large user base and repeated the analysis(instead of the 1 to 1 comparison I had data for), my style of comparitive analysis can be more representative, than the style you suggest. This is because it takes into account many more "real arena" (instead of real life) combat variables that the static tests would miss.



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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure
Carpe Jugulum
"Real Men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires"

[miko2d]

 Germans not only equipped their planes with quite a few 20mm guns, they also supplied them with lots of ammo, requiring even more weight and volume. If the 20mm cannon was not considerably more efficient then 0.5 machinegun, would not they rather put 2-2.5 times more of the machineguns instead of the cannons? How about 10 0.5 cal - armed 109 with plenty of ammo?
 They did not do that because they needed to shoot down big american B17 bombers that could bring 3-5 guns to bear on the attacking fighter, preferably before being shredded to pieces. Of course 20mm cannon - equipped plane was much more lethal then the 0.5 cal armed one. Obviously that much firepower is overkill against fighters.
 Sinse that firepower comes at the cost of weight, hence maneuvrability, the lighter armed planes should use that to deny the shot.
 Also remember that during the scond half of the WWII Allies had total air superiority due to numbers, so Germans very rarely engaged in what we call vulching - strafing parked or taking off planes. That, like the bomber intercept, does not require much maneuvrability.
 That is why cannon planes seem much too deadly here - they can do what they were designed to do best here much more then they did in real life.
miko--

[Wolverine]

One more thing to add would be ROF (Rate of Fire).

Cannons have a SIGNIFICATLY lower ROF than those .50s making adjustments much more difficult to get on target when you're flying a cannon bird.

I remember reading German accounts where they would wait to fire those cannons until VERY close to target for that reason.  They didn't want to waste it.  Instead they used the higher ROF machine guns to guide to target and then adjust slightly for the cannons.

ROF has a LOT to do with leathality.  I think (read this a while back, don't remember the source) that a one second burst of fire from a P-51 put 6 lbs of lead on target.

You put a one second burst of 6 .50s on target.  You have 6lbs of lead on target.  It's easier to hit something with the rounds being closer.  When you DO hit, well, it's devistating.

You put a one second burst of 20mm into something (lets use a 109 for instance).  You'll have a lot less rounds on target albeit that the explosive 20mm is going to make up for the lack of rounds.

In conclusion, I guess what I'm getting at is that the 6 .50s, by having MORE rounds on target, make up for their lack of punch.  It's also EASIER to get those rounds ON target.

My .02 cents for what it's worth.

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Wolverine [wlvrn]
 www.wlvrn.com

33rd Strike Group
 www.33rd.org

"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."

[niklas]

"Two times as powerful, I can understand. Three times as powerful I think is pushing the realistic envelope"

ähh may i laugh a little bit? I think you donīt have any impression of the explosive power of a HE round.

Donīt think that all german pilots liked the cannon. Many wanted 6 Mgīs like their adversaries,  especially the unexperienced pilots. Because it was easier to get a hit. But not the kill:-) . All aces voted for the cannon.

A simple example: take a bar of wood and make with a knife 6 little notches, all close together. No take another bar and make one BIG DEEP notch. Ok, when you bend the bars, which of them will break first? The bar with the single but bigger notch of course.

You donīt need to do little damage at many  different parts of an airframe. All you need is to do maximum damage to a special, vital part. When this part fails it leads to the total failure of the whole system.

Maybe the Hispano rounds are a bit too lethal compared to the mg151-rounds. As far as i know they were still usual rounds, designed to pass armor and to do damage with splinter etc. Now, thereīs not much armor in a fighter, right? Even the pilot armor is not thicker than ~15mm. Thatīs why germans switched to the "minengeschosse", with a thinner envelope of metal and a lot more explosive. They were MUCH MORE effective against planes, and did damage with a big gas explosion.

What do you want, to tune down the cannons? Which plane will suffer most from that? The 109 of course. We have only ons single cannon, and at the moment even a short burst from close distance isnīt enough. And a 109 has often only ONE opportunity to shoot....

4*20mm were deadly, are deadly now, and will be in the future, whatever you do with them.

niklas

[funked]

You need better data Verm.

[Vermillion]

Oh I agree Funked.

The problem is how to seperate the wheat from the chaff. Find me ten pilots of relative skill levels that fly exclusively cannon armed planes that consistently fly to live, then find me 10 more pilots (same approximately skill level) that exclusively fly .50's aircraft and fly to live, and I will redo the calculations. Or if you can find 100 of each its even better.   See my point?

Niklas, ummmm laugh all you want. Which type shell do you want me to compute the explosive power of? How about the American 20mm HE/I shell standard to WWII? Oh in that case its 60.35kJ of energy. If you think I am roadkillting you, I will do the equation and post the sources for you.

I know very well how much energy the bursting charge of a 20mm cannon shell has. I have done quite a bit of research into the subject and have gone as far as to visit a munitions recycling/remanufacturing facility to sitdown and talk about the subject with the plant engineers. Ever seen anyone detonate the primer and or the bursting charge out of a 40mm anti aircraft shell? Well, I have one sitting 24 inches from me right now that i brought home from my plant tour.

See the really funny part is that I haven't said a thing about reducing the power of the 20mm's. Quite the opposite. I think the .50's got turned down a while back during the beta and all I ask is that they come back to where they were. So calm down, Im not asking them to "detune" your precious cannons.

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Vermillion
**MOL**, Men of Leisure
Carpe Jugulum
"Real Men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires"

[This message has been edited by Vermillion (edited 03-27-2000).]

[Westy]

 Hey Wolverine.   I do believe rof is modelled here. Sure seems to be anyway. For instance I like the six 50's of the F4U-1D over the F4U-1C any day. Because my flying is not superb in any way, so I want maximum impact on the enemy bogy. If I'm within 300 or less of the bogy he is deadmeat usually.
 On the other hand I took up a 109 G6 with the 30mm and I knew I had to get close, which I did, and at about a 100 off his six, I shot two shells of the 30mm. It took the P-38 out nicely but then here came his wings and othe debri  
 Getting in close is a must with the cannon but then that also subjects you to all of the idiosyncracies of net lag and delay. Cause I died too because I hit his pieces (due to netlag) even though visually I thought I was clear of him.
 And I could not fire the 30mm as fast as the buttin could be pressed. So that lead me to think ROF was here, or my CH "B" button was gumming up.

 -Westy


 


[This message has been edited by Westy (edited 03-27-2000).]

[funked]

Yep the data is hard to come by.  And remember this is not a linear system we are talking about.  I don't think you can directly correlate kill probability per round to damaging energy per round.