Machine Guns versus Cannons, Relative Lethality

[Wraith]

What do modern jets carry today? ONE 20MM or 30MM cannon..only ONE. And they get kills in one burst..

Cannons are cannons, .50's are peashooters. Why do you think the F-16 or other modern jets dont load .50's ?  

One thing that does seem odd is how quickly bombers fall to the cannons in this game.. in RL it took several passes or one damn long burst of cannon to bring a BUFF down.

But a fighter? That's nothing but a paper airplane with guns! Even a duck hitting it at high speeds can bring it down  

Hmm... sheep.. hey HT! Add some birds to the enviroment!

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

[CavemanJ]

6x.50 were also lethal.  I read (in an article linked from here no less) that several US pilots felt that 4x.50 would have been plenty.
I cannae believe that the USAAF and USN/USMC would have kept the .50 as the predominant armament if they were as weak as the ones in AH seem to be.

Here's another example.  A couple of nights ago I was in the P-38 and we were working on taking field 23 back.  I got 3 kills in the air, using up all of my cannon and leaving with me around 1200rds for the 4 .50s, so I jumped into the vulch.  I picked up 6 assists in that vulch.  I would roll in and start shooting at 800yds, hitting with 80-90% of the rounds, and pulling up at about d200 to avoid pancaking.  Then one of guys in the HawgC would come along, put a very short burst into the bandit, and get the kill w/ me getting an assist.
Watching the ammo counter I would putting aboot 175-200 rounds into the target each pass (after #6 I had 50-something rds left).

Verm, any time you want to do some testing on the .50s in the TA holler at me.  I'm there.  AH just dinnae have the enjoyment it used to have.  I've quit flying bombers because the .50s are so fubar'ed and noone seems to listen.  I'm still waiting for Pyro to answer on the thread I started on the Gameplay feedback/issues board.

[edit]
Wraith the M61A-1 20mm cannon has 6 rotating barrels and a ROF that makes the M2s on the HawgC look lethargic.  
If the 20mm's in WWII were so good why dinnae they start putting them on all the birds.  Even the late model Hawgs were still 6x.50.  The F4U-5 they have at the New England Air Museum is a 6x.50 bird.  I'm pretty sure it came along after the -1C (though I could be mistaken, I'm no expert).
[/edit]

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

[Wolverine]

Wraith,

They use 20s in modern day jets due to improvments in the deployment mechenism (i.e. the gun).  Today's 20mm cannons that are on jets spew out so many rounds, that basically, anything in the projectile path is turned into a pasta strainer.

Mount one of today's cannons on a WWII prop and you'd better shoot it in a dive going 500 knots or you're gonna end up flying in reverse.

50s aren't peashooters.  A good 2 second burst from the 50s on a P-51 into an F-16 would SHRED the Falcon.  SHRED it.  Fact is, 6 .50s do damage to ANY aircraft.  And BIG damage.  They were "worthless" only in terms of armor busting.

Today's jets use 20 and 30 mm cannons due to two factors.

1.  Today's guns are SO much more advanced than yesteryears that 20mm/30mm cannons have an ROF equal or more so than ALL those 50s firing on a 51.  Weather it's due to that gun having a higher ROF or the fact that many of today's jets utilize "gatling" type guns.

2.  Today's jets serve a ground cover role as well.  Those cannons enable any of today's jets to take out tanks and lesser armor with guns.

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

[F4UDOA]

Caveman,

Actually the late model F4U's all used 20Mill
Cannons. Starting with the -4's. It's hard to say when they actually started being used in combat however(the -4's not the -1C's). The Navy did some extensive research into selecting it's new gun platform in 1944 and settled on the 20mill due to the Kamikaze threat. The Airforce experemented with 60cal(not a typ-O but a new weapon) machine guns into the mid 1950's. Notice the F-86 armament included six forward firing 50 calibers. It was the durability of the Mig-15 that changed their minds. It is one arena that the Navy led the Air Force in for almost a decade. But if you look at the run of F4U-4 after the first couple hundred off the production line they never looked back including the -5, AU-1 as well as the -7 built for France. Also the Bearcat and AD-1 Skyraider were produced exclusively with 20Mil. I still think that the 50Cal in AH is way undermodeled considering it's effectiveness in WW2 combat but that still doesn't change history.

Thanxs
F4UDOA

[Pongo]

The M2 20mm had a rof of 600 rpm. So the XXXX(censor) puts out 40 of the biggest fastest cannon rounds in the game per second. In a 2 second burst Duck hits with 4 of them. 4 of those cannon rounds have a high prob of wounding the target in some critical or worrying way. Enemy is defensive..casulty report to follow. He has enough ammo for 11? or so bursts like that.
I have 2 rof numbers for the M2 50 cal. 550- and 800? at 800 the pony puts 80 rounds out in a second.
In 2 seconds you put 6.4 of them onto the target. Your burst put 0.6 pounds of velocity dependent lead onto the bad guy. At 550 the final wieght is .44 lbs.(you will notice that at the lower 50 cal ROF his burst is at least 3 times as effecive as yours even without explosion)
ducks shot puts 1.2 pounds of exploding cannon rounds onto his bad guy(or the one you pinged) Ducks damages is concentrated in 4 places. Each of those places gets hit with the equvilent kinetic energy of 3 50cal rounds...then an explosion. The only real quesion is did anything bad get hit.
Your hits might be spread over 6 places each of them getting .1 lbs of lead. No explosion.
 Your burst will probably not do critical or worrying damage to the bad guy, he will not surrender the initiative from it. But it is enough to count as a hit in AH. So you get an assist.

The cannon armed plane is far more likly to inflict crippling damage on an enemy. That is why the Heavy mg was replaced as primary armement in allmost all cases by cannons within 2 years of the time frame we are simulating here.  The M2 20mm removes all of the advantages of the M2 50cal in relation to other cannon armed aircraft. Its as accuate, as long ranged and has comparable ROF. On the XXXXXX it also has 4 tubes and lots of rounds...


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Pongo
The Wrecking Crew

[Fariz]

 

Originally posted by Vermillion:
NOTE: and I shoot slightly worse at 3.9%

The best you can do is to increase your skills in gunning. When you will make it close to 9% I doubt you will ever want to return to the subj.

Even 2 mgs on spit can bring you a kill, though normally it takes more work and is hard to predict if your pings killed the nme or not.

Fariz  

[Wolverine]

Pongo,

I've got some photos of 20mm damage on P-40s (via 109s and 190s in Africa) and the damage was pretty nasty.

The hole is about 6 inches.

In one particular incident, one 20mm round going clear through the right wing managed to take out all 3 .50s on that side.  (ouch)

I must say I disagree on those ROF figures on the 51 though.  I *really* remember a source saying that a *one* second burst would put 6 lbs of lead on target.  The source was a gunnery manual(?) for the P-51.  I'll try and find it tonight when I get home.

Westy - What's up bud!? =)  I hope to be joining you guys here once I free myself up from my EverCrack addiction.  The dogfighting bug is calling me back!!

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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."

[Spritle]

Wolverine,

About your rate of fire comment.  This is not entirely true.  The larger cannons had lower firing rates.  As in 30mm and above, however the 20mm had a higher firing rate.  At least the Japanese 20mm did.  

According to "Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War" by Rene J Francillon ISBN 0-87021-313-X the rate of fire for the Ho-5 Type 1 20mm Cannon was 850 rounds per minute with a muzzle velocity of 2,460 feet per second.  This cannon was the most widely used version in Japanese aircraft.

Compare this to the firing rate of the Browning .50 calibre machine gun which is only 550 rounds per minute.  And a muzzle velocity of 2,900 feet per second.  This is according to "The Great Book of World War II Airplanes" by various authors, ISBN 0-517-459930.

With some quick math you can see that in any given minute there are 3,400 20mm rounds in the air from an aircraft equiped with 4x20mm compared to 3,300 rounds from a 6x.50 machine guns equiped aircraft.  

The information for the Hispano 20mm cannons varies considerably depending on the revision.  And I do not have any information as to the version used in the bent winged wonder.  But the rates of fire vary between 600 to 750 rounds per minute depending on version.  What is intersting is the muzzle velocity is closer to that of the Browning .50 at 2,850 feet per second.  

So what this tells me is that with a higher rate of fire, larger caliber, exploding projectile the 20mm cannon is probably correctly modeled in AH.  The .50 caliber might be a little weak, but remember that it isn't an explosive round so the bullets would just punch a nice little whole and keep right on going.  

Spritle

[NineZ]

"Vaaaaarrie In-ter-restingggg" (must be said like german from "Laugh In" show)

JagdNine

[Pongo]

 

Originally posted by Wolverine:
Pongo,


I must say I disagree on those ROF figures on the 51 though.  I *really* remember a source saying that a *one* second burst would put 6 lbs of lead on target.  The source was a gunnery manual(?) for the P-51.  I'll try and find it tonight when I get home.

Unfortunalty Verm and I dont hit with all 6 pounds. Verm says he hits with less then 4% of his 12 pounds.
thats
.48 pounds.. I have him him over .1 pounds more that that.
love all this talk about pounds...had to go to the cook book to find out how pounds compared to ounces....



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Pongo
The Wrecking Crew

[Vermillion]

Pongo & Spritle, the 550 rpm number is the vehicle mounted version of the M2 Browning. The aircraft version had a lighter action and some other internal modifications that allowed between 800 rpm at 2,750 ft/sec. The M2 20mm cannon has a rate of fire of 650 rpm at 2,850 ft/sec.

Spritle, where in Francillons book does it say the HO-5 was the most common Japanese 20mm cannon? Cause I have it sitting on my lap. The HO-5, while a spectacular performer, was the late war cannon used by the Japanese Army, who had earlier used the the HO-3, and then a few shipments of German MG151's. Actually the most common Japanese 20mm cannon was the Japanese Navy's Type 99, relatively a very poor cannon in most versions.

For those quote modern single 20mm cannons on Jets.... LOL!!     FYI that is the M61 20mm multibarreled gatling cannon. It has a rate of fire 6,000 shells per minute at a muzzle velocity of 3,300 ft/sec. A single M61 has as much firepower a NINE M2 20mm cannons.

Weight of Fire arguements. Four (4) 20mm's have a WoF of 13.06 lbs/sec. Six (6) .50's have a WoF of 8.10 lbs/sec.

No arguements from me, I agree that the 20mm's should be more lethal, the question is how much more lethal? Right now the gap is huge.

[Edit: all these numbers come straight out of Chapter 1 of Shaw's book]

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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).]

[bloom25]

In my experience if you get close (i.e. <200 yds) whether you have MG's or Cannon, you will probably get the kill.  One thing I have noticed though:  It is MUCH easier to land deflection shots with .50 cal, but kills are unlikely.  Using cannon, deflection shooting is very hard, but any hits usually result in some damage.  If you pull any g's while trying to shoot in a cannon armed plane, you lose sight of the bullets only about 300 yds ahead of you.  I can get hits with MG's while pulling g's consistently until about 600 yds.

Another observation:  Convergence settings for cannon armed planes don't seem nearly as important as with MG armed planes.  When I fly the Ensign Eliminator 1c (hehe), if I land 4+ hits on an aircraft under 600 yds, I usually get a kill.  Using the 109, p51, or c205, (using MG) I need at least 10+ hits to do any damage at 600 yds.  Once you get close though, 5 hits all on the same area will usually cause lethal damage.
My question is whether the loss of kinetic energy at the longer ranges is making the difference?  (I.e. Since the cannon rounds are explosive, does that account for their high leathality at longer ranges?)

Please make sense of my post for me.  

bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[RangerBob]

As one who deals with statistics every day in my job it's a pleasure to finally see someone who has taken the time to analyze the statistical data correctly.

Verm's stats are on target.

The question now is what to do about it?

Like Cavemanj, I too used to love the strategy of flying bombers, but I hardly fly them anymore due to the obvious change in lethality of the 50's. I've followed the threads about the lethality of bomber guns. It's obvious that those concerned about bomber guns shooting them down just aren't bomber pilots. Take a B17 up one on one against Caveman and see how to kill a bomber from a bomber pilots point of view. You aint gonna live.

I have been considering quitting AH, because I'm just not having the fun I used to have. Endless furballs get old, and I'm usually stuck flying alone.

So what is to be done about the obvious 50cal lethality question?

I vote with Verm that the 50 cal lethality be increased, and I salute him for his excellent handling of the data.

Ranger Bob

[Duckwing6]

Hmmm .. this is the first time i'm used as a comparison  

Well and i have to add something here to your calculations Verm...

I flew both the C and the D and you have to spilt up those kills and the assists...

i can make that for the kills but can't for the assists but as far as i can remember 80% of my assists are from the D

C -> 164 total kills
D -> 77  total kills
Assists 44 of which are at least 80% D-Hog
(last score after todays flying - *yawn*)

And it's true .. usually if i see hits on the target i'm prety certain i got the kill in the C..  in the D only if i get a good burst in at convergence and i see pieces falling off..

yea the lethality desparity between C and D seems a bit high.

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Phillip "Duckwing6" Artweger
Flight Officer "E" Flight
Skeleton Crew

[This message has been edited by Duckwing6 (edited 03-27-2000).]

[Pongo]

As one who deals with programing every day it was my pleasure to present a case about why comparing the capabilities of the XXXXX(censor) gun package and the P51 gun package is really rather strate forward. Big hint. The XXXXX is in this game so that Americans can have a domestic cannon armed plane to fly. Saying the other domestic guns should be improved to make the game more fun for the
people who prefer silver to blue is starting to get silly.

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Pongo
The Wrecking Crew