Your Gunnery Tips

[Charly_Owl]

Hello everyone!

 

I thought I would create a thread for tips on gunnery in either the P-51, the Dora or any other DCS WW2 plane.

 

I know it is "practice-practice-practice", but I would like to know how some of the best shooters out there think, how they aim and if they have any advice they could give.

 

Personally, I use the gunsights but I'm not having much success with them. I always flew the way I flew in Cliffs of Dover, which is pretty much summer up in one sentence.

 

"Get high, dive, get close, get on his six, shoot, climb away."

 

I tend to fire at point-blank range, but with the P-51 or FW190 I'm not having much success as bullets seem to fly in all directions. I have heard people talk about the gun convergence and how I should fire from further away... yet I find myself needing to use high-deflection shots most of the time if I am to hit anything when I'm pursuing somebody.

 

So, what are your tips? Do you set up your gunsight in a particular way? At what range do you usually fire? Where do you aim? What is your favourite color?

 

Fire away.

 

Edit:

Some videos I created:

 

FW190 Gunnery Guide:

 

P51 Gunnery Guide:

Edited August 24, 2014 by Charly_Owl

[NoJoe]

At least in terms of gunnery accuracy I've found it helps to:

 

1. Make sure you have a relaxed grip on the stick so you can make smooth inputs. I find as I tense up my aim goes all over the place and I end up just wasting bullets and opportunities!

 

2. Track the target for half a second or so before firing to make sure I'm actually on-target. This kinda goes with number 1.

 

Seems in general the more I slow myself down and try to be smooth, the quicker and better my shooting gets. Actually that seems to be true for a lot of things in life... Huh.

 

Favorite color: the cobalt blue of taxiway lights. :D

[Screamadelica]

Does anybody know what range the FW 190 has been set for convergence?

I usually set the range on the gunsight to this as a default setting.

[gavagai]

In the P-51 I like to use both gunsights, i.e. set the fixed gunsight as a boresight dot in addition to the gyro compensating K-14 reticle.

 

Aim with the boresight dot, and use the reticle as an estimate of the required lead provided that you have the range set correctly.

 

In the 190D-9 there is no boresight dot, so just prey you hit something while the gunsight bobs and weaves all over the place.:smilewink:

[Charly_Owl]

In the P-51 I like to use both gunsights, i.e. set the fixed gunsight as a boresight dot in addition to the gyro compensating K-14 reticle.

 

Aim with the boresight dot, and use the reticle as an estimate of the required lead provided that you have the range set correctly.

 

In the 190D-9 there is no boresight dot, so just prey you hit something while the gunsight bobs and weaves all over the place.:smilewink:

 

For the Dora... there MUST be something we're not quite understanding yet. Something we didn't think about...? Any FW190 experten yet?

 

And what settings do you use on the gyro gunsight? Target range and wingspan? If you set your target range exactly at your gun convergence (which I don't know yet), we should see much improvement in firepower, no?

[ClearDark]

In both planes I use the fixed gunsights.

 

Many years of IL2 have gotten me pretty good with deflection shooting without a need for gyro assisted aim

[gavagai]

I didn't know we had a fixed sight option in the 190D-9, short of just setting the range to zero meters.

 

Anyway, here are the charts yoyo posted for P-51 harmonization:

 

 

 

So, between 300 and 400 yards is the sweet spot. At 200 yards and closer you will probably hit with just 3 guns, though one time I took both wings off a 190 when firing from up close!

:gun_sniper:

[entr0picD]

I also have plenty of problems with these gunsights :)

 

My actual approach is to fix the range to 400yd in the P-51 so that i have an idea of when is the best moment to fire. Only for long range shots i adjust the range, but not in a turning fight.

 

On the german side, i assumed the usual 400 m is the ideal range, but that's based on the 109's recommended settings.

 

The world is beautiful, because it's colourful :P I enjoy them all!

[ClearDark]

Some clarification to the statement I posted above:

 

I found out that the process of adjusting the sight according to the target and worrying about that aspect during an engagement really kept me "busy" with it instead of being busy with maneuvering better and actually focusing on my target.

 

I know these sights are so called 'ace-makers' but I'm really feeling most comfortable and in the zone when I have to come up with the solution myself. It's a bit more challenging and much more satisfying :)

 

Note: Most of my kills are snapshots, I rarely ever "park" on a bandit's 6, not because I don't want to, but because getting there takes a long time with a worthy opponent...

[Narushima]

Fire unloaded. Meaning, don't pull Gs while firing. Instead, let your opponent slide in front of your gun sight. Takes a bit of practice to pull it off, you have to calculate the position of your opponent well in advance, but once you figure it out you don't really have to worry about gunnery any more. It's like they present themselves to be fired at :)

 

Also, if you're tightening up when firing, try mapping the fire key to a button near your left hand.

[SlipBall]

Hold your fire till 70m then let it rip

[flare2000x]

Hold your fire till 70m then let it rip

 

As the Legendary Robert Stanford Tuck said: "Wait until you see the whites of his eyes."

[OutOnTheOP]

Apparently gunnery tips are like a**holes: everyone's got one =P

 

Because some will say "get as close as you can", while others will point out that "if you get too close, your wing guns will miss to either side- so it's better to shoot at harmonization distance". For everyone that says "use the fixed site and trap lead with no G on", another will say "a steady tracking shot with a smooth hand on the stick makes the gyro sight worth it's weight in gold".

 

Me? I like the 900-1200 foot steady tracking shot with the gyro. Online pilots can make it hard to get more than a quick burst in, though; they rarely fly straight long enough to do more than a little damage per trigger pull. But in a BnZ against an unaware target, that smooth track (and a nice long 3-5 second burst- I advise against shooting short bursts against a target you have high overtake on!) will really chew them to pieces.

 

I think a lot of it comes down to your preference, what works for you, and the type of tactics you use. And, of course, certain methods are better in certain situations. The fixed sight is definitely better for super-short-range shots against high-crossing-angle targets (such as in a scissors), though

[Charly_Owl]

I went through various manuals and some charts and I put up a summary of what I found. See post 1.

[Screamadelica]

Thanks for posting the convergence charts for the FW 190 D-9.

It would appear that setting the range to somewhere between 500 and 700 metres should give a nice tight grouping of shots for both the cannon and machine guns.

Now to try them out on an unsuspecting Pony.....

Awesome work Charly Owl! :thumbup:

Cheers, Scream.

[airdoc]

Thanks for the videos Charly. I enjoyed them.

 

I find the 500 and 600 meters convergence distance for the Dora ridiculously long. Maybe this was set standard in reality in order to attack B17s or B24s which were big non maneuvering targets, but for dogfights, I find that anything over 300 meters to be at a "spray and pray" range.

 

Most of my shots are at 200 meters distance or less (and even then i miss very frequently :)).

I hope that we see an option for setting convergence in the future in DCS

[Dutchy93]

I used to fly the 109 a lot in IL-2 1946 and I rarely saw anyone shoot over 300m. Usually you would shoot when he was about 200 m away. Not much further or you would have a hard time hitting anything. I'm wondering why I can't just change the gun convergence. I've read that pilots could train their guns to their own liking (just don't quote me on that).

[SlipBall]

500 and 600 meters is ridiculous, bullets would have little energy left. If they hit anything they might even bounce off of it :smilewink:

[Charly_Owl]

500 and 600 meters is ridiculous, bullets would have little energy left. If they hit anything they might even bounce off of it :smilewink:

 

Like I said in the video, it is a matter of personal preference. Different ranges optimize certain aiming parameters, but there is no definite, clear, all-around "optimal" range. The 600m range I took was purely for illustrative purposes. My range of choice would be 300m, personally. You will rarely get to shoot an aircraft that flies in a straight line unless it is a bomber.

 

What I wanted to demonstrate with the 600m range is that even with just a quick burst, you can incapacitate pretty much anything if you aim correctly, even at ridiculous ranges like 600m.

 

People often complain about the lack of lethality of DCS bullets and cannon rounds. I think that even if it is entirely debateable given proper historical data used as reference, if your aim is true you will find the damage model to be much more "lethal" than you originally thought.

 

I sometimes look at old tracks of dogfights I did where I seemed to have hit the enemy plane a million times and he would just not go down. By looking more carefully, I saw how bad my aiming was and why my bullets were all over the place. It was simply a matter of misjudging my range and not knowing where my bullets actually went.