What are those german planes made of?

[Gunfreak]

Adamantium?

I'm just griding away practecing dogfighting with my P51, 

Today I had a long one with a 109, I was lucky and got the best of the first turn and go behind it(I'm playing agiant rookie AI) I send a bunch of .50 into it, both wings, both sides of the fuselage, it's smoking something black. Yet the plane didn't care, not only didn't fall down, it had no effect on it's preformance, it zoomed and turne like noting had happend. I got is several more hits, but in the end I lost control stalled, and it got behind me and finished off my plane with just a few rounds. That all those bullets had no effects on its power or aerodymaics is a little strange. 

I did another one against the Dora, I kept hitting and hitting it, finally it fell down, but only after getting hit by 42 .50(yes I counted the hits after the match) I know even the .50 was starting to get underpowered by late 44, but man, unless i snipe the pilot I have to empty all 1800 rounds to kill it, I had 11 seconds of ammo left by the time it fell down.

[Gunfreak]

Here's a video of the engagement, yes my aireal gunnery isn't very good, but I still kept hitting and hitting it.
 

 

[DD_Fenrir]

Ammo belting plays a part here; Nineline is currently working on getting more authentic belting options implemented in game, which in it's 1944 pattern should be more effective.

 

Don't forget that a single .50 cal bullet, unless it's through the pilot's noggin, is going to have to be very well placed to bring a plane down, and even 41 of them could be ineffective if they're not in the right place. There's a lot of empty space in an aeroplane. The key is to concentrate your burst by getting a good tracking solution and - even more - crucially trying to use your convergence patterns to your advantage. 

 

This is the wonder of the new damage model. I too have peppered an e/a with many small hits and not seen much happen; conversely at other times I've lit up his fuel tank with my first half-second burst.

 

Also what damage you do can cause issues for the enemy but not bring down the plane; he might be leaking smoke and/or fluid, but if he's got control and the motors still running, then he'll be on limited time but could still present a threat. Until he's on fire, missing major sub-assemblies or hit the silk, keep at him.

 

 

[DD_Fenrir]

Having watched the video - set-up your K14 so it's a help not a hindrance!

 

Put the range to 1000ft (the optimum harmonisation setting). Adjust the wingspan to 35ft (a good balance between the 109 and 190) and fire when the targets wingspan is touching the inner edges of the graticule. Keep the fixed centre dot so you have an aiming reference when the graticule is catching up with the aircraft movement.

 

Your issue is you are spattering the target, not getting a decisive concentrated cluster of hits in essential area.

[Gunfreak]

22 hours ago, DD_Fenrir said:

Having watched the video - set-up your K14 so it's a help not a hindrance!

 

Put the range to 1000ft (the optimum harmonisation setting). Adjust the wingspan to 35ft (a good balance between the 109 and 190) and fire when the targets wingspan is touching the inner edges of the graticule. Keep the fixed centre dot so you have an aiming reference when the graticule is catching up with the aircraft movement.

 

Your issue is you are spattering the target, not getting a decisive concentrated cluster of hits in essential area.

 

1000 feet? I can bearly hit anything at 60 feet.

 

[razo+r]

4 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

 

1000 feet? I can bearly hit anything at 60 feet.

 

Use the fixed sight, or at least turn it on. 

 

It will help you by a lot. You can see where your guns are aiming at. And after a while, you will get a feeling for the ballistics, making shooting easier and easier. 

[grafspee]

7 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

 

1000 feet? I can bearly hit anything at 60 feet.

 

1500ft is converge point for p-51 guns, shooting from 60ft makes that you hit enemy only from 3 guns from left or right wing.

Shooting from 500ft may you think that you score good hits but you hit only wings because bullets aren't converged yet, open fire from +1000ft then you will notice that 6x 50cals are deadly.

Edited August 25, 2021 by grafspee

[JG13Wulf]

I'll try to get a step by step that might help you to have a better understanding and maybe to improve your way to fight.
Hope this help

 

Recognize the damage you do :

First I would say that you destroyed the D9 in few hits but I don't think like most people you notice it.

With your the second hits you show it seems you get

- the coolant system (big whit puff of smoke - I hate this effect).

- the oil system.

 

With one of these system, engine will overheat in a few minutes (this will lead to engine failure). So you don't need to take riks in this case as it's already dead.

Or if the pilot notice it, he can reduce power to not overheat (like the AI in video). And therefore, in few minutes, the plane would be slow and unable to make moves.

 

So with 10 bullets, the D9 is dead to me. But read the rest first and you might understand a bit more why I think that now

 

Know your weapons :

P51 is equipped with 6x 12.7mm guns that use AP and API (+ tracers that are AP or API).

- AP just make a hole

- API make a hole too and might inginte something that is in the way.

 

Goal of this kind of weapons setting is to send a bunch of bullet with the hope that 1 will hit critical stuff.

Best shooter I had to see from various flight sim game stat (fighter vs fighter) seems to have about 10 - 15% of hits.

So on 10 bullets, you get at best 1,5 hits if you are really good.
In actual dogfight team vs team, I never see better stat than 15%.
Only time I saw better was on target practice (about 60-70% for easy shoot) and on bomber intercept mission (up to 35% in this case).

Taking your number (1800 shoot for 42 hits), we have 2,3% of hits.

 

Now on those 10 to 15% bullet that hit the ennemy plane you have 2 possibility with every 12,7mm munition (and 7,7mm as it's the same idea)

- The bullet goes trough the plane hitting nothing critical

- The bullet hit something critical

Remark it's not a 50/50 chance. If you hit nose of a warbird, you have good chance to hit something critical. But if you hit tail or wing, you have less chance to hit something critical (see later if you don't understand why).

 

And in the case it hit something critical :

- The bullet make damage that is not critical and plane will be totally fine after that (maybe because the bullet was so much slowed down by armor that it didn't make enough damage)

- The bullet make damage that is critical but not directly (Ex : puncture coolant system) so the plane can fly fine but not for long.

- The bullet make critical damage (ignite fire, destroy controls, ...) that make the plane destroyed or out of action directly.

 

So if you shoot with 1x 12.7mm, you have not a lot of luck to destroy a plane : You really need to be a sniper or to have a lot of luck.

But if you add more guns you have for 6x more chance to make the critical hits (in theory for each shoot Edit : mean each time the 6 guns fire). That's better. And that's why US plane carry lot of guns.

The idea is to send lots of bullet hopping for the one that will break the other guy plane.

 

Remark :

The difference with 13, 20 and 30mm is that all of them use explosive munitions. And for those munition, when it hits the target, there is always damage as it won't just make a hole in the plane. Those munition explodes and damage all the stuff around.

30 mm have only explosive muntion.

13 and 20 have explosive and AP muntion.

When hitting with AP, you have the same problem as the one I explain with the 12.7mm. If those munition pass few centimeter next to something critical. Then it does not make a lot of damage.

 

Aiming and convergence :

In your video, you are far from the 10 to 15% hits as you make random shoot.

First thing that you need to do is to use your sight. And if you are not used to manipulate the gyro, use the fixed at least.

 

To aim, you need to predict plane trajectory and to put the sight on it. Then estimate and make "try-correct" shoot to see if you have aimed too close in front or too far in front (bullet that pass behind or in front of the ennemy).

 

Once you can estimate quite well, then you have to pay attention to convergences.

You have 6 guns. 3 on left wing and 3 on right wing.

 

Your guns are set to aim for a point in front of your plane at a particular distance (don't know exactly what it is in DCS but see other message above).

 

If you shoot from too close, you might have half of your gun that don't actually shoot at the target (and in some case, you have even the 6 guns that are not aiming at target).

Why ? Because if you center the plane in your sight and shoot. Bullet from left gun pass left of the target while bullet from right guns pass right of the target.

 

When you shoot at correct distance, you have all 6 guns that are aiming to the plane. And in best case, all 6 guns that aim at the same part of the plane.

And that's when it's devastating.

 

Remark :

German plane don't have this problem as all their guns are "nose mounted".

K4 have all 3 guns in the nose.

D9 and A8 have 2x 13mm in the nose and 2x 20mm that are so close of the nose that they don't need to take care of horizontal convergence when shooting.

Only the external 20mm of the A8 need to take care of it.

 

So German plane have a big advantage in firepower because of this as their guns will always hit in small area.

And that's why the Spitfire is "less powerfull" too as when you shoot the 20mm without taking care of convergence, you can easily miss all your shoot or having half your gun that aim correctly.

 

Know your ennemy :
As I say previously, when you hit it's not a 50/50 chance to hit something critical.
German warbirds and Spitfire have most of their system located in the nose and around the pilot. Each plane is different (109 and Spit have radiator on wing for example and Fw 190 don't). But you will increase a lot the chance to destroy a plane by shooting at the nose / cockpit area. Hitting the wings and the tail will less likely make critical damage. It can but it's less likely.
Remark that it depend of the plane : Wing of the P51 have 2 big fuel tanks and for the 109 and the Spit there are the coolant that are underthe wing, close to the fuselage. But 190 would not get too much problem as they don't have any of these in their wing.

 

In addition as the game don't pay attention to explosion of oxygen, muntions or fuel tank. So you can't blow up a plane. And as structural damage seems minimal and the effect of holes barrly affect the flight model, it's even harder to bring down a plane by damaging wings or control surfaces.

Remark :

Hole you see in a plane don't correspond to damage you made. It's only a skin or a 3D model that is put on the plane to depict taht there are damage in this area.

So it's even harder to have a correct idea of the damage the plane have. It's even aggravated as it seems that older plane make appear bigger hole faster than more recent module. But it's only skin so it does not really matter.

 

In addition to that, remember that plane are not a lot armored. But most of the armor is put to take damage from behind with not a lot of angle. So it make all kind of gun less efficient when hitting from 6 O'clock.
- AP would have to go trought lot of layer and therefore slow down.

- Explosive would detonate quite early (when or just after hitting the first layer).

 

But less efficient don't mean not efficient.

 

The Ai on top of that :

Never forget that AI seems to handle better damage. Don't look like the AI is more strong. But it's like the AI pilot is able to manage better his plane to not make damage worse by making wrong input.

In what I see in your video. As I said before, the D9 is destroyed quite early. But the AI reduce the power of the engine to limit the overheating. You can even see later in the fight that it does not fly fast anymore. It even have full flap extended to mainain in flight at slow speed. And that is the result of the hits I told you that kill it quite early.
 

Example, me against human player :

I did these video as peoples told it wasn't possible to fight with allied plane as german were too strong and over powered.
It's almost all the action I got online 2 consecutive evening.
All the shoot I did are in the video. I mean I didn't just selected the one that were good. I put all of them inside.

 

Each time I add a slow view of each shoot were we can see impact or near miss. Take a seconds to look at where the hits appear when you can. And notice too that when I got the 109 with both coolant hits (2 white smokes from radiator), you will see a bit later the radiator full open as the plane can't cool anymore.
At this point I knew it would be only a matter of minutes to bring it down as in this situation even with MW50, the 109 would not have been able to escape from my Spitfire. It's the last fight in video 1.

I got banned at the end of video 2 by the people that were complaining the fact they allied weapons were underpowered.

So they didn't like that I made video that show it was possible to fight with these plane. So no video 3 ^^

 

Another example, me and another pilot against 4 AI Fw 190A8

 

Hope this can help you and other.
Use your sight.

Work on your aim (to be able to shoot at what you want on the enemy plane)
Remember about convergence

And you will be able to destroy anything with much less bullet you needed.

So as I said at begining you killed it quite early. Sadly, you spent almost all your ammo shooting around the D9. You made critical hit at first but then you made only few hit on part that are less likely to make critical damage. And finally, when you can make more hits because the D9 can't move anymore, you have only 2x 12.7mm left.

Edited August 25, 2021 by JG13Wulf