K-14 sight questions

[Doughguy]

hi there,

im still learning to fly the pony but came across some things that got my head boggled with its gyrosight.

1) the positioning of the diamonds seems to vary? or in other words is this correct?

right now the diamonds are formed so that we do not have 2 diamonds that are alligned in horizontal manner making it rather difficult to dial in the distance on the fly and rendering the process a bit of a guess work especially if you dont have distance labels enabled.

it puts me off as in the stangs manual (see page 61) and other pics on the web 2 diamonds are alligned in horizontal manner, which would be the more intuitive and more logical approach to have?

especially if you follow the target you allining direction, roll etc.

so what is correct ?

 

2) can it be that the sight gets wonky after too many acrobatics?

if dialed in correcty and shooting from the correct convergence distance,even during turns, the first few engagements produce good hit results and the bogey goes down fast but i feel like after a while its getting way off? is it just me or anyone else experienced this? is this a "feature"?

Edited November 29, 2021 by Doughguy

[Nealius]

Diamonds' position relative to other diamonds doesn't matter. Only their position relative to the target's wingspan matters. Your sight pictures should look like those in the left column of this graphic:

I set my gunsight to 34-foot wingspan and 1200-foot range. As I get closer to the target I adjust the range to match the diamonds to his wingspan, then fire. I typically only engage at around 600ft range or less.

In the time-stamped kill, you can see me adjusting the range then shredding his engine with 50cal. The other kills in the video don't have as good of a sight picture.

 

 

[Doughguy]

sorry i wasnt clear enough.

what i mean is that the sight picture differs from what you see in the dcs stang vs what is shown in the manual.

in your video and in the dcs stang you have the diamonds of the sightpicture on the 12  2  4  6  8 and 10 o clock position means no diamonds on 3 and 9 ( respectively shifted for the others) as shown in the mustangs manual and various other sources.

see attachment. the blue indicated "diamonds" are what we have in dcs vs what is pictured in the manual.

even in the target pattern picture the diamonds are placed differently ( with 2 diamonds on 3 and 9 o clock) makin it easy to dial in the wingspan.

with the sight we have in dcs there is a gap on the 3 and 9 and you have to estimate or roll few degrees to be able to match the wingspan... seems inconvenient of the target is manouvering..

i wonder what is correct as adjusting wingspan with the sightpicture as shown in the manual would be far more easy and natural.

if its correct the way it is then im fine but i find different sightpictures for that gyro all over the net.

i do understand how to use the gyro and how to set it up.

 

Edited November 29, 2021 by Doughguy

[Mikaa]

I’ve noticed this as well. Makes judging wingspans a bit more difficult, but not impossible. Hopefully it’d be an easy fix to just rotate the reticle by 30ish degrees. 

[Art-J]

@Doughguy Your second post clears up wat you meant, thanks. Keep in mind, though - reticle already rotates - with wingspan dial. So it sometimes does have diamonds at 3 and 9 position. That's the way it's modelled both in DCS and Il-2 and it might actually be somewhat correct, judging from this vid, around 5 minutes mark (K-14 is licence-built derivative of Mk IID, so the operation is the same):

The vid also shows one more important thing - the gunsight was invented to help hitting the targets performing turns and it's often easier to frame them with diamonds in 2, 4, 8 & 10 positions (nose-to-tail of the turning target).

Edited November 29, 2021 by Art-J

[Frederf]

The diamonds of lights are produced by moving and rotating metal shutters. The rotation of the individual diamonds and their placement about the circumference of the circle is a consequence of the mechanism. It is a repeatable behavior, for every particular diameter setting the rotation of the diamonds as well as their placement about the circle will be the same every time.

By changing the diameter of the formation the diamonds will follow a curved path and they themselves will twist in orientation. A diamond will be at the 12 o'clock position at one diameter and a gap at 12 o'clock for a different diameter. Observe at 4:50 in the video above how increasing the diameter causes the diamonds to spiral outward along a clockwise path and the diamonds themselves rotate clockwise. Due to the spiral path at no time are the diamonds oriented such that their points point toward the center.

https://youtu.be/ea2IB48lOuo?t=288

 

[Doughguy]

Hm, i cannot observe that the diamonds move in a curve in dcs. they just slide in / out to the center dot.

I understand that each diamond would move along a curve but relative to a path towards the center of the dot, however those paths dont seem to be consistent
in the axis aligment if i hit google.
at the highest peek of the diamonds curve, youd have a slightly skewed sightpicture but not totally shifted in axis like in my drawing.

that what kinda makes me wonder what is right?

 

Zitat

The vid also shows one more important thing - the gunsight was invented to help hitting the targets performing turns and it's often easier to frame them with diamonds in 2, 4, 8 & 10 positions (nose-to-tail of the turning target).

That does make sense however that would mean you dont really follow the bogey would it? Cause usually youd match pitch, roll etc of the bogey in a pursuit.
This might rather apply for deflection shots? but then, why design a sight for pure deflection shots?
wouldnt a sight, set up for "pursuit" style shoot be more "natural"?

i mean, the target breaks to the left at 50 deg, i copy that and follow. i dont fly straight and use the rudder only so i can adjust my sight picture. thats kinda counter intuitive.
in both sight pictures youd have diagonal aligments but only either a vertical ( 6/12 o clock) or horizontal (3 / 9 o clock).




I hope this makes it clearer.
It does show that the diamond traverses on a curve but that curve (roughly) follows a path on eg 3 o clock. itll never alligned that its on the 4 o clock.
And that sight picture is also show in the stangs manual.

Ingame we have this tho:

Same thing just tilted slightly.
 

The odd thing is that i keep finding pictures of both sight patterns, which is rather confusing...

However:

Shows the dots with the 3/9 o clock allignmet. Yes i know its not the yank one, but its basically a clone as stated.
The gyro is set to its shortest range (see handle indicator). now if youd set it to its max range, each dot/diamond would shift towards the center on a curve but as stated
relative to a path.
theyd never end up on a different alligned path tho.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Doughguy

[Frederf]

To get a consistent diamond shape the straight and swirl pattern legs have to cross at a consistent angle. If you know the min and max diameters and the diamond angle the swirl shape becomes exactly known. The drawing above doesn't look like it could produce a large range of intersection positions.

Depending on which pattern is fixed determines if the diamonds slide radially or not. If the swirl pattern is the moving pattern the the intersections do not change clock position.

I was using MiG-21 sight and the animations in the MkII video as a guide and those curve. I wouldn't put too much stock in the blue illustration above. It doesn't demand up on the page is up on the sight.

[Art-J]

@Doughguy although your concerns are very interesting from strictly engineering and modelling accuracy point of view, I can assure you they're not important at all from practical combat point of view in this sim. Once you spend a few more hours in DCS Stang, shooting things, you will notice that just getting the target silhouette more or less in the ring is good enough (as long as it's not wildly out of convergence point of course). Not that you've got much time for anything else, really, at least when engaging fast maneuvering fighters. 

[Tanuki44]

+1
Settings to 30-60-90-120

Diamonds rotate with adjustment just like a diaphragm of a camera
It does not matter, the only important thing is the ring inscribed in the diamonds, regardless of the position of the head, the plane, the target.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Tanuki44

[Art-J]

A pretty cool vid popped in my YT recommendations today. Finally we can see how the diamonds moved on restored, functional unit (around 11 minutes in):

 

[Doughguy]

Cheers Art-J.

I´ve not noticed that the diamonds move in arches dcs... one can only notice the arch when the wingspan is set to min/max all the way.. the distance adjustment just shifts them in/out. my bad.
That clears out the initial question about the different sight pictures.

Video is also interesting regarding the effect of lag / turnspeed  during combat. kinda deals with my second question but my head was being messed with today to much and i dont fully understand that part. gonna rewatch it.

but as said in my first post, the gyro kinda "lags" behind, even tho set up right. Wingspan and distance set right. The first fighter is shot down bullseye but with the next one after some high aoa turns seems to be off even tho i fight the same type and engage at the same distance.

I guess the video kinda explains this, but i cant really get my head around it, as in how to counter act this, or "what not to do".

Edited December 1, 2021 by Doughguy

[Frederf]

Imagine the pipper is dragged at the end of a stretchy rope. Movement of the held end needs time to filter down to the solution end. Settling time is usually a few TOFs. Nothing ever settles perfectly but it approaches asymptotically. After a few time constants it's near exact. Maintaining pipper on target for 2-3s with relatively constant parameters must collapse to solution so much as the sight is designed to reproduce ballistics accurately at all.

[Doughguy]

yes i understand how this works.

example:

the typical ai will lure you into a turnfight spiraling down. guess we've all been there.

you follow in a lag pursuit gaining until the pipper is on the target where its supposed to be with correct settings etc.

of course its hard to maintain a clnstant path in the pony as its quite a weasel at times but id expect a good hits whereas most bursts seem to come too short of the opponents tail.

on other occassions its dead center and down it goes.

so i kinda try to figure out whats going on and what in can do to remedy this in order to make more consistent shots.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Doughguy

[chris455]

On 11/29/2021 at 5:05 AM, Nealius said:

Diamonds' position relative to other diamonds doesn't matter. Only their position relative to the target's wingspan matters. Your sight pictures should look like those in the left column of this graphic:

I set my gunsight to 34-foot wingspan and 1200-foot range. As I get closer to the target I adjust the range to match the diamonds to his wingspan, then fire. I typically only engage at around 600ft range or less.

In the time-stamped kill, you can see me adjusting the range then shredding his engine with 50cal. The other kills in the video don't have as good of a sight picture.

 

 

Thank you for the video, all very correct procedures regarding adjusting the range finder, etc.

One thing you might have overlooked is, you state you are commencing fire at 600 feet.

Even if you have adjusted your range finder to this range, the fact remains your convergence is set to 1000 ft. Your K-14 sight cannot change this fixed value.

If you want to hit the target at convergence range, you should set your range finder at 1000, your wingspan setting to your target's wingspan and strive to open fire at this range. ( ie., fire when his wings fill your sight at the 1000' setting).

This way all of your bullets are all converging on the target for maximum effect.

Edited December 29, 2021 by chris455

[Doughguy]

correct convergence is 1100 ft according to manual.

what i kinda still have difficulties with is aiming /fireing on the target in tight turnfights. shallow turns etc no problem. but once the enemy pulls hard the sight kind of gets useless even tho the pipper is deadcenter. kinda odd.

my wingspan is set to 32ish feet (outer left part of the slider touching the 35 mark) and distance 1100 ft.

if i have the the fighter in front of me and im .2 nm away (tags activated) its all ligned up neatly and a 1-2 sec burst will bring the jerry down instantly.

not so in tighter turns even if i fly with the same setting and same distance etc.. it just falls short by about half a plane length even if fire on it with the pipper dead center how its supposed to be. so i still have to add a bit of lead or wait for a more suited chance.

also does anyone notice that the sight or so can get whack after some time?

after a few fights in a session ive sometimes experienced that the bullets basically hit nothing. im on the guys six and sight set up as above. from 0.2nm distance (that are roughly 1100ft away) i open fire but the thing simply doesnt hit anything anymore.

not sure what is happening there and if thats supposed to be like this.

maybe it got to do with the propwash that is quite noticable if you get closer than 1100ft to a plane infront of you in straight pursuit?

Edited December 30, 2021 by Doughguy

[Art-J]

I don't think it's supposed to be used in rapid, tight maneuvers. Wartime and post-war manuals for similar gyro sights usually note that these devices require some tracking time with constant G to calculate lead properly. I wouldn't expect them to work in anything other than shallow-to-medium turns to be honest.

As for the accuracy deterioration with time, I'd rather expect it to be the result of notorious barrel overheating (or rather insufficient cooling) coded in DCS, which, although tweaked this year IIRC, still makes M2s noticeably less effective after a few longer bursts. Although that issue affects F-86 module players much more than warbird players...

Prop wash from preceeding aircraft is not simulated unless you specifically turn the "wake turbulence" on somewhere in game options (its off by default). And if you do that, you will get snap-rolled so hard you won't be able to aim anyway ;).

[Doughguy]

hmm yeah i thought of something like that. so its a limitation of the sight then.

havent thought about barrel ovetheating but that might explain it. tho i dont spray the targets hmm.

the propwash does exactly that when im at convergance distance. 

pretty annoying  when you pursue a bogey for few mins and creep up on his six and just as you are in shooting range your plane gets all shaken up and throws off your aim.

an adjustable convergence distance would be nice in that respect.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Doughguy