motoadve Posted October 25 Share Posted October 25 20mm effects are too small compared to real life, and 30mm even worse, hardly no effect, and should have even a larger effect than a 20mm, its quite important and people would probably like it, a big part of the gratification of WWII fighting is to see your hits into the enemy plane. DCS machine gun effects are brilliant, most realistic I have seen in any sim ever, hope 20mm and specially 30mm effects can get more like they are IRL. Of course better less than over doit, but I think there is room for improvement See here , and also the tracks. 30mm effects.trk 30mm effects2.trk 30mm effects3.trk 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PawlaczGMD Posted October 25 Share Posted October 25 Agreed. Especially the 30mm is weak, but also importantly feels weak. Singular 30mm hits should be blowing sections apart. We've probably all seen that one ground test on a Spitfire photo, where the entire tail hangs by a thread after one hit. A fighter should be destroyed or made unflyable with a single hit almost anywhere. In DCS, the 30mm can destroy an engine with one hit, kill a pilot, or cause a fire if you're lucky (but the same should probably be true of the 20mm!), but otherwise the effects are quite unremarkable. This is not just that the DM is not fully reflected visually, which I can understand. I've had situations where I landed a dozen rounds in a P-47, and the only effect is to blow off some control surfaces, but he can still fly more or less fine. I almost never destroy aircraft parts with it. Very rarely a wing comes off on some targets, and semi-often the tail on the Mustang, but not others. I agree that machine guns feel really good in comparison. Spit's 20mm feels comparable to German machine guns, also on the weak side. It never causes any significant structural damage, you have to hit vital systems just like with a MG. I have never destroyed a wing or a tail with it, the best you can hope for is to start a fire or puncture cooling/oil lines. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motoadve Posted October 26 Author Share Posted October 26 (edited) I am not too bothered about the power of the 30mm, have taken the tail of P51's with one hit many times (that animation looks horribly arcade by the way), also have taken wings of fighters, its rare though, it should happen a bit more often. The 20mm of the Spitfire seems ok, a short burst set 109s and 190s on fire easily. I am not an expert though, but not that bothered. With that being said, just improving the hits effect should be not too difficult for ED. DM is not perfect, and needs some adjustments, but its not too bad either. Edited October 26 by motoadve 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IJG7_Momo Posted October 26 Share Posted October 26 +1 agree 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ErwinRath Posted October 26 Share Posted October 26 Absolutely! It would be awesome to have the hits more articulated. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragon1-1 Posted October 26 Share Posted October 26 I'll add that modern 30mm rounds have the same problem. An A-10's strafing run should look like you're hosing the target area with high speed hand grenades (the amount of explosive is similar in both cases). Likewise with Russian aircraft guns, they fire big shells, too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peachmonkey Posted October 26 Share Posted October 26 I don't know guys, but to me on the receiving end the 30mm is a death sentence, and it's just as deadly for all other human pilots. Now, as far as AI? That's a different story. But you know our AI is in god mode, so keep that in mind, I guess. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lee1hy Posted October 27 Share Posted October 27 (edited) This game occasionally shows strange damage not only to WW2 air-to-air but also to Mordern ground vehicles. (gepard, stryker apc etc etc) Edited October 27 by lee1hy 2 creator of ED's official F-16C liveries (WP,OS, 132nd, 152nd, 174th) AH-64D livery contest winner kim_123456#3214 My user files https://shorturl.at/cdKV5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reflected Posted October 27 Share Posted October 27 On 10/26/2024 at 9:09 AM, motoadve said: I am not too bothered about the power of the 30mm, have taken the tail of P51's with one hit many times (that animation looks horribly arcade by the way), also have taken wings of fighters, its rare though, it should happen a bit more often. The 20mm of the Spitfire seems ok, a short burst set 109s and 190s on fire easily. I am not an expert though, but not that bothered. With that being said, just improving the hits effect should be not too difficult for ED. DM is not perfect, and needs some adjustments, but its not too bad either. I'm with you here, I've ripped P-51s apart with a few 30mm shells. They're plenty effective. Maybe more so than what I see on the guncam footage, but definitely not less. Perhaps it's just the structural integrity of the wing spars that's overdone? 1 Facebook Instagram YouTube Discord Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motoadve Posted October 27 Author Share Posted October 27 7 hours ago, Reflected said: I'm with you here, I've ripped P-51s apart with a few 30mm shells. They're plenty effective. Maybe more so than what I see on the guncam footage, but definitely not less. Perhaps it's just the structural integrity of the wing spars that's overdone? Not sure if they are overdone or not, I have seen a P51 wing break while the pilot pulled high Gs during a dive in a MP server. IRL I find it hard to believe this happened, not because the strength of the wing but, but the forces needed to pull the stick at 500mph violently for full elevator deflection can be too much. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firebugs Posted October 27 Share Posted October 27 On 10/25/2024 at 6:37 PM, PawlaczGMD said: Agreed. Especially the 30mm is weak, but also importantly feels weak. Singular 30mm hits should be blowing sections apart. We've probably all seen that one ground test on a Spitfire photo, where the entire tail hangs by a thread after one hit. A fighter should be destroyed or made unflyable with a single hit almost anywhere. In DCS, the 30mm can destroy an engine with one hit, kill a pilot, or cause a fire if you're lucky (but the same should probably be true of the 20mm!), but otherwise the effects are quite unremarkable. This is not just that the DM is not fully reflected visually, which I can understand. I've had situations where I landed a dozen rounds in a P-47, and the only effect is to blow off some control surfaces, but he can still fly more or less fine. I almost never destroy aircraft parts with it. Very rarely a wing comes off on some targets, and semi-often the tail on the Mustang, but not others. I agree that machine guns feel really good in comparison. Spit's 20mm feels comparable to German machine guns, also on the weak side. It never causes any significant structural damage, you have to hit vital systems just like with a MG. I have never destroyed a wing or a tail with it, the best you can hope for is to start a fire or puncture cooling/oil lines. I think what is typically experienced when the 30mm doesn't have a devastating result is the ammunition type in the belt. I don't know the breakdowns of the different belt types, but selecting HE Anti Bomber and CS No tracers in my experience has the highest content of Mine rounds, which are the ones that do the devastation (and the ones showcased in that video of the Spitfire and Blenheim). There are also AP and HE rounds mixed in that don't do as much damage. It would be really cool to know the belt breakdown. In my experience when a mine round is solidly landed, it's almost a guaranteed fuselage break (tail flies off), fire, and/or pilot kill. I have also hit planes with 3-5 30mm rounds and had them do seemingly minimal damage but those are (I assume) not mine rounds landing, or are hitting out on the edges of wings. Also not sure the fuzing mechanics at play here because from straight behind it's fairly easy to get very high angle of incidence on impacts which can keep rounds from fuzing. On the receiving end they seem to work just fine 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PawlaczGMD Posted October 27 Share Posted October 27 2 hours ago, Firebugs said: I think what is typically experienced when the 30mm doesn't have a devastating result is the ammunition type in the belt. I don't know the breakdowns of the different belt types, but selecting HE Anti Bomber and CS No tracers in my experience has the highest content of Mine rounds, which are the ones that do the devastation (and the ones showcased in that video of the Spitfire and Blenheim). There are also AP and HE rounds mixed in that don't do as much damage. It would be really cool to know the belt breakdown. In my experience when a mine round is solidly landed, it's almost a guaranteed fuselage break (tail flies off), fire, and/or pilot kill. I have also hit planes with 3-5 30mm rounds and had them do seemingly minimal damage but those are (I assume) not mine rounds landing, or are hitting out on the edges of wings. Also not sure the fuzing mechanics at play here because from straight behind it's fairly easy to get very high angle of incidence on impacts which can keep rounds from fuzing. On the receiving end they seem to work just fine Good point, I will try playing with different belts. But do I still have MG tracers in the belt you mentioned? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motoadve Posted October 30 Author Share Posted October 30 A squad mate made a mod, with only changes in two lines of the lua file @NineLine @BIGNEWY This looks much better than no effects, maybe use this? I can share the info on what was changed so it minimizes workload on the team. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killerfliege Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 Hi gents, Yes, I blatantly borrowed the Mig15's 37 mm hit effects by adding one of these two lines to the weapons.lua - depending on shell type (see weapons.lua extract below): visual_effect_correction: 0.75 visual_effect_correction: 0.7 The original line in the Mig15's lua reads: visual_effect_correction: 3.0. By tuning down the value I get less clouds that are in total less thick which seems more appropriate for an Mk-108 30 mm round. Additionally to the addition of this visual effect, I adjusted a few more parameters to make everything look much better (see comments in the lua): Set life_time = 7.5 (instead of 4.0) -> This gives the round about 1000 m of flight distance before self-destruction. At 4.0 the rounds explode prematurely half way to the target sometimes. Enabled smoke_tail_life_time = 2.7 --> This gives every round a vapour trail. If you watch gun cam footage, all rounds 20 mm and 30 mm show vapour trails, regardless of being a tracer round or not. By simply enabling smoke_tail_life_time for all rounds the rounds travelling through the air look much more realistic. I have not changed other values meaning that the gun's effectiveness/power is unchanged. I have also attached the complete weapons.lua. Result evaluation: It is certainly more realistic to have such an effect. The one chosen is probably not ideal but again, much better than having no effect at all. Factors I would like to see improved about this effect: - Smoke puff size: To be reduced by 20-30%. I guess that would give a realistic size of impact smoke. - Smoke colour should be grey or white. It is clearly visible in the real footage that the smoke puffs are rather light in nature - certainly not totally black. Suggestion: - Short term solution: Implement effect as shown (10 min of work) - Long term solution: Maybe use the same approach and programme another "visual_effect_correction_Mk108" similar to the one for the Mig15. Suggested improvements should be considered. A tuned down version of this effect could then be added to the 20 mm rounds as well (German Mg151 and British Hispanos). The default round impact effect seems to produce believable results but a tiny bit bigger for the 20 mm (maybe 10-15%) would be great. I am excited to hear back from you @BIGNEWY, @NineLine. Best regards, Killerfliege -- MK 108 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- [1] = 3 cm M-Gesch. Patr. 108 m. Zerl Ausf. A declare_weapon({category = CAT_SHELLS, name = "MK_108_MGsch", user_name = _("MK_108_MGsch"), model_name = "tracer_bullet_yellow", projectile = "HE", mass = 0.330, -- Bullet mass round_mass = 0.470 + 0.110, -- Assembled shell + link cartridge_mass = 0.125 + 0.110, -- Empty shell (+ link if links are stored as well) --explosive = 100.1275, --original: commented and 0.1275 payload = 0.0850, --original: 0.0850 payloadEffect = "Concussion", payloadMaterial = "PETN", v0 = 500.0, Dv0 = 0.008, Da0 = 0.0004, Da1 = 0.0, life_time = 7.5, -- originally 4.0 caliber = 30, s = 0.0, j = 0.0, l = 0.0, charTime = 0, cx = {1.5, 0.99, 0.36, 0.55, 1.8}, k1 = 4.9e-08, tracer_off = -1, smoke_tail_life_time = 2.7, -- originally 0 cartridge = 0, scale_smoke = barrel_smoke_level, smoke_opacity = barrel_smoke_opacity, visual_effect_correction = 0.75, --originally not in here }) -- [2] = 3 cm M-Gesch. Patr. L.Spur 108 m. Zerl declare_weapon({category = CAT_SHELLS, name = "MK_108_MGsch_T", user_name = _("MK_108_MGsch_T"), model_name = "tracer_bullet_yellow", projectile = "HE", mass = 0.330, -- Bullet mass round_mass = 0.470 + 0.110, -- Assembled shell + link cartridge_mass = 0.125 + 0.110, -- Empty shell (+ link if links are stored as well) -- explosive = 100.1275, --original: commented and 0.1275 payload = 0.0850, --original: 0.0850 payloadEffect = "Concussion", payloadMaterial = "PETN", v0 = 500.0, Dv0 = 0.008, Da0 = 0.0004, Da1 = 0.0, life_time = 7.5, -- originally 4.0 caliber = 30, s = 0.0, j = 0.0, l = 0.0, charTime = 0, cx = {1.0, 0.5, 0.66, 0.25, 1.7}, k1 = 2.2e-08, tracer_off = 2.7, smoke_tail_life_time = 2.7, -- originally 2.7 cartridge = 0, scale_smoke = barrel_smoke_level, smoke_opacity = barrel_smoke_opacity, visual_effect_correction = 0.75, --originally not in here }) -- [3] = 3 cm Brgr. Patr. 108 m. Zerl declare_weapon({category = CAT_SHELLS, name = "MK_108_HEI", user_name = _("MK_108_HEI"), model_name = "tracer_bullet_yellow", projectile = "HE", mass = 0.370, -- Bullet mass round_mass = 0.470 + 0.110, -- Assembled shell + link cartridge_mass = 0.125 + 0.110, -- Empty shell (+ link if links are stored as well) --explosive = 100.5360, --original: commented and 0.0360 payload = 0.0360, --original: 0.0360 payloadEffect = "Concussion", payloadMaterial = "TNT", v0 = 485.0, Dv0 = 0.008, -- медиан относительного разброса скорости - [v0-V0*Dv0, v0+v0*Dv0] содержит 50% скоростей Da0 = 0.0004, Da1 = 0.0, life_time = 7.5, -- originally 4.0 caliber = 30, s = 0.0, j = 0.0, l = 0.0, charTime = 0, cx = {1.2, 0.72, 0.6, 0.62, 1.4}, k1 = 4.8e-08, tracer_off = -1, smoke_tail_life_time = 2.7, -- originally 0 cartridge = 0, scale_smoke = barrel_smoke_level, smoke_opacity = barrel_smoke_opacity, visual_effect_correction = 0.7, --originally not in here }) Weapons.lua 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanir Posted October 31 Share Posted October 31 I remember doing a lot of Rechlin test centre research on wartime German aerial gun test documentation a long time ago when I was modding for SAS-Mod IL2:1946 and there are a lot of interesting points implemented in the various historical mod updates of the base game from the site, which is basically many of the same coders behind the Great Battles series that were recruited from there. Our sources included people like, in my case Dietmar Herman the published Ta152 specialist historian for my Ta152C0 and C3 mod addition flight modelling, so the historical documentation is pretty extensive. It's been a few years out of the mix for me, but obviously I would suggest chasing down modders like Kurfurst at Special Aircraft Service - Index for a ton of historical data and references of actual gun effects for Luftwaffe armaments, the MK108 is a very specialised weapon and Luftwaffe armaments in general highly advanced for their time, being electrically fired guns specialised at the design stage for fighter armaments, unlike any early guns and derivatives which are almost to a fault either artillery or naval light antimaterial designs and have feed jam and temperature/pressure/acceleration-forces related issues when mounted in aircraft doing BFM, common problems to Hispano, Oerlikon/MGFF, ShVAK, all the main guns. The MG151 was, afaik the first specifically aerial mounted gun design from the drawing board implemented in aircraft armaments, an electrically fired 15mm which was rated by consistent Rechlin tests as equivalent in a single engine vee mounting as a pair of 20mm MG-FF firing standard HE ammunition mounted in the wings for destructive force laid onto a target with accuracy and reliability considerations, so as a net result. The specific reason for the 15mm form was this combined with a 900 metre vertical tooling effective aerial range for convergence with dissimilar calibres, where for example the MK108 is such a heavy, low velocity round vertical convergence only occurs in a parabola at 150 metres upwards and 350 metres downwards with the MG131 and everywhere else the rounds fall nowhere near the gun sight indication (described by Luftwaffe pilots as a grenade launcher rather than a kanone). One of the very clear matters about the MK108 mine rounds is the low velocity tripled the already strong effect of large explosive filler by allowing fuses to explode the round just within the aluminium skin penetration whereas one of the issues with other cannon by comparison was the flat trajectory and good range also meant fusing couldn't explode the round often before it was all the way through a vital area and exiting an airframe despite accurate hits (unless you hit the engine block), so many more hits were required to bring them down. Over penetration was a big issue, particularly in fighter size craft when it comes to explosive shells, which is another reasoning behind America favouring the fifty cal. There are countless photographs of landed Hurricanes struck by several MG-FF/M 2cm mine shells, very powerful rounds during the Battle of Britain which basically had neat holes punched through the doped fabric rear section airframe that had little or no effect on its flying qualities because the explosive filler never fused until it was out the other side and did no extra damage. This absolutely did not happen with a MK108 round as it travelled nice and slow. From combined records and public interviews with surviving German Aces the MK108 would reliably down any fighter sized aircraft with no more than 1-2 good hits anywhere upon the airframe, simply either destroying vital components within or knocking large sections right off it, like a whole tailplane or wing. By all accounts 3-5 solid hits in any vital area would bring down any bomber, by comparison the same location could take a dozen or more MG151/20 hits in multiple vital locations to bring down a heavy bomber, which is far more strafing. Of course, the trouble here is getting the MK108 gun close enough for accuracy, which means either 150 or 350 metres in narrow windows of vertical convergence where the MG151 could be shooting from 700m easily with good vertical convergence and increased closing accuracy all the way. That was much safer for the pilot. The intended main gun for dedicated destroyer aircraft or heavy fighters and bomber interception was actually the MK103 electrically fired high velocity 3cm, with similar ballistics to guns like the GAU and DEFA, but they couldn't absorb the recoil in lightweight fighter engine/firewall mounts or outboard wing mounts without airframe damage and handling instability, and the charge size is too big to burn reliably enough for synchronisation through the propeller hub in a centreline wingroot or fuselage framing mount, the cutoff point for synchronisation is a typical 20mm cartridge which is how Germans define machineguns and cannons, MG can synchronise and MK cannot so must fire through the propeller hub or outside the blade arc. The MK103 has a reliable, flat trajectory and effective aerial range of over 1200yds and vertical convergence with MG151 of some 80 to 900 metres all the way so obviously there's your reasons there. But the MK108 was always a terrific close quarters grenade launcher with characteristics to take down any type of aircraft very easily. It definitely seems less what I expected for an historical accuracy in DCS compared to the results of much research trying to get it right in SAS Mod IL2:1946 as I recall, both in visual effect and technical characteristics, fwiw. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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