I dunno what Speclist is getting at. But to avoid all this talk about ‘muh realism’ and ‘Gubment said boolet deeid theiiss’ or ‘this plane flown by Joe Michael Bob survived by his scraped anus’ I wanna get to the gist. my general point is this:
20mms are insanely overpowered. They can obliterate vehicles that shouldn’t be obliterated the way that they are and Gaijin needs to fix the insane discrepancy in damage models and I think everyone agrees to some degree. (Fly the P-38 using only the cannon. It’s possible and the only thing you have to mess with is the velocity and that’s it.)
If they refuse to do that (because y’know. It takes effort). Buff .50s to be akin to Swedish 13.7mm guns or slightly below. Cannons take invariably less skill to use, glancing blows will either melt your enemy, if it doesn’t, it cripples them, and if that didn’t happen. You were plain unlucky which I find rare, but it does happen. There has barely been a time I have taken a hit where I go “That’s okay, I can return from this”. even in aircraft that’re supposed to be ‘tanky’.
You’ll need to put a considerably large burst (90% of your rounds hit target) on an enemy all on a focused area to actually make a hit that matters or… You’re lucky. This is difficult when one: You’re usually in an inferior plane. A Yak-3 will utterly gank me, A Ki-100 is nightmare fuel, and spitfires make me gag. While I’m in a P-47D or a P-51D. I can’t really do anything. I don’t turn good, I don’t climb good, I don’t even really roll good, my matches will either end up with me dead or I’m stuck doing like in the japanese aircraft replay. I’m running and running and running to get separation only to take really really risky headons at them and repeat the process while my guns basically do nothing and I pray I hit the engine while my enemy just has to hit me literally anywhere. For a good chunk of U.S. planes. You get very little if any chances. While with other aircraft. You can screw up and make it up.
If I decide to get ballsy, even with my better altitude performance, it’s a massive risk to take as one round will utterly end me while I need a good burst to hurt them or else I am now scrambling to get away. All this while fighting the clock as well.
Think about it. Like what Zekker said. “You need to fire within convergence and hit the fuselage”. Think about that! Your guns will be WAY WORSE, if you do not fire within that specific range in your convergence and if you go outside you will do PIECEMEAL damage. Even in wing mounted cannon armed aircraft, you’ll know that at least 1 cannon round might do something important. You can only do—for sake of argument—equivalent damage of a cannon within a SMALL window while most of the aircraft you fly are usually inferior in most ways compared to the enemy you’re fighting.
Like with any aircraft, performance can make subpar weapons ‘work better’ because you can position yourself where you’re more likely to get hits compared to your opponent. A-36 (Though this is partially due to nose mounted .50s allowing that square pattern–this makes me believe custom convergences is required in this game but I digress) You can go almost 600kmh flat while having six 50s in a favorable config.
P-51H. Literally one of the best props in the game because you basically have a crap load of options for yourself. You can make those guns work, because their performance is so great. I may take 3-4 passes. But I know I’m in control and have great performance and can position myself as I please. Like boxing. Weak arms, but great legs.
The same can be true somewhat vice versa. F6F-5N. Good armament, but the performance sucks BALLLSSS. I feel like I have nuke blasters on each side but the plane has the performance of a covered wagon. Weak legs but strong arms.
I don’t think it’s fair to have an aircraft that you have to play the complete opposite way Gaijin built the game while having guns that are atrociously finicky and you need to be PINPOINT PRECISE to succeed in when you fly aircraft that punishes you greatly for even the slightest misdemeanor in performance where your foes beat you in most ways while also fighting the clock. While on the opposite side of the fence. You can fly quick climbing, relatively fast, aircraft with great gun performance where even at altitude you’re still seen as a threat where you can be confident that you’re going to get several kills. (cough cough yak-3) That’s not to say there’s nothing REDEEMABLE about .50s as they have a few distinct advantages but the advantages they have do not seem much better than getting good quick kills with a cannon.
This is my whole Shtick.
