.50's deserve a buff

[dovah4]

@PercussionCap

You won’t believe how many times I’ve hit someone with “20mm onetap shells” and have them keep flying like nothing happened.

You hit them with AP or you critically crippled them or you you’re just plain unlucky. In that order.

@PercussionCap

Engine fires are not extinguishable without FPE, which also kills the engine.

Sure they are, they’ll sometimes randomly go out.

@PercussionCap

This is completely separate to .50cal damage, it’s US teams sucking so badly they all die in the first 5min and you can’t play the game 1v16.

Or better yet. The vast majority of U.S. planes don’t work for how Gaijin built the game.

@PercussionCap

Most planes are covered in fuel tanks. Hornet engines are pretty small compared to most. This one has relatively few of them.

yeah. Obviously. Fuel tanks obviously burst into flames with a single API-T round. Definitely.

This isn’t 2014 anymore where API-T had guaranteed fire chances.

@scorpian

My two cents in this discussion is that for me, .50 cals can be very bipolar in performance. One match I can score amazing kills with one burst and score myself into the leaderboards. Then I start the next match and all of a sudden fires are completely nonexistent and the only thing im shooting off are flaps.

What .50s are really weakest at are snapshots. Its completely down to luck for a half second or quarter of a second burst hits the engine or fuel tank (which doesnt guarantee a fire) or just turns the structure of the target yellow. With the playstyle of american planes, you’re gonna be doing a lot of snapshots.

You can really see this struggle with F8F bearcat and the P-51C mustang. Despite having amazing performance a mere 4 .50 cals usually require more than one pass on a target

That’s the thing though. Your .50s really are either all or nothing. while other countries get machine guns that literally can blacken your entire wing in two shots. We have guns that are consistent of mostly AP with not enough incendiary whilst at the same time the incendiary filler is so ‘weak’ that the fragmentation literally has chances of spawning in on itself. The closest you’ll get to an ‘Air targets’ belt for U.S. is the stealth belt.

Because your incendiary rounds don’t do much mixed with not having enough. Unless you strike VERY SPECIFICALLY for a long enough time in a specific spot, then you’ll do good damage.

What I want to see and see how it performs without touching anything in terms of how the cartridge performs is for there to be a U.S. .50’s air-target belt.

Late-war:

• API-T, I, I, I, API-T I
  Or
• API-T, I, I, I

Early-war:

• T, I, I, I, AP

[WolfgangTheSecon]

a fight at 4000m where everyone will be in the 300-400kmh range is different than a fight where you’re going 500kmh, the guy you’re gunning for is 400 feet in the air and he’s slower than you.

With a significantly faster aircraft, which the P-51 usually is, you can force situations where the enemy is low, slow, and unable to turn. You can choose whether you want to engage or just turn away and attack someone else, and if you’ve managed your speed right in relation to what you can see your enemies doing, your enemies won’t have anything they can do.

If U.S. incendiary got a buff to at least push the fragments out a little further instead of literally glitching inside itself and suffering the realshatter bug like the other guns did before the fix like with the images I posted of U.S. incendiary. Why would that be a bad thing?

It wouldn’t. That’s not what the bulk of this conversation has been about.

You’re overvaluing firepower compared to performance. As long as you have more than rifle calibre machineguns, performance is always more important than guns. It’s why things like the J21 are such bad planes; they perform well in statistics because of their guns, so they keep going up, but they don’t have the flight performance to keep up with their BR.

I’ve been flying P-51s for about a month now with the direct intention of learning them, and they’ve been extremely enjoyable. My only complaint, aside from obvious things like Yak-3s, is the teams. American teams are terrible, and that’s the primary thing making American planes difficult to fly.

[PercussionCap]

@dovah4

yeah. Obviously. Fuel tanks obviously burst into flames with a single API-T round. Definitely.

Again, this is a replay and those are well known to have poor hit registration and tracer sync.

@dovah4

Sure they are, they’ll sometimes randomly go out.

Engine fires? Never had one go out before I died.

@dovah4

Or better yet. The vast majority of U.S. planes don’t work for how Gaijin built the game.

Yet these same aircraft do perfectly well when used by other nations.

P-47D-28 has just gone down to 4.7 RB, while the IDENTICAL D-30 in italy and china stays at 5.0.

[dovah4]

@WolfgangTheSecon

With a significantly faster aircraft, which the P-51 usually is, you can force situations where the enemy is low, slow, and unable to turn. You can choose whether you want to engage or just turn away and attack someone else, and if you’ve managed your speed right in relation to what you can see your enemies doing, your enemies won’t have anything they can do.

The only thing you can decide is if you want to run away or not. Explain to me how you’re supposed to ‘make an enemy slow’ when you have a Bf-109, I-185 chasing you at 4000m? Doesn’t matter if you’re going to gain separation. You’re going to spend 2-3 minutes getting 4km worth of separation. Turn and then be forced to do only sweeping headons.

@PercussionCap

Yet these same aircraft do perfectly well when used by other nations.

P-47D-28 has just gone down to 4.7 RB, while the IDENTICAL D-30 in italy and china stays at 5.0.

These IDENTICAL aircraft also have fast climbing G.55s, Ki-44s, Bf-109s, C.205’s, Ki-61s, La-7s supporting them on their team because they’re in the same tree. While U.S. teams are stuck flying on their own with only a handful of aircraft that can actually climb fast to interdict with the enemy, usually from the unlucky shmucks who get paired up with them.

Whaddya know. Planes that require a bunch of setup and speed to get going are trounced on by aircraft that simply climb faster than it and just deny the altitude!

[WolfgangTheSecon]

Doesn’t matter if you’re going to gain separation. You’re going to spend 2-3 minutes getting 4km worth of separation. Turn and then be forced to do only sweeping headons.

Whaddya know. Planes that require a bunch of setup and speed to get going are trounced on by aircraft that simply climb faster than it and just deny the altitude!

Gain separation, shallow climb, watch as you slowly out-energy them, do a very slow lateral turn, and about five minutes later they’ll either have turned away from you, giving you their tail, or you’ll have energy trapped them. It takes a long time, which doesn’t fit the War Thunder meta, but if you don’t like doing that, then go play a turnfighter, because no matter what you change, that’s always going to be how the P-51 and other high-speed BnZ planes fight. At least the P-51 can actually turn around with 4km. I might be able to do that with an Fw 190, but I definitely wouldn’t bet on it in-match.

Bf 109s also don’t climb significantly better than P-51s these days, assuming you’re climbing at around 285-310 kph IAS in the P-51.

[PercussionCap]

@dovah4

These IDENTICAL aircraft also have fast climbing G.55s, Ki-44s, Bf-109s, C.205’s, Ki-61s, La-7s supporting them on their team because they’re in the same tree. While U.S. teams are stuck flying on their own with only a handful of aircraft that can actually climb fast to interdict with the enemy

This would be a fair argument if the XP-50 (even now with no airspawn) and P-38s didn’t exist.

This is a time and altitude chart for the Ki-44-II, P-38J, and Spit Mk9c. All started at the same altitude and already in-flight, yet from 6km upwards the P-38 easily pulls ahead - in a real match it has the additional advantage of an airspawn, putting it above the “fast climbing aircraft” for the ENTIRE run.
The only P-38 that MAYBE this doesn’t apply to, is the P-38E with its lower power engines. The G, J, L, and K all climb like nothing else and keep their engine power to very high altitude.

P-51C is another very competitive prop with a surprisingly good climbrate and at a low BR for its capabilities, yet its played by some of the WORST players I’ve had the displeasure of encountering.

The Bearcats of course climb at 30m/s+ and now their rudder actually works.

So no, the US has access to extremely competitive, very fast climbing props - if they choose not to use them that’s their problem.

[SpeclistMain1]

@PercussionCap

And the fire was caused by…

.50 cals:

To get instant kills must:

• Hit an engine directly
• Get a pilot snipe
• Get a fuel explosion

To get non-instant kills:

• Pepper the enemy with hundreds of bullets until an instant kill condition is met or the condition below happens
• Wait until fire passively decides to take a vehicle out (while also making sure they aren’t fine despite being on fire or that the fire doesn’t just go out)

Cannons and 12.7mms with HE:

To get instant kills:

• Hit the wings with HE
• Hit the tail with HE
• Hit the fuselage with HE,
• Hit an engine directly
• Get a pilot snipe
• Get a fuel explosion

To get non-instant kills:

• Hit the wing at most a few times with HE
• Hit the tail at most a couple times with HE
• Hit the fuselage at most a few times with HE
• Wait until fire passively decides to take a vehicle out (while also making sure they aren’t fine despite being on fire or that the fire doesn’t just go out)

Notice how .50 cals have to either get lucky in terms of bullet dispersion spread (hitting an engine or getting a pilot snipe) or just straight up luck (fuel explosion) to kill instantly, meanwhile cannons/HE 12.7mms can just hit the plane? Or how the cannons/HE 12.7mms can also just hit anywhere a few times (and assuming they aren’t very unlucky) to take out a plane, meanwhile .50 cals have to spray the whole aircraft until they either get a hit on the engine, a pilot snipe, or get lucky with a fuel explosion, or until fire damage eventually takes out the aircraft?

@WolfgangTheSecon

As long as you have more than rifle calibre machineguns, performance is always more important than guns.

Except most props get to have both, and US aircraft don’t? I mean I can’t think of a single prop in the US tree that does actually have both and the other nations don’t.

@PercussionCap

This would be a fair argument if the XP-50 (even now with no airspawn) and P-38s didn’t exist.

“To have a good-climbing US aircraft you must either buy a premium or play only one aircraft that is basically just a 3.0 aircraft, the 3.0 at 3.3, a 4.3 aircraft, and a 4.3 at 4.7. These four are your only options without paying money or playing against jets the whole game (F7F).”

[PercussionCap]

@SpeclistMain1

Cannons and 12.7mms with HE:

To get instant kills:

• Hit the wings with HE
• Hit the tail with HE
• Hit the fuselage with HE,

I’ve done these possibly thousands of times and not gotten a kill. In fact, I distinctly remember a time in the Fw 190 D-12 where I watched a 30mm shell directly impact an F-82’s right tail, do nothing, and after a few seconds of him pulling away, he did a 180 and instantly killed me on the first hit.

@SpeclistMain1

or play only one aircraft that is basically just a 3.0 aircraft, the 3.0 at 3.3, a 4.3 aircraft, and a 4.3 at 4.7

Cope of the highest degree.

All P-38s after the E are incredibly competitive; the G especially is a free kill mobile with decent enough maneuverability that it can hang with most single engine fighters, the best climbrate and high altitude performance at its BR, and an apparentlt very important 20mm cannon. All at 3.3. Undertiered.

The Bearcat is too low at 4.7 and should go back up to 5.0 at the very least.

The P-51C is well known for being probably THE strongest 3.7.

[SpeclistMain1]

@PercussionCap

I’ve done these possibly thousands of times and not gotten a kill.

“To get non-instant kills: … at most a few times … at most a couple times … at most a few times…”
“(and assuming they aren’t very unlucky)”

@PercussionCap

Cope of the highest degree.

I’m not really sure how this counters my point about there being only ~4 aircraft with a good climb rate in the US tree, and that most of them are P-38s (so no breadth in terms of family of vehicles). I forgot about the F8F-1 admittedly, but it’s really only good for climbing to mild altitudes.

[dovah4]

@PercussionCap

XP-50 (even now with no airspawn) and P-38s didn’t exist.

And my teams usually consist of one or two P-38s max if at all. Why do you think I said there’s only a few ‘fast climbing’ aircraft we have. They’re clearly not common enough to show up and one example you gave is a premium.

@WolfgangTheSecon

ain separation, shallow climb, watch as you slowly out-energy them, do a very slow lateral turn, and about five minutes later they’ll either have turned away from you, giving you their tail,

You’re banking on an enemy not following you to the ends of the earth when this is simply not the case, especially lategame. My Ki-44 replay in the P-47 is that. I played the aircraft to a T how I’m supposed to, but I was risking tons of shots on my aircraft just so I could snipe an engine with my .50s while the enemy just had to hit me anywhere.

You can for the most part out-energy opponents in shallow dives and shallow climbs (Shallow climbs only work if you think you’ve already begun outspeeding the opponent and/or they tried to zoom climb for some odd reason.) Unless you’re in Yak distance at which point you can only outspeed 4km

[_Zekken]

I think I see at least part of the problem here

Do you play on low graphics settings? Because all of those things you are saying are fires, on things such as the IL-10 and F4U, are not fires. They are the particle effects from hits on the plane and things breaking off of it. There was no fire on the IL-10, It was the explosion effect of the tail being ripped off, and the small little trails of fire are the incindiary effect from the rounds themselves.

The Su-6 died literally because he was riddled with holes. .50 cals often do that, despite your heavy protests they don’t.

The Do-335 I added in mainly as context for where the assist came from during the FW-190 clip, but the severe on him was due to damaging his engine, he floated around for a little bit before the friendly SPAA finished him.

The P-51D in the last clip is the only one that I let burn out to die. But someone that has at least 2 fires, one of which being an engine fire, is just as dead as someone missing a wing, more dead in fact because significantly more planes in war thunder make it back to base with missing wings than they do with burning engines.

The Yak9K was there partly because again, this was just all my kills in one session in order, but also because you’d never believe it, but I am someone who actually flies mostly cannon armed aircraft, the number of times Ive had enemy planes do the same thing after being hit by 20mms is just as often as I have had it in the last few days flying .50 cal equipped planes. Heck, if that P-51 had 20mms instead of .50 cals I wouldnt have even HIT that Yak9 in the first pass, I was barely able to get the nose on to get hits with the .50s, 20mms would have fallen short.

As for the rest of the kills, we are back again to “The damage the .50 cals do, despite being killing just as quickly and consistently as 20mms, is somehow the WRONG damage and is thus worse than 20mm damage, therefore I am right and you are wrong”.

You are also still counting one of the biggest advantages of a set of .50s as a disadvantage for some reason. Being able to spray rounds at someone isnt a disadvantage, its the best advantage you have with those guns.

[SpeclistMain1]

@_Zekken

Do you play on low graphics settings?

Stuff largely not super relevant

I played the videos in the highest resolution and frame rate youtube allowed me to. The IL-10 was definitely damaged by fire as the first fire did not instantly go out, the second fire popped up right before the severe damage, and then the last fire happened during/after the tail breaking off. The F4U was also definitely fire damaged beforehand due to the left landing gear taking damage after the burst.

The Su-6 didn’t have many holes from what I could see, and it still had all of the control surfaces (besides a flap iirc).

What you said about the Do-335 doesn’t really change anything about what I said.

The P-51D took a while to die, though. With HE it would’ve been instant and the death would be a sure thing (rather than unsure in the case of fire).

I don’t believe 20mms do the same at anywhere near the same rate. Obviously every gun is going to have whiffs just due to this being a videogame (glitches, server errors, or just bad luck), but the lack of damage on .50 cals isn’t just bad luck or game errors.

@_Zekken

“The damage the .50 cals do, despite being killing just as quickly and consistently as 20mms, is somehow the WRONG damage and is thus worse than 20mm damage, therefore I am right and you are wrong”

I mean, yes? How is having to either take longer in terms of time or bullets while also not having as many options to kill in general supposed to be a good thing?

[PercussionCap]

@SpeclistMain1

I’m not really sure how this counters my point about there being only ~4 aircraft with a good climb rate in the US tree

P-38 G, J, L; P-51C; F8F-1; XP-50.

That is at least 6 I can name right now, without even looking at the tree. 4 of those are GUARANTEED to be the highest plane in the match if you put the slightest effort into learning what speeds they like to climb at.

@dovah4

And my teams usually consist of one or two P-38s max if at all.

So it’s the players’ fault. If a theoretical 100% China/Italy team doesn’t bring out their fast climbing aircraft, their P-47D-30s will also be unsupported.

@dovah4

They’re clearly not common enough to show up and one example you gave is a premium.

One VERY popular premium which shows up in almost every match around 4.0.

[dovah4]

@_Zekken

As for the rest of the kills, we are back again to “The damage the .50 cals do, despite being killing just as quickly and consistently as 20mms, is somehow the WRONG damage and is thus worse than 20mm damage, therefore I am right and you are wrong”.

The thing is though, is that .50s are not consistent because most of your rounds are AP and the incendiary effect is heavily gimped from previous years so even if you coat an enemy’s fuel tank in API, you still might not get a fire.

You can argue that .50s have very consistent damage… If you satisfy all the prerequisites for it to actually do anything.

I can say the 7.7s on the Typhoon are just fine because getting a concentrated burst on a target will rip them apart.

The issue is that damage from other 12.7mm machine guns still do insane damage with little effort while .50s can only be competent if you hit in a specific scenario or you get lucky. The benefit that all these other country’s have is that they have belts that are filled with filler and not just AP like U.S. aircraft.

even the incendiary rounds have filler on the U.S .50’s (Even if it’s so small the fragments bug out)

If you don’t want to touch the performance of .50s would you agree on an Air-targets belt for U.S.?

Late-war:

• API-T, I, I, I, API-T I
  Or
• API-T, I, I, I

Early-war: T, I, I, I, API

[SpeclistMain1]

@PercussionCap

P-51C;

I wouldn’t really count this as having a good climb rate for the BR, from what I remember.

Regardless, those are pretty much the only aircraft with good climb rates (not including the BRs where you face jets), meanwhile literally every fighter or interceptor in every other tree will have good climb rates.

[dovah4]

@PercussionCap

So it’s the players’ fault. If a theoretical 100% China/Italy team doesn’t bring out their fast climbing aircraft, their P-47D-30s will also be unsupported.

Can you blame the Italian players not flying the D-30 as often compared to their other options? Not to me. The only exceptions are when it’s an event aircraft like the J26 David or the Chinese P-51C.

Mixed with the understanding that twin-engined fighters are much worse than single engined counterparts. Why do you think you see a crap load of P-63s?

Can you blame british players for not flying the Brigand or whirlwind compared to a Spitfire??

@PercussionCap

One VERY popular premium which shows up in almost every match around 4.0.

I’ve been playing multiple matches of the D-22 and I only see one Xp-50 every 3-4 matches.

[RedEye_ツ]

@SpeclistMain1

On the AM-42: Tbh I have no clue why this was counted as a kill, at most it looks like a fuel tank was set on fire (with no explosion). The right flap was mildly damage, maybe the elevator too, but essentially the whole airframe is intact.

On the Spitfire: Engine damage, also fuel fire going off of the visual effects.

On the IL-10: The first hits were on the left and right flaps but they did little damage and the fire went out within a second or so, but the plane was destroyed when the tail was snapped off from what appears to be an initial fire just in front of the empennage combined with another hit in the same area which causes an even bigger fire. I’m not sure what could be hit there to cause such a big fire, is there ammo or something back there? Still, it likely only happened due to the initial fire damage combined with the near-perpendicular shot (meaning the kinetic energy of the bullets do more damage).

On the Do-335: Tbh there wasn’t much to go off of besides maybe the fuel lines to the back engine getting severed, or the back engine getting hit? The aircraft took basically no structural damage, though. It also seems like it was able to fly for around 30 seconds after getting “severely” damaged.

On the Fw-190 D: Basically hit right in between the engine and cockpit, probably destroying the controls and even starting a fuel fire. He was still able to fly, though, until the fire damaged the right wing.

On the F4U-4: The left wing came off, but that required the left landing gear (and the parts of the wing near the fuselage) to already be damaged by fire from the earlier pass (which also required absolutely spraying the wing to damage enough to fall off).

On the P-51C-20-NA and Yak-9K: Firstly, you “severely” damaged the Yak-9K with him just being able to fly completely fine. Secondly, the P-51D was set on fire, was severely damaged by the fire, and shot down by the fire. Thirdly, the second pass on the “severely” damaged Yak-9K did nothing besides damage the right flap (of which is was fully intact), and the third pass on the “severely” damaged Yak-9K finally took it out, but only by cutting off the very tip of the left wing (which was likely already damaged by fire going off of the fires seen in the first and second pass).

I mean all these really show is that if you hit an engine you don’t have to rely on fires, but that’s the same with all higher-bore guns or 12.7mms with HE shells. These just prove that .50 cals at best can kill with direct hits to very specific modules (engine or pilot snipe), but most of the time they need to rely on fires to either weaken an airframe over time or just rely on the fire to kill outright.

Meanwhile cannons and 12.7mms with HE shells can just hit anywhere and do a million times more damage.

It looks like you just want .50 cals to kill YOUR way. Cuz they already perform well enough to torch ppl out of the air, snipe pilots, kill the engine with a couple rounds, etc. But you want them to rip wings, break tails n see things falling apart as if they had HE filler. (Lowkey already happens from time to time)

Even tho you made a song n dance about it, all these .50cals clips Zekken showed = short spray kills
And if he was using 20mms it would also = kills
So why are you so dissatisfied w it? He didn’t kill them hard enough?

A solid .50cal spray is usually enough to take ppl down, not crazy enough to be consistent with snapshots of course, and when u don’t finish them off in 1 pass, they are usually crippled enough to be a threat in the dogfight.

x4 .50 cals doing a terrible job apparently:

.50cals damage

[dovah4]

@RedEye_ツ

A solid .50cal spray is usually enough to take ppl down, not crazy enough to be consistent with snapshots of course, and when u don’t finish them off in 1 pass, they are usually crippled enough to be a threat in the dogfight.

I disagree wholly with them being crippled enough in a dogfight. With API the only time you will cripple is if you hit their engine or you somehow hit their spar. which in snapshots do jack-all and are very unlikely to do damage.

What damages is explosive filler hurting the skin (the overall wing). And that can only be done by the incendiary round.

[RunaDacino]

Oh, I just remembered this video from a while back.

My Best Sortie Ever! — F6F Hellcat — War Thunder Sim VR

Folk who are feeling like their .50 cal isn’t doing enough damage - might be worth removing the weapon upgrade. Increasing spread with the insane amount of bullets fired by fifty cals turns them into pilot-snipe machines with frightening consistency.

[RedEye_ツ]

@SpeclistMain1

.50 cals:

To get instant kills must:

• Hit an engine directly
• Get a pilot snipe
• Get a fuel explosion

In order words, point your cursor to the target and one of these will happen.
Yes it won’t have the same efficiency as a 20mm, but you have the ammo to spray for a lil longer.