.50's deserve a buff

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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632

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.

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633

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

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

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.

634

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.

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!

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635

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.

636

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

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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.

637

.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?

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.

“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).”

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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.

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.

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639

“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)”

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.

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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.

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

641

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.

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642
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.

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?

643

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.

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.

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

644

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

645

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.

646

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??

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

647

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:

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648

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.

649

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

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.

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650

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.

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651

No it won’t happen unless you have your convergence set to hit the target aka the fuselage, or your aircraft will just plink away at the wings.

In comparison, japanese .50s can blacken your wing within two shots.