.50's deserve a buff

[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.

[dovah4]

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.

[RedEye_ツ]

Maybe if you are trying to get snapshots yea , cuzz a solid spray on target will likely down any fighter, I just showed you above.

And Japanese .50cals have a decent amount of HE filler unlike US .50cals. So there’s many differences in how they behave. Also US .50cals are not affected by realshatter since they don’t use it… so there’s no fragmentation bug.

[RedEye_ツ]

@dovah4

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.

I mean, you get a couple shots on target and your wing is painted Yellow / Orange /Black depending of the accuracy, how does that not do anything in the dogfight?

[SpeclistMain1]

@RedEye_ツ

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)

I’m not really sure how saying this is disproving anything. Any round can do pilot snipes, any round can kill the engine. The issue is that .50 cals - outside of those lucky cases - have to really on a mechanic that takes extra time, is inconsistent in damage, and inconsistent in even doing any damage, while also not being able to do basically anything to structural components despite how blatantly illogical that is.

@RedEye_ツ

So why are you so dissatisfied w it? He didn’t kill them hard enough?

Because at best half of the kills he showed weren’t pilot snipes, engine hits, bomb explosions, or fuel explosions - with the majority of the remaining half relying on an inconsistent mechanic that is just straight up worse in every way than how HE shells are modeled.

@RedEye_ツ

x4 .50 cals doing a terrible job apparently:

I-185 (M-71) - Multiple direct hits to the wing spars at a perpendicular angle. I’m glad in the literal most optimal circumstance you can get .50 cals will do structural damage sometimes, even if getting the outcome in the optimal circumstance is inconsistent.

Bf 109 G-6: I’m extremely surprised the tail came off, extremely. If the outcome was anywhere near mildly consistent that’d be great.

@RedEye_ツ

In order words, point your cursor to the target and one of these will happen.

In other words, this is much less likely to happen than the instant kill condition for a cannon/HE 12.7mm, even when factoring in the increase fire rate of .50 cals. This also means .50 cals cannot do structural damage except for extraordinary circumstances.

[_Zekken]

@dovah4

The thing is, you’re also competing against more well-rounded aircraft who’s weapons are for the most part, superior to yours while having only a few setbacks.

But thats not correct, American planes are mostly pretty fairly BRd. You are fighting aircraft with usually pretty similar flight performance.

I played an air RB game in the P-51D-5 last night, with a friend. It was a 4.3 game, I got 7 kills, my friend in his P-51D-20 got 3. (I didnt record it, would have to give you the replay) I admit I wasnt expecting to get that many, but I did not once during that game feel in a disadvantage airframe wise nor firepower wise. For example I went head to head with two different Bf-109 G-2s. The first had altitude on me, he dived, I dodged, and forced him to burn his energy which let me kill him. the 2nd was a climb battle. I was able to out climb him despite starting from lower down, and when we merged due to the more well rounded performance you get in the P-51, I won the turn fight.

I even took a load of cannon rounds from him, which contrary to popular belief, did not instantly end me. They oranged the rear half of my fuselage and broke an elevator off. I was still able to out turn him with this damage, and as he tried to run away to reset I sprayed him with MG fire starting at ~800m away, and he got to about 1.2km before I got an engine fire on him and let him burn out. (More examples of botu the advantages of .50 cals over cannons, and fires being beneficial and not any worse than wing snaps) cannons would not have been able to do that.

@dovah4

If I have to be hyper specific where my guns hit, and no one else does. Why is that fair? I’m not even talking ‘realism.’ if everyone is broken why can’t my guns be?

Ive already both explained and shown this multiple times, you can afford to be LESS accurate with .50 cals. Cannons require MORE precise aim.

Im up to I think nearly 20 different kills now Ive shown in this thread. Look at where I am aiming. Im not aiming for any specific spot, Im aiming to hit the plane. Because when you have lots of high RoF guns, you have A LOT of lead in the air, and some of it is going to connect.

Again, aim ahead, let them fly through the rounds. You aren’t trying to hit specifically the engine, you are trying to hit the plane. And you WILL hit him. You’ll hit along the whole length of his aircraft.

Im not sure why I have to explain to you a third time now why this isnt true.

With cannons I make sure I am lined up and use as few rounds as possible, heck even with other nations .50 cals (such as the Ki-44) I have to do that due to still having lower ammo counts. I dont have to do that with American .50 cals. Just fill the sky with lead and they die. Its that simple.

[RedEye_ツ]

@SpeclistMain1

The issue is that .50 cals - outside of those lucky cases - have to really on a mechanic that takes extra time, is inconsistent in damage, and inconsistent in even doing any damage, while also not being able to do basically anything to structural components despite how blatantly illogical that is.

You cannot expect .50cals that have 0 explosive filler to chainsaw wings like that man.
I wouldn’t have issues with Gaijin getting incendiary rounds to work properly ( I believe there’s a report on it btw) but you cannot have the same punch as a 12.7mm filled with HE or 20mm round does. It makes no sense.