.50's deserve a buff

[Tubby_Vermin]

The way .50 cals are modeled has always been a hot topic, especially when compared to the sheer destructive power of 20mm cannons.

Real gun camera footage shows that bringing down an aircraft usually took sustained fire whether through structural damage, setting it ablaze, hitting the pilot, or even triggering an ammunition explosion.

But in-game, 20mm rounds often feel absurdly overpowered, while .50 cals struggle to match their effectiveness from my testing.

Buffing the post-penetration damage of .50s to something closer to the Swedish 13.2mm rounds when they were first introduced seems like a fair adjustment, even if it’s not completely realistic.

If 20mm cannons are essentially functioning like tiny HE shells with exaggerated damage, then smaller calibers should at least be able to hold their own.

The nerf to incendiary tracer belts is another frustrating issue. Late-war U.S. belts were notorious for igniting enemy aircraft in real footage, yet their in-game performance has been weakened over time.

Germany and Russia get access to strong 20mm options early, making U.S. weapons feel comparatively underwhelming for a large part of the tech tree.

If War Thunder really wants to balance realism and gameplay, tweaking .50 cals to make high-altitude Boom & Zoom strategies more viable would be a welcome change.

[SpeclistMain1]

@_Zekken

Thats a lot of damage from one bullet entering through the rear of the fuselage.

A yellow elevator, yellow fuel tank, and yellow engine is a lot of damage? That’s also going under the assumption that it’s a near-direct shot from the rear - which I get is the premise of what you were talking about - but that isn’t what’s going to happen most of the time.

@Ghostmaxi

Such wow, 2x 20mm with the ballistics of throwing a rock and 60 rounds each at 520 rpm, they are empty in no time with easily pretty much nothing hit.

They’ll be doing more damage than 2x or 4x .50 cals, though. Especially at the low BRs where the .50 cals get the early belts (at most one incendiary shell per belt, and with the rest being either just AP, just T, or just Ball).

@Tubby_Vermin

The way .50 cals are modeled has always been a hot topic, especially when compared to the sheer destructive power of 20mm cannons.

We don’t need AI summaries of the thread…

[Ghostmaxi]

@SpeclistMain1

@Ghostmaxi

Such wow, 2x 20mm with the ballistics of throwing a rock and 60 rounds each at 520 rpm, they are empty in no time with easily pretty much nothing hit.

They’ll be doing more damage than 2x or 4x .50 cals, though. Especially at the low BRs where the .50 cals get the early belts (at most one incendiary shell per belt, and with the rest being either just AP, just T, or just Ball).

More than 2, ok, but not more than 4, not to mention that you simply dont have the advantages (that were so often mentioned above) that 2 Cal. .50 have. Ballistics, Velocity, Penetration, Ammo storage, fire rate. The Mg FF only has 1 thing for it, some damage, but getting the damage on target, in a comparisson to Cal. .50 is a whole different story, if you dont see that, thats either skill issue or you are just completly biased.

[RedEye_ツ]

I’d rather have x6 .50cals over the current MG151/20 and even easily x4 over the MG/FF’s.
These are performing so poorly due to their outdated nerfed code and bad ballistics. Makes no sense.

[SpeclistMain1]

@Ghostmaxi

Ballistics, Velocity, Penetration, Ammo storage, fire rate.

MG/Cannon	Penetration (mm)	Velocity (m/s)	Ammo Storage	Rate of Fire (round/s)	Time to Spray (s)
M2 .50 cal (Late belts)	28-30	874-911, 1036 (everything except M23, M23)	425	12.5	34
ShVak 20mm (Standard belts)	28	800	120	12	10
Mg 151 20mm	26	Unsure	200	11.67	17.14
Hispano Mk.II	26-37	822-853 (AP-T, HEI)	125	10	12.5

So .50 cals get slightly better velocities (outside of M23 which is not the majority of belts) and more time to spray (on platforms that generally do not do well in long dogfights) as a trade for massively worse damage? Meanwhile cannons get to do massive amounts of damage with a limited amount of time to spray, even though their aircraft excel at quick and long dogfights?

[Ghostmaxi]

YES, and you also have LOTS of Cal. .50, you can easily outrange shoot them, you can shoot whenever you want, with ease of aim, and the damage isnt bad as you want to say.

@SpeclistMain1

ven though their aircraft excel at quick and long dogfights?

Pilot skill, there are different planes with different strength.

You now wrote the numbers yourself and yet are still blind, you are just so biased. Its not worth to concidder the topic. (Well it wasnt from the beginning, but thats a different story.)

[AlanHR]

Your comparison is completely moot. It would be OK if planes didn’t have multiple .50 cals.

For example compare any P-47D with 8 .50 cals and Bf 109 G-2 with 1 MG 151 and 2xMG 17. Which one has more firepower?

Thats why there is one second burst mass designation in the game.

Also MG 151 has basically the lowest MV of all you mentioned - 705-805 m/s.

[PercussionCap]

@SpeclistMain1

Their ammo is mainly ball or AP, they do not have good firepower.

They have fantastic firepower. Everytime I get a good angle on someone they’re either dead or terminally crippled.

@PercussionCap

@SpeclistMain1

There’s a lot of single 20mms below ~3.0

For who? Unless we’re talking about france (and they don’t have that many aircraft to begin with) they’re almost all at 2.7 or above.

@SpeclistMain1

Some deal of 109s,

You were talking about single 20mm-armed fighters. The 109 E-3 has two, and they’re quite bad in every regard. Very far apart, only 60rpg, bad ammo, low velocity, and even firerate is poor at ~500rpm. There’s a very good reason why it’s the same BR as the 109 E-1 with 4x 7.92mm.

@SpeclistMain1

The Hurricane Mk IV, it’s 2.0 rip.

That has two 40mm cannons.

@SpeclistMain1

Besides, one .50 cal bullet is not comparable to one 20mm in terms of engine damage.

Which is entirely irrevelant because at any given BR, .50cal-armed planes will have more guns (2-3x as many), each with higher RoF on average, and far greater ammo reserves. Sure, a .50cal may not destroy an engine like a 20mm hit would, but it never has to because it’s putting out several times more bullets in the air.

@SpeclistMain1

Because having to spray to maybe do anything, taking more time and wasting more energy due to more passes

You can fire accurately from much further away.

@SpeclistMain1

HE 12.7mms and cannons can waste ammo spraying people down

With their much smaller ammo reserves and half as many guns most of the time?

@SpeclistMain1

Japanese 12.7mm HE (0.6g PETN): 0.996g TNTeq

By the way this is the early 12.7mm HEF, which had also 1g incendiary filler alongside the RDX explosive. Actually, most of those other shells should also have quite a bit of incendiary filler, so this is not a 1:1 comparison.

@_Zekken

Like they aren’t even trying to extend to energy fight me, they just keep refusing to engage at all :(

I’ve seen this happen a lot to me, my only recommendation is to just turn away and go for a reversal or maybe bait them into friendly SPAA. Of course the fight much more boring then.
Can also bring someone else along (in a squad) to chase them down.

@Tubby_Vermin

Germany and Russia get access to strong 20mm options early

Neither MG FF is what I’d call “strong”. Their poor performance leads to some very good flying fighters though, like the 109 E-4 - a far more important set of capabilities than “it shoots good”.
And even in that plane I’ll get as close as I can to guarantee good hits and not waste the very few 20mm shells it carries.

@SpeclistMain1

Velocity (m/s)

To complete this chart:

MG FF/M has 675m/s velocity on its Air Targets belt; Type 99-1s at 588m/s on all shells, and Type 99-2s (only found at 5.0 and up to 6.7) at an unimpressive 750m/s. Ho-5 20mm are even worse at 740m/s. Ho-103 12.7mm are also very low on this table at 780m/s and high drag.

[Ghostmaxi]

@PercussionCap

MG FF/M has 675m/s velocity on its Air Targets belt

Well it should historically even be 585m/s to my knowlege actually.

[RunaDacino]

20mm cannons kill in 1 tap regardless of context and circumstance.

Proof:

20mm Breakfast of Champions

Spoiler

This is a satire post.

[Tubby_Vermin]

@SpeclistMain1

We don’t need AI summaries of the thread…

You’re right, we don’t, but the fact remains that this debate has been dragging on since the old forum thread. Countless other issues still linger unresolved, yet nothing really changes.

The Ugly Truth: Cannons better than .50cal?

[dovah4]

I would like to add that bullet velocity only matters for the first round in the belt. The M23 could have 10000m/s velocity but if the first round in the belt is AP it’s going to follow the velocity of AP. Gaijin did this so you wouldn’t have random rounds that fired at way higher velocities than other rounds which I think is dumb.

@AlanHR

For example compare any P-47D with 8 .50 cals and Bf 109 G-2 with 1 MG 151 and 2xMG 17. Which one has more firepower?

You would think it’s the P-47. But unless you have a sustained burst on something important. you’re mostly going to be striking the wings with API-T which basically do nothing. Even in slow stall fights where you have enemies cross the nose. There are multiple times my guns rake across an opponent but do minimal damage. But I’ll fight any cannon armed or even machine gun armed aircraft and I get tapped and my entire plane turns to mush.

@_Zekken

currently 5 kiills 1 death (the death was to SPAA). But heres a nice pair I got today:

Using kills as a metric when you’re hitting essentially a bunch of blind people is not good form.

But lets use this video actually. Because this shows my point to a T.

For the first plane. dumped 50 rounds on the first plane. Now I’m 99% sure not all the rounds hit but lets say 10 smacked him, again. we’re not counting missed shots here. That’s not productive.

on the second pass, You took roughly ALL CENTERED 20 rounds to just set him alight. Not even a pilot snipe So over 30 rounds on target for a kill with a vast majority of them being ALL CENTERED and aimed DIRECTLY at the important bits with no worries for convergence or anything of that matter… For the second plane, it took 20 rounds all centered on directly his fuselage to actually set him alight. For both aircraft. These are sweetheart targets too. You aren’t booming and zooming people. You’re dumping EVERYTHING into this guy.
Here’s a funny too. Just as an aside.

On the outboard wings (Not the wing section of the wing root but the two others) 7.62 does the same damage as API-T on the skin. On the spars it’s iffy but it can opaque yellow it on a single hit.

It kinda shows that if you’re stuck striking the wings you’re doing piecemeal damage, even with a bunch of .50s. You’re doing dookie damage unless you hit something important (Like the point I’ve been making before.

Now what about the Ki-44?

Using ONLY the two wing mounted guns. I tore apart a P-47 in a few rounds.

P-47 Kill

F6F kill

My F6F kill. You’ll notice something… I am missing a lot of ammo. And it says gun jammed. If you’re thinking what I’m thinking. Yes. At the beginning of the match I purposely jammed one of my guns to ensure I was firing at the enemy with only ONE GUN

One japanese fifty cal beats eight American fifty cals.

[AlanHR]

Here is .50 cal on tank which has lower RoF and only one barrel but it still does the damage - TBF wing rip.

.50 cal vs TBF

[KillaKiwi]

@dovah4

Gaijin did this so you wouldn’t have random rounds that fired at way higher velocities than other rounds which I think is dumb.

It’s most likely just a bug.
While all shells start with the same velocity, each shell has their own ballistics and slow down at different rates.

So there’s no real reason for that to be intentional.

It also effects gun penetration because the velocity is higher or lower than it should.

This might be a bug that‘s as old as the game itself.

[PercussionCap]

I was surprised, only one of the shells is that slow. The FF/M HEI is even faster at 750m/s, I think gaijin fucked up somewhere.

[_Zekken]

@SpeclistMain1

A yellow elevator, yellow fuel tank, and yellow engine is a lot of damage? That’s also going under the assumption that it’s a near-direct shot from the rear - which I get is the premise of what you were talking about - but that isn’t what’s going to happen most of the time.

My dude, you just need the same advice as this guy:

It's a machine gun

@PercussionCap

I’ve seen this happen a lot to me, my only recommendation is to just turn away and go for a reversal or maybe bait them into friendly SPAA. Of course the fight much more boring then.
Can also bring someone else along (in a squad) to chase them down.

Nah its just because Im playing a P-36 at 5.3 lol, its just too slow to keep up. It out turns them all though so if they do try to fight me they’re dead.

[SpeclistMain1]

@PercussionCap

You were talking about single 20mm-armed fighters.

Ah, I see that now. Sorry about that, I looked back to see what I was responding to but not the full context.

@PercussionCap

That has two 40mm cannons.

The wiki has 2x 7.7mms for some reason lol (for the record I don’t use the wiki for everything, but running war thunder just to check out a vehicle usually is too annoying for me due to my overheat-prone laptop).

@PercussionCap

.50cal-armed planes will have more guns (2-3x as many), each with higher RoF on average, and far greater ammo reserves.

Except the rate of fire difference for the M2s (pretty much all WWII planes iirc) to any 20mm isn’t that large, and the number of guns nor the extra ammo outways their poor damage.

@PercussionCap

You can fire accurately from much further away.

Accurately is relative, and the damage you’ll do isn’t much.

@PercussionCap

Actually, most of those other shells should also have quite a bit of incendiary filler, so this is not a 1:1 comparison.

Corrected with the flash powder (assuming a similar RE factor): 1.361-1.522g TNTeq (still lower than what the M23 should have)

@dovah4

I would like to add that bullet velocity only matters for the first round in the belt.

Tbh I forgot about that. The updated table would be:

MG/Cannon	Penetration (mm)	Velocity (m/s)	Ammo Storage	Rate of Fire (round/s)	Time to Spray (s)
M2 .50 cal (Late belts)	28-30	874-899	425	12.5	34
ShVak 20mm (Standard belts)	28	800-815	120	12	10
Mg 151 20mm	26	720-785	200	11.67	17.14
Hispano Mk.II	26-37	853-880	125	10	12.5

The .50 cal now barely has a velocity advantage (if it has one), with the only thing left being the number of bullets.

@_Zekken

My dude, you just need the same advice as this guy:

Except that goes under the assumption you are in the scenario of being near-directly behind the enemy with them not realizing you are there long enough so you can spray enough bullets.

[dovah4]

Two other people are already shooting at him so we have no clue how damaged he actually was. Mixed with what percussion cap stated before.

@PercussionCap

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

[AlanHR]

According to server replay only hits TBF sustained is from my MG. First hit was in engine area. Wings were untouched till rip.

Hit registration and tracer sync doesn’t matter for server replay because server counts damage only for hit it registers and on replay it looks like it registered only my hits.

[Normandy_Corsair]

Does anybody want to TLDR the last 100-150 comments for me so I don’t have to read pointless bickering