Ok I finally found something that could maybe give the .50 cals good damage. Going off of this suggestion for IL-2, flash powder (a similar compound to the Ba(NO_3)_2 used in IM-28) has a RE factor of 0.36±0.12, with the highest actually being 0.56. The TNT equivalence for the US incendiary rounds would be:
M8 API and M30 API-T (0.97g for both):
Worst case: 0.97*0.24 = 0.2328g TNTeq
Mid case: 0.97*0.36 = 0.3492g TNTeq
Best case: 0.97*0.56 = 0.5432g TNTeq
M1 I (2.2g):
Worst case: 2.2*0.24 = 0.528g TNTeq
Mid case: 2.2*0.36 = 0.792g TNTeq
Best case: 2.2*0.56 = 1.232g TNTeq
M23 I (5.8g):
Worst case: 5.8*0.24 = 1.392g TNTeq
Mid case: 5.8*0.36 = 2.088g TNTeq
Best case: 5.8*0.56 = 3.248g TNTeq
Meanwhile for the Japanese 12.7mm round: (PETN’s RE factor is 1.66)
0.6*1.66 = 0.996g TNTeq
In summary, API and API-T in the best case scenario would have a little over 50% the effectiveness of the HEF 12.7mm shell, the M1 I round would have between ~50%-~124% the effectiveness, and M23 I round would have between ~140%-~326% effectiveness
They don’t, the code still uses HitPower (old formula). I can link you the code to them.
There’s just not any sort of fragmentation applied to any of the rounds. What you are showing me is just the hitpower, I think any ball round behaves the same way.
Rounds that use realshatter have a specific line n code to them. So guns that do not use it cannot be affected by it at all is what I mean.
This is not always obvious, especially when they can still control their plane.
More bullets when factoring in fire rate, more time just generally (unless you get lucky with a pilot snipe or engine kill, where the .50 cal only matches the 12.7mm HEs/cannons), and less options because you can’t get structural kills outside of the most optimal scenarios.
I’m using by experiences in AAB (a while ago) and in ARB (the past couple of years).
I forgot that the DTIC website sometimes blocks my VPN’s IP if I don’t appear in the US. I’ll look at it in depth some more now. The main thing I’m looking for is the different types of formulations in comparison to IM-28
That’s fair. But respectfully , give custom battles with a friend a chance. So that you can have more clear results and u are able to clip them too freely. (It’s what I do for when I needed to bug report). Sometimes you can spot things that u didn’t notice before, etc.
It’s just the RE factor (basically a unit conversion by g specific explosive * RE factor = g TNT equivalent). PETN is well-known enough to easily find the RE factor (1.66).
People have already told you that the protection analysis isn’t always accurate. Especially since it only shows one bullet at a time, in a real game you’d be geting mulitple hits in the same location.
In the P-51H video I set every single aircraft I shot at on fire with at most a 2 second burst.
I get fires far more consistently with the M2 API-T belts than I get wing snaps with 20mms. In fact when even starting to play it I was actually suprised at how consistent the fires were.
That sounds like a you problem, its perfectly obvious to me, all 3 of the enemies I left to burn out in both of my videos I was confident were no longer a threat the second I saw the fire.
More bullets, same time from all of my clips, heck probably less time in fact since I spend more time physicslly aiming my cannons before pulling the trigger, compared to just spraying the .50s and adjusting as I see the tracers fall.
To be 100% fair, in AAB .50s are pretty useless, or at least were when I last played it a number of years ago now.
Again. Explain why I can grind someone down with API-T and have them get away scott free but the second I use stealth (Which has a 50/50 spread of incendiary and AP) it’s very consistent to damage a wing that causes sufficient loss in flight performance or full on snap it?
API-T quite literally does very little damage until you get incendiary involved
All the clips I showed except the two with the P-39 were using 100% API-T and as you could see, I was having zero problems whatsoever with it.
What you are claiming your experience with it is, is the complete opposite of what my experience is, and what I have shown here with video evidence that my experience is.
Generally you do normal damage if you can hit all of your shots all in a specific area.
The second you get outta convergence, you’re smacking wings and you wind up with just API smacking not doing much damage. until you have incendiary hits but you don’t have enough incendiary in a belt to obliterate.
the thread is irrelevant, they are perfectly fine.
I’ve found the issue though. Both SpeclistMain and Dovah have one thing in common… they literally have only flown US planes.
Speclist has a couple games in some low tier german planes and nothing else, the rest are all American planes.
Dovah Is the same, though you have played a few more games with some low tier stuff of different nations. (theres a Bf109 F-4 there with 33 games, and a Yak 1 with 21 games). But the rest is all American. And yet, I only see a pretty small number of games with any of the primarily 20mm armed American props from either of you. Only really the P38s, which when I’ve flown I’ve always relied on the .50s more than the 20mm in those. (But seriously though Dovah, you have a 3.9 KDR in the F4U-1A and a 3.2 KDR in the P-47D-22-RE, both with hundreds of games in each. why are you even complaining? you seem to be doing absolutely fine with them)
How do you guys KNOW that M2 Brownings are under performing compared to other .50 cal guns when neither of you have even used any of the others? how do you know how strong 20mms are when you barely ever use them?
You know the one thing that always solves a thought of something else being too strong/your thing not being strong enough in games? you go play the thing you think is stronger, and you see for yourself. And then after using that thing you thought was so OP for a while, you then go “oh” and realise that it usually has many of its own drawbacks as well.
I’ve played through the prop trees at least into jets for USA, Germany, Britain, Japan, and France, and I’m halfway through Rank 4 for Russia. That covers most of the prop tier guns you see in the game. And frankly from my experience, the M2 brownings are fine. They have drawbacks over 20mm cannons yes, but they also have some pretty damn useful advantages.
I did the 20mm thing and I don’t get it!? Where are all my wing snaps?
I even used all the HEF and everything! But the wings just wouldn’t snap consistently with 1 shot like I was promised they would! Only a few of their wings broke! I was lied to! 20mms suck!
Ok seriously though this was literally all of my air kills with this plane, in order, over a 3 game session. And by using the Air targets belts especially in GRB, you lose out on penetration for being able to go through the roof armour of tanks, which is a sacrifice you don’t have to make with .50 cals, since their best belts for killing aircraft ALSO have just as good armour penetration as most 20mm AP rounds.
Also pay attention to how much longer I am spending just aiming before pulling the trigger, or waiting for the perfect shot before firing. With a load of .50 cals I would have been able to start blasting, so while actual trigger time for 20mms is usually a bit shorter sure, actual time spent going to make the shot more than equalises the total time spent on target.
(don’t judge some of my misses, I just spent the last 4 days playing exclusively M2 Browning armed planes and was still used to their ballistics, so needed to re adjust to the 20mm ballistics)
And don’t forget, each hit your .50s make - even if not contributing immediately to the kill - wears out your prey. Yellow/black wingtim that makes jinking increasingly more difficult as the plane rolls less and less. Shot to the rudder that makes the plane uncoordinated and bleed speed all over. Fuselage hits that increase drag and making it easier to bleed your opponent of energy and consequently set up a killshot.
Being able to spray .50 cal without fear of running out is something I really, really missed when trying to see if P63A5 would be a plane I’d enjoy flying. I’ve missed far too many kill opportunities waiting for the enemy to be in the right spot and distance on my sight.
Yet the US 50cal may be one of the most far-reaching and easy-to-use aircraft MG in the game, the damage outputted by this weapon may have the largest variation in the game. You may either one-shot fire, or spend 1000 rnds on a S/E fighter, trade all of your ammo and energy just for a single target.
Another thing is that most people don’t realize that the performance of US 50cals are trade-off by the aircraft performance. The entire system of 6x50cal + 2400 rnd ammo weighs 480kg, in comparison, Japanese 4x20mm with 800rnd only weighs 350kg. Though the game only counts projectile weight of 90kg for 2400rnd of 50cal, the dead weight of the entire system was written in the fm file since Gaijin calculated aircraft weight by subtracting fuel weight from the gross weight.
Also, the easy-to-use property of US 50cal is further hindered by the unusually large value of compression loss and inertia of the US prop control property. Planes such as F6F and P47 were assigned over 50000 inertia value on the roll axis. (Which is even much higher than Japanese 6-ton twin-engine fighter J5N and torpedo bombers like B5N and B6N) Other planes such as P-51, F4U, and F8F all got unusually large rudder compression ratios, either being assigned a very low compression speed or with a very large compression coefficient. All of these decreased the nose-authority of the US 50cal carrierIn tracking a sustained lead on target to ensure a sufficient amount of hit to bring down a target. If such a weapon setting has been given to planes with extremely good nose authority, say BF109, would be a much more deadly aircraft weapon loadout.( One reason many people complain the over-performing 6x50cals on F80 and F86).
Haha I’ve tried to increase the dispersion of 50cals in il21946 and found them to be much more effective. However, the damage model in 1946 relies on random event, the scatter gun works better in that scenario. In WarThunder, the damage model is more of a bunch of hit points, so I think less dispersion will help more. Plus removing weapon upgrade will likely to jam your guns while trying to spray people. I suspect that late 50cals hit harder mainly because they have less dispersion and random shotFreq, considering that the onHitChanceFire of M20 was nerfed down to 10, same as the M8 API and every other API round in the similar caliber.
