It was annoying because the airfield AA in air RB always deducts a small amount of HP value for all parts of the plane every time, including the pilot. That was not caused by an actual hit, but rather a game mechanics. It could be made that the pilot starts to lose pull only after the HP has been downed below 50%, the same should go for the control rod damage.
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DTIC AD0139640: Effectiveness of Small Arms Incendiary Ammunition at High Altitudes : Defense Technical Information Center : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Very good report on 50cal incendiary effectiveness.
Also this one:
Effectiveness of Incendiary Ammunition Against Aircraft Fuel Tanks
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Can you make a summary pls? I cant be bothered to press the link and read myself.
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That would make it a lot better, yeah.
Wrong.
You mean the Jap 12.7s, German 13mms, and Russian 12.7sthat have almost a 1km range mixed with AP and high explosives can’t do the same? Lol.
Right because 3 cannons or two cannons magically don’t have spray capability. The same cannons and even MACHINE GUNS that can snap wings in two hits or less?
"You don’t get it dude! YOu can just spray and you MIGHT hit something important with .50s!! But with cannons you have to be pin point! Just ignore the fact that if they hit the these giant barn doors called a wing with their high explosive rounds they completely cripple them! "
Let’s not forget multiple countries like Japan, Russia, and Italy and germany have a mixture of both their machine guns and cannons so you’re having a bunch of 1 shot and 2 shot guns hitting and spraying at you. For german 13mm machine guns. you can get belts that are literally just all IAI that have explosive filler. Heck. Spraying even with TWO guns is just fine
When you have two, three, or even FOUR guns on your plane that can just crap damage on their own
The only advantages the U.S. .50s get are slightly faster velocities and slightly better range than other weapons. But then you run into Shvaks that hit out almost over 1km. And most ranges you’re fighting at is less than a km! Heck. I argue sub 600 meters. Unless you think the entire gameplan U.S. planes should have is just HEAD ON PEOPLE.
LOL. The MG 131 has bad velocity and horrible ballistics.
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Lower velocity with worse falloff. Nowhere near as consistent and much harder to hit long range shots. But you wouldnt know that because you haven’t flown any of them
I mean you’re welcome to spray with your 20mms if you want. See how long your ammo pool lasts you doing that. One? Maybe 2 kills?
WILL hit something important* 4500rpm btw
Most planes with 2x 20mms have backup MGs. Im so scared! Those super scary 2x 7.7mm MGs are totally doing so much damage!
900ms while most cannons average around 750ms initial velocity on their rounds - again with much worse dropoff.
Keep focusing entirely on the damage the round does and ignoring all the drawbacks, that’ll totally get your point across
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Insane ammo count? You can squeeze the trigger whenever the enemy is vaguely within position to be shot at and never worry about running out of bullets. This makes jinking .50 call aircraft harder than 20mm aircraft because while someone in a yak or bf109 might be fighting to saddle up, wear their opponent out and finally go for the burst… the hellcat, corsair or mustang can just shoot every time they think they might hit without sacrificing long-term impact.
Incredible saturation (the enemy MUST fly through your bullets, while with 20mm guns it’s possible for planes to fly in-between your shots if your lead was slightly off - quite likely with Mg151/20 x 1, but even with hispanos on spitfires).
And sure, maybe 10 cannon rounds guarantee a kill while 10 .50 cals only turn the wingroot orange but… Having your wingroot turned orange means jinking becomes much harder and rolling out of the way becomes a rather uncomfortable business.
This amount of wing damage + damaged stabilizer made the difference in whether I had the roll rate to reverse an opponent or not in one of my dogfights I lost. I could quickly roll right just fine, but reversing my turn to the left was slow enough that my tried and true approach let my opponent remain in control.
Was it an instant kill? No. Does it matter? In furballs maybe but 1vs1, it made a massive difference.
Do these not exist?
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That is really common with Type 99s especially, they have some of the lowest RoFs I believe, so enemy planes flying through your rounds happens all the time, even though you get two of them.
Even the planes armed with Quad Type 99s run into this issue more frequently than you’d initially expect lol.
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Yeah no they can’t and don’t have all these capabilities in a single round which is pretty much what you want for the US .50cal lol.
You have, it’s just inferior and will eat all your ammo.
Berezins have roughly 200-350 ammo in 1 or 2 MG’s on most planes, so if you sneeze while holding LMB you may waste all your ammo… you have 6-8x the amount in most US aircraft.
Jap 12.7mm has more ammo than Berezins but way worse ballistics or ground pound / AP potential
I mean you tell me who can spray for a longer period of time, a Yak 3 or a P51-D10?
P47 or Spitfire? F4U4 or A6M5? F2G or Bf109 K4? Re.2005 or F4U4B?
What a disaster, most nations used 20mm and 13.2/12.7mm with HE as their main armaments, almost if these offered superior firepower. IAI belts that have explosive filler? 20mm Mineshells? How dare they.
That if u literally do not move, you have so much time to dodge ShVAK’s at this range.
Also if the enemy had .50cals in this scenario then you’d be actually in trouble.
Yeah… it’s not like you have 1.8k rounds… just slightly faster velocities and better range.
3.4k rounds? Lol that’s nothing… 0 benefits from it I guess.
It’s not like the planes that have such armament are any good either right…? P47’s, F4U4, Bearcat at 4.7 (lol), P51D-10, D30, P51H (best prop in the game btw), P38’s that also have 1 20mm and airspawn. US suffers.
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The damage shown is easy to dodge with. Especially against fat american planes. The only exception was the damage to the elevator.
If you were struck with one HE round your plane is completely ganked. What you showed was not only survivable, but if you didn’t have your elevator struck you would be able to turn and fight back.
So it’s either “I’m damaged a bit but I can still fight back.” or “I just had my wing tip separated from just two shots and I’m dead now.”
I’d much rather be shot at by U.S. planes because at least they have to score multiple hits on me for anything appreciable…
Italy and Japan almost always pair their guns with 12.7mm. So you get two guns that I said before can two shot you. Towards the later half of the German tree. They pair their guns with 13mm that have similar damage output to japanese 12.7mms. Russia usually carries 3 cannons (That can hit out to a km away btw.) or they have their guns supported by backup 12.7mms which are also two shot kill.
So you can argue disingenuously all you want. But you know I’m not referring to 7.7s
Even still, you have two 20mm cannons that can one shot you.
Yes woohoo. It can shoot a bit farther. Big woop. You tickle them once or twice. Do you just sit still and let people take potshots at you?
I can count the many times I was struck by Russian 12.7mm and had my wing completely blackened or severely damaged even from almost a 1km away.
And you need to hit them once
My spray does a tickle, Their spray snaps wings.
When their machine guns that are literally the same caliber as mine can somehow snap wings in two shots and have belts filled with rounds that have their most damaging projectile while my plane is stuck using AP and it’s most damaging round barely consists in the belt. Then yes. I have problems,
I can say the exact same about .50s. Just dodge bro.
When most of your planes are fat, are highly dependent on positioning, require a sustained burst with the same weighty flight models and the game heavily favors one-shot, two-shot kill guns. Yes. All that ammo goes down the drain trying to hit a target only for a good chunk of your rounds not doing anything besides tickling some parts of his plane unless you’re lucky to hit a fuel tank or the pilot.
I barely even consider ‘engine shots’ as kills anymore unless the guy either has his engine completely crapped out (Which won’t happen unless you hit the engine multiple times) literally has no backup or is skating the ground over half-the-map away from his base.
Again. If Gaijin is going to make other nations machine guns have the capacity to completely detonate my plane in just two or so shots. While they have belts FILLED with the round that does the workhorse damage. Meanwhile. U.S. late-war universal belts are just chock full of AP and only two of the rounds in the link is actually incendiary. I don’t see why having the M23 in the universal late belts being able to hit a bit harder would be a bad thing. Especially when in a WORST CASE scenario in terms of explosive mass. It would still have the damage of HEF Italian 12.7mm.
But, If the U.S. had a better belt with more incendiary I wouldn’t bother. But currently one of the best damage dealing rounds the U.S. has towards wing structure barely exists in one of it’s belts and does piecemeal damage. But at least it’s better than tracer.
It’s almost like every country in WWII recognised that rifle calibre rounds are not that effective against aluminium aircraft, so they switched to 20-30mm cannons. America, joining late into the war (showing up in North Africa in late November of 1942) didn’t get the memo, and were still using .50 calibre because they only showed up when the Allies were winning. Oh, and for the Pacific Front: Jap planes were built with origami paper, so of course .50 calibre would poke holes and shoot down their planes.
In case you forgot, Rank I and a big part of Rank II, the other nations did not get very powerful rounds. They got rifle calibre rounds like the 7.92mm for Germany, 7.7mm for Britain and France, and I believe the French were using 7.5mm as well. America is quite literally the best, because while other countries are playing Hitmarker Simulator, your .50 calibres are ripping their planes with one brrrt. Americans also get the advantage of only using one type of calibre, which means you don’t have to learn anything. Same ballistics, same everything. Which means as long as you have three brain cells, you can lead the same exact way every single time and guarantee an elimination. All other nations have to deal with swapping calibres every five seconds, going from rifle calibre, to 20mm, to 30mm, to 45mm, back down to 22mm, and on and on and on. Americans can stay ignorant, everyone else has to play, “Guess That Shot”.
Read up above. Sadly your’re going to need to read almost 200 posts for full context.
Firstly. “Brrrt”-ing people only works if you hit something important. The vast majority of your kills will either be pilot snipes or fuel fires, but that’s if you strike the fuselage. Everything else will hit the wing.
Other country’s cannons and machine guns can hit you almost anywhere else, and with high favorable belt compositions that favor wing structure damage the most. You wind up with some countries where their Machine guns just consist of the most damaging round it has.
Other countries machine guns can do two shot kills, gaijin balances off of gameplay. Not realism. If it was realistic. airframe durability would vary GREATLY. Some airframes would be a pure struggle bus to KILL while some aircraft could just be torn to pieces easily.
Similarly. you have aircraft with machine guns of the same caliber with literally barely any filler (Enough to rub inbetween your fingers) somehow able to lop off wings with two hits.
Incendiary filler is explosive. But it’s dependent on the compound with some compounds having %56 TNT equivalency.
M23 has over 5 grams of filler. While Japanese and Italian ‘HEF’ rounds contain 0.6 to 1 gram of explosive.
Going besides realism. America really has no belt that actually uses incendiary to any significant degree besides stealth.
If gaijin added an Air targets belt for U.S. aircraft that consisted mostly of Incendiary and one or two AP-IT It would be much better. But as it stands. if the U.S. belts are just going to consist mostly of AP. I think the stray incendiary should hit much harder.
Have we played the same game? Most machine guns are doing hitmarkers and barely tapping your wing. Of course 20mm will do more damage, it’s a bloody 2cm wide round ripping through your wing. It’ll do more damage than half a centimetre.
You’re completely missing my point.
This is Italian 12.7mm ‘HEF’ with literally 0.6 grams of filler.
Other countries machine guns can do this damage.
Just about every country’s 12.7mm machine guns can basically blacken or destroy a wing in two shots. While having favorable belts.
U.S. Machine guns can’t do that. U.S. belts consist barely of any incendiary rounds and are almost all reliant on AP. U.S. doesn’t get any favorable belts with their .50s
I dont know about Italy, the entire Zero line has 7.7mm MGs, the Ki-61s have the 12.7s but also have the Ho-5 cannon, which is probably the worst 20mm in the game. (It does NOT one shot people even with the HEF).
All the Spitfires up until the Griffin spits have 7.7mm MGs. All the German aircraft up until around 5.0 I believe also have 7.92mm MGs.
Russians are all over the place. Only some have 3 cannons. Normally its 1 cannon and 2 MGs, or two cannons. Neither of which have a remotely large ammo pool. shvaks aren’t any more accurate than most other cannons, and you’d want even less to spray out to that kilometer distance you claim with them because its literally wasting your extremely limited ammo pool. Which again, you wouldn’t know.
Stop arguing disingeuously yourself.
Your argument directly contradicts reality, as I have already shown with plenty of clear evidence. I dont see a reason to respond to this. Repeating a false statement doesn’t change the fact that it is false
Cherry picking the one aircraft line from the entire tree. The vast majority of Japanese aircraft usually carry 12.7mm or equivalent machine guns. Shouldn’t you know this? You’re a Japan main. Are you not?
Italy is like Russia having multiple cannons if not. Equipped with 12.7s supporting their cannons.
“Your argument contradicts reality” No you proved my point. It’s only useful if the guy doesn’t dodge. It’s funny. I point it out before “yeah, it only works under this specific circumstance” you proceed to show said specific circumstance and go “See! It proves you wrong!” Like what are you even getting at?
The dude was 0.8km anyway. You could’ve hit that with Shvaks or berezins. I think even japanese.50s too could’ve touched you.
I cherry picked… Half the prop fighters in the tech tree?
Uhh okay I guess. Meanwhile the Ki-61s are the least scary planes in the game with consistently some of the most lackluster flight performance.
But thats clearly fine because their 12.7mms get some HEF rounds! Ooh scary! It might blow a wing off with the same number of shots as a M2 browning takes to also down someone!
You are NOT gonna believe this!
The majority of every dogfight is literally GETTING your opponent into a position where you hold all the advantages and they do not. What guns your plane has doesn’t change this.
The whole reason all my clips are showing that is because thats what im doing, intentionally! Not giving them a chance to escape or dodge! Look at the spitfire clips, im doing the same thing even with a pair of 20mms.
If Im proving your point, then what you must be saying is that that a bad player wont put themselves into good positions and won’t hit their shots, which I figured was kinda obvious.
Also, in that clip if I had Shvaks or Berizens, I wouldnt have even bothered firing. It would have been a waste of yet again the extremely ammo those planes have. I might have fired if I had Hispanos or Type 99s, or even MG151s, but would have been unlikely to score a hit. And wouldnt have been able to fire enough to range him in to start scoring hits.
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Showed this as untrue. HEF rounds are ultimately stronger and can two hit kill. Still strange that a japan main can’t get things right about their aircraft.
Very easy to use protection analysis. I recommend you use it.
You are NOT gonna believe this!
Firing at an unmoving, non maneuvering target to prove your point doesn’t actually show anything!
When I point out that the ‘long range’ only works if the dude doesn’t actually maneuver and just lets you hit him. And you showed the exact thing I was talking about! Guess what?! You proved my point! It only works if the guy doesn’t bother looking behind him! For you to kill him. You literally have to hope he doesn’t look BEHIND HIM
I guess the P-36G should go up to 5.3 now because you can hit a non-maneuvering target at long range!
Rolling left vs rolling right was night and day.
I waited for the enemy aircraft to cross behind my canopy as required for the reversal and it worked perfectly for the first part of the scissor to the right. Reversing the turn to get my nose on target took too long, I overshot and the next time I tried to reverse I got bursted to pieces.
Elevator damage did less than wing damage. I also have a recorded dogfight where a Bf109 shot off half my tail (stab+elevator - literally fell off) and that fight I could roll just fine and force an overshoot.
In an objective measure - I had roughly the same roll rate with half stick to the right as with maximum stick to the left. Maybe trim could have equalized the roll rates, but I was a bit overwhelmed with trying to survive.
Now, the wing damage wasn’t why I lost. I lost because I got greedy and got jumped after my opponent hid inside the cloud thinking I could jump them instead; however it made the difference between being able to use high-speed/diving scissors to disengage and reset for re-engagement and what I described above.
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