.50's deserve a buff

[_Zekken]

@dovah4

Any belt I use that consists of purely API-T or API I will usually end up with the same result as shown with the F6F. The entire aircraft is yellowed and the only time I will do damage is if I hit the fueltanks of an aircraft or the pilot. But those aren’t consistent spots.

Because at least there’s some incendiary in ground targets or universal. I will at least make some of the super structure of the plane orange whilst also having almost the exact same ability of lighting people on fire.

… But the M20 round IS INCENDIARY???. Its API-T. armour piercing INCENDIARY-Tracer.

The belt is entirely made up of that one round.

And again, this is exactly what I am saying. You are making statements that are directly contradictary to my experience, and what I have shown my experience to consistently be is.

it’d be nice if you provided a nice long video compilation like I did to show your point, or even just what you are doing and how you are using the guns, rather than just posting screenshots and the very occasional single clip of one kill. That would speak a thousand more times than any of those screenshots.

@dovah4

So again. You got to have your rounds hit the spot that actually does damage and light the enemy on fire and cause a fuel tank rupture.

This is still such a cop out argument because even 20mms have to hit “specific spots” to do damage. The wings are just as specific as the fuselage.

And this is ignoring the fact that in that 1 second burst on that Bf109, I also blackened the rear fuselage, both tail wings, and both wing roots, before ripping the left wing off, which was aside from all of the other damage. Because as I have constantly argued, it doesn’t matter where you hit with M2 brownings, because you are going to hit everywhere and it is going to decimate them.

@dovah4

Volume of fire is less effective if none of your rounds hit anything important.

Then stop bloody missing. Its so much easier to land hits with M2 brownings than almost any other gun in the game. Its not even an argument. The Yak has such a limited ammo count its not even a comparison, he has to be much more accurate and careful with his rounds or he runs out of ammo. Getting “an accurate burst” in is so much easier when you have SIX M2 BROWNINGS than it is with one 20mm and 1-2 Berizens that get jack all for ammo. Not to mention the ballistics.

@dovah4

Frankly, if you look at the velocity of ho-103. It’s literally almost at 20mm cannon velocity (compare with mg151, Shvak, and Ho-5 and Type-99 model II)

It has nowhere near the damage of 20mms, qnd while its ballistics are better than 20mms, but the velocity fall off is nowhere near as good as M2 Brownings. Its nowhere near the capability of lasering people at 1km+ that M2 brownings can do.

@dovah4

Which makes it even worse when you see a plane like the ki-44

Exactly. This is your entire issue here. Its why you are hyping up one of the most “meh” .50 cal guns in the game. Its not the guns, its the fact the Ki-44 has insane flight performance at its BR, as does the Ki-43. The only two planes that gun is a primary weapon on. They are both drastically over pronouncing the weapon and its capabilities. The HEF round doesnt make those guns OP, it makes them usable.

Its so weird how fixated you are on the Ho-103 specifically, especially when as Killakiwi mentioned the Berizen is stronger, the MG131 which you’ve completely ignored is stronger especially with its IAI rounds, without even mentioning other guns like the Italian Breda guns which have super weird velocity dropoffs.

@dovah4

With the current belts. I don’t see why the U.S. can’t bridge that gap by keeping the belts the same and letting incendiary do more damage. Or let the U.S. have a belt that’s consistent of basically almost all incendiary. I mean, the B-239 gets something similar. Why not the U.S.?

Because the US belts literally do enough damage as it is, and they’ll only get other belts added if they were used historically.

Anyway, the fact of the matter is that this discussion is going no where. its been months. There isnt even any agreement on how much damage M2 brownings are even doing, let alone whether or not that amount of damage is enough

You are saying that M2 brownings are only yellowing or oranging stuff after significant bursts, with critical damage only coming from very specific spots such as fuel tanks or pilot snipes.

I am saying that M2 brownings are decimating enemy aircraft just as fast as any other gun without needing any more time on trigger than any other .50 cal or even 20mm armed aircraft.

You cant even debate whether they are doing enough damage or not, because there isnt even close to a consensus on just how much damage the guns are doing in the first place.

And so the argument for the last however long as just been:
“.50s dont do enough damage”
“Yes they do”
“No they dont”
“Yes they do, heres evidence”
“No they dont, here is evidence”
“Yes they do”
“No they dont”

Is there any point going around in circles anymore?

[PercussionCap]

@_Zekken

Its why you are hyping up one of the most “meh” .50 cal guns in the game. Its not the guns, its the fact the Ki-44 has insane flight performance at its BR, as does the Ki-43. The only two planes that gun is a primary weapon on.

There’s also two Ki-61s that it’s the main weapon on, but notably they’re very often ‘slept on’ in favor of the later models with 20mm cannons. Really telling.

[RedEye_ツ]

This thread is pointless at this point, it became an infinite loop of denial and disagreement.
It’s easier for the OP to make a bug report about US .50cals damage / incendiary and see what Gaijin has to say about it lol.

[Irregular23]

Well the thread owner, KillaKiwi and I all posted issues around this and especially the incendiary effect, with no proper response from the issue manager.

[Mahrs]

One exception - the F6F-5N. I learned this to my dismay yesterday as I flew it out for the first time. It doesn’t have access to the API-T late war belt that is otherwise common from 3.7 and up. Luckily, the 20 mm do a good job making up for the meh quality .50 cal belts.

ETA: for me it still comes down to flight performance. Yes, .50s have some advantages in terms of ammo count, velocity, accuracy/volume. They also have a disadvantage in terms of damage output, shot for shot. Fine and good. When I fly something like the P-51C-10 or the F8F-1 and the flight performance is so good they might almost be Russian/USSR, the “Browning Tax” feels fine… just the price you pay. When you fly something that feels low performance, the Browning Tax hurts a lot more.

Purely anecdotal, but I imagine a Corsair that I shot down a couple days ago would have liked more damage. He hit my A7M1 and set me on fire, took off an elevator, beat up my fuselage and at least one wing root. Sadly for him, missed my engine and no H2O/oil leaks… and when I caught up with him after a couple mins in a fur ball (a kill or two later), I still had more than enough flight performance to send him back to the hangar.

I suppose that speaks to damage modeling as well. Not the first time losing an elevator on the A7M1 left me as… still the most maneuverable plane in the fur ball (but now with even more energy retention! ;-) ).

Since my last post I ground through to the Yak-3 (base model). Nose mounted 20 mm cannons are really, really nice when they’re not German. I can only dream of having a bit more ammo to combine with that flight model… but I guess the ammo count is how they are balanced. No complaints regarding the Type 99s though, I like them a lot on the A7M1 and the ammo count is there.