The US reason to use 50cal is clear, the 20mm ANM1/M2/M3 is good working onboard P-38 and SB2C. The reason is explained during the Joint Fighter Conference in NAS Pax by an USAAF officier that since 50cal is more than enough to deal with BF-109 and A6M, the way improve combat effectiveness would be decided with the median level within the Air Corps, and the 50cal is won by its reliability and faster time to target than ANM2 20mm, plus the shorter barrel mean smaller interference with aerodynamic performance.
As I have listed all those gun cam footage, the damage of 20mm, including MG-151, is overperforming in the game. You are keep repeating arguments and until you have valuable historical evidence I will not keep discussing this topic with you.
On a per weight basis, 20mm are currently massively more effective than US .50cals.
Since US .50cals don’t get explosive bullets which also massively overperform.
So while US .50cals are much better in reality, it’s compensated by 20mm also being much better.
Personally I don’t enjoy getting set on fire by a single .50cal from 800-1000m and then burning down but I also don’t like having my wing or tail shot off from 1-2 20mm. Not to mention how 20mm cannons make 30mm and 37mm shells completely obsolete to bring down bombers because 20mm already hit like 30mm shells.
It gets even more crazy when you think that realShatter 15mm MG 151 would be straight up better than MG 151/20 or even most 20mm cannons, simply because you know get very good ballistics, high damage and good RoF in the same package.
Gaijin blessed 20mm Mineshells with the same damage as other 20mm only to have the worse range with no benefit.
So while they hit hard, so do three times 12.7mm APIT and make that six, because you are easily hitting twice as often than slow Mineshells that drop like mortar shells.
the us experienced many problems with its Hispano copies and the p38 is an exception not a rule, the helldiver is also from 1943 and even it had issues initially, m2s were simply good enough and the US stayed with them, You posting a p51, la7, and spitfire literally getting shot down, does not prove mg151s are overperforming no matter how hard you want it to.
To correct you by 1944 SB2C was already employing 20mm for ground work, F4U1C also uses 20mm for ground work, same thing for late F6F-5N mostly use 20mm for strafing rather than air combat. They switch off 20mms when engaging with Japanese Ki-45. The USN in PTO mostly view 20mm as an air-to-ground weapon as it is more effective on dealing with de-gassed aircraft and anti-aircraft guns.
pedantic much? the p38 was an objective failure in Europe and the helldiver wasn’t used there for obvious reasons, the US only getting working 20mm by the time the Japanese air force was shot down is just correlation they would’ve been used for air use if they a still had an Air Force.
The overperformance of the US 50cal in the game mostly came from the M20 belts, which I haven’t yet find any evidence of such arrangement during war time, in conjunction with an over-accurate bullet dispersion. It is also getting benefits from the simple fire damage model, where the fire always been modelled equivalent to a Class 6 fire as in IL2-1946, combined with a gasoline explosion and immediately tiring up FM. However this feature is mostly compensated by Gaijin’s effort on decreasing the firing chance of fuel tank DM on some aircraft, such as Ki-84 and Yaks, also a lots of Twin-engine and Four-engine aircraft.
One thing I’ll add to the F8F talk is that it’s an extremely rewarding plane if flown with its strengths but also extremely punishing when you make a mistake.
To properly fly it means using MEC is a requirement so that your engine doesn’t cook itself before you can actually flight. You also need to understand when to switch your supercharger, otherwise you’ll sufer a brutal engine power loss when you most need it.
The plane also has a remarkable high speed agility and can be untouchable if you keep your speed up.
However, the plane loves to dump it’s energy like no tomorrow with even the slightest turn. If you hadnt shot down your target in one or two turns, which with 4 .50 cals is quite common, you need to pull away immediately.
Which, for a naval plane, its low speed performance is quite poor. Unlike the F4U which can use its flaps to win that fight, the F8F must pull off or die.
Considering your average player does not use MEC, has lack luster firepower to make high speed passes count and atrocious energy retention pulling any kind of maneuver. One starts to see why it has its BR.
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Anyways, my coin for the .50 cal discussion is that it’s the most effective if you nail your target in its convergence range. If you don’t then damage tends to be minimal.
Everyone always remember when a well timed .50 burst saws your or an enemies wing off. But when all it gets you is a couple of hits, which is not uncommom, no one cares.
Contrast with 20mm that just needs 1 HE shell to connect, regardless of your convergence settings.
Yeah but FI-T and IT deal a lot less structural damage than Mineshells.
Like on that clip where a B-17 gets peppered from a Bf 110 and you hardly see any effect.
Or multiple videos of Spitfires getting hit by explosive rounds without much effect but then one clip where there’s a big explosion and large piece gets torn off from the wing.
A lot of the explosions you see in combat videos are the gun magazines being cooked off. It’s why when you see some footage of a mustang shooting a FW190 where its wing just spontaneously combusts.
Gaijin doesn’t model guns as a damageable module. Would be interesting though, a downside to using gunpods for more firepower. Increases your chances of your wing getting blown off.
Kinda true, kinda not. In the gun camera I posted there were plenty of big 20mm impacts.
Which IMO means that in some cases, for whatever reason, non-M-geschoss belts were used. While 20g of explosives is not a lot, it’s absolutely enough to create some clearly evident damage with parts flying and not just some small flashes.
Why? why does it matter? I dont understand it. its what the other guy was complaining about too. “this one specific round doesn’t do enough damage even though theres very clearly a much better belt RIGHT NEXT TO IT that is significantly stronger and fixes literally all the problems I’m having but nah ima complain about this one round that doesn’t do as much damage”
an MG151 under perfoms if you only use the tracer belts with the F-IT shells as well you know? does that mean we should buff the MG151 despite all its other belts containing Mineshells?
I genuinely don’t understand the complaint and the heavy resistance against just using the belt that works instead of the one that doesn’t.
You mean they dont show anything that backs up your argument. Because they showed that .50 cals kill just as fast as 20mms.
Are they bugged? Or are they just worse than the M20 API-T?
Are the F-IT rounds on the MG151 bugged because they dont do as much damage as a Mineshell?
Are the SAP rounds on a Hispano bugged for doing less damage than HEF?
You know what a very effective belt type is? The M20 tracer belt. Its literally the best of both worlds, best damage against aircraft of all the belts AND has penetration for going through the top of ground targets as CAS.
Im not sure how you can suggest that is my only point, when your only point is NOT that M2 brownings are under performing, its that this one specific round that is not even part of of the best belts for the gun is performing worse than you think it should.
Even if they buffed it to be lets say as good as the M20 round, it still wouldnt make those belts it is part of any more viable than the tracer belt anyway.
