m3s are an entirely different beast, they have a much higher fire rate and literally shred.
x2 M3 browning = x6 M2 browning right? Firecrest seems undertiered too ngl
Just count the RoF:
Two M3 fire 2400 RPM which is 3.2 M2s firing at 750 RPM.
So less firepower than a P-51C.
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Firecrest has very nice performance. When you can get the enemy in sights for even a very short sustained fire event, .50 cal proves very deadly.
Some planes just seem to work, despite the armanent theoretically being sub-par. Still, I’d take a single Berezin firing HE with 250 rounds over 4 M2s, but hey, maybe one day HE will be back to normal performance, with different rounds dealing damage in different ways (overpressure M-geschoss kaboom and hard hitting full caliber AP vs some fragments and incendiary + steel cored HVAP for Shvak, that should behave like every other HVAP, that is, be absolutely useless, lmao).
You would need to completely redesign damage modeling to stop being just HP on modules.
I don’t understand why they won’t do that when they have a baseline. Rounds can deform the model, as shown in protection analysis where you can see the model physical deform. I don’t understand why Gaijin doesn’t use this as a means to measure skin damage to the aircraft and calculate on the average diameter hole for drag reduction. Instead of just a single 12.7mm blowing off a wing or a single AP round somehow turning a fuselage into mush. Same thing with internal modules like spars. Then add in G based structural failures.
You have the beginnings of it. Just go that route and completely revamp aircraft.
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Firecrest is an abomination for 2.3 lol
they will basically never reach a fuel tank, since they vanish into the skin of a plane, dealing the damage of a singular shrapnel from a he round, they also deal minimal damage to pilots IF the cockpit is open, since even unarmored glass stops them.
Not even a skin of a reserve biplane can be penned.
“these results” being ones that are quite good and more than enough to put you in the top 3 of your team in any match.
I don’t. We might have been squadded but apart from sh*ttalking each other in voice chat we were separated and chasing kills separately.
Now add in the P-38G.
And has ANYTHING changed? They didn’t get nerfed and their opposition didn’t get buffed. If anything, USA teams are stronger now because of the Fireball.
I don’t care enough to go play an obviously overpowered plane to prove a point here. Like with .50cal damage, they are more than perfectly fine.
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Another case of API not doing anything of value to start a fire. Multiple hits in nearly all fuel tanks and not a single fire started.
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Red engines and orange fuel tanks are the result of two, at most three, .50 cal hits.
If .50cals set any fuel tank on fire with just 1-2 bullets hitting them, we wouldn’t need 20mm or larger cannons.
Just everyone equipping their planes with a bunch of .50cals with 2000 rounds.
With German P-47s sweeping through B-17 formation, lighting them up one after another.
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Here’s the short answer. There’s a lot of reasons why not. But it’s based all on aircraft design, doctrine, circumstances and limiting factors:
Germany did so with their 13mm. They replaced their 7.7s where they could with 13mm.
Or the 13mm gun pods? G-10 has 13mms, G-14 has 13mms, K-4 has 13mms.
A bunch of countries replaced their rifle caliber machine guns with 12.7mms and above. Look at Sweden. They designed their aircraft with the armament in mind, as did the U.S.
Germany needed to do so because the 7.7s weren’t enough and you only have the war budget, aircraft space, and weight limits to retrofit larger caliber guns on your existing aircraft models I.e. why didn’t germany just stuff the 13mms into the wing? You couldn’t without substantial changes. therefore gunpod.
As you said “German P-47s” Germany had no desire or doctrine for an aircraft like the P-47 until they did. And what did they use? The Fw-190. But it was built to different standards with available materials and the U.S. had much more leeway to produce things like turbochargers that use valuable raw materials. Remember. Turbo chargers are basically just a few steps away from becoming a centrifugal jet engine.
Why did Germany move onto more incendiary rather than just keep pure high explosive? Because catching something on fire is more important than trying to blow something apart especially as you don’t have the volume of fire. Better add more incendiary than HE this time. And as shown in the weapon vulnerability report. 20mm HE is not so hot compared to incendiary.
Mix that with the fact you don’t have as much room to stuff in as many guns as possible.
Look at the 13mm machine guns compared to the cannons. they’re tiny. But why didn’t Russia use their own .50 for any longer? Look at russian fighters. They’re tiny, and if they can only fit two guns that have similar fire rates, they’d rather stuff the 20mm because it’s bigger and I bet the design challenges of routing ammunition through multiple belts to try and fit multiple guns is not worth it.
Look at the F8F. Only has 4 .50s. But as we known and as shown by this image.
You don’t have many guns firing off at once. Which the whole point of .50 is a swarm of bees that can light you on fire. It makes the guns less effective. Look at how small the F8F is as well.
Contrast how the ammunition for the .50s and the 20mms are arranged. Two guns in a more compact or similar package size. Mixed with good velocity, and fire rate. Why not just take the guns that fit the size better? Now look at the P-51D and P-47D. Large amounts of ammo, large amounts of guns and large amounts of space.
Are you beginning to see it now? It’s not like BDarmory, or Simpleplanes where guns are just shoved into a spot. They go into that spot because that’s where the ammunition can fit and you have to make choices and sacrifices based on the needs and requirements and limitations you have.
What made the .50s effective was that you were hitting everywhere, and it caught things on fire, really easily. At the same time. Trying to stuff 4 of these guns into each wing required space and proper ammunition routing. Sure you could have two or so nose mounteds which is cool and all. But if you can only have two guns, it’s better to just make them cannons.
There are no 13mm gunpods by Germany. Those were 15 and 20mm gunpods.
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I think I’m brainfarting rn, but does Germany have any 13mms at all?
Yeah. Bf 109 K4 has 2 13mm guns. Some of the Gustavs do as well.
Oh right the laserbeam MG131 things on the BV238. How could I forget…
Sorry, misspress right there.
Okay but both Bearcat and Corsair were converted to 4x 20mm armaments. You COULD fit more guns in the 109, the E models had wing cannons and there was one or two Fs fitted with them. But that’s a lot of weight you can do without when a single cannon is enough to bring down any fighter.
The US’ own evaluations that led to the production of the M1 20mm judged that a single cannon would equal three M2 .50cals.
Only in the engine cowlings or as defensive guns. It wasn’t used as a main offensive armament.
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Well yeah, a single cannon can be enough to bring down a fighter. If you want to be as compact as possible, it’s better trying to fit 1-2 20mm cannons than trying to shove a bunch of machine guns somewhere if your aircraft design is not really designed for it
I brought up the Bearcat as an example in the post. The Bearcat is tiny, I don’t think it would be possible to really shove 6 .50s in that thing without really stuffing it in there when just 2 20mms on each wing were compact enough and the same general silhouette compared to 4 .50s
Contrast with the P-47D and P-51D where you have long lines of ammunition, giving you large amounts of gun time
This was a USN study very early on and was basically comparing pure kinetic energy and they chose 20mm preferring more kinetic energy in accordance to their needs. People on the IL2forums used this website as gospel for so long not realizing that pure kinetic energy should only be considered a factor, and not the end all be all that people like to forget.
Sadly, in-game 1 20mm can be worth 8 fifties in terms of damage output. Insta-snapping empennages of aircraft like it’s some Michael Bay movie. Meanwhile I’m barely getting any fuel fires because my shots just don’t light up people unless I get a full on-concentrated stream of ALL my guns right into a guy’s fuel tank. When IRL it was expected that maybe one or two guns will hit the target and be seen as good enough to start a fire in a couple hits.
In fact, I’ll argue. I’m getting more engine fires than I do get fuel fires and that to me completely befuddles me.
Look at how many shots the P-47 missed. I got hit by what were essentially stray bullets and immediately caught fire.
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Please refer to this post and the videos attached as I talked about this exact thing:
Please stop using things that are statistically unlikely and treating them as the norm.
This is the norm I’m seeing.
I’m getting on average around 3-4 hits on fueltanks (This is not considering that sometimes the game will reduce the amount of damage the .50 does for some reason.)
2-3 hits on the right fuel tank, 1-2 hits on the left fuel tank.
I’m more than happy to willingly trade super-structure damage for higher fire chances. The addition of custom convergences for each gun would help too.