this thread is a follow-up to a bug report.
We can have discussion if we can have some leeway to get more fun (personally I am supporter of realism) elsewhere.
I wanted this thread to be discussion about realism because, based on what i’ve found we have problem with lack of realism but GJ wants more documents.
I’ve also created it to have “peer review” of my claims. If people can find proof to contrary they could show me I am wrong, etc.
I am 100% aware there are lot of people who think this is more fun (as well as those that think it’s worse).
I was aware that majority (as confirmed by Smin to no one’s surprise) prefer it this way to what we had before.
I personally prefer this to what we had but I’d prefer more realistic damage even more.
I beg to differ. The OP is using current damage of Mg.151 as being too excessive as being above the upper end of what 20mm cannons should be capable of. Damage models in simulator mode are identical to RB mode so what he is advocating for is essentially returning to damage levels less than the bugged realshatter damage that we have just gotten rid of.
Basically if you nerf current HE damage from MG.151 by a mode 10-15%, it also means that every 20mm cannon shell should perform significantly worse than that nerfed version of MG.151. It means that we are back in the same boat of the only viable planes in Simulator being US planes that carry M-20 API-T…which would probably suit the OP fine since that seems to be the kind of planes and playstyle he prefers.
But in the mean time everything else would just suffer because US planes can already tank damage in sim and still remain faster than almost everything. The way that OP enjoys sim is by prioritizing never ever dying which means all of the normal tricks you would see in RB match; basically longer time to kill only benefits fast planes and passive players because their mistakes cannot be punished.
Right now there are no tanky damage models other than bombers.
There are also no well armed and worse armed planes. 2 shells = ded.anyway.
No longer I have to smoothly move my point of aim. If enemy crosses my stream of shells - he’s dead or crippled.
Head-on is a death sentence if enemy lands anything. No longer I have to be caught in a burst. I just have to catch a single shell and I’m either dead or.forced to RTB.
Right now the only thing that counts is performance.
Unless of course you’re flying something with .50 cals, then you are shafted.
P-51H will eventually reach 6.0 or 5.7
Regarding cannons - now everyone got “standard shells” with different ballistics, but same damage. So no longer any variety here, unless we count Germans who have to land twice as many shells for the same effect.
So your argument is:
90% of bombers are now easier to kill so it’s a good change
While 10% of bombers with cannons that will disentigrate fighters from 1km away are fine.
Why is every discussion always black or white?
Saying “Too much damage is better than too little damage” is not an argument in a discussion about that cannons deal too much damage.
How about we just settle with “cannons shouldn’t be that powerfull but also not worse than a .50cal with explosive or incendiary rounds”
20mm cannons aren’t automatically better than belt-fed .50cal MGs.
A cannon with a mere 60rds might deliver a bigger punch but is also limited by the number of rounds.
200rd of .50cal deliver roughly same burst mass as 60 20mm rounds.
And just like with .50cals you wouldn’t see planes losing wings and tails but rather get set on fire, or have pilot or engine knocked out, in addition to structural damage which reduces flight performance.
To knock out a bomber due to structural damage with 20mm explosive rounds is far less likely than to knock out it due to a fire staring. A bomber is simply to large to easily fall apart or suffer from lose of control compared to suffering damage to it’s very large fuel tanks.
I’ve been arguing for the damage to brought down to their historic, recorded peformance.
I am also a British main (branching out into Germany and Soviet recently in ground, damn near everywhere except China and France for air) and thus have an obvious incentive to get the round neutered. Though in that case APHE really does have an extreme advantage over every other round, hence why it’s extremely common to keep taking APHE on the T-54/55 even as advanced sabots and even early darts are showing up with way more penetration. Because any penetrating shot, even a poorly aimed one, is horrifically more crippling compared to even the most center massed kinetic or most explosively packed chemical round. Take the classic ‘high skill’ cupola shot. A lethal shot that will kill most if not all of the turret crew for APHE, but one of the worst consistently pennable shots to aim at for literally any other round.
I’m getting off topic though. Every cannon is currently fine as is because, while probaboy a hair overtuned, they are all overtuned instead of just one cannon/round being viable which is where the comparison between aircraft cannons and APHE breaks down. Damage models should be updated to a new system ideally, it has been several years, but that’s a much longer solution than simply buffing Mg 151s in the meanwhile to bring them up to par.
I think they’re still fine damage wise personally and that the majority of complaints are just the unceasing malding from axis mains not having their 2013 instant death laser beams anymore but whatever. Mg 151 not being hit by real shatter has turned from the most oppressive advantage in props seen in years… to a somewhat mild nerf relative to everything else. Get it on the real shatter system, or whatever “fix” Gaijin claims it to be and shut up about it.
But cannons SHOULD do a lot more damage. That was entire reason why countries like britain opted to fit the spitfire with Hispanos instead of 50cals. They did a lot of damage, especially against bombers which were very common in the european theatre. Countries like the US, rarely had to worry about heavy bombers in the pactific, so 50 cals were a far more sensible option for many of their fighters as they were mainly fending off other fighters.
In the case of bombers. The issue is rarely what guns they have, but their gun coverage is. Lincoln as 20mm guns, but basically no coverage and I reckon is far less dangerous than a Ju-288C with mostly 13mm turrets that can fire in almost any direction.
But i’d rather be in the situation, where cannons were a little over-tuned, but killed reliably, than being under-powered and actually lakcing the necessary firepower to take on heavy targets like bombers or even be in the situation where I have to spend a protracted amount of time chasing someone because i have to put 50 cannon rounds into them.
If im in a spitfire, on the tail of a Bf109 at low alt, there is nothing they can do, they are dead. So what difference does it make whether they die in 1-2 seconds of fire, or 10 seconds. They’ll die either way. But to me, in the event of it taking ages, not only is that really bad gameplay, but im also using up most of my ammo, limiting what I can do against the next guy but also potentially problematic in a furball against multiple targets. I shouldnt be punished for that
That being said, again this is mostly an issue with damage models, not how much damage the shells do.
I think one thing a lot of german players dont seem to take into account, is that, at least in some instances, they have less cannons than other nations have. Bf-109 has 1 whilst the Spitfire as 2. Even if they did identical damage, the spitfire is at an obvious advantage. So short of halving the damage of the spitfire to match, then it will always be imbalanced when looking exclusively at “damage dealt”
To be fair mineshells do have a substantial amount of explosive filler and that should be reflected. I think it won’t make much of a difference anyways because War Thunder models pure HE poorly compared to HEF. The exception being when everything went to real shatter where, as bad as HE and HEI was, it was substantially better than rounds that relied primarily on fragmentation.
yeah, the difference shouldnt be significant, though it may be a factor. I’ve seen someone complaining about something with 6x cannons and it being OP. Well. Im not surprised
Though I really don’t know what the “nerf party” actually want. How big a difference do they actually want. I reckon at the moment, It takes around 10-20 rounds to get a kill. How many do they want? 100?
Yeah, im loving the MkIX again. is actually fun. Before it was dump all my ammo into a Ju-288C, maybe get a kill, then RTB because I was out of 20mm ammo
That issue should be solved once they implement Mg151’s to realshatter so it receives it’s deserved buff.
For now we can only wait, hopefully they are working on it.
I expect eventually, all ammo to be added to the system, regardless of size. Im sure even something as small as the 303 rounds would eventually benefit from more “realistic damage”. Yeah, it never did a lot of damage IRL, but certainly might be more consistant at least. But definetly things like 50cals would probably benefit.
Yeah. It is hard to tell, especially when I’m willing to bet a good chunk of them have ulterior motives just like me with APHE. Some are probably bomber players who miss not being one tapped by everything (fair enough but also piss off nothing should be immortal), some are axis players or US mains who probably liked having the only effective armaments in the sky, some are probably people who simply got saved more by super poor damage than screwed by it.
No I’m not bitter about real shatter completely screwing the prop meta and making missiles the only effective weapons in nets. Why would I possibky be bitter?
Yeah, I think these changes have a net positive result. More aircraft are viable/fun to fly these days than aren’t. Damage model improvments certainly would be good, but wont necessarily mean you survive any longer, just maybe you’d die “more realistically”
I tried the Spitfire Mk24 in a SQB match a 2ish months ago, was dogfighting against 2x Me262s and holding my own. Dumped 100 rounds into one, got a few crits, (nothing overly essential though) but no kill. If he had gone down, or especially if he had gone down a lot sooner, then I might have won that 1v2, but he didnt and I died because I was on his tail firing for a protacted period of time
You carry limited ammo → You might run out of cannon rounds or already have against other targets
The time to kill is different → You might get engaged by other aircraft before you can shoot him down
You need to get closer to increase the number of hits instead of sniping a plane out of the sky
You see, as you progress the tree aircraft armament increases.
When 2-4 LMGs is enough to take out planes at 1.0-2.0, especially when they don’t have armor for the pilot, at 2.0 and higher you enter the territory of .50cal and 20mm cannons.
With the pilot is protected by armor, LMGs become severely lacking, not to mention their poor ballistics.
So (high velocity) .50cal negate the pilots armor and allow you to hit at longer ranges, with the trade-off of having lower RoF.
An early Spitfire has 8 LMGs, a P-47 has 8 HMGs.
If we discount armor penetration and ammunition, it’s a trade-off between RoF and range due to better ballistics.
Now for the Spitfire to be competive it needs a weapon upgrade.
You could trade 8 LMGs for 4 HMGs, which allows it to defeat armor and knock out pilots more frequently again, with only a minor increase in weight for the armament.
Now we know that they went with two 20mm Hispano Mk II cannons with 60rds each instead and kept 4 LMGs. Which is heavier than 4 HMGs.
Since the LMGs are very ineffective, you are basically limited to the cannons and since you want to be able to pierce armor plates (protecing pilot and fuel tanks) you will be carrying 1:1 or 1:2 AP (or Ball) shells for every HEI.
So you get on an enemies 6 and you only require one 20mm hit with ball or AP to kill the pilot, just like a 7.7 or 12.7mm. Only problem is you only have two guns that can pierce armor and half the ammo is HEI. So while it’s obviously possible to kill the pilot with the 20mm rounds, you’ll mostly spend a large number of rounds to score such hit in the first place.
Now what about 20mm HEI? Obvously it won’t cut off the wings or tails of the plane in a few hits or firing Ball, AP or SAPI wouldn’t even be neccessary.
What it can do is to actually set fire to fuel tanks unlike the 7.7mm, since self-sealing tanks are pretty tough to damage with .30cal bullets. A direct hit would be catastrophic.
Shell fragments also can injure or knock out the pilot as well as pierce any fuel- water- and oil-lines and tanks.
You see, it’s quite possible for a single 20mm hit to be fatal, it just needs to hit critical components.
But just like with LMGs you need to actually hit.
And since you’re only carrying 60rds per gun with half the RoF of LMGs, getting these hits can be difficult.
Making it unlikely to down more than 1-2 aircraft realistically and 2-4 in the game with the cannons, while at the moment you could easily shot down 10 aircrafts, if all rounds were HEI.
And while it’s easier to down a plane with cannons, it’s more likely to get more kills had the Spitfire 4 HMGs instead of just the two 20mm cannons with limited ammo.
Now of course this changes drastically when you increase the 20mm ammunition carried like with later variants.
In your example given you would easily be able to take out the Bf 109 with your two 20mm cannons spending maybe 10-20rds and getting 4-6 hits in which would probably be lethal.
Remember 1 hit, can be enough, if an AP or HEI kills the pilot. Otherwise the plane will probably start to burn or at least be heavily damaged to the point where it will be going down shortly.
What’s not going to happen is the Bf 109 losing its wings or tails after getting hit by 1-2 HEI shells.
And while LMGs are kinda underpowered, it’s still possible to take out planes that decide to expose their pilot and engines in a turn or even penetrate armor plate at close range.
It’s just less likely to get a kill shot in a short amount of time compared to 20mm cannons that deliver a much bigger punch in a short period of time.
Of course it wouldn’t hurt, if the ammunition was reworked to actually have the expected results.
No. They are nor favored even more, when their armanent is inferior.
Re.2005 used to be pretty bad at 5.7 but at least it was outgunning Yak-3U.
Nowadays? It’s getting outperformed and there is no real difference in firepower.
Firepower has been removed from equation.
Really good gunnery is no longer needed.
Planes do not feel anything like real machines, they are extremely fragile, like made of wood and paper. Ta-152C3 and Ki-10 can withstand same amount of punishment essentialy.
MG151/20 is right now by far the weakest 20mm. And it was hitting too hard already.
P-51H has extremely horrible armanent right now. It requires a ton of hits. Anything with 20mm requires 2.
Pushing head-on has become a lot more solid tactic for people who can’t aim, because if 1 shell lands, the enemy is crippled anyway and good players will have to dodge every time if they don’t want to end the game with 1 kill. And very often dodging is not fully succesful or done very narrowly. I see even very good players getting nicked by single shot here and there. Which further proves my point that good and consistent gunnery should matter, as it gives reliable effects unlike bad gunnery and barely getting guns on target for a milisecond.
After the extreme superbuff, 1 shell and their performance is crippled to the point that RTB ASAP is the only option.
My KPB decreased. Why? Because in many tight situations (and I’m talking even pre-real shatter when Shvak was still hitting too hard) I was indeed taking some damage, but it allowed me to get guns on target seconds later. Because I was able to deny a good shot to the enemy. But I was getting spammed with shells anyway.
The Re.2005 is moving up to 6.0 BR in large part because of the firepower advantage that it had over other planes while having mediocre performance. The firepower not being the main selling point anymore might actually force it to go down in battle rating for once.
That is also false. You can just hit a smaller number of shots from longer ranges now.
You are playing a video game. If planes felt like real machines then all sorts of additional damage would be modeled like hydraulic fluid leaks, air compressor leaks, etc would be modeled where even light damage would make you combat ineffective and compel you to return to base.
I’ve already shown a plane taking 5 hits of 20mm to kill with 4 of them being in the same area.
P-51H also has performance far and beyond anything at it’s BR that it really should never be at risk of being hit in the first place.
Then maybe the meta for good players is to no longer take head-on’s because they are more risky.
If the enemy hit you then you didn’t really succeed in denying them a good shot…you were just relying on luck and consistently lower damage to survive.