Cannons doing too much damge

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
,
182

This my brother in Christ, has no basis in anything I have written and is an absolute, blatant, obvious lie or a deliberate misinterpretation of my words.

You also absolutely misinterpreted my words about good gunnery, as I never said anything about riding someone’s tail - most of my kills come from HARD deflection shots, as even 50% WR pilots somehow manage to being their A game of dodging against me. During deflection shot you may either hold the point of aim in place basically and wait for the enemy to fly into shells (easy) or keep moving it in a way so enemy plane receives multiple shots in a smooth manner. The latter took me A LOT of effort to learn for whatever reason and I’m still far from truely “good gunnery” but my aim is OK. If cannons worked like they do right now, there would be 0 reason for me to improve. Even in scissors when enemy is crossing the nose you may increase the time you have guns on target if you play it right. And that’s good gunnery too.

Now on topic of cannon damage, where you misinterprwted my words again, for no practical reason…
Early real shatter cannons were dealing around 1/4 of current damage and were hilariously ineffective.
At the same time MG151/20 was hitting a bit too hard actually.
MG151/20 was too effective vs tails and wingtips. I did not like the fact that people died to only 2 shells landed. Or that my 1 lucky shell absolutely crippled their planes. It felt like luck. And I don’t like “being lucky” I want my kills to come from my own good gameplay. So maybe I should reword it - planes should have a bit more resilient tails elevator, rudder, veritcal/horizontal stabliizer and the entire tailplane because it ripping off super-early was kinda anticlimatic.
I mean, I’m not talking about aircraft like Yak-3 or La-7 where M-geschoss could pass through aircraft skin in many spots clean through and not explode or deal damage. You can observe this in protection analysis, this is IMO delibarate move from Gaijin since it’s been like that for years.

Anyway, with these fixes to plane’s HP and magical fuse sensitivity that allows it to not damage Soviet aircraft randomly, MG151/20 would be kinda fine.

Then everything else should be adjusted accordingly.
Shvaks and Ho-5 received ridiculously good ballistics from Gaijin based upon best case assumptions. Which is a further argument for making them noticeably less hard-hitting than MG-151/20. Noticeably less doesn’t mean “early real shatter”, because during early real shatter cannons were basically showing damage that would fit Berezin UB HE bullet more (BTW right now HMG HE bullets absolutely rip planes apart and we’re back to MG131 being a hammer of gods, and Sweden’s 13mm being a weapon of mass destruction).

Regarding head ons - the trick is to commit very late. Have faced Gopic (or whatever his name is) guy a few times. Learned what he does, finally did aim correctly in Fw 190 F8 against his A8, critted him long range (he wasn’t going directly at me), tried to dodge, he went full commit, I died again, his engine eventually died but 4 of my teammates decided it’s a good idea to head-on a smoking Fw 190. That’s my trick too - and it unfortunately works pretty damn good. Either I’m getting good position or my opponent dies of we both die. Nowadays you don’t have to fly anythng well armed for mutually agreed destruction anyway.

183

yes but I am not claiming that all have to have damaged reduced by the same amount.

read everything I’ve written after you take 10 deep breaths and you will see it.
I understand - I attacked your precious “fun” state of game and you are aggro’ed on me but because of that and you don’t try to understand what I try to say but take everything as potential threat to your beloved “new status quo”.

it’s evident by you constantly saying I want old state to be reverted, etc - I’ve already stopped correcting you on that. If it didn’t work 5 times I am sure 6th attempt will fail again.

In stead of taking everything I say as wrong and spending time to find a reason why it’s wrong - just read it

1 Like
185

They were not. Real-shatter did not reduce cannon damage by anywhere near 3/4…people might have perceived it that way but in reality it was probably a 50% reduction in damage for most cannons with a much higher RNG factor based on where they hit.

MG.151 damage was not affected by real-shatter at all. It is just as effective and just as subject to RNG as it was 9 months ago or whenever the ballistics changes went into effect.

Do you have anything to substantiate your opinion? Or is this just the Air RB version of “muh russian bias”?

Same question above.

Nerfing MG.151…and then nerfing everything by 40-50% below that means going to a damage model that would be even worse than the bugged version of real-shatter.

186

You are assuming that people are too stupid to read the implications. If current MG.151 is over-performing in your mind…then it means that every other cannon is over-performing by an even more drastic measure. The logical conclusion is that what you are advocating for is that Mg.151 should have its damage reduced by 10-15% which means every other cannon shell should be reduced by a much more drastic percentage.

Dude I am not going to make this personal. Nerfing MG.151 and then nerfing all 20mm cannons to perform below that is the same as returning to bugged real-shatter damage. Making guns do less damage only makes the game better for passive players who’s primary objective in the game is to never be killed which is already easy enough to do because you are never more than 5 minutes away from an airfield…even in Sim.

187

He misread your statement, and his misrepresentation is more generous than what you actually claim.

Your actual statements are to the effect that

  1. Current MG.151 is over-performing and should be nerfed to “realistic” levels.
  2. Every other cannon is over-performing and should be nerfed by 30-50% of whatever the “realistic” level of MG.151 is.
188

Lol why are you lying like that? Why can’t you just discsuss my arguments and not some made-up fantasies of yours?
I never said “50% below”. 50-55% of MG151/20 was the worst case scenario.for the worst cannons we have in game, that have 20 to 25% explosive filler and same or lower shell mass and ONLy at long range! I wanted them to deal 70% of M-geschoss up close! And 60% at medium range. This of course can be tweaked a bit f.e. 75% instead of 70% up close, why not, still it would be about 2,5 times less destructive than it is right now.

You aren’t trying to discuss the topic with me, you’re just producing made up statements trying to make me sound ridiculous, while I am just a strong fan of weapons being reasonably strong, but also balanced.
Why can’t all cannons have excellent ballistics then, if they all can have otherwordly damage? Why not just give all planes in game same belt and same weapon stats? MG151/20 is mentioned so many times because IRL it sacrificed ballistics for hitting power. And in game it gets by far the worst ballistics, even compared to cannons that should NOT perform better, while the hitting power is sub par anyway. So lets give everyone same ballistics and ROF too.
And ammo count, while we are at it.
Then I can accept every plane is armed with insta-delete weapons.

And P-51H will drop in BR, since its armanent once again is grossly inferior to everything else. You may claim P-51H is well armed, while it along with F2G are the only planes I can survived being hit by a few times in Fw 190 and Ta-152H and Reeeeee.

189

And yes, every cannon is overperforming, but Type 99 and AN/M3 at closer range should deal similar damage to MG151/20, not 30% less, I even mentioned it in one of my posts.

190

How am I lying? You have made the following points in this thread.

  1. You believe that the MG.151 is over-performing and should be nerfed.
  2. Other cannons should be nerfed so that they do less damage than MG.151.
191

And find me, where I mentioned AN/M3 or Type 99 should be 70% of M-geschoss at short range? I’m greatly interested. Because I remember writing they should be hitting just as hard short range and the damage should be lower at long range.the only guns I want nerfed 30-50% compared to M-geschoss are Shvak and Ho-5. And I may even agree upon 25% at short range, but still they should both be noticeably less effective.

192

I’m curious - why HE shell damage should differ with range?

193

Because kinetic energy does not disappear. If shell is moving fast, fragments carry more kinetic energy, they can penetrate more material and deal more damage.
Of course this doesn’t really apply to M-geschoss which has a huge explosive filler. But for Shvak it may be a difference between damaging the wing spar or multiple wing ribs or landing gear or weapons or pierce fuel tank and just scratching the paint/making small dents that will annoy the ground crew and that’s it.
6g of TNT filler will not propel.fragments at very high speed on its own.

1 Like
194

ok, fair enough. I guess I was too focused on damage from explosion and not shranels :)

2 Likes
195

Just these fragments won’t have the power to snap spars. The explosive filler isn’t exactly high and these fragments can’t have this kind of kinetic energy.

196

So when it takes more than 1-2 20mm hits, cannons are no longer lethal??

You can put hundreds of 7.7 into a plane as well as 12.7mm when they don’t hit critical components.
With 20mm cannons it’s a lot more likely to deal serious damage.
That doesn’t mean that everytime you land 1-2 20mm HE rounds on a plane it will go down in a fireball or fall out of the sky.

Just like hundreds of 7.7 will deal miniscule damage to a plane going through an empy wing, so will a 20mm HE.
A 20mm hit =/= instantly downed aircraft.

If I have 1 second on target (firing against front) with 8 LMGs it’s 130 rounds flying through the air.
If 20 hit the plane from which 5 hit the engine, the plane it going down (sooner or later).
If I hit the wing, it will have practically no effect, even when hitting (self-sealing) fuel tanks.

In the same scenario it would be 3-4 20mm hits. If one hits the engine the plane will suffer engine damage and go down at one point. If they hit the damage might not bring down the plane but will reduce it’s ability to fight due to aerodynamic damage. It’s also likely to receive critical damage to fuel and cooling systems.

While it’s not guaranteed to take out the plane, it’s just way more likely to do so with 20mm cannons.

At the moment any 20mm HE hit will take of a wing tip, elevator and rudders and around 2 are all it takes to break a wing or tail. With 23mm rounds and certain 20mm cannon requiring just one hit to do so.
Even 13mm HE rounds will instantly destroy elevators and rudders.

We’re again at the point where US planes, had they used .50cal HE rounds, would annihilate every plane due to the amount of damage HE rounds deal to planes.

It’s the same with APHE in ground battles. Gaijin just refuses to make them realistic so APHE is the dominate round, even though others should achive the same result.

In the air, armor penetration and explosive amount determine the damage to components and other rounds are considered trash that belongs to the default belt.

20mm Practice, Tracer, Ball ammo won’t knock out a pilot with a direct hit, while AP will do so, even at ranges where the penetration is lower.
Makes no sense from neither a logical nor from a game mechanic point of view.

1 Like
197

Not “snap”, puncture, dent, weaken. Shell impacts at 350m/s relative velocity, add 400m/s from bursting charge and the parts of the nose are now going at pretty good speed.
Also wings require multiple impacts to fail. The more energy is transfered, the earlier it happens

198

Does it matter?

ShVak, Hispano, and Japanese cannons have had pathetic damage output for most of the time I have played the game and what you are advocating for is returning to pathetic damage output.

Unlike you I have actually played planes other than the Ta-152H so I probably have a better understanding of how bad damage output effects some planes.

The bottom line is that lower damage output allows planes to tank more damage, makes it harder to punish mistakes, and encourages even more toxic behavior.

This whole argument shouldn’t even be about realism because War Thunder damage models are completely hollow, pilot resiliency is through the roof, and even catastrophic damage has much less effect on flight performance than it would in real life. Couple the above factors with the fact that the airfield is usually 2 minutes away in RB and you have an environment that is far more survivable than real life.

Let’s put “realism” into context. This is from Sim EC. I forced enemy player to run away from me for a solid 5 minutes with my Yak. Guess where the collision happens? Practically over the top of his airfield and twice as far away from my own.

The time from a 600kph head-on collision to touchdown on my friendly runway is less than 5 minutes. Total time elapsed between collision and complete and total repair is 6 minutes and 10 seconds. This is Sim EC so none of the hand-waiving about “RB instructor holds your hand” applies here either…this entire one-wing RTB sequence is done with a stick and throttle…and it was not any harder than returning to base in RB while using mouse and keyboard.

1 Like
200

Shvak before real shatter and before Shvak buff was performing just like it should - quite badly, but OK with FI-T belt.
Ho-5 was horrible - and rightfully so.
Hispano was doing bad because SAPI was absolutely useless.
Type-99 was pretty good.
Japenese 30mm had magical stats for like forever to kinda even things out a bit :P

I’m not asking to bring back Shvaks to the right level.
I’m asking to make them basically almost as strong as pre-real shatter, and after Shvak buff. Almost because Shvaks were way too strong back then too. But I’m still willing to accept Shvaks to be stronger than they have any right to be, hence 70-75% of MG151/20 damage from up close.

Your argument about me playing exclusively Ta-152H, when in the last month I’ve been playing Ki-84, Yak-3U, AM-1 and AD-4 is kinda funny, especially if we consider that you are producing one false statement after another, it seems compulsive at this point.
Stop for your own good.

You are also lying to yourself because you keep implying I want weapons to deal some super-low damage, like early shatter levels, and this is very far from true. If weapons were properly balanced, and plane damage models fixed, you’d still be able to “punish mistakes” easily. You’re the one claiming P-51H has no trouble scoring quick kills. And I’ve been killing 3 guys per battle average for months. So if you’re THAT MUCH BETTER at killing people, then where the hell does the assumption that getting kills with reasonable amoounts of damage and ridiculously good ballistics of Shvak and Ho-5 would be difficult come from?
If you can kill P-47D with MG151/20, then even after properly nerfing Shvak and Ho-5, you’ll be able to score easy kills with those too. From longer range, pulling less lead and wasting less time and energy anyway.
Destroying P-47D wing with Yak-3U after my proposed buff means you’d have to land 5-6 shells from close range. Lets assume 6. With 2 Shvaks that fire 13 rounds a second each, that’s mind blowing 0,225s of firing required. With 1 Shvak and no godhammer Berezins that’s 0,45s.
With P-47D tail getting buffed and requiring 4 Shvak shells (and 3MG151/20) to demolish, that would be mind blowing 0,15s of firing. WOW SO LITTLE DAMAGE.
LOOFAH IS DEFINITELY ASKING FOR PLANES TO BEHAVE LIKE TANKS. KEEPING THE GUNS ON TARGET FOR 0.15s IS SO HARD, CAN’T DO IT, BUT I CAN KEEP GUNS ON TARGET FOR 4 TIMES AS LONG IN P-51H NO PROBLEMO.

And lets not forget Shvak is 800 RPM, because that’s basically the best historical number, Ho-5 are 900 RPM, because that’s the best number, and MG151/20 fires 700 RPM because that’s basically the WORST number Gaijin could ever find.

Also while IRL cannons had quite some spread, in WT 2 Shvaks of Yak-3U or 2 HO-5 of Ki-43 or Ki-84 hit basically within centimeters of each other every time, while every single engine MG151/20 armed plane with sole exception of Ta-152C3 has guns spread out enough to hit 2 separate modules. And since clobbering 1 module 4 times a wing, but 2 modules in the same wing require noticeably more firing time (it does NOT work like that IRL BTW either), often they’ll be spread out enough so the explosions do not overlap (look at my P-51H screenshot to get the point, 8 hits and yet wing was largely OK) so for Fw 190 D9 firing 2 MG151/20 even right now, without any nerfs or adjustments you need:
around 0,34s to destroy P-47 wing in worst case scenario ( MGs will often not be hitting the same spot cannons are striking, and even if these MGs will land - after the nerf they shouldn’t make impact big enough to reduce number of shells required by 1)
around 0,23s to destroy P-47 tail.
OH NOES somehow MG151/20 requires more firing time than NERFED Shvak. How so!!! It can’t be!

And even if we just go 1 Shvak vs 1 MG151:
800 vs 700 ROF, because Gaijin has not nerfed MG151/20 ROF to now bring it back to historical values then vs P-47 wing:
MG151/20 scores a kill in 0,34s
Shvak scores a kill in 0,45s.
As clearly visible, Shvak deals no damage whatsoever after my proposed nerf.

And now the best part:
Shvak has 100% FI-T belt.
MG151/20 in BEST CASE SCENARIO has 4 in 6 M-geschoss belt.
Which means average 4 shells will include 1 AP/IT shell which deals next to no damage.
And this means more often than not you’ll need 5 shells to get 4 M-geschoss impacts on target.

Of course if IT worked like IRL - which means it explodes (because low-explosive will create huge pressure buildup inside a steel body), then a cone of fragments travels forward followed by the rear of the shell spewing a ball of fire - then MG151/20 would be in a bit better spot.

But it’s not. And it won’t improve any time soon even if it gets RS too!
At best it’ll kinda match Shvak’s power per HE, but will still have less HE shells in belt and WAY worse ballistics.
So either way, if we keep current implementation of RS, MG151/20 will be by far THE WORST mid/late war 20mm in game.

201

Dude stop defending AF camping and AF running. It’s a patheric strategy.

Anyway, it seems Gaijin went with “lets simplify flight models” instead of “lets make instructor apply proper input so flying a realistic-behaving plane can be done effectively with mouse and keyboard”.

202

his claim was not it’s not fun or bad sportsmanship and I am not discussing that.
He claimed it’s unrealistic and to that I answer that on 128x128km maps like we have in SB it’s not

203

I am begging you to not change the cannon damage xD

Its so nice to one tap aircraft again.