Small shrapnel damage is when you can strain pasta through the other side of the plane? Any amount of stress on this part of the plane after taking that amount of small damage would snap it right off.
IRL the F4U-1C with 4x20mm still need to land consistent bursts on A6M5 and Ki-84 to make kills, and most of them won’t break down upon been hit by 20mms.
Currently in the game, 20mm would simply one-tap people and shot the aircraft into pieces like nuts, which makes the game less joyful, and it is unfair for planes with multiple 20mms(like FW190A8) and the one carrying 30mm+. It is better to rebalance the gun damage, make it back to the level around 2018 would be good for the game experiences.
4 Likes
Of course, the game should be as little fun as possible, especially for you
1 Like
Bruh, do you see that big rectangular cutout, thats much larger than the entry holes?
Thats an access hatch cut into the wing and somehow the aircraft can still fly without losing its tail.
If you cut a thousand holes into a soda can it still won’t collapse with a weight on top because the forces are spread on a very large area and a semi-monocoque design spreads the load on both the skin and the internal components.
Mineshell deal structural damage by blast, deforming and blowing away structure, not by a thousand cuts from tiny fragments.
The only way to separate the tail is a 20mm Mineshell exploding right at the narrowest point where the tail is attached to the fuselage and pressure is contained in a volume small enough to cause the structure to deform all around.
Planes losing their tails was an incredibly rare occurrence.
You can see deformation from the blast but it’s barely noticeable, since the large volume of the tail doesn’t allow for much pressure buildup from 20mm Mineshells.
You know what opposing force is, right? Early planes are tough, indeed. Well, some of them. But even that doesn’t protect them from structural fatigue and failure. Cut your thousand holes in a soda can, but instead of letting it sit idle - swing it right and left with full force and see what happens.
Are you serious? You think a plane missing over 75% of its wing area is flyable? That is not counting the additional damage from all of the other places that it was inevitably hit. Do you think the gigantic wing area missing and having the major lifting surface much further behind the center of gravity isn’t going to change things? Maybe just a little.
Thats not flying thats glideable.
And whether it’s possible or not is neither for me or you decide. It’s simply physics that we can’t prove it wrong or right.
But the game thinks it’s possible.
Feel free to make some calculations on your own, if you believe it’s not right.
It’s a F6F that has incredibly wide wings.
Even when 75% of the wings length are missing, the area at the wing root might still create enough lift at high enough speeds for the plane to glide back.
But you pretend like it’s outright impossible.
And not really relevant when planes stop having their wings shot off every 2 seconds.
By the way you skipped the question what you even want. Instead you just went straight to asking questions that isn’t even relevant to to whether guns should deal realistic damage to planes nor not.
Yes but this particular gentleman was particularly singled out for this, by his fellow pilots of all people. The claim he shot down 17 in a single day has long been debunked, he was still an amazing pilot make no mistake but to claim that aircraft damage models are fine being made of paper because some German pilots had absurdly high kill counts is more than a bit silly.
As others have said just one 20mm is more than enough to dissect bombers. I don’t know if you’ve used Shvak’s lately but the arguably weakest cannon of WW2 (a weak cannon quoted by Russian pilots themselves) can rip bomber tails off in a whopping 4x rounds. Happy to provide the video for you.
Why on earth would I equip my aircraft with 30mm guns when 20’s punch the way they do? Heck everything with HE filler is overperforming to an absurd degree. The Breda’s with their piddly filler can rip wings and tails clean off, again I know this for a fact as I’ve done it and have the videos of me doing it. This is in SB by the way… so my aim will never be as good as RB/stabilised mouse aim.
Just watching any gun cam footage debunks any theory that guns in game are performing as they should.
A tail is much larger and sturdier than a wing.
Haven’t seen a plane lose its tail from over G.
So likewise it’s also more damage resistant.
This is flat wrong. A British source (a former teacher, Mr Brown) wrongfully claimed that there were not that many aircraft lost that day.
This was debunked by an US source:
Luftwaffe Resource Center - Luftwaffe Aces - A Warbirds Resource Group Site
Much of the debate and refusal to substantiate Marseille’s combat record originates from one day of furious air combat on 1 September, 1942 in which he claimed to have destroyed 17 aircraft in three sorties. Not only did Marseille claim 17 aircraft, but he did it in a fashion that was unheard of at the time. His victims were shot out of the sky in such a rapid fashion that many Allied critics still refuse to believe Marseille’s claims as fact. But it is precisely the speed and fury involved with these kills that has been the center of the Marseille debate for the past half century. For years, many British historians and militarists refused to admit that they had lost any aircraft that day in North Africa. Careful review of records however do show that the British did lose more than 17 aircraft that day, and in the area that Marseille operated. The British simply refused to believe, as many do today, that any German pilot was capable of such rapid destruction of RAF hardware.
As general rule - UK historians tend to tell stories which are not really related to reality. If you see the biased thoughts guys like Overy produce regarding the BoB it is more than obvious. US historians are usually way more reliable - just ignore guys like V D Hanson or R Citino.
Edit:
Post was flagged as “offensive” - therefore i have replaced some words in order to avoid hurting feelings. At the end of the day the outcome is the same: Anybody interested in unbiased history should pick his sources very carefully - and US sources are usually way more objective. If you compare the outstanding books of Caldwell with any British source you notice the difference.
2 Likes
1 Like
All historians have bias and at that time the effect of propaganda was incredibly strong. The biggest fibs absolutely were coming from Germany and Russia. I’d actually argue that the biggest lies western historians tell is of “German superiority”. You can thank the History channel for that.
In regards to historians agreeing with Marseille’s overclaiming history heavily suggests just that… he overclaimed. On that day 22 allied aircraft were shot down with more claims from the Italians. To suggest that Marseille shot down 17 out of 22 aircraft on his own despite all of the other Axis aircraft in the sky is more than a bit far fetched, in a single day no less! The Germans were never going to put this under any scrutiny because as mentioned… propaganda.
Actual evidence suggests he shot down 7-9 aircraft. This is still incredible but it’s a fair way away from 17.
To clarify, if Douglas Bader claimed he shot down 17 109’s in a single day during the Battle of Britain I’d be calling that out for being a load of bollocks too.
I don’t get the premise of this post, you want real shatter doing no damage back?
It was infuriating playing props/early jets when real shatter was at its worst, you could dump your entire load into a guy and he’d still be flying like nothing happened. Happened to me many times with hisparkos, gotta love cannons doing nothing.
It was peak, peak rage inducing
2 Likes
Especially when you’re playing an inferior airframe and after a prolonged sweaty dogfight, when you finally get your trigger second you get a “Hit!”
3 Likes
Gun camera footage has nothing to do with how damage is visually represented in the game. What Gaijin has said in the past is that parts falling off from the plane are meant to be visually engaging and provide player feedback. Basically just because something is ripped off in the game doesn’t mean that it would actually be gone in real life, but by the games standard it has sustained enough damage that it would be aerodynamically useless.
This is also similar in reasoning to why dive limitations / Mach tuck are modeled to rip the airplane and not just cause the plane to compress into the ground.
One could make the damage model more visually realistic by making it so that wings and control surfaces never detach. Make it so that the visual models basically do not change from gun damage at all. But I don’t think this thread is really about fixing incongruity of the visual damage model; in fact most people here do not really grasp the visual element as being a design decision.
For instance I think nobody that is advocating for less gun damage would be satisfied if their tails remained attached but relatively the same number of shells renders their plane unfiable.
The simplest interpretation of the position is that they want the current damage models to be a lot more resilient to catastrophic damage than they currently are and would not want any other changes to the way damage models currently work. That is to say people just want to be able to fly through certain guns and sustain minimal damage and minimal loss of performance as a result of making tactical mistakes.
This is why you don’t see the same people advocating for much more severe loss of flight performance from non-catastrophic levels of damage or severely increased departure characteristics.
Just yesterday there were multiple times where I sustained multiple passes with heavy machine guns. The only damage that materially affected flight performance in this case is damage that actually removed a control surface; all of the other hits were essentially superficial and only caused a minor reduction in top speed. The 13mm heavy machine gun round through the chest also meant nothing.
Making the damage models, especially for fighters, a lot tankier would just make gameplay far worse; especially in Air RB where airfields are positioned very close to the front line and games are limited to 25 minutes at most. It’s already incredibly easy for players to dive to their airfield and then use AA as a shield to force the game to end on the time limit.
Making it so that the time to kill in the game is much longer than it currently is and making it so that more types of damage are survivable exacerbates this feedback loop. It also completely removes match viability for planes with lower ammo capacity and means that planes with good flight performance would move down in BR due to lack of effective gun damage. I don’t think anyone really wants to see a Yak-3U at 5.3BR again. Or J2M2 at 3.7BR.
Even if we take this reduced claim at face value…it means that he shot down 7-9 aircraft with 180 rounds of 20mm cannon ammo. The most proficient and accurate sim pilot in the game is not quite able to equal that feat while given arguably greater firepower.
This is recent player stats for BiscuitDestroyer in Sim using PM-1. This is a plane with an MG.151 and the Swedish .50 caliber machine guns in the nose. Yet even with this combination he is only around 4-6 kills per respawn.
So why is this the case? Well the answer is quite simple. People tend to focus on situations where they think they shouldn’t have died in the game and willfully discount all of the situations that they should have died in but actually survived. Look at the guy earlier in the thread arguing that an F6F missing the majority of it’s wing area would be able to glide back to base in real life given the same situation.
Yes…this is technically true if the plane was capable of going around 500 miles per hour. Someone actually did the math last night and they claim it would need to actually go around Mach. .8 to maintain level flight. And all of the lift wuld be towards the tail causing it to pitch down and crash anyways.
Basically any damage short of catastrophic parts removing damage is easily survivable and the game makes it far easier to survive and continue to effectively fight through damage that would otherwise have fatal consequences of the sake actions were taken in real life.
RealShatter was and is a broken mechanic.
It was supposed to make fragmentation cones instead of spheres but was bugged when introduced.
After it was fixed It was working for some time until Gaijin threw the concept out of the window by buffing fragmentation damage so much that now 20mm explosive shells with 5-6g explosive filler hit as hard as 30mm Mineshell with 75-88g of filler.
When realShatter was bugged you had to use AP rounds. Now it’s the opposite where you only want explosive rounds.
Which of course also throws gun balance out of the window by ShVAKs and AN/M2s having access to 100% explosive belts while other guns are stuck with 50-66% explosive belts.
Ideally you want a 1:1 mix of AP and HE shells, not to mention 20mm incendiary shells, which are completely useless since the beginning of time.
3 Likes
The claim for 17 shot down planes was for three sorties that day.
Apparently 4, 7 and 6.
And a sim can never fully represent reality because it’s not a real person in a cockpit.
So in reality vehicles are always more vulnerable than what can be simulated.
1 Like
Gun cam footage can absolutely be used to highlight the problems in WT. I don’t have an issue with my control cables being destroyed if I’ve been hit as there’s still a chance you can make it home. I do have issue with my tail being completely severed by what at times feels like a single hit from a 20mm.
It isn’t just stupid from a realistic sense but it completely breaks immersion. It’s every bit as bad as the old “plane burnt down” situation from back in the day despite the fact the fire went out and you’re still very much alive. It got removed as people hated it. Yet the tail snapping off remains.
The game is supposed to somewhat simulate reality, so let me deal with an aircraft with damaged aerodynamics. I expect to be told I’m dead in Ace Combat but not here, not unless my pilot has been sniped.
To be fair I don’t think anyone would want that and there are times when wings did explode/detach. There’s a gun cam video of a Tempest attacking a Dora and you clearly see the wing explode from the fuselage. The thing is that isn’t the norm… in War Thunder I can’t even remember the last time I damaged an aircraft to the point it crashed without either sawing off a tail, setting it on fire or buzzsawing a wing clean off even with .303’s.
Yes and no.
I’d be happy if the damage models went back to what they were like in 2015’ish. Tails didn’t fall off but from experience a 109 would utterly destroy the elevators of something like a Spitfire or kill the pilot/set him on fire.
Bombers were realistically tough from at attack from the rear as once again the tail didn’t just fall off, you could still kill them in one pass with an attack from above into the engines to cause a fire.
Mate things were different back then… these days I just aim centre mass as something will fall off. Back then we actually aimed and it was so much better.
Not really, we just want aircraft to actually behave and react to damage realistically. By caving into those that just want fast easy kills you’re diluting the game further and further. It’s also making some aircraft not as great as they historically should be as they’re shot down in the exact same three cannon rounds as everything else.
No it wouldn’t as guns doing realistic damage will still down aircraft. With what we currently have we’re one step away from having all guns doing the same damage. Weaponry should never be the main way to balance an aircraft, performance always comes first.
Having less ammo or firepower is a characteristic of an aircraft, if you don’t like it then choose another. Or actually learn trigger discipline or how to aim how we did years back. It wasn’t a problem then and it shouldn’t be now.
The “it’s for gameplay” logic needs to be thrown into the bin where vehicle performance is concerned. If the maps are too small then the maps are too small, that isn’t an aircraft damage problem. You’re advocating balancing the game around poor map design. Caving in for “gameplay” also opens the floodgates for changes to be made for certain vehicles because it’s “Unfair”.
My Zero can’t catch smart BnZ Corsair’s, therefor I demand they be made 80mph faster for gameplay purposes. If realism isn’t an issue then there’s no counter argument. It’s just more fair. We’ve already seen Gaijin cave in to the detriment of the game, case in point aircraft barely suffering with heavier controls at speed, the recent APHE lack of change and then buff etc etc…
Kiwi has already said it but this is with multiple flights not just one.
Also apologies for the huge post.
2 Likes
These were always anti-bomber armaments. Even IRL you never needed four cannons to shoot down a fighter.
Yet I recall that some of his most extraordinary feats were witnessed by his wingmen.
I remember both of these things vividly. Man what a terrible time to play props. Airfield camping was especially bad as someone could tank several cannon hits and just go back to repair, and there was nothing you could do about it.
People constantly got away with making massive mistakes mid dogfight and any situation where you were numerically disadvantaged was very hard to overcome since you could not kill them fast enough and usually didn’t have the ammo to do it.
“Working”, in this case, means people still ate dozens of cannon shells sometimes and kept flying like nothing happened. I’ve watched tracers go right into people’s cockpits and the ensuing fireworks display, only to be rewarded with no kill, no noticeable damage to their flight performance, only a “Hit”.
That happened in 2015 since we had no RealShatter. Each HE shell produced far more fragments in a consistent sphere with greater range, which were in turn less damaging. You would hit someone in one wing, turn it yellow or orange, and also damage the other wing on the other side of the plane.
And what would you think would happen if suddenly some aircraft are unable to destroy an enemy without expending most of their ammo? Obviously their BR would go down, while all the already-overtiered cannon buses stay exactly where they are.
This Liberator tanked, at a minimum, 50x 20mm shells, plus ~70x HMG shells. With a 3:1 ratio of HEF to APHE, from a front and low attack. He was still flyable and still had gunners alive. He only died afterwards when I came back around and put another dozen shells into his right wing, right at the outermost engine, detaching the outer wing.
How do you think my fighter’s BR would be affected if other fighters also demanded one quarter of my ammo and two good passes to be taken down, while the cannon buses (f.e. 190 A-8) simply destroyed their targets in a fraction of the time it took mine?
The performance gap would widen even more, no?
1 Like
The 2015 damage models in question. Do you think this is good? Is this what we really want to have again?
2 Likes