Cannons doing too much damge

This is a game where you fly around with your mouse in 3rd person view. Planes pull multiple times their realistic G limits. They can fly without wings. Pilots can absorb a 20mm shot to the face. Matches are based on a battle rating system and not historical scenarios.

How is it not an arcade game? It’s been one since nearly it’s inception.

2 Likes

Just don’t fly in front of it. It’s that simple.

They can do the exact same back at you with infinite hit & run attacks that you cannot counter. All they have to do is land one or two hits.

The closest you can find performance like it is at 2.3 with the 109 E-1, and that one’s slower. It is objectively undertiered and shouldn’t see reserve biplanes ever.

How do you think a 45mm would be worse than a 20mm for CAS? The 9K was worse than 9T for CAS.

Volume of fire is a wonderful thing. One of the few things aircraft like the Shiden-Kai still have going for it.

Cannons aren’t doing enough damage, actually!

Weird how the HE shells that onetap 100% of the time didn’t kill the pilot.

And the AP can non-lethally pass through his head!

This came with the last or the previous update.

Before that, realShatter shells would send out fragments in the same direction of the shell, so you could hit a Zero in the tail and fragments would travel 2m and kill the pilot.

Now those fragments, even from large cannons, like 37mm, will deal pitiful damage to crews but easily blow wings and tails off.

So you can get a lot of hits, by just being unlucky and hitting the fuselage instead of wings and tail.

They still kill planes much faster than in reality.
Can’t really argue about 6-7g TNT blowing a wing off when thats the structural damage of a shell with 10 or more times the filler.

1 Like

2 points here:

1- that’s more of a pilot vitality stat issue, in real life a pilot would probably die from a 7.5mm,
Pilots only survived because they didn’t bleed out inmediatly or just died on the spot from a bullet. A 20mm AP rounds would blow your foot off and you wouldn’t die on the spot, Unless you want simulated “pilot modules” with a blood loss mechanic this will not see any difference.

2- It’s a Type 99 aphe round, just a little short of 5g of TNT equivalent and a 2cm diameter (firecracker).
Unless you wanted the tail to detach you have to remodel pilot health calculations, completely separate issue of inexistent aircraft structural resistance towards 20mil rounds

I don’t have maxed vitality on this crew. There is also no windshield armor, so it’s just some plexiglass between the pilot and all the fragmentation of a 20mm high-explosive shell.

This “firecracker” went though his head at a little under 750m/s before exploding. Nobody is surviving that.

And what are trying to prove? pilots have too much health? Then make a thread about pilots turning orange after a 50cal enters from the left side of their torso and come out the other side instead of dying.

This topic is mainly about 20mil explosive rounds from cannons blowing up wings off and slicing planes in half. Outclassing AP rounds and evaporating Incendiary rounds.

Except the “Muh OP ShVAK” round is the FI-T one. The complaint is not just the specific round types; the complaint is that some guns should just not be able to shoot down other planes while certain players fly in front of them.

The truth is that ALL 20mm cannons are packing too much of a punch.

If 6g of TNT equivalent is all you need to unmake a plane then why even bother with extra filler?
Why try 30mm cannons?

20mil is a middle ground

go below it and you recieve perks like more ammo or better ballistics but lose structural damage and requires more precise module hits

go above it and you recieve less ammo, less firerate and sometimes ballistics, in turn, you recieve the ability to slice planes with +20g or even 50g of TNT equivalent.

20mil just outclasses everything, almost structural damage of a 30mil with more ammo, firerate and sometimes better ballistics or quantity.

And I will say it again, every 20mil is different, 20mils are in their current state because people didn’t bother to look at explosive filler or even try to consider taking a different belt and then went:

“ThAT waS a 6 20MiL rounds!” Expecting a hispano to deal the same damage to a round with over 2x the filler because they just looked at the caliber.

As a result all 20mil damage was merged into one. And the one that suffered the most was mg151/20, not only because it was stuck with damage formulas for while, but because the upside it had of above average damage was given to everyone else.

ShVAK was helped the most because people now had essentially the old Mine shell with better ballistics and a full tracer belt of it too.

That explains the 2 mayor groups of people in this thread.

Then you have +30mil cannons, which the upside they had was that it was easier to miss due to reduced firerate or ballistics and more punishing to do so with a smaller ammo pool, They completely lost their place because
“Why bother?”

Aircraft with more than 2 20mils also lost their place because, “1 20mil does the job just fine!”

It was only later down aircraft history that the 1 20mil loadout was seen as effective because
1- Cannons are emergency tools now
2- The firerate ensures than at least a pair of rounds land somewhere vital.

If something similar to cannons happened to tanks it would be giving every cannon of the same caliber equal penetration, only difference would be shell selection and ballistics.

People didn’t accept than different rounds of completely different nations and gun lineages would be worse or better than other cannons.

4 Likes

Terrible take.

The game implements weapons/vehicles etc with historical and accurate documentation. Simulator mode also exists which for a long while had better flight models than DCS with certain aircraft (mainly the Spitfire and 190’s before Gaijin nerfed the elevator).

Even the P-51’s back in the day according to an actual P-51 pilot felt much better on War Thunder than DCS (Agathos Deimon on the old forum) in flight.

Just because a game has accessibility with a mouse it doesn’t make it “arcade” unless you choose those gameplay modes.

Some aspects of the game are stupid (cannon damage, APHE, inhuman pilots etc) but to say it’s arcade is disingenuous.

3 Likes

Hmm…
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Yea, man, you don’t really want that to happen.

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Fun fact

Spoiler

Me-163’s prop actually spins in the hangar, just veeeeery slowly.

And both sakeen (Avia S-199) and Yak-23 flew the same year

historical MM is 50x time worse in air battles.

3 Likes

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Yikes.

No they do not.

Look at every single rocket plane in the game that actually defies the laws of physics. The rocket engines in the game are more efficient than the sun.

Even if you want to look at propeller driven aircraft…look at Re.2005 with similar turn performance to Spitfire in spite of higher wing loading. Or it carrying MW-50 system that it most likely never had.

Or look at all Japanese planes that can rudder 30+ degrees left and right while in high speed dive.

Or look at Eurofighter has 50+ AoA limit in spite of only having 24 degree limit in real life.

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No. I want this specifically for Sim. That way all of the LARPers can get exactly what they want and wonder why nobody plays the game mode.

Look how well Gaijins game with historical matchmaking is doing. It had up to 16 people online yesterday at one point.

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Yes, and now you can play any nation and use almost any cannon without wondering if you’ll have to dump half your ammo on one guy.

Just like real life, 30mm cannons are not ideal for engaging fighters.

There is “worse” and there is “he can onetap me anywhere while I will unload a dozen shells into his wing root and get rewarded with Hit”.

Of the three major flight ‘sims’ available right now, it is the most arcade-y. Even if you play Sim EC, you still have a real-time map showing where you are, where all the objectives are, and even where your teammates are located.

I am not sure if this claim holds water - based on reading of a hell of books i would argue that the primary goal of especially the BK 5 was to kill bombers outside the effective range of defensive 0.50 cals.

I found a source - Link.

You find spread around multiple publications reports that 110s and 410s were effectively fighting (and killing) USAAF bombers far beyond 1 km range (with 20 & 30mm). The main issue in wt is that wt allows you (manual gunners) to hit targets behind you even at 2.5 km distance - whilst your 20 mm mine shell never hits the target from longer ranges either because of ballistics or as the shells de-render.

Whilst i acknowledge your opinion - i disagree. The steps regarding the increase of difficulty for aircraft modes from Air AB to Air RB should be centered around actually controlling and flying the aircraft - mouse aim is basically an autopilot whilst the instructor prevents basic pilot mistakes.

The dominance of certain aircraft in RB are connected to artificial limitations of things links like AoA of other aircraft. That means some planes are optimized for the instructor (looking at Yaks) whilst others are in a disadvantage with it.

Idk why you connect wing ripping due to g-forces (still works from my pov - all u need is to fly without instructor, preferreed a G8N1) with markers. Markers are extremely convenient but just an additional tool regarding positioning.

Correct - i met recently a very experienced Yak-1B player scoring 8 kills with 18 cannon shells left 😎

Correct- i prepared a BR increase suggestion for the Yak-1B for the next round.

Regarding your overall opinion:
Yes, cannons are dealing way too much damage. But i find it ever more annoying that gaijin created artificial buffs and nerfs to specific cannons. I mean if you have a 109 1,4 km behind you (at high speed) you are outrunning the shell as it de-renders.

Regarding your comparisons with irl events: I recommend (if you haven’t read it) Donald Caldwell “JG 26 - Top Guns of the Luftwaffe”. Describing tactics vs bombers and actual combat ranges.

I disagree in this specific case as JP has like the US a disadvantage regarding the ranking of their aircraft. You find certain JP and US aircraft at Rank II - whilst captured or exported versions in other TTs have the same BR but are at Rank III. That’s why i use the CHN Ki-61 or the UK Hellcat.

The J2M2 was for ages at 4.3 but at Rank II - so not suited for 2nd degree daily and special tasks - it was obvious that the BR would increase as soon as the BR changed it from Rank II to Rank III.

You say dump half your ammo but what you actually mean is fire half your ammo.

Because even 7.7mm can take out a stalled out enemy’s in few hits by just hitting where AP deals damage.

If I can spray mindlessly and a single 20mm hit will destroy the enemy 50% of the time, I for sure don’t need to dup half my ammo.

But the reality is that unless you shoot in the right situation and from close range, you’re not going to make any hits in the first place.

A ShVAK with 65 rounds is still going to be more effective than a MK 108 with the same amount of ammo in WT, despite the 30mm that is going to be at least 5 times as lethal in reality.

If a P-47 can survive a hit from a 30mm Mineshell, than you also not going to destroy it with 5 20mm FI-T rounds hitting in the same vicinity.

And what you’re saying doesn’t make sense because a lot of planes can have anywhere from 1 to 4 20mm cannons, so more guns should obviously make more hits and therefore kill enemies in a shorter time.

So if your plane needs to dump half of its ammo, to get a kill, maybe it’s just lacking effective armament.

I meant exactly what I said.

It’s almost as if the MK108 sucks against fighters, and most enemies are fighters.
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Which they do, and this is reflected in the BRs. Aircraft that could not get kills in a reasonable amount of time and ammo (or just need more of both) are lower in BR.

And that was rectified, allowing all nations to have good enough armaments. Name any cannon and they’re all effective. Even the poor little Ho-3 in the Ki-45s does good damage now.

1 Like

You find spread around multiple publications reports that 110s and 410s were effectively fighting (and killing) USAAF bombers far beyond 1 km range (with 20 & 30mm).

Sounds like the 20mm and 30mm are already outranging the defensive .50cals.