Cannons doing too much damge

[KillaKiwi]

@PercussionCap

I have always said 30mm cannons should hit harder than 20s, and provided evidence that they do in fact hit harder NOW, after the huge increase in fragmentation.

It’s not about the damage of 30mm cannons, it’s how effective 20mm cannons have become, with damage that should only be possible by 30mm Mineshells.

Like detaching a Spitfires or P-47s wing or tail in a single hit.

20mm Mineshells were buffed more, after other 20mm started to do the same damage or more, so now a 20mm Mineshell will kill most planes just like a 30mm Mineshells.

Even 2x20mm = 1x30mm
is still a huge difference compared to reality, where the ratio was 4:1 for large bombers and still most likely 3:1 for most western allied fighters.

But even if that was the case, we still would kill a B-17 with a single 30mm Mineshell or just 4 20mm Mineshells, unless something changes.

[RunaDacino]

@KillaKiwi

Like detaching a Spitfires or P-47s wing or tail in a single hit.

I don’t really feel this single-hit detachment.

Burst fire? Certainly. 8-10 shells hitting in short order is devastating.

A full 4 gun convergence hitting at once? Also yes.

[KillaKiwi]

@PercussionCap

This is better damage than what we have lol. Am I supposed to believe russia has some kind of magic soil where cannons become much stronger there?

They make wooden aircrafts, and plywood doesn’t exactly bend or stay together while getting blasted by a pressure wave and showered by fragments like duralumin.

12.7mm MDZ-3 makes a 110mm diamter hole into a duralumin wing, or it blows 50x50cm pannel out of a wooden wing, like it’s a 20mm Mineshell doing the same to a duralumin wing.

The Bf 109 had a 20mm dural layered screen, protecting pilot and fuel tank like a 4-6mm steel plate.
Guess how much wood you would need to get the same protection?

Different material, different properties.

[FeetPics]

@KillaKiwi

Actually, it’s mostly PerscusionCap arguing that a single 20mm needs to hit like a 30mm because otherwise game balance is destroyed, you thinking it’s unthinkable that a fighters dares to survive having part of their wing shot off and addtionally doing literally everything to find a counter argument for every single argument of others, not to make a point but simply to tell them that what they said isn’t valid.

Look at when this thread was initially made and look at the original argument and consider its context. This thread pre-dates Realshatter implementation on MG.151 and in basically the first time it was implemented on other 20mm cannons. This original implementation was largely secured by the community. In fact…

It is not small coincidence that the OP of the thread had his K/D ratio in the P-47 D-22 reduced a few days prior to opening this thread

This is a screenshot he posted showcasing his own K/D in his discord. The wider context of the discussion was basically that the best way to play the game is to never ever engage in BFM/Dogfighting.

I shot him down in head on with J2M2. That was around 2 years ago and in early realshatter period.

A few days later this thread gets made.

He has played the P-47 D-22 around 5 times since I shot him down. And he has died more times. His whole strategy was to run at the base AA whenever someone got behind him and wasn’t at a massive energy disadvantage. He also left the game I shot him down in.

Very common outcome for dedicated “realism” oriented gamers.

[Real_K_Soze]

@SinisterIsRandom

Cheaper and more potent. Long-term.

Not sure if more potent holds water - it boils down that P-47s in their A2A role faced the LW in their prime whilst P-51s were able to use the tactics developed by P-47s earlier and could work in much greater numbers.

If you go through this thread the P-47s were able to survive severe punishments / damages by cannons 😎 and bring their pilots home - despite their role shift to A2G in the ETO in 1944. I lost the link to the article describing the rather high losses by aaa when P-51s tried A2G…

[PercussionCap]

@KillaKiwi

But even if that was the case, we still would kill a B-17 with a single 30mm Mineshell or just 4 20mm Mineshells, unless something changes.

Buff bomber DMs then.

@KillaKiwi

They make wooden aircrafts, and plywood doesn’t exactly bend or stay together while getting blasted by a pressure wave and showered by fragments like duralumin.

Like the P-39 they also shot at?

@PercussionCap

Last I checked, this is an all-metal aircraft. The wing is torn open like a can.

[SinisterIsRandom]

I think you get the point.

[KillaKiwi]

@PercussionCap

Like the P-39 they also shot at?

@PercussionCap

Last I checked, this is an all-metal aircraft. The wing is torn open like a can.

Last time I checked the MG 151/20 could fire 20mm Mineshells.
Remember why I wanted to ignore you?

20mm Mineshell


30mm Mineshell

Unsuprising result: Less explosive, less structural damage:

NS-37 and NS-45 were conducted against a Bf 109 wing.

That’s most likely a 20mm FI-T hit. A lot less explosive in a thicker shell and the result is a much less effective blast.

A 20mm HEFI blows a head sized hole into a target

Done by a 20x42mm low velocity grenade. Can’t say how much filler but probably 10g or more of Hexal.

[PercussionCap]

@KillaKiwi

Last time I checked the MG 151/20 could fire 20mm Mineshells.
Remember why I wanted to ignore you?

20mm Mineshell

How is this different from the P-39 getting its wing burst open by the same shell? This is damage you guys claim is wholly unrealistic, as so much area missing from the wing root would count as a “blacked out” section.

[KillaKiwi]

@PercussionCap

How is this different from the P-39 getting its wing burst open by the same shell? This is damage you guys claim is wholly unrealistic, as so much area missing from the wing root would count as a “blacked out” section.

The difference is that this kind of damage is inflicted by 20mm Mineshells and not 20mm Explsoive shells, which mostly damages due to their fragments and maybe incendiary content.

It’s in the name. Minengeschoss. It’s suppose to destroy via strong blast, not fragmentation.

So no, you’re P-47 or IL-2 will not have it’s wing fall off from getting hit by 5 20mm HE shells.

Or why do you think the IL-2 was able to withstand a lot of damage. Every vital component is protected from light fragments while the wings and control surfaces are huge.

[PercussionCap]

@KillaKiwi

So no, you’re P-47 or IL-2 will not have it’s wing fall off from getting hit by 5 20mm HE shells.

IL-2, you say? Because they also shot at one.

Did not do too well.

[FeetPics]

Keep in mind this where the original goal post was. Basically that receiving black damage in the game (and not detaching the wing) was excessive.

[FeetPics]

@KillaKiwi

So no, you’re P-47 or IL-2 will not have it’s wing fall off from getting hit by 5 20mm HE shells.

It’s not going to be able to effectively dogfight with that many HE shells impacting the wing. Yet I’ve been able to demonstrate that you can dogfight effectively in P-47 with basically anything short of black wing damage…which is the kind of damage the original poster said was excessive as well.

[iegaatdao]

…which only is possible if your opponents make the stupid mistake of taking a P-47 on a downwards spiral.

[FeetPics]

Not really. You don’t know a thing about dogfighting.
Both J2M2 and Yak-3 are superior in that situation as well. But the fact of the matter is I am able to make a mistake and then take advantage of lack of damage to capitalize on it in ways that probably are not realistic at all.

[KillaKiwi]

Oh really? How can you tell?

It has like two times the wing area of a P-39 with less wing loading.

I think it’s doing just fine.

[Loofah]

@PercussionCap

they do in fact hit harder NOW,

It’s wholly insignifcant with no real difference in time to kill.

And regarding Ho-5, why is it worse? Because Gaijin decided to arbitrarily make it worse, as there’s no real consistency to their decision-making.

Also I think I have proven Shvak actually hits harder than MG151/20 (it made Do-335 wing black way more reliably). It also has way better belt than Hispano and MG151/20.

I disagree that playing field is “level”. Quite the opposite, whoever has smaller planes, certain guns and performance, has an advantage. As I mentioned, bombers are ruined, heavy fighters are ruined, attackers are ruined and there’s no fixing it.

I find it hilarious you keep bringing up failed damage system like it is the only possible alternative to current situation.
Meanwhile we should have, again, aero vs structural damage, fragmentation cones, huge differences in blast damage. End of story.

[KillaKiwi]

@FeetPics

It’s not going to be able to effectively dogfight with that many HE shells impacting the wing.

According to who?

You know that a 20mm Mineshell blows up around 0.3 or more square meters of a wing area, and how a 20mm ShVAK does 0.025 in comparison. Thats 1/12.
A Hispano maybe 0.065. Still almost 1/5.

The Soviet 37mm does 0.46m^2 and thats the larger exit hole.

A Spitfire returned with a 20mm Mineshell hit.
A P-47 had to crash land after taking a 30mm that destroyed 1.5m^2 of its wings and deformed an even larger area.

So no, I‘m sure that a P-47 won’t have trouble with 0.3m^2 of missing wing area in 5 different places and it probably won’t even feel 0.125.

Thats like destroying a tail control on Bf 109 with one 20mm and than expecting the same result on an IL-2 that has three or more times the control surfaces area.

We even have it black on white that a 30mm Mineshell kills a P-47 three times more likely due to structural damage than a 37mm.

So what do you expect from 20mm shells?

Their structural damage is insignificant against a dural airframe compared to the fragments and incendiary content that can damage fuel tanks, cooling system, the pilot and even the engine.

Like you need to hit very specific parts of the plane to cause damage to the controls that would cause a pilot to be unable to control the plane.

Five 20mm hits gives you a good chance to cause all sorts of damage, including a lethal fuel fire.
But you won’t rip the wing nor cause any major control issues.

If you want one hit wonders than take a 37mm or a German 30mm.
Otherwise you just need to hit specific parts and even those calibers aren’t guaranteed to cause lethal damage, depending where you hit and from which angle.

If all the fragments go into space, instead of internal components than even a 37mm isn’t going to destroy a plane immediately.

And Mineshells can overpen due to their fuze delay. Simply exploding on the other side of an airframe.

[FeetPics]

@KillaKiwi

A Spitfire returned with a 20mm Mineshell hit.

And how many Spitfires do you think went down for every one that actually returned? Basically your argument is that the game needs to be structured around fringe instances of survivability.

@KillaKiwi

So no, I‘m sure that a P-47 won’t have trouble with 0.3m^2 of missing wing area in 5 different places and it probably won’t even feel 0.125.

I do not think you have any idea of how lift and drag works. It is not simply that just the holes in the wing vs missing area is going to approximate how much lift is missing. Those big holes are also causing a bunch of drag and also disturbing the airflow around adjacent area as well.

Being able to easily control the plane up to near stall speeds with no adverse effects is not realistic at all.

@KillaKiwi

If you want one hit wonders than take a 37mm or a German 30mm.

And this is about what it boils down to…if you want to get kills and not just be able to do damage where a guy can just fly back to base at maximum speed minus 10kph and then camp the airfield for the rest of the game…just play one nation. That is basically what this thread advocates for.

1. Mineshells prior to real-shatter were overperforming in terms of damage because they could damage the wing in 1 hit and cause too great a loss of lift. There is not actually a single period in the games history where the OP or most of the advocates in the thread would say that MG.151s damage was sufficiently low. The closest that was achieved when HE damage was basically disabled in around October of last year; this is the point where Loofah thought cannons were actually pretty accurate to real life. It was basically the lowest damage point in the entire games history.

2. Mineshells should be effectively the most powerful shell in the game for caliber because of explosive mass. They should require the least amount of hits on average to kill a plane compared to similar caliber shells.

3. Every other shell in the game should not be able to deal enough structural damage to remove a wing or significant components without dramatically more hits. They should be scaled to be less effective per round than Mineshells.

The first condition means that in order to be satisfied we would have to set the damage that MG.151 does to below the lowest point that it has ever been in the game. Consequently this means that in order to preserve the effectiveness disparity that you seek we would also have to set every other guns damage to the lowest that it has ever been in the game. Not only that but we would have to increase the scope of the disparity between various guns as well.

Effectively this means that everyone that enjoys quick time to kill would have to play MG.151 mobile or similar. And that anyone that enjoys planes with something like ShVAK would have to anchor themselves on dead six-o-clock and have to hit the majority of their shells into 1 area to get a kill. Or lure a target far enough from the center of the map that something like a water leak causes the engine to die and then they cannot make it back to the airfield.

Sorry but I have played the game long enough to realize that I do not like babysitting players that are circling their airfield until the timer runs out because they had to RTB to repair and save their plane. Or have to deliberately give my ass end to a plane with 8x .50 cals because some bozo runs to the airfield and sits over the top of it because he wants to treat every sim game if it’s some kind of life or death mission.

[poopooo]

I think the weapon damage should be reworked, since it’s unacceptable that all cannons have the same damage but different ballistics, making the bullet’s speed the only factor, and completely eliminating the use of 30mm and 37mm cannons.

On the other hand, regarding the planes returning to their airfield, it’s very simple: destroy ground targets and you win the game. Alternatively, if the last enemy plane is within 2km of the airfield for more than three minutes, they lose the game, thus negating the strategy of stalling. And yes, if you land, repair, and don’t take off again within those three minutes, you also lose.