Fun fact - plywood bug would take like 10m to resolve, because Gaijin was perfectly able to make it a bigger problem with 0 effort.
The issue:
once upon a time, plywood skin counted as 0,1-0,15mm of steel, and while all 20mm cannons had 0,1mm fuses, MG151/20 HE shell had like 0,25mm, anyway, the point is, it did not fuse on most WW2 Soviet fighters’ skin at all.
Of course some higher caliber cannons were affected too with their less sensitive fuses./
Like 2 years ago, Gaijin fixed the problem partially by simply making MG151/20 and MG131 HE bullet fuse on 0,001mm steel.
Partially, because some higher caliber shells were still affected.
Early in 2026 Gaijin decided that Soviet aircraft not having a hidden, unrealistic advantage was too much to bear, so they adjusted the plywood skin thickness to somewhere in the 0,001mm range.
Result?
Right now the only weapons that fuse semi-reliably are MG151/20 and Mk108 as they both have the “improved” 0,001mm fuses, while everything else failt to work more often than not, but it’s not 100% reliable, as there is clearly some RANDOM factor involved, because WHY THE HELL NOT.
The funny thing is that precisely that type of wood would be the most vulnerable to German ammunition. I also wonder if the game models the “Delta wood” used in the LaGGs—which was significantly more durable but heavier than the wood used later in the final LaGG-3s and all subsequent models.
Honestly, I think the opposite, because this would just make those lazy devs leave HE rounds as they are without worrying about the other ammo types, whereas the bare minimum expectation is that all ammo types should work properly.
It would literally consign half of the ammo types to oblivion, simply because the devs didn’t want to give them proper damage values, whereas HE rounds have been given exaggerated damage.
Nah. Id make a historical belt for my Mg 151/20. AP-I AP-I APHE FI-T or Minengeschoss.
And even if, why not, there are some guns with mostly if not pure he belts. Giving the player more option is good.
i mean i dont disagree that it would only be fair if every gun would get apure HE belt
but its just like not good game design in general since those other shell types should do something even tho they dont in game
Custom belts would be nice. But Incendiary and SAPHEI fix would be nicer.
60+g of TNT that does 0 blast damage is absolutely hilarious (37mm has even more, and sucks just the same), meanwhile 23mm HE turns 90mm cannon breech black and kills everyone in M36 turret. Hell yeah. Balance, baby.
30mm Incendiary curently can be face-tanked by the pilot.
That’s how shit it is.
Meanwhile IRL incendiary shell deliveres lethal aerodynamic damage due to the explosive power, which in game it has 0.
No, that was hydrodynamic fuse of Brandgranate 44, a 20mm shell, which was filled with same explosive-incendiary as M-geschoss. Mk108 incendiary had “traditional” fuse.
Quick question: did they change the ammo layout for the Mk 108’s universal belt? It seems to be all HE rounds now, whereas I seem to recall it used to be HE-HE-I.
Honestly, can’t remember, but maybe indeed at one point Incendiary got switched to HEFI, because I THINK there was one completely useless shell in the belt, and then it became kinda OK, though night fighters are still better, despite the self destruct.
But am I sure?
Not at all.
EDIT: HEFI seems to be better than HEI-T right now…