Which shell would that be?
Or not, because every belt of Mg FF/M and Mg 151/20 is allready blowted with minenshells, be it the default, Universal, AA and No tracer. The only belt that does not have Minengeschosse is the “Armored Targets Belt” which should really be a ground targets belt, because it doesnt even have a Ap-I round.
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High explosive. They make other shells redundant because whats the point of setting fuel on fire or penetrating armor when explosive rounds just tear wings and tails off? Potentially in a single hit.
Right know, all explosive shells perform pretty much the same. Not sure whether 5g or 15g TNT even make a difference, but before realShatter explosive amount was just the only thing that mattered for a explosive round.
Japanese HEFI and HEF-T have practically the same performance stats in the game files, with HEF-T having the same incendiary properties without carrying any incendiary mixture.
From the beginning of the game, the Devs would take one of the best cannon rounds from a nation, put them into the default belt and then make them perform worse than other rounds, based on “they carry less explosives”.
So for HMGs your guns become better when you unlocked more incendiary rounds while for the cannons they become better when you unlocked more explosive rounds or traded your explosive-incendiary rounds for just explosive rounds, which doesn’t make unless you just base the entire damage system on explosive power.
Another quick question for you. What do you think happens to a wing under the stress of flight when a large sudden force is applied to it? I would say it overstresses the airframe similar to the forces under wing rip conditions, but that’s just me.
High Explosive rounds are going to be the most effective because explosions are more powerful than spicy slugs (API). Now the problem you don’t take into account is ballistics. While HE rounds are the most bang for your buck for a single shell, those cannon rounds have much worse ballistic performance than, let’s say, the 12.7mm HMG. Those API-T rounds have better speed, ballistics, and penetration power when compared to cannons (usually 20mm, the most common). There are tradeoffs to consider when you want that large damage per round. Damage is not the only thing that makes a shell worth using because you have to hit your target for that damage to matter. Look at the 30mm Mk103 and to a lesser extent the Mk108. Great damage because of the large HE shells, but absolute trash ballistics and velocity. Great damage, but every other gun will outperform yours because hitting anything is much more difficult.
You are comparing 12.7mm API-T to 30mm Mineshells.
Not to mention that there’s a night and day difference to a 30mm Mineshell with ~90g of explosive compared to a 20mm with at most 10g.
I have a better one for you. Why do you think 20mm and 30mm Incendiary rounds were developed?
Why did Germany plan to cut down the explosive content of the 30mm Mineshell in half to carry an additional incendiary load?
Why did the RAF load their Hispanos with 50:50 HEI and Practice rounds or later SAPI?
Or why did Russia produce 60% more 20mm API rounds compared to Explosives? (Could be because of T-60s but then you still have a 1:1 ratio of AP and HE)
Why did Germany recommend to use a 1:1:1 ratio of Mineshells, Incendiary and AP on the western frontline?
It’s because explosiv amount isn’t the answer alone. Unless you take the German approach and try to hit a target with so much explosves that a single hit is nearly guaranteed to bring it down.
Some targets are more vulnerable to explosives, others to AP and/or incendiary.
Some times just the angle of attack can make one type of round vastly more effective then another.
That one caliber (gun) might be easier or harder to make hits with then others is a complete different topic. (edited)
What does this have to do with Warthunder? We are still talking about Warthunder right? This is the game where a BF-110 can disentigrate a B-17 even though there is a pretty well known video of it NOT doing that in real life. As many have pointed out to me before and I now understand; Any real-life information/doctrine means nothing here. In real life, explosives alone aren’t the answer, but Warthunder isn’t real life. When a B-17 can tank 30mm rounds like that in that video, then maybe real-life will matter. Balance is the name of the game here, and why anything was developed means nothing if a 20mm with 10g can take a fighter wing off the same way as a 30mm with 90g. In just about any circumstance, the 20mm cannons are always better than the 30mm because they have better ballistics and carry more ammo. More ammo for similar effect means more kills.
Yes I was comparing them, because in my eyes, the 30mm Mineshells are probably the worst ammu ition type for aircraft in the game. Even the 7.7mm on the earlier British planes are better in my eyes.
I disagree. When speaking about the “best shell” every aspect of that shell must be taken into account, otherwise the best shell is always going to be the 102 mm HEF-T on the P.108A serie 2. See how the argument derails when only damage is taken into account? While the 102mm does have an HE shell, the AP-T could be just as destructive to fighters and pass a shell through the entire fuselage of just about any plane with minimal issue.
That is why when someone claims that something is the “best shell” I will always argue on the entirety of the shells performance, not just on one aspect. High explosive yield means nothing if one can’t hit a target. Lower penetration values can mean the difference between a dead pilot and an alive pilot or a broken engine and a flyable engine. Accuracy of the gun the shells are expelled from can mean the difference between a solid hit and a hopeless miss. Damage is not the only thing that makes a shell good or bad, trying to act like it is just seems like an attempt to skew the facts that matter for an advantageous talking point.
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Link please i would not mind watching that
Here you go.
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That tail gunner must of been craping it 😳
They’d just fill the entire belt up with HEF rounds. Its what Id do personally.
Maybe chuck an HEF-T for every 3rd round or so, but more explosives = more damage
If that happened you would go up in BR
What we need is consistency - belts for same guns like in example german 30mm on Ta 154 A-1 only have limited selection (like anti air only) for one of its 30mm the other one can take all of them including ground belts etc
Ta is an interceptor, it gets an air spawn! Why would you want to attack ground targets, use a striker for that
well most planes with cannons have access to HEF rounds, infact almost all of them do, so that means that they’ll ALL go up in BR?
seems stupid. Also, Im pretty sure the ammo belts are usually supposed to be historically accurate to the belt compositions that were used IRL.
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Tbh all belts do destroy anything on the ground even medium tanks from above but not medium pillbox
Because it only has Mk 108, which currently in game dont have any ground targets belt.
Tho i allready made a report, for a ground targets belt with Practice shells, so it is at least somewhat useable against lighter targets and cooling grills. around 20mm should be in. Would mostly help the Me 262s as they only have Mk 108s.
We also see that it is only firing a single gun. We don’t know the ammo, and the hits are generally very poor.
If we are not talking about real life, why discuss anything at all, when everything can be whatever the devs decide?
Why would you even think that those are 30mm hits? That one video doesn’t provide any real insight.
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Not really seeing the point.
Both MK 108 and the Me 262 were designed for attacking bombers.
What would you even accomplish with 20mm of penetration at point blank range.
Not to mention that you would have to actively trade rounds with very high destrutive power against soft targets for rounds that are not effective against anything really.
Spoiler
Very curious how this shell practice round with 3mm thick dummy fuze would be able to penetrate anything anyway.
That one looks different to the one i used for the report. Which has a bigger solid head.
How does:
That one caliber might be easier or harder to make hits with, is a complete different topic.
Lead to you talking about shell damage?
Let me say it in a different way:
Different guns, have different properties, that’s why talking about those properties is a completely different story then talking about the damage potential between different projectiles.
The topic is “Custom belts for aircraft”.
You said:
And later:
So a 12.7mm API is much weaker than a 30mm Mineshell, but also you get much more hits with the 12.7mm due to better ballistics.
You say you get outperformed with the 30mm but also you said that German planes will go up in BR because of 20/30mm Mineshells.
Yet the MK 108 already gets a full Mineshell belt with the HEI-T rounds which only leaves the MG 151/20 which could go from 66% Mineshells to 100% and the MK 103 going from 75% to 100%.
Same with Hispanos going from 50-66% to 100% HEI, which other 20mm cannons already get.
With the current performance of 20mm Mineshells compared to 20mm realShatter HE, nothing would change, except that players can make ammo belts that make much more sense then what the developers force onto the player.
How is choosing the best ammo belt different then choosing the best rounds?
The main issue is that mixed “historical” belts rarely make sense in the game, because explosive ammo is so overperforming that there’s simply no need for AP or Incendiary rounds.
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