Custom belts for aircraft

The incendiary rounds in the US stealth belt are completely useless and deal no damage.

So you can make full belt of Minengeschoß?

I was talking about .50cal and 7,92mm. Why do you talk about MG151?

Name checks out.

I only play german aircraft.

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Where’s the problem with letting us choose the rounds? You can choose your ammo loadout in tanks as well. It’s not realistic for any WW2 tank to carry 100% APHE either.

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Tanks and ships have shells that are simply “worse” than others, I don’t see it being an issue if planes got the same treatment.

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German planes are already among the worst at all BRs where’s the issue?

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Currently, the air targets belt is 3/5 mineshell. Not much would change.
Mineshells and MG151s aren’t even that good anymore. They don’t fuze on aircraft skin, they have by far the highest drag and worst accuracy. They drop like ROCKS after a few hundred meters while everyone else’s ‘late’ 20mms will keep on trucking.

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And that’s not what’s happening. The audio is made up by AI, thus it should be ignored.

The shell arc is just wrong for Mk108s, and the 110 G2 carried MG151s as well - not every shot is a tracer nor HE. Thus, that B-17 was more than likely being shot at with 20mms only. The luftwaffe themselves estimated that just 2-4 hits with 30mm mineshells could bring down a 4-engine bomber.

So no, we don’t have a video of a Bf110 emptying all of its guns into a B-17 and not disintegrating it - what it did is quite similar to what a pair of MG151s would do from that position in WT, though.

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Not to mention late war production quality dropoff and sabotage by factory staff. If those rounds worked as intended the bombers would’ve been destroyed a lot faster. It’s very likely some of those rounds didn’t fuse at all. War Thunder displays the optimal condition of vehicles that’s why tanks don’t break down.

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I have no issues with free choices as wt and reality are 2 different worlds.

My remark was aimed to deal with gaijin’s attitude of dealing with such things. So despite being totally unrealistic in almost all aspects outside skin, size and shape of vehicles, they somehow feel the need for “historical evidence”.

So together with this quote:

which i see similar - the obstacles to change anything are rather high to convince gaijin to allow custom belts.

I mean especially German aircraft (including JP and IT and UK) and their load outs seem to be at least in the prop BRs way more affected by “balancing” decisions than US or USSR planes. Actually i can’t remember getting killed by a German aircraft that was not a Bv 238.

So imho we are on the same page.

Fully agree - depending on your chosen view (3rd person of virtual cockpit) at ranges of >8-900 meters in a chasing position they behave more like mortars…

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Even if we ignore those production issues, it’s very possible that the realities of wartime production caused them to load more solid AP shells than usual into those 20mm belts as well.

There’s a lot of possible explanations, but at the end of the day its everything we know about 30mm german ammunition and cannons, OR a grainy, poor quality, 80 year old film - from a plane that carried both 20s and 30s, no less.

I’d be far more convinced if said footage came from a 262 or a late 109 with just the one MK108 in the nose.

I once chased a B7A2 in a 190 A5 U2, I had just taken off and had the full load of 500rds. I fired almost all of them from barely 1km behind him for a handful of hits and no significant damage - this was before RealShatter was even a thing.
I saved the last few dozen shells and focused on getting closer and finally shot him down shortly before the match timer would end.

I know with 100% certainty that if I was in any J2M for example, with those long 20mm Type 99-2s, I wouldn’t have spent a fraction of the ammo for a kill. Even the Ho-5s and Ho-103s out of a Ki-100 would have made those shots easily.

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If you get what you want pure he belts, they will end up getting nerfed and then you will be no better off, therefore i can’t see gaijin doing so

Japanese and russian aircraft get full HE-T belts and they deal even more damage than german Minengeschoss rounds.

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I dont know why gaijin have balanced it like that

Many planes already have pure HE belts and I don’t see them getting nerfed. Namely the FI-T belt for ShVAKs, or the HEF-T belt for both Type 99s.

Both quite good, though for the latter I prefer the Universal belt with 25% AP thrown in. Ironically helps give some extra punch when tailsitting on someone.

But regardless, having the ability to choose what ammo goes in your belts would be a fantastic upgrade. Sometimes ALL of the available belts suck or have some very weird choices - like german 20mm Air Targets putting both AP rounds next to each other instead of spread evenly.
I know Hispanos have some pretty wack belts too.

The Hispanos were terrible but the stealth HE/SAPHE are great. The MG151 would be a lot better with a HEI/APHE belt too.

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Problem with this game you are fighting nations that your plane is not set up for same as what year it was in service, so i can understand that you should have more variety and you should be able to swap before match starts knowing what you are up against. Its the same argument as giving all planes that have to face missils flares. I can see a reason behind the op’s request. Gaijin have moved the goal posts in regards to realistic/ realism. If germany had to fight japan then they may of well added more API-T just like USA

Yep…

Planes even if they had the same guns were never consistent on the belts they had available. This is due to time changing over time when it was introduced to aircraft before it became available.

To put it simply, just cause your plane had Mk103s does not mean it had the same belts as a plane with the same guns only 1 year before it. Would have simply been due to resource restrictions due to production reasons, resource scarcity etc., etc.

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Have to tried using universal belts?

Sure, but people are mainly talking about the performance increase in a air vs. air role.

Planes that were intended for ground attack with cannons already have belts with 75-100% AP rounds.

Historically the MG 151/20 and MK 108 are just not cut out to be used against any armored targets.
The 20mm AP rounds penetration drops to half from 0° when the armor is angled 30°, making even light tanks impervious.

This is in stark contrast to the 15mm MG 151 or MK 103 which were developed with that dual puprose in mind.

Considering that the 15mm MG 151 was still in service until the end of the war and even saw updates to the ammunition in 1943-1944, it probably makes the most sense to give planes armed with the 20mm MG 151/20 the option to switch to the 15mm MG 151, giving them better anti-armor performance.

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