…okay?
believe it or not the smallest damage to an aircraft’s wing causes massive issues with drag irl, if the damage is bad enough the wing can flat out be ripped off by the drag
The wing will not be ripped of by drag. destroying enough skin from a wing will absolutely cause a difference in drag leading to a crash, but the wingspar is not going to snap because of drag.What it will snap from is being unsupported by said skin, but that takes a lot of the wing being destroyed
No this is utterly rubbish. A B-29’s entire wing isn’t going to fold like that.
To those saying that reports of bombers surviving with damage from cannonfire is just “confirmation bias” and defending one tiny 20mm round with a piddly amount of explosives ripping off a wing I say what on earth are you smoking.
Even if that one round exploded right on that wing spar that wing isn’t folding. Ask yourselves if 20mm’s were so catastrophically powerful then why did the Germans with their magical “mine” rounds push for fitting 30mm’s to their aircraft for bomber hunting? What a catastrophic waste of time that was, silly Germans… should’ve just stuck with 1x 20mm as it could easily destroy a bomber with one well placed shot to the wing apparently.
Also that picture earlier in the thread with the B-17’s wing missing was a direct flak hit… which absolutely will tear a wing off.
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As per usual, the truth is always somewhere in the middle. A bomber shouldn’t fold from one hit like that, but they shouldn’t be flying tanks either. They had terrible loss rates when they met fighters.
Few things here.
First off, the switch to 30mms didn’t happen on every fighter they had. 109s could only bring one internal cannon, the gunpods obviously came with big performance penalties and even then they only added two more. So putting an MK108 in them was obviously a big increase to their firepower.
190s had 4x 20mm from pretty early on, and they never really used the MK108 in substantial numbers. There was the 190 D-12 as we have in-game, and very few models could (doesn’t mean did) use MK108s in the wings.
And second, they employed the front quarter attack almost exclusively. That means your closing speed is gonna be somewhere in the neighborhood of ~800kph and your firing window is not very long, especially when you realize that these pilots didn’t have mouse aim or big red nametags above the enemy plane telling them exactly how far away they were.
Again, an increase to firepower is very much appreciated here - a 109 G-6 goes from a 1s burst mass of 2.34kg to 4.35kg by just replacing a single cannon. HE filler per shell is tripled, and their estimates put a 4-engine bomber kill at just 2-4 hits.
For the 262 this was even worse as its speed means your closure rate is gonna easily exceed 1000kph, thus it has 4x 30mm. The He 280 had 3x 15 or 20mm, though that one was dropped in favor of the 262 (despite showing up much earlier). Anyway, in such a situation, OF COURSE you want to throw out as much ammo as you can.
It happened on many that were dedicated to hunting bomber because 1 or 2 20mm is not enough to quickly bring down a bomber.
The firing window is actually pretty long and gives the pilot enough time to remove anything in the bombers cockpit. None of them aimed for wingspars.
Don’t know if there’s enough info about its flight performance but I’d love to see this in the game.
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Yes, but it was far from every single one. 190 As were also heavily involved in bomber interception, but mounting MK108s to one was very rare, if it was ever done outside of testing configurations.
Wing spars specifically, never. But the wing root, where a lot of fuel is stored, with the added benefit of likely hitting the engines on one side? If you’re coming from the front quarter, you can hit anything from the cockpit to both of one wing’s engines easily.
This is from a LW gun camera, and is a frontal attack.
Heinkel tested it a fair bit, should definitely be enough to add considering that aircraft we know much less about have also been added.
Their armament of 4-6 20mm was a lot more destructive than 1 20mm so they didn’t need the upgrade.
Most just aimed center mass and tried to hit anything they could but none of those shots result in an instant wing ripping.
Would be nice to finally see some more WW2 aircraft but they don’t make enough money off of those so this would probably be a premium if it got added.
Yes, that’s my point. The switch to 30mm happened precisely because the 109 was undergunned. For the 190s they never bothered and 20mm was doing a perfectly good job.
That’s the norm for WW2 air combat, tbh. And I haven’t looked much into pilot testimonies on bomber interception so can’t comment on that. What we do know is that they were shot down in droves when unescorted.
In either case, getting a wing rip from a single 20mm hit just shouldn’t happen.
Every patch I’m just waiting for more WW2 aircraft. Got my own suggestion on one waiting approval too!
“rapid uncontrolled dissassembally” , also explain wing ripping then.
you may only see one 20mm round hit but its actually likely several rounds and one tracer
Actually 4-5. I have one document that lists 4 shells for 30mm rounds and 18 for 20mm, another has it at 5 30mm and 20 20mm shells.
Well, the main issue is probably pointing your gun where the rounds need to go, while also avoiding crashing into the bomber.
I’ve seen those numbers go all over the place, 2-4 was what I had seen the most.
Also, I assume you’re talking about the 3rd row from bottom? Doesn’t that mean with 5% hits?
It’s the time needed to achive the required number of hits to bring down the target, using the amount of guns specified, considering a 5% hit chance.
It lists 75 for the 15mm, 20 for the 20mm and 5 for the 30mm. 50 and 55mm guns only need a single hit.
Even though the 55mm was designed specifically for that goal, so 50mm would probably not be enough depending which part of the bomber was hit.
That’s the point of this thread.
Which one did you suggest?
Started playing bombers yesterday ?
Bomber DM’s have been like this since 1.29 update
A prototype of the He 112 B, but instead of a 700hp Jumo 210, it’ll have a ~1200hp DB601Aa. Actually closer to the 109 E-3 than the E-4 since the supercharger isn’t improved.
Yeah, a 5% hit chance sounds about right. 6x 15mms and 75s is hilarious though, right now in-game I’d wager the 109 F2 actually hits harder than the F-1 or F-4. Much better ballistics too. Shame we don’t have more aircraft with 15mm guns.
They deal low structural damage but at the moment they are very effective in setting fires since they still explode in a sphere, since are one of the few guns that still don’t have realShatter.
In that comparison the 15mm is shown having 2.8g of explosive but those small explosive rounds are practically useless. The 15mm Incendiary on the other hand would be a lot more lethal and I also would consider AP-T and API a lot more effective, since they can actually penetrate pilot armor on most fighter planes.
In the whole comparison it only compares explosive shells, while 15mm, 20mm and 30mm also had Incendiary ammunition, which Germany used in conjunction with the Mineshells.