Is it possible to replace MG151/20 of the Me 163 B-0 with the MG151/15?
Technically it’s possible on every plane.
Practically the MG 151/20 was the all-purpose weapon, while the MG 151/15 was more of an anti-fighter gun, due to its higher velocity.
So operationally the Me 163 would only use the MG 151/20 or MK 108 to attack bombers.
Since going after fighters in a rocket interceptor plane wouldn’t make much sense.
I know that part, but in 8.3~9.3 BR, the MG151/20’s power is not outstanding, and its ballistics, velocity, and bullet spread are worse than Nr23 and Gsh23, so I think it would be better to replace it with MG151/15 if it can :(
Well, it’s the whole reason I made that post.
I wanted gather information, feedback and make a proper suggestion, something like:
Suggestion: Allow ALL aircraft equipped with mg151 to select their caliber (15mm or 20mm) as a modification
I know GhostMaxi has multiple suggestion for individual aircraft that operationally used the mg151/15. But i’d like to propose something more general, that would concern every plane, even the Italian equipped 151.
There is multiple question we can have:
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Is it possible?
According to the manual, it seems to be, the only thing you’d need to do would be to swap the barrel, of course you’d need to equip the correct ammo but it’s trivial. -
Was it done operationally?
The answer depends of the specific plane variation but the general answer seems to be that early plane did it while later in the war they did not, because the focus shifted to shot down heavy bombers.
And I’d like to make the argument that in a game in which we can play planes that were never used operationally, the counter-argument that “No fw190 used 151/15 irl” feels weak. -
Is it feasible in the current game without much trouble?
100% yes, the Bf 109 K4 can already swap between the mg 151/20 and the mk108 with a modification, it should not be tho complex for the devs to implement this. -
It is a interesting addition?
I’m biased but I’d say yes. The option to select between high velocity low damage and the opposite adds a lot of replay-ability and variation when fighting those plane. -
Does it introduce or fix some balance issues?
Again, I say it 100% fix some balance issues. The 151 is the worse 20mm in the game currently, and 190 and 109s being plane that turn badly can make it hard to pull enough lead to hit a shot.
Also, it gives german fighers an option to destroy pillboxes. since 90% of the 20mm can apparently 1 shot pillboxes. A proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Fy_9lUYNI
In my personal opinion Gaijin’s severe nerf to the MG151/20 has had a significant impact.
Even back in 2019-2021, when Minengeschoss was strong the MG151/20 was still tricky to use, but a single mine shell hit could shatter the vehicle, and the trajectory didn’t drop as much as it does now, and the shell spread wasn’t as severe as that of the Gsh23
While other 20mm cannons (Hispano, ShVak, type 99) have seen their power buffed, the 20mm MG151/20 has been weakened over the past five years due to various bugs and deliberate nerfs by Gaijin.
In fact, the firepower of other 20mm cannons, excluding the MG151/20, has become excessively strong, making the trade-off for the MG151/20’s speed and ballistics meaningless.
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Since a while i have noticed that German aircraft with MG 151/20s kill light pill boxes rather easy. I watched some Air RB replays as i saw this in the kill feed - and tested it in a live match weeks (months?) ago. I had no problems to kill some pillboxes with the Rank III BR 3.3 Me 410 A-1 with a few hits - with the air target belt.
What still seems to be impossible with MG 151/20s is the ability to kill ai tanks in Air RB. Other cannons can. When playing the 3.3 Firefly or the 4.0 VB 10 it is no problem to kill ai tanks with Hispanos (i use universal belt).
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Mm, I guess I might have to re-test it a some point, I’ll be honest, after playing planes with actually decent 20mm, I subconsciously avoid the german air tree.
From the few games I played in the D9 while grinding for the flapjack, I’ve noticed that damage seems a bit better than last month. I didn’t particularly test against pillbox tho. Most of time I don’t even bother shooting at pillbox since it can take 100+ round to finish one off. So I’ll be glad if it changed for the better.
Something I find interesting about damage is how guns that are supposed to be similar can be completely different.
From recent experience:
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Hispanos 404 of the french tech tree are 100% the best guns in the game. I don’t know what is special about the Mb 157 armament, but 90% of the time, it’s 1 shot - 1 kill. I get small spark once in a while but i’m quite sure it’s due to ping and not the guns.
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Shvack and AN-M2 and M3 follow closely they have a full belt of FI-T or HEI and slap most thing out of the air without issue, Still, I get a lot more spark than with the 404.
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Hispanos Mk2 and Mk5 are next, they are hit or miss and will either obliterate the enemy (since they come by 4 is most planes) or spark for hours.
1 recent example: https://youtu.be/Ml12NlWXZ8U
On a surface view, the damage doesn’t seem that bad, but there is 10 shot where the shot hit visually. As a reminder, this is what a hispanos 20mm is supposed to do:
I guess it’s possible that I only hit SAP-I and AP, tho I would doubt it with the amount of lead. It would be nice if you could confirm this by not having some clearly inferior rounds is your belts but, oh well…
Also, the important point is that my friend finished him off (It took 7 more hits, as per the server replay) and I got zero assist so that’s nice.
Where am I getting at? Well, that gaijin should really check the way each gun is modeled because it doesn’t make any sense, some guns that are supposed to be almost the same have some completely different damage and consistency. Maybe i just have some insane luck with the 157, so I’d like to ask if other could test this as well. Because if the 404 are consistently better than the hispanos, while their should be minor differences between the 2, maybe there is some weird variable "random change of minor damage) that should be commented out.
this is more related to this
Oh, and while I’m at it, 1 theory I’ve heard for the difference in damage between the 151 and the rest is this one:
Shvack - FI-T
151 on the 190-A4, HEI
Note how the 151 explode after penetrating while the shvak explode the very moment it touches the wing. Note: This is not because of some fuze sensitivity, it does the exact same on the p47 for example
For the record, this is with the Hanomag, mg151 but russian tech tree. As you can see, detonate On wing wing, not after traversing.
The theory is that because the mg151 has a longer fuze delay, 0.3m for the 190-A4, 0.1m for the Hanomag and the other 20mm, it detonates AFTER touching the plane, but the shell does not get the momentum of the plane it hits, and thus explode behind it, doing zero damage, or light yellow. I have no idea how you could even confirm that, appart from reverse - engineering a replay file and tracking the position of the shell and the plane to see when the shell explode and it’s distance compared to the plane.