Yep. They’re definitely really good now in terms of damage.
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They are the same as before. Just now they will fuze on more props.
Even before the patch, when I got hit by a MG 151/20 I would generally lose a wing or tail, or get set on fire. They hit hard and still do.
Doesn’t really matter which game mode, the damage of guns is far from realistic and Gaijin doesn’t really take any steps to make it so.
Which is kinda weird because they constantly add features that make guns and weapons behave more realistic, just not the damage.
As long as guns are working for gameplay purposes, they don’t show any interest of changing them.
When it comes to aircraft ammunition, everyone is always just looking at explosive shells, like it’s the only type that matters.
Incendiary, Tracer, Ball, AP? Get that s*** out of my face.
But when 12.7mm or 20mm HE rounds don’t take out planes more consistently than AP, everybody loses their minds.
For the longest time players always chose belts with the most HE rounds, and shells with the most HE filler, even though HEFI rounds should result in better performance than HEF with no incendiary component and mixed belts should have overall better performance than sticking to one type of round.
But it’s kinda Gaijins fault, because they implied it was that way from the start. Most ammunition belts don’t make any sense and when it’s air targets than Gaijin just puts the most amount of HE rounds into them.
Tracer and Ball wouldn’t be half bad when they actually did the same damage as AP rounds.
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MG 151 getting its fuse delay turned down so it explodes on yaks and La-7 series is the biggest buff to it.
Personal experience from me for higher tiers, 20 mils are working great now unless you’re shooting planes with bias code like the Su-25. Otherwise it’s working well for gameplay purposes (getting a good shot means a kill, only a few rounds on target equals crit or kill depending on how good your aim was). I finally feel like i’m not being punished unfairly when i’m playing jets.
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Can confirm that B-17 can quite a lot of 20mm hits.
So while 20mm cannons are super lethal against fighters, larger cannons are super lethal against large bombers.
Which makes some sense but it basically comes down to shooting wings and tails off and happends too frequently.
I mean Germany wouldn’t invent a 55mm one-shot cannon when a gun firing half the weight of shells at twice the rate does exactly the same.
So it’s entirely possible that I’m just awful, but ever since this update the 20mm have felt a lot worse. The amount of sparks and ineffectual hits. Unless I get a cockpit snipe it does nothing.
I haven’t sheared off someone’s wing once (except for a bomber after many many many hits) since the update drop, meanwhile it was routine before Air Superiority (using Bf 109 F4).
What belts are you using?
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I had a guy in a Bf 109 G-6 get 4 kills before RTB. (+ 1 damaged B-17)
I watched the server replay and he shreded the other fighters.
Even shot off the tail of a P-47 with a single 20mm.
I manged to shoot down a number of planes very easily with 3 B-20 in the La-7.
I just needed to aim, fire a short burst and the enemy plane was destroyed.
Somehow I managed to judge the deflection shots quite well, and manged to kill a few planes with ease at 500-600m.
Worked with both default and tracer belts. Only B-17 were able to shrug off the damage and I only manged to shoot off some control surfaces and destroy 1-2 engines.
In one instance I set fire to an already black engine and he was burning for like 2 min before the Bf 109 I mentioned finished him off by sending rounds into his cockpit in a head-on.
Once again I’ll say the damage is nowhere near realistic.
I shot-off the wing tip of a Bf 110 in test drive with a single German 20mm FlaK 30 HEFI-T.
Pretty sure that 2 hits are enough to shoot off the wing of a large aircraft like an IL-2 or a twin engined fighter with 20mm HEF.
37-40mm can probably do the same with 4-engined bombers.
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Here’s something interesting:
The P-38 pulled above me in the head-on, I followed and shot him from below using Ground Targets for the 12.7mm and Tracers for the ShVAK.
Somehow I shot off both wings and destroyed one engine.
Against an F4U-4:
Tail shot off.
While satisfying, I wouldn’t consider either scenario very realistic.
The P-38 would have lost an engine, while the F4U-4 maybe would have suffered some damage to tail controls. The P-38 would have been super crippled, maybe crashed. The F4U-4 however would probably still be able to fight.
Well WT is become joke and RNG fest in Tanks with the incredible post dmg mechanic so they need to screw the planes and Jets too
Using Universal on MG and Air Targets on CNN
for German 13mms use IAI, it’s by far the strongest belt, for 20mms Stealth has noticeably better ballistics compared to Air Targets and arguably better composition.
I want 13mm on the 109F4)
@LichwoodIsStolen universal and air should do fine, perhaps the trajectory of the IT round in the 20mm is throwing off your aim as it’s quite different from the HEI
oh I forgot he was in the F4 lol, I only use the 20mm’s on it.
Yea taking the 15s is useless
Wait. I’m not supposed to aim with the IT? Should I adjust my aim in any particular vector relative to the IT?
when you aim with the IT, you tend to miss the Mineshells which deal the most amount of damage, cause they drop their speed faster than IT. If you aim a bit further ahead you should get better results, or try using Stealth as it has better ballistics.
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alright thx
IT is slower but drops speed less than HEI, if that throws your aim off too much, use stealth…bit less damage but no IT
ty, been getting better results. But it’s still strange that I really noticed this problem only post Air Superiority. Did they do anything to the ballistics this update?
No, nothing was changed in that regard