Since when can 7,9 mm MGs kill small pillboxes in Air RB?

I watched a replay and saw that a player of the enemy team killed two light pillboxes with his battery of 8 x 7,92 Browning MGs (Dutch Fokker with. 8 LMGs in the nose). He tried to kill pillboxes and ai planes in order to avoid a ticket defeat.

Replay - skip to ~ 14:40 and ~ 16:50 to see that:

Gaijin Entertainment - Single Sign On

After checking the penetration values of the available belts (13 mm at 10 meters) i was surprised that he managed to kill the pillboxes.

I mean i had a lot of hits (and ofc no kill) of light pillboxes with the 50mm AP rounds (both belts) flying the 50 mm 262 in Air RB - so i was happy to see that there might be change which might help to avoid ticket defeats.

My questions:

  1. Does anybody know when gaijin changed the “health” of light pillboxes?
  2. Or was he just lucky that one of the projectiles flew through a window?
  3. Or is this just map specific or a test?
  4. Or is gaijin’s damage indicator overwhelmed by 8 bullet streams and adds damage up?

Thx for reading and have a good one!

Edit: Added aircraft model to OP

They… are always able to?

afaik all weapons can kill pillboxes through the window. Some with enough pen can also kill them through the 45deg part and the door.

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I can’t answer any question specifically, but it has been around for a long while I think. At least, I’ve used it on occasion where the opportunity presents itself (such as late in game).
If they are undamaged then it takes a lot of ammo, and you need to get super close, so it’s not something you’d really do as an objective. But certainly near end of game when the pillboxes may have taken a few hits already, you’ll be able to get a few with just the 7.92’s.

edit: I only ever aim for the roof. I’m not sure of what the hitbox mechanics are of them and if things like windows are in the calculations. (but of course me aiming for the roof means there are still probably hits everywhere over it).

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Thx for ultra fast response! 👍

I linked the replay in order to show that i saw no specific aim or technique. Just point & click.

Thank you too 👍

As i don’t use mouse aim i lack the necessary precision to aim for specific parts. I am happy if i can stabilze the plane and score hits in the first place.

My initial thought was a map specific topic as both pillboxes seemed to be unharmed, but who knows if they were not previously strafed by ai planes.

You might remember the old Spain map at prop BRs - this was for me the only map on which i was able to kill pillboxes with a few MG 151/20 (air target belt) hits.

As my potato aim with a Hotas requires either a lot of HMG ammo or cannon fire to kill a pillbox i was just positively surprised that such low calibers allowed the fellow player to score with rather low effort and ammo usage - both were kills in one pass.


Have a good one!

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Every gun/cannon is able to kill small pillboxes over years, only ammo count matters. Actually biggest problems are german 20mm with airbelt. It’s curious because MK108 airbelt you can kill them with ease.

I always aim at the slope at flat angle, entry/door doesn’t matter to me although I know I would need less ammo. But most of the time your flight path doesn’t fit or on many maps the entry is blocked by trees or something else.

Best guns in the 7mm category are the russian ones for pillboxes.

2 Likes

been a while you were able to. I killed a pillbox with a japanese zero a while ago when I ran out of 20mm. It is possible but it takes an insane amount of passes

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At first when you mentioned 8 guns I was thinking of early Spitfires or Hurricanes and thinking maybe they were shooting at the sweet spot of their gun convergence.

Checked out the replay and, oh yeah, the Fokker GIA… I had forgotten about that one. That thing is a bit of a death-ray with all 8 guns being nose mounted and no convergence problems.

Edit: In addition to being all nose-mounted, the one second burst mass of an 8 gun Hurricane/Spitfire is 1.32 kg, while the Fokker GIA is 2.2 kg. So a higher ROF as well.

2 Likes

The Strikemaster can deal with small pillboxes using x6 7.62mm, I’ve been doing it since the day it released. It’s probably the volume of fire that affects damage more, rather than caliber. We can do some testing in custom battles on our own.
Also I do not believe the window does anything to modify damage, as I’ve destroyed pillboxes from above consistently.

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always, found out first by using the P-47 and then tested to even the 7.5 mac, all gun calibers can destroy pillboxes

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I tried it now with british 7.7 and yes it works. But idk since when,cause just like medium tanks without the complex damage model,i only remember 12.7 mm and above working for these. Now spent over 150 MG151 air belt rounds and nothing. MK108 needed about 30 with default belt.

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Same here.

Your MG 151/20 experience looks like the good old axis vs allies times 😂

Thx for your tests 👍

German 7.92 with AP belt was about 300 rounds. And MG151 with APHE belt was also some crazy high number. I think something breaks when its getting spammed by lot of MGs the same way Gepards overpressure with APHE with barely any explosive when shooting frontal armor of tanks.

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For comparison’s sake, I popped small pillboxes fairly easily in the Yak-2 and A6M5 Hei.

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Like i said,i think it depends on fire rate and amount where the higher amount just bugs it out the way SPAA overpressuring MBTs with APHE when the APHE dont have enough TNT to overpressure.