Do only German planes have ammo counters?

[konate]

I can't find them anywhere, not even in the P-40.  How do pilots know how many rounds they have left before running out?

[Finkeren]

Only mid-late war German fighters had ammo counters.

 

All other pilots had to know approximately how much firing time their guns had and try to keep track of it. other method were used as well, like having the last 50 rounds be all tracers, which would make it very obvious, when you were close to running out, but obviously this could also alert the enemy to the fact, that you were almost out of ammo.

 

If you want to know, how much firing time your guns have, then you look up the rate of fire of the gun (in rounds per minute) and how much ammo each gun has (note that the game gives the total number of rounds for each type of gun, so you have to divde that number by the number of guns of that type)

 

You then divide the number of rounds by the rate of fire and multiply the result by 60, which will give you the firing time for said gun.

 

X: number of rounds per gun. Y: rate of fire in rounds per minute

 

X / Y x 60 = total firing time in seconds.

 

For instance on the Yak-1B the ShVAK autocannon has 140 rounds of ammo and fires at a rate of 800 rpm, so it has.

 

140 / 800 x 60 = 10.5

 

Ten and a half seconds of firing time for the cannon.

 

And for the UBS:

 

240 / 1000 x 60 = 14.4

 

Around fourteen and a half second of fire for the mg.

 

Now "all" you have to do is keep track of that in the middle of combat as you're fighting for your life giving off burst after burst. Simple

 

In reality the best thing to do is remember, that you have some 4 sec of fire left after cannon ammo runs out, so it's best to try and disengage at that point.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Finkeren

[Saurer]

Exept for the german fighters only the MC 202 has one too, but there are now Ammo counters on any of thf aillied aircrafts ingame

[konate]

...but there are now Ammo counters on any of thf aillied aircrafts ingame

 

Eh?  

 

There are?

Edited December 7, 2016 by konate

[Finkeren]

Eh?

 

There are?

I think he meant "no" instead of "now".

[Saurer]

Yes i did spell it wrong on the mobile phone

[eRoN]

Only mid-late war German fighters had ammo counters.

 

The entire 109 E-series at least had cannon ammo counters, which were from the start of the war.

[Finkeren]

The entire 109 E-series at least had cannon ammo counters, which were from the start of the war.

Ok I might be mistaken about exactly when they introduced the counters, but early Emils for certain didn't have them, and they didn't have cannons either from the start of the war in 1939.

[ACG_KaiLae]

You use a residual belt, which isn't an option in BoX (yet?). In CLoD, I change the color of the tracers I use when down to less than 100 rounds in my hurricane.

[eRoN]

but early Emils for certain didn't have them, and they didn't have cannons either from the start of the war in 1939.

 

That's true e-1's didn't have cannons. The e-1 cockpit in cliffs of dover has an ammo counter but it displays 60 rounds despite having mgs in the wings, maybe that's just an error in game. Regardless e-3s were in service at the start of 1939.

[Wulf]

Only mid-late war German fighters had ammo counters.

 

All other pilots had to know approximately how much firing time their guns had and try to keep track of it. other method were used as well, like having the last 50 rounds be all tracers, which would make it very obvious, when you were close to running out, but obviously this could also alert the enemy to the fact, that you were almost out of ammo.

 

If you want to know, how much firing time your guns have, then you look up the rate of fire of the gun (in rounds per minute) and how much ammo each gun has (note that the game gives the total number of rounds for each type of gun, so you have to divde that number by the number of guns of that type)

 

You then divide the number of rounds by the rate of fire and multiply the result by 60, which will give you the firing time for said gun.

 

X: number of rounds per gun. Y: rate of fire in rounds per minute

 

X / Y x 60 = total firing time in seconds.

 

For instance on the Yak-1B the ShVAK autocannon has 140 rounds of ammo and fires at a rate of 800 rpm, so it has.

 

140 / 800 x 60 = 10.5

 

Ten and a half seconds of firing time for the cannon.

 

And for the UBS:

 

240 / 1000 x 60 = 14.4

 

Around fourteen and a half second of fire for the mg.

 

Now "all" you have to do is keep track of that in the middle of combat as you're fighting for your life giving off burst after burst. Simple

 

In reality the best thing to do is remember, that you have some 4 sec of fire left after cannon ammo runs out, so it's best to try and disengage at that point.

 

 

The enemy isn't going to notice a sudden change in the percentage of incoming tracer rounds.  It just isn't going to happen; not in the real world.    

[Guest deleted@30725]

They look at that overlay on their hud which says how many rounds you have and how fast you are going

 

Although as Finkeren says I expect in the middle combat when your life depends on your ammo your ammo time is probably one of the things you'd never forget.

Edited December 7, 2016 by deleted@30725

[Finkeren]

They look at that overlay on their hud which says how many rounds you have and how fast you are going

 

Although as Finkeren says I expect in the middle combat when your life depends on your ammo your ammo time is probably one of the things you'd never forget.

 

Well,  to be honest. As a fighter pilot, your life will seldom depend on your ammo supply. You and your aircraft's ability to avoid the opponents attacks is much more important. Fighter combat rarely comes down to a situation, where it's either him or you. Shooting down your adversary isn't the only way out of combat (though in the sim world it often is) It's perfectly feasible to survive the combat after you've run out of ammo.