Enhanced gunner controls: He 111 H-6 & Ju 52 Drehkranz 30, A-20 & others

[Nil]

Inaccuracies in the Heinkel He111H-6 and Ju52 B-Stand dorsal MG15 gun position and suggested improvements

 

This is about the handling of the Drehkranz D30 rotating mount used on the Heinkel He111 and Ju52. These are some improvements that will make this weapon handle more realistically in-game.

 

This video, published in September 2016, can help: 

 

 

1. It can be seen from the video, backed up by documentation below,

 

http://dunkirk1940.o...ex.php?&p=1_158

http://historicarmsc...s/german-mg-15/

 

that the MG15 does not need to be cocked after changing the magazine as it fires from an open bolt, so when the trigger is released the bolt will remain in the rearward position.

 

Suggested in-game modification: skip the cocking lever animation when changing magazines.

 

 

2. Also, moving the MG15 without moving the D30 Mount is possible. The gun is mounted on a gimbal that allows about 30° left and 30° right movement for a total of 60° travel without moving the mount.

 

See 1:30 and 10:00 on the video listed above.

Also Abb3 on http://www.deutschel...ehkranz 30.html (in German).

 

Suggested in-game modification: add the gimbal to introduce a limited ability to move the MG15 without rotating the D30 mount. The rear gun on the Il-2 already has movement like this.

 

 

3. Rotating the D30 mount fast is possible, even without military training and with an 70 years old rusty mount.

 

See 5:15 on the video; the mounting is rotated 180° in two seconds. In-game this takes approximately five seconds. (check the video below)

 

Solution: Increase the possible rotation speed of the D30 mount to closer match the reality.

 

Edited June 3, 2018 by 1./TG1_Nil

[PainGod85]

I would like to add that recocking the weapon is necessary if the previous belt has been expended completely. If the gunner chooses to replace a belt nearing its end with a fresh one, the weapon does not need to be recocked.

[Nil]

Paingod85, did you read the whole post before posting?

Quote

The operation of the MG 15 was straightforward and the bolt remained cocked (open-bolt operation) after expending the 75-round double drum magazine (also referred to as a saddle drum); this meant that there was no need to re-cock after installing a fresh magazine.

 

[Yogiflight]

41 minutes ago, PainGod85 said:

I would like to add that recocking the weapon is necessary if the previous belt has been expended completely. If the gunner chooses to replace a belt nearing its end with a fresh one, the weapon does not need to be recocked.

The MG 15 was not belt fed, but by a double drum magazine, where the ammunition was fed by a spring in each drum.

Maybe it worked like with pistols, where the slide stays in the rear position after you shot the last round.

[Field-Ops]

I wonder if another binding would be necessary to use this mount as intricately as how its shown here rather than using the mouse for all movement. Perhaps the arrow keys for changing the ring mount position while the mouse is used for the gun and its limited motion. 

 

Another thing to consider is the wind forces might limit some movement that is easily done on the ground and that might have been a factor in the Devs not showing its full range of motion, though that does not carry over to being parked on the ground on this sim.

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, 1./TG1_Nil said:

Paingod85, did you read the whole post before posting?

 

That is absolutely incorrect - if there is no ammo in the belt or drum, the bolt is going to return to the forward position, thus necessitating a recocking. I was an armorer for many years in the US Army, which included maintaining open-bolt weapons like the M249, so I know this from experience to be true.

 

 

1 hour ago, Yogiflight said:

Maybe it worked like with pistols, where the slide stays in the rear position after you shot the last round.

 

Not the case - see above.

Edited May 27, 2018 by LukeFF

[Yogiflight]

29 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

Not the case - see above.

Thanks for sharing this video, Luke. So it is the way I know it from the german MG3, too. As I didn't find anything exept in Wikipedia, to what Nil obviously was referring, I guessed there may have been something holding the bolt in the rear position after shooting the last round.

[Field-Ops]

As for the speed of rotation it is definitely too slow. However this is not the only turret design in the game that has such an exaggeratedly slow rotation speed. The IL-2 1942 rear gunner has a similar rotation bar that isnt nearly as quick as the immediate rotation axis the gun itself rests on. 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

3 hours ago, LukeFF said:

That is absolutely incorrect - if there is no ammo in the belt or drum, the bolt is going to return to the forward position, thus necessitating a recocking. I was an armorer for many years in the US Army, which included maintaining open-bolt weapons like the M249, so I know this from experience to be true.

 

What makes you so certain? I see several statements (1, 2) that the MG 15 remains cocked when the drum is expended. Unfortunately, I'm unable to verify with the manual. 

Edited May 27, 2018 by Mitthrawnuruodo

[Field-Ops]

1 hour ago, Mitthrawnuruodo said:

 

What makes you so certain? I see several statements (1, 2) that the MG 15 remains cocked when the drum is expended. Unfortunately, I'm unable to verify with the manual. 

If you watched the video you would see exactly what he described. 

[PainGod85]

7 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

The MG 15 was not belt fed, but by a double drum magazine, where the ammunition was fed by a spring in each drum.

Maybe it worked like with pistols, where the slide stays in the rear position after you shot the last round.

 

You really don't want to put a flimsy feeder plate (or in this case dummy cartridge parts) in the way of a bolt propelled by a machinegun's recoil spring. It's going to do all kinds of things you don't want it to, starting with foreign objects in your barrel.

 

Case in point, the MG3's recoil spring is strong enough to dislocate your shoulder if you remove the shoulder stock with the weapon cocked.

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Mitthrawnuruodo said:

 

What makes you so certain? I see several statements (1, 2) that the MG 15 remains cocked when the drum is expended. Unfortunately, I'm unable to verify with the manual. 

 

One of which is Wikipedia, and the other is using the exact same words as Wikipedia. If I repeat something more than once, it doesn't magically become the truth.

[LukeFF]

And for those that need any more proof about how open-bolt machine guns work, skip to the 9:00 mark of this video and see what happens to the bolt when the drum runs out of ammo:

 

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by LukeFF

[=27=Davesteu]

@1./TG1_Nil  Nice suggestion! In fact I had similar thoughts aprox. 2 months ago and prepared some pictures but never came around posting a thread until I finally forgot about it. Something I personally didn't think about at all was the rotation speed - nice find!

 

Pretty much what I thought about:

9 hours ago, Field-Ops said:

I wonder if another binding would be necessary to use this mount as intricately as how its shown here rather than using the mouse for all movement. Perhaps the arrow keys for changing the ring mount position while the mouse is used for the gun and its limited motion. 

 

Do you guys mind if I hijack this thread or even open another one? I worked this out with many more aircraft mounts. Of course mentioning you.

Edited May 27, 2018 by =27=Davesteu

[Nil]

Thank you for your feedback all of you!!

It is greatly appreciated.

@=27=DavesteuOf course you can do whatever effective for fixing this issue.

I am glad we had similar thoughts.

[Yogiflight]

5 hours ago, PainGod85 said:

You really don't want to put a flimsy feeder plate (or in this case dummy cartridge parts) in the way of a bolt propelled by a machinegun's recoil spring. It's going to do all kinds of things you don't want it to, starting with foreign objects in your barrel.

No not really. I should have been more precisely, when I stated, it could be like in pistols. The empty magazine in pistols doesn't catch the slide, it only moves the slide lock up and this one holds the slide in its rear position. I thought in the MG15 it might have worked in a similar way. Fortunately Luke posted this video, which made it pretty clear, that the bolt runs forward after the last round was shot.

[=27=Davesteu]

As already mentioned I had quite similar thoughts about enhancing the gunner controls.

 

I suggest one separate gun control (yellow) and one mount control (red).

Let's begin with the Drehkranz 30.

 

But why do I think we need this?
Currently there are many unhistorical death angles in the game, most noticeably with aircraft mounting the Drehkranz 30 (Ju 52 & He 111 H-6) and the A-20's dorsal gunner.
Let's focus on latter as an example. The red areas are currently blind spots to the dorsal gunner:

 

Because the left gun in the picture below is in a currently impossible to achieve position, the dead angle of the vertical stabilizer is considerably larger.

If you swivel the gun over a defined degree to the left or right, the carriage moves one step to the respective side. Unfortunately this is very crude and especially noticeable if you try to move the gun contrary to it's carriage in a way the left gun shows.

 

Splitting up the controls into two separate ones, gun and carriage, and thereby enabling contrary movement, the dead angle could be considerable smaller:

 

Other aircraft, maybe less obvious at first glance, would also benefit:
The IL-2 1942...

 

... or the Ju 88.

[LukeFF]

The Ju 88 dorsal position is one that could really stand for some improvements in its functionality, for sure. Good diagrams, @=27=Davesteu!

[JtD]

The field of fire for the A-20 dorsal gunner is way larger than it historically was. That should be fixed first,.

[Nil]

10 hours ago, =27=Davesteu said:

I suggest one separate gun control (yellow) and one mount control (red).

 

 

Good idea @=27=Davesteu A simple fix would be that the gun moves with the mouse as usual, but pressing an additional button would switch to  NOT move  the red mount (on your pictures), only the yellow mount. Plus two button to raise or lower the Drehkranz 30 mount and rotate the window on the Ju88

[=27=Davesteu]

9 hours ago, JtD said:

The field of fire for the A-20 dorsal gunner is way larger than it historically was. That should be fixed first,.

Roses are blue,

Violets are red,

can you please support your claim,

or are you just mad?

 

 

8 hours ago, 1./TG1_Nil said:

A simple fix would be that the gun moves with the mouse as usual, but pressing an additional button would switch to  NOT move  the red mount (on your pictures), only the yellow mount. Plus two button to raise or lower the Drehkranz 30 mount and rotate the window on the Ju88

I'd prefer it the other way around. As long as you press a button (right mouse for example) mouse movement controls the mount, without pressing the key it controls gun movement.

 

[Nil]

On 5/30/2018 at 4:47 PM, =27=Davesteu said:

As long as you press a button (right mouse for example) mouse movement controls the mount, without pressing the key it controls gun movement.

I believe it is the best way! nice suggestion!

I hope the dev team will hear us!

[=27=Davesteu]

On 6/1/2018 at 1:17 PM, 1./TG1_Nil said:

I hope the dev team will hear us!

I hope so as well!

Maybe changing the topic into something more general? Like "Enhanced gunner controls: He 111 H-6 & Ju 52 Drehkranz 30, A-20 & others" for example.

[Nil]

Done! anything else?

[Dakpilot]

Perhaps this could be moved to bug reports in the correct format. 

More likely to be guaranteed to be read rather than in suggestions? 

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

[=27=Davesteu]

On 6/3/2018 at 5:49 PM, Dakpilot said:

Perhaps this could be moved to bug reports in the correct format. 

More likely to be guaranteed to be read rather than in suggestions? 

Very likely. Maybe one of the moderators might want to move this into the "Historical Data"-subforum for example?