HS-129 30mm cannon and fire group 1

[II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson]

4 hours ago, frosen said:

 

Wow! Didn't know that. It would be awesome to, in addition to be able to fire only the 30 mm cannon, fire both the 30 mm and 15 mm cannons with AP at the same time! ?

 

Attention Devs

[=FB=VikS]

19 hours ago, 216th_Cat said:

When they get around to fixing it they can do this little thing at the same time: 

(Copy of an earlier post)

 

Brief description: Visual error with Hs129
Detailed description, conditions: When the Hs129 fires its standard armament the spent shell cases are ejected from the bottom of the aircraft. In reality they should be retained within the aircraft and emptied out after landing.
Additional assets (videos, screenshots, logs):

 

Guns firing and shell cases ejecting in-game:

..........

 

From the information given it would appear that these box covers for the MG17 that slide open and closed would be shut before an aircraft takes off for a sortie. When it landed afterward the covers would then be slid open and the shell cases collected. In-game they are permanently open; they would be better shown as permanently closed and the empty case animation removed. In real flight open holes in the wing would affect the airflow, even if only in a minor way, which may explain why they were covered..

This does not affect the Mk101 or Mk103 cannon; the spent shells are ejected from the gun as shown in-game.

Your PC config data (OS, drivers, specific software): N/A

 

Not sure about that - but frontline photos indicate that these hatches where left opened:

 

[Chief_Mouser]

4 hours ago, =FB=VikS said:

 

Not sure about that - but frontline photos indicate that these hatches where left opened:

 

 

I'd expect them to be open on the ground whilst the plane was undergoing maintenance. Unfortunately, decent photos of the underside in flight are, understandably, as rare as hen's teeth and I haven't been able to find any with the covers closed. It may have been an individual thing; depending on whether anyone really needed the empty shell cases, if not they let them fall out. What we can say is that they were designed to be closed in flight - an odd little detail. Cheers.

[Sybreed]

No offense,  but the grouping thing is a bit more important than this visual discrepancy. 

[I./ZG1_HeTzeR]

The correct Ammo- penetration and -types are in my mind, the most important thing here, but who am I

[Avimimus]

That is some really great information being posted!

 

It makes me ask a question... a long time ago in a book store I glanced at a book briefly but failed to buy it. It mentioned a number of experimental gun pods and rocket armaments that had been considered for the Hs-129. Perhaps most interesting, it mention a proposal to arm it with two oblique downward firing Mk-103 cannons, each with 30 rounds (capable of penetrating the roof armour of essentially all tanks). Does anyone know what book this was? Does anyone have the info?

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

That is some really great information being posted!

 

It makes me ask a question... a long time ago in a book store I glanced at a book briefly but failed to buy it. It mentioned a number of experimental gun pods and rocket armaments that had been considered for the Hs-129. Perhaps most interesting, it mention a proposal to arm it with two oblique downward firing Mk-103 cannons, each with 30 rounds (capable of penetrating the roof armour of essentially all tanks). Does anyone know what book this was? Does anyone have the info?

 

Probably Hs 129 Panzerjaeger! by Martin Pegg

[Avimimus]

On 10/31/2020 at 11:11 PM, LukeFF said:

Probably Hs 129 Panzerjaeger! by Martin Pegg

 

Thanks! I tracked down a copy! It is pretty close - it confirms the 2xMk-103 proposal... which helps me reassure myself that I'm wasn't dreaming.

 

However, it clearly isn't the same book. It says the 2xMk-103 cannons were movable in traverse, but I'm pretty sure the book I read had them movable in elevation. Also, there was a wind-tunnel model photograph that isn't in Mr. Pegg's book, and there was a copy of a table which had additional gunpod possibilities (I think 2xMg131 with 500 rounds per gun, 4xMg131 with 250rpg and a 2xMg151 gunpod)... and this table doesn't appear to be in the book. So the mystery remains!

[Sybreed]

Bumping this thread again. I started a HS-129 career and it's a very fun plane to fly. But, shooting your 30mm along with your machine guns is still very annoying and makes it hard to see if your shots hit correctly.

 

Would it be possible to program a button in-game so that it is strickly related to the 30mm on the hs-129? A bit like how some planes have dedicated buttons for radiators and whatnot?

Edited April 4, 2021 by Sybreed

[Lusekofte]

Thus plane is excellent to fly and one of those I scored kills on attacking planes zooming past me on servers.

I get your point, but to me it would be better if you do this:

Many things with this sim is simplified,  but when it comes to keybinding it all need to be authentic. Forcing you to use keyboard or get more panels. 

They should make all oil/water/pitch on all planes put on axis / hotas. Kept old il 2 weapon numbers. And you should be able to make a keybinding profile for all planes. 

But this has been asked about since day one back in 2012

[Venturi]

Hello,

 

This plane is interesting, underpowered, limited on weaponry, and very important to the eastern front battles in 1942-44. I really enjoy flying it.

 

But, and this is probably no surprise to you, there is a MAJOR issue with using this plane in its historical role.

 

With 30 or 80 rounds of ammunition, every shot counts for the big mk103 or mk108 cannons. And it's simply impossible to see where the shots land. Reason? Because the much faster firing machine guns are slaved to the same trigger. And they throw up a huge dust cloud, obscuring the target completely, so I can't see where my precious armor-piercing ammo is flying.

 

All this while dodging AAA fire and fighters. All that effort to get to and survive the combat zone in this bird, and I can't even see where my bullets are landing, AND THERE'S A SWITCH ON THE DASH TO TURN OFF THE MG17S! So frustrating.

 

This has been known for some time. There has been talk that there is some big problems with trying to fix this. I DON'T CARE. The plane is simply unusable in it's tank busting role.

 

I can think of many solutions, such as a creating a switch to turn off the Mg17s, or just anything to unslave the big gun from the others. The dust cloud the Mgs cause just makes finding where you're hitting impossible. You're already trying to hit a tiny target from the air.

 

It breaks this plane. It really frustrates and ruins the experience. Please fix.

 

Thank you.

[69TD_Hajo_Garlic]

Even if there was a mod to remove the mg17s that would be nice. Sadly I wouldnt expect anything to be fixed here. To me, this is more important than the dvd or the plane codes which I will virtually never notice except when taxiing and landing but to each their own I guess. 

[Blutaar]

On 12/10/2018 at 1:30 AM, Jade_Monkey said:

There are only two fire groups in the game at the moment, they made a choice. It's not broken, they just made a design choice.

 

Wouldnt it be possible to make the rocket button also fire the MK101/103? I mean the Hs 129 has no rockets so it would make sense.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Blutaar

[Venturi]

They can also make a choice to fix a plane-breaking issue.

[Jade_Monkey]

2 hours ago, Blutaar said:

Wouldnt it be possible to make the rocket button also fire the MK101/103? I mean the Hs 129 has no rockets so it would make sense.

 

You can map rockets and the fire group 2 to the same button but you can't do it only for the Mk103/101, it has to be for all group 2 for all planes, including other planes with rockets and separate group 2 armament like the IL2, Yak1, etc...

 

There is now a Fire group 3 that was created for a Flying circus plane (dolphin?) but it has not been implemented for the Hs129. IF that was done, then you could carry your plan fairly successfully.

[Retrofly]

I'd just like to throw my hat into the ring and state its something I've been waiting for for a while. So frustrating to fly as Venturi said.

[Dragon1-1]

I agree, now that we have three fire groups, the big gun on the Duck should be booted to the 3rd one. It does work nicely when double-bound with the rocket trigger, since neither Hs 129 nor Sopwitch Dolphin can carry rockets.

[LukeFF]

9 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

I agree, now that we have three fire groups, the big gun on the Duck should be booted to the 3rd one. It does work nicely when double-bound with the rocket trigger, since neither Hs 129 nor Sopwitch Dolphin can carry rockets.

 

But that's not the way the firing groups were ordered on the Hs 129. It had two firing groups - one for the gunpod and another for the fuselage guns. So, moving the gunpod to weapon group 3 wouldn't solve anything.

[Sybreed]

6 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

But that's not the way the firing groups were ordered on the Hs 129. It had two firing groups - one for the gunpod and another for the fuselage guns. So, moving the gunpod to weapon group 3 wouldn't solve anything.

 

I thought it had some kind of "weapon selector" switch? 

[Jade_Monkey]

18 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

 

I thought it had some kind of "weapon selector" switch? 

 

That was my understanding as well (based on what others said, no research on my end ?)

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, Sybreed said:

I thought it had some kind of "weapon selector" switch? 

 

2 hours ago, Jade_Monkey said:

That was my understanding as well (based on what others said, no research on my end ?)

 

Yes, it had a weapon selector switch between Group 1 and Group 2, and also for all guns. 

Edited May 7, 2021 by LukeFF

[ZachariasX]

And why doesn‘t group 1 just fire the gunpod and group 2 all other guns, regradless of what guns were added to respective locations?

[Dragon1-1]

14 hours ago, LukeFF said:

But that's not the way the firing groups were ordered on the Hs 129. It had two firing groups - one for the gunpod and another for the fuselage guns. So, moving the gunpod to weapon group 3 wouldn't solve anything.

Well, it would solve the problem with MGs firing with the gunpod. However, if the actual aircraft had one trigger for all fuselage guns, then they should all be bound to it, like on the FW-190.

 

TBH, Il-2 could do with a gun selector button. I think there are cases where you want to only fire the MGs or the cannons on the FW-190, and the real plane had ways of doing that.

[Asgar]

16 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

But that's not the way the firing groups were ordered on the Hs 129. It had two firing groups - one for the gunpod and another for the fuselage guns. So, moving the gunpod to weapon group 3 wouldn't solve anything.

but for ingame purposes that would still be better than having to fire the fuselage MGs together with the gunpod.

[Venturi]

It has a selector for turning off the MGs and cannon on the dash. It is a manual arming switch. Just like on the 4x mg151 190s, where you can select the outer wing cannon to be on or off (oh snap).

 

Then when you press the trigger, you get what you want to fire.

 

That is what the toggles are near the ammo counters.

(one is for the entire weapons safe/armed)

 

[JG27*PapaFly]

On 11/5/2018 at 6:10 AM, Sybreed said:

I tried to search the forums and only saw threads that said the devs would "fix it". The problem being that when you shoot the 30 mm auto cannon, you also shoot the machine guns because they're on the same group.

 

I tried the plane tonight and it seems it's still an issue. Or perhaps I'm doing something wrong? Thx for clarifying

this issue had bugged me since my first flight in the HS. This plane is all about killing tanks, and having those machine guns interfering with my aiming makes this plane a lot less

fun.

 

Heck, even an optional loadout with empty machine guns would be  better than what we have now.

[LukeFF]

13 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

And why doesn‘t group 1 just fire the gunpod and group 2 all other guns, regradless of what guns were added to respective locations?

 

It goes back to the way things were coded when the Hs 129 was built.

8 hours ago, Asgar said:

but for ingame purposes that would still be better than having to fire the fuselage MGs together with the gunpod.

 

Sure, but it's still ultimately a half-solution that doesn't really solve the problem.

[Avimimus]

32 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

Sure, but it's still ultimately a half-solution that doesn't really solve the problem.

 

Doesn't the saying go: "The perfect is the enemy of the good?"

 

There are a lot of historical examples of that

[Asgar]

15 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Sure, but it's still ultimately a half-solution that doesn't really solve the problem.

i mean, ultimately the problem for the players is having to fire the 30mm gunpod in combination with the MGs. Putting the gunpod on fire group 3 does fix the problem for the player. it might not fix the coding that made it hard to get the perfect implementation of swappable MGs plus the gunpods on the 129, but it DOES fix the problem for the end user. Just my two cents as someone who likes tank busting ;)

[Retrofly]

Is this ever going to be looked in to?

[CAFulcrum]

How do firing groups work in other aircraft with gunpods?  Is there some hard code issue where there always has to be a firing group 1?  Are they fixed on an aircraft model?  It seems like there's a lot of variation, espcially with the fw190s, so unless it's some arcane coding issue or something to do with contractual work not being able to be worked on after being produced, why not just move the lmg to firing group 2 with the 15/20s and have the pod as firing group 1?

I don't really see the selector as being worth modeling... more buttons and code, more rabbitholes having to start modeling the actual fire control system of each aircraft, and confusion over why such and such a gun isn't firing.  We don't have master arm.  So it's not going to be realistic ever, so why not just a simple quality of life fix?

Edited June 28, 2021 by CAFulcrum

[squidboi]

Will this ever be looked into? It is annoying to do tank busting when you also spray MG with your cannon. Can't see shot reports. 

[Sybreed]

3 years later... I wouldn't be super optimistic. It feels like it shouldn't be hard to fix, but apparently it is. 

[squidboi]

On 10/14/2021 at 12:26 PM, Sybreed said:

3 years later... I wouldn't be super optimistic. It feels like it shouldn't be hard to fix, but apparently it is. 

What a bunch of crap. I even saw a lot of people saying when this plane released that it would come soon. Shame, really. I would like to be able to just thunk and chunk off 30mm without also spraying a ton of MG tracers too.

[Luftschiff]

If I managed to get to the target alive in the HS129 I'd probably be more frustrated with the issue. It's strange that it hasn't been solved yet, but I'm wlling to bet it's just buried under a hundred other things they're working on, and a thousand other "easy fixes" to fix easily. Such is game dev.

[Monkie85]

On 10/20/2021 at 1:22 AM, Luftschiff said:

If I managed to get to the target alive in the HS129 I'd probably be more frustrated with the issue. It's strange that it hasn't been solved yet, but I'm wlling to bet it's just buried under a hundred other things they're working on, and a thousand other "easy fixes" to fix easily. Such is game dev.

 

More like buried under the next "newest better thing".  

[CAFulcrum]

On 10/20/2021 at 1:22 AM, Luftschiff said:

If I managed to get to the target alive in the HS129 I'd probably be more frustrated with the issue. It's strange that it hasn't been solved yet, but I'm wlling to bet it's just buried under a hundred other things they're working on, and a thousand other "easy fixes" to fix easily. Such is game dev.

There is already a weapons group 3 assignment in the game, for the Sopwith Dolphin's wing guns (with group 2 applying to overwing lewis guns).  It seems like something beyond an easy fix, considering it doesn't rely on research or have any effect on the FM or anything and no new code would have to be written or implemented.  The only headache is deciding what goes where without confusing people that don't have a weapons group 3 button assigned; solve that by giving 2 and 3 the same default button.

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, CAFulcrum said:

There is already a weapons group 3 assignment in the game, for the Sopwith Dolphin's wing guns (with group 2 applying to overwing lewis guns).  It seems like something beyond an easy fix, considering it doesn't rely on research or have any effect on the FM or anything and no new code would have to be written or implemented.  The only headache is deciding what goes where without confusing people that don't have a weapons group 3 button assigned; solve that by giving 2 and 3 the same default button.

 

That's not a fix, though, because the Hs 129 didn't have 3 weapon groups. You're just exchanging one problem for another. 

[Yogiflight]

20 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

That's not a fix, though, because the Hs 129 didn't have 3 weapon groups. You're just exchanging one problem for another. 

Where we come to what I suggested looooong ago. Take the thumbs button to select the weapon group and the trigger to shoot it. This would come the closest to how it worked IRL.

[CAFulcrum]

2 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

Where we come to what I suggested looooong ago. Take the thumbs button to select the weapon group and the trigger to shoot it. This would come the closest to how it worked IRL.

I think it might be too much to ask them to start modeling individual weapons arming systems according to their real life behavior, as then you're getting into selector switches and toggles and such.  If they wanted to though (depending on how much weapons systems are modeled) they could at least provide a command for weapons arming/dearming in the same vein as separate engine control that would more or less accomplish the same thing.  That would be extra coding though and if it's a matter of time/money investment I'd think a simple reassignment of weapons groups would be a lot easier/cheaper. 

I keep beating this dead horse because I'm particularly fond of ground attack aircraft and not being able to even see where the 30mm is going really un-funs the entire experience of flying the HS129 against tanks.  At the least they could change the weapons groups to get the MG and cannon onto group 2 and 30mm onto group 1 (or whatever works).