How is the Yak/Lagg more durable than the P-47?

[Panthera]

5 hours ago, Danziger said:

The 7.62x54R (Soviet) will most definitely penetrate a meter thick tree trunk and keep on going

 

Are you sure about that?

 

 

Only thing to make it through that  0.5 - 0.6 meter tree trunk was the steel cored .50 cal round which subsequently only had enough energy left to then go half way into the ballistics gel torso.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Panthera

[Danziger]

Right... Well fire your 20mm from point blank through a tree trunk and see if it does any better. I'm talking about actual shooting distances. Our trees were 100yds down range. We've also done tree pruning with 12ga low brass birdshot. 

 

 

[CUJO_1970]

Truth is, a lot of people are waking up to the damage model limitations only now that their pet plane is affected.

 

This, and the fact you post no relevant testing data is not going to help your cause.

[Bremspropeller]

45 minutes ago, Danziger said:

The US continued to use .50BMG against aircraft well into the Cold War.

 

The USAF did.

The USN/ USMC knew better. As did everybody else.

 

30mm > 20mm > .50

 

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by Bremspropeller

[Panthera]

44 minutes ago, Danziger said:

Right... Well fire your 20mm from point blank through a tree trunk and see if it does any better. I'm talking about actual shooting distances. Our trees were 100yds down range. We've also done tree pruning with 12ga low brass birdshot. 

 

 

 

Well based on the armour penetrating ability of a 20mm cannon round I'd wager it would   

 

Also I don't really see what going further down range would help, as then you're essentially saying that a lower impact velocity will make it penetrate further.

 

That said let's also keep in mind that the type & condition of the wood used as a target will have a big impact on the result. But clearly the type (healthy pine I think he said?) the bloke in the video I linked to was shooting at wouldn't have had any problem stopping a 7.62 AP round. 

Edited November 29, 2018 by Panthera

[Danziger]

Idk. Sometimes I get the feeling that people really believe the movies. "I'm gonna flip this coffee table/sofa over and hide behind it! Your bullets can no longer hurt me!" 

 

Of course a 20mm/30mm/45mm/88mm/155mm is bigger. A 16in battleship gun is bigger than all of them. 

 

Small machine gun rounds are small, fast, and hard. They are no good for making spectacular explosions but they are great for spamming a target with hundreds of little armour piercing chances to hit something vital. Control cables, electrical wiring, rubber hoses, soft pilot bodies, etc are all quite capable of being destroyed by machine gun fire. 

 

I wonder what is the general opinion of shrapnel damage? Pieces of shrapnel are a lot less of a threat than a direct machine gun hit yet they have been bringing planes down with ease for decades.

32 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

 

The USAF did.

The USN/ USMC knew better. As did everybody else.

 

30mm > 20mm > .50

 

 

Army as well.

[Ehret]

Just now, Bremspropeller said:

 

The USAF did.

The USN/ USMC knew better. As did everybody else.

 

30mm > 20mm > .50

 

To be fair the later 0.50" were the M3 variant which increased RoF by 1.5x and the Sabre had radar rangefinder to supplement the computing sight. So the round was the same but the firepower and accuracy had improved over the 0.50"s from the WW2.

 

The Sabre with 6 nose mounted guns offered 120 rounds/second of focused bullet stream.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Ehret

[=362nd_FS=RoflSeal]

1 hour ago, Danziger said:

Idk. The US continued to use .50BMG against aircraft well into the Cold War. It's like the 9mm vs .45ACP argument. Neither is better. They fill different slots on the tool bench.

The only reason for the continuous use of the .50BMG in aircraft was the inability of the US to produce a 20mm that wouldn't jam well into the 50s when every other country in the world had no problem.

Edited November 29, 2018 by RoflSeal

[Bremspropeller]

23 minutes ago, Ehret said:

To be fair the later 0.50" were the M3 variant which increased RoF by 1.5x and the Sabre had radar rangefinder to supplement the computing sight. So the round was the same but the firepower and accuracy had improved over the 0.50"s from the WW2.

 

Still, in Korea many MiGs returned home with a trendy new perforation-look instead of going down in flames.

[Ehret]

52 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

Still, in Korea many MiGs returned home with a trendy new perforation-look instead of going down in flames.

 

And many didn't return at all. The Sabres manage K/D of something like 7:1 - a sign that the Sabre's armament worked. Of course I don't claim that 0.50" > 20mm but that M3s were effective enough. Later, most fighters ended using fast firing 20mm cannons instead of +30mm. A similar idea to multi M2s/M3s - high RoF, high velocity, reasonable ammo reserves and relatively small projectiles - not this huge +30mm stuff.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Ehret

[JtD]

17 minutes ago, Ehret said:

Later, most fighters ended using fast firing 20mm cannons instead of +30mm.

 

I think that's a US thing. Soviet/Russian and most European designs use 27mm or 30mm cannons and did so for the last decades.

[ZachariasX]

The Gatling gun is not as fast firing as it might seem. It requires considerable spin up time. That in context of the first 10 or so rounds fired. If you take that metric, then you can see that revolver cannons are in fact very competitive in firing rate. They are also lighter. OTOH the Mauser 27 mm is a compromise of weight, firing rate and muzzle velocity. The Russians use 30 mm and get about similar performances with this higher caliber, at the cost of shorter barrel life, but making it about the most powerful gun in aircraft.

[MiloMorai]

41 minutes ago, Ehret said:

 

And many didn't return at all. The Sabres manage K/D of something like 7:1 - a sign that the Sabre's armament worked. Of course I don't claim that 0.50" > 20mm but that M3s were effective enough. Later, most fighters ended using fast firing 20mm cannons instead of +30mm. A similar idea to multi M2s/M3s - high RoF, high velocity, reasonable ammo reserves and relatively small projectiles - not this huge +30mm stuff.

 

And most of those claims were against MiG-15s flown by Chicoms and Norks.

[Legioneod]

2 minutes ago, MiloMorai said:

 

And most of those claims were against MiG-15s flown by Chicoms and Norks.

Imo it doesn't make much difference, thats still a 7:1 ratio no matter how you look at it.

Were .50s the best? No. but they were effective enough, thats all that really matters imo.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Legioneod

[LuftManu]

I want to express my opinion on this matter.

 

About the DM, the engine it's weaker than the Focke wulf, that's known but the wing / surface destroyed ratio it's a bit misleading. SuperEtendard did a test back then and it's as durable as the Il-2 but with variance. A lot of it. 

In my personal experience I ended up surviving more than one pass of 20 mm / 13 mm. In a Yak you're done most of the time, even more if you are pulling G's. The Jug managed to bring me home. Now if we speak about 30mm I have some cases where I was shot down from the sky but hey it's a 30mm. And I remember than more than once I survived a 30mm pass.

 

They might have to tune it but there is not invencible plane nor enough armor/wingspars. It's not that off. At least not for the structure.

 

About the armament, the 50cals are doing great. A good burst and his engine is leaking or he is on fire. Fw190s are more durable but they lost surfaces and such. It's harder to bring down a plane cutting his wing with machineguns except if it's on covergence. And I have tested that already.

 

I think we are overreacting here. There are more important "issues" and I want to remember that from the many things that are done, the team made an excellent 95% in my opinion.

Edited November 29, 2018 by LF_Gallahad

[MiloMorai]

9 minutes ago, Legioneod said:

Imo it doesn't make much difference, thats still a 7:1 ratio no matter how you look at it.

Were .50s the best? No. but they were effective enough, thats all that really matters imo.

 

If one is allowed enough time to pump enough rounds into an a/c then it will go down.

[Legioneod]

1 minute ago, MiloMorai said:

 

If one is allowed enough time to pump enough rounds into an a/c then it will go down.

 

I suppose the same could be said for all the kills American pilots got in WW2. In reality they were effective enough.

[Ehret]

12 minutes ago, MiloMorai said:

If one is allowed enough time to pump enough rounds into an a/c then it will go down.

 

Not much time is needed at 120 round/s. Problem is getting any hits in the first place; with smaller but plentiful projectiles you have better odds landing some hits. Big rounds are more like winning a lottery... in the sim there is no better example than the 37mm M4 in the Airacobra. Not useless but sometimes... I wish there was 3rd 0.50" instead.

[Bremspropeller]

1 hour ago, Ehret said:

And many didn't return at all. The Sabres manage K/D of something like 7:1

 

Not really.

The actual K/D was way lower than that. Another old myth that dies very hard...

[Ehret]

1 minute ago, Bremspropeller said:

Not really.

The actual K/D was way lower than that. Another old myth that dies very hard...

 

I cited the most conservative one I could find. So, how much lower it was?

[Bremspropeller]

Slides 84-87:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20121006120643/http://www.mossekongen.no/downloads/2008_RAND_Pacific_View_Air_Combat_Briefing.pdf

[sevenless]

17 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

Slides 84-87:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20121006120643/http://www.mossekongen.no/downloads/2008_RAND_Pacific_View_Air_Combat_Briefing.pdf

 

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.

[Ehret]

Using the same data from the chart (6x 0.50" equivalent of 23mm and 18x of 37mm) the Mig-15 carries less total potential firepower than Sabre. It had 40 rounds for 37mm and 160 (total) rounds for the twin 23mm so 40*18+160*6 = 1680 equivalent 0.50" rounds. The Sabre carries 1800 of them and has gun endurance of (roughly) 15s. Mig-15 gun endurance is 6s for 37mm and 5.7s for the twin 23mm. The Sabre has much higher hit probability because of RoF, number of rounds and advanced sight - at least 2x as good. Unless the Mig-15 pilot is lucky and get some hits early the Sabre armament is roughly equivalent in the practice. This also shows that higher caliber guns come with own significant compromises. Firing endurance is poor; RoF is poor; ballistic seems to be worse and as everyone can lie I'd never trust Soviets - for them "end justifies means" was everyday practice.

 

Besides... 1000 rounds (average) for shooting down single Mig-15? Really? It would mean that average hit ratio of the Sabre pilot had to be over 50% percent (1000 / 1800 of Sabre ammo capacity) just to shot down a single Mig. 1000 0.50" rounds is equivalent to +50 37mm rounds by the same chart's data. It smells like... BS.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Ehret

[Avimimus]

Just a note: U.S. pilots were comparing the P-47's durability with the P-51... so this is more a discussion for analysis of photos, structural drawings and physics (as people have been doing) - but not stereotypes or anecdotal inferences (since U.S. pilots didn't fly LaGGs).

[PainGod85]

On 11/27/2018 at 12:44 AM, Legioneod said:

This.

 

And the P-47 did have armor plating and other things going for it compared to the il2.

It had two armored plates, one in front and one behind the pilot. It also had two fueltanks underneath and slightly forward of the pilot that helped protect him form groundfire.

Another thing is the Turbo Supercharger and the large amount of ducting running throughout the airframe. Lastly it had a monsterous 18 cylinder engine that would provide some protection to the pilot.

 

Structural wise the P-47 was definitely the better built aircraft imo, but armor wise the Il2 had it beat.

 

But the IL-2's armor protection was for both crew and engine, not wings or fuselage. It certainly doesn't have any bearing on either plane's wing structure and how durable it is.

 

Meanwhile, the P-47's wing is pretty much monstrous in how overengineered it was.

8 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Truth is, a lot of people are waking up to the damage model limitations only now that their pet plane is affected.

 

This, and the fact you post no relevant testing data is not going to help your cause.

 

Contemporary test data on the P-47's durability when hit with various arms was posted on these forums a week ago or so.

[kurtj]

This CAF P-47 broke its wing at the root on landing.

 

 

And same from the war...

 

 

And

 

 

 

The P-47 has some very well-built components, but the wings are only held on by four hinges. I’d venture a lucky hit to just one hinge could be enough to weaken it to a point that loading would do the rest, especially when pulling Gs.

 

 

I also wonder how much of it has to do with wing loading and the number of Gs being pulled. Today I hit a FW-190 with a snap shot just as it was breaking at the bottom of a steep dive (I was near 450mph in my Spit IX). Couldn’t have had more than a couple rounds hit, but the wing broke at the root, and it made sense at that precise moment, because he had full elevator deflection and was turning violently. The immediate roll caused by the lift from the one remaining wing was incredibly fast and indicated the enormous amount of lift being generated. However,  as he was just above the ground and level, he didn’t explode on impact but went sledding in the snow for several hundred meters.

 

I’ve noticed many of the photos of rtb P-47s with heavy wing damage show impacts from perpendicular below... I.e. ground fire flak that hit while the aircraft was relatively level. It seems reasonable to conclude that perhaps many of them made it back because they didn’t pull high g’s after sustaining the damage. And/or, perhaps the wings were not hit at the critical hinge points.

 

Perhaps the most famous P-47 damage story involves the FW-190 that kept trying to down Robert Johnson's P-47 using only its two machine guns after running out of 20mm. The account makes it sound like his aircraft was completely shot up; here it is:

 

 

Perhaps survivorship bias is hiding the fact that P-47s and even B-17s could lose wings at the root... especially under high G load... and the B-17 wing even had a root through the fuselage. By definition, every aircraft that returns to base to be photographed hasn't sustained a hit to a system critical for survival.

 

 

For the record, I'm also a huge P-47 fan.

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by kurtj

[JtD]

I thought that B-17 lost a wing because the bombs of the aircraft above it hit it.

 

Most WW2 aircraft attached the wings at two points, four points as on the P-47 can in that regard be considered as very reliable.

Edited November 30, 2018 by JtD

[=362nd_FS=RoflSeal]

Wing dragging against the ground in a crash at high speed have completely different force directions acting on it then when a wing is pulling G. Guess which the wing is designed to be more resilient against.

Edited November 30, 2018 by RoflSeal

[kurtj]

41 minutes ago, JtD said:

I thought that B-17 lost a wing because the bombs of the aircraft above it hit it.

 

Most WW2 aircraft attached the wings at two points, four points as on the P-47 can in that regard be considered as very reliable.

 

The B-17 image is from a flak hit. I agree that the P-47 is by no means out of the ordinary or deficient for the period in its wing-attachment methods. It's not like the wings are folding by themselves when in a dive like a WWI plane. However, if a hard landing is all it takes to pop a wing up, even an undamaged wing, while not ripping off the landing gear itself, then perhaps it might be considered a relative weak point in the design compared to the robust overall nature of the aircraft.

 

33 minutes ago, RoflSeal said:

Wing dragging against the ground in a crash at high speed have completely different force directions acting on it then when a wing is pulling G. Guess which the wing is designed to be more resilient against.

 

Perhaps. However, many don't appear to have been sheared off backwards as one might expect by ground drag; it appears that the hinges are failing and "folding" upwards due to force applied by the landing gear hitting the ground, which is the same direction of force as wing lift. We are talking about a very heavy aircraft that's nearly three times the takeoff weight of a Spitfire with only about 20% more wing area, and most of that weight is in the fuselage. I wonder also how many times people are dogfighting with full or near-full fuel loads, vs the frequency of that occurring IRL during escort missions, etc. A 109 only has roughly 1,500 lb of max payload, whereas a P-47 can have upwards of 7,500... exponentially more force under high G loading.

Edited November 30, 2018 by kurtj

[unreasonable]

Having done some more testing in the game I thought I would share the results.

 

The Test.

 

The mission used is the Airfield Defence Mission, with 46 aircraft making two low level sweeps over a defended airfield.  The defence was 8 3.7cm Flak 36, with Normal AI.

The planes tested were P-47, Bf109 G-4 and LaGG-3.  The waypoints are unaltered for each test: the only thing changed is the aircraft model.

 

After the final aircraft is clear and firing has stopped,  survivors are counted and classified as untouched,  heavily or lightly damaged. Heavy damage = obviously failing to maintain altitude or control, or trailing fuel, oil or coolant. Light damage = any other visible damage.

 

Discussion of  Results.

 

1)Extending the test runs by another five runs each would probably not change any of the percentage results by more than one or two percent. (But anyone is welcome to do it).

 

2) The P-47s take far more hits than the other two; which should not be a surprise, the number of hits should be roughly proportional to the size of the target.  The P-47s show all sorts of damage, with a high proportion having "light damage" to wings and control surfaces.

 

It may be the case that some of the "heavily damaged" P-47s would have RTBed or at least made it to friendly territory. But as I have no way of knowing that I stuck to the objective division. It is possible that this skews the total lost number to the disadvantage of the P-47s

 

3) The LaGGs tend to either go down or fly away with only light damage.  Although I did not record it, it was certainly the case that almost all of the lightly damaged LaGGs were damaged in the mid/rear fuselage, hits from which the 109s typically lose their tails, and from which many P-47s get some kind of leak which I have recorded as heavy damage. In contrast, very few surviving LaGGs had light wing damage.

 

4) If you look at the lost/hit ratio the LaGG and the P-47 come out about the same. So at least vs 3.7cm Flak, the LaGG is not more durable than the P-47. But it is harder to hit - when flying at the same speed.

5) If you look at the "Not Lost" planes ie unharmed + lightly damaged, a much higher proportion of the Not Lost P-47s are lightly damaged than is the case for the other two: double that of the 109s.  Pilots returning from sorties would each experience more RTBs with survivable damage than pilots of the other types. So part of the "P-47 is tough" idea may be survivor bias: what is not being taken into account is that in many cases the other types would not have been hit at all. 

 

 

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by unreasonable

[Gambit21]

15 hours ago, MiloMorai said:

 

If one is allowed enough time to pump enough rounds into an a/c then it will go down.

 

Many aircraft were killed with snap-shots.

The .50's did their job.

[Ehret]

There are two frequent occurrences what I have experienced with the P-47D, so far:

- the pilot gets killed

- engine seizes after damage taken to back of the fuselage

 

The 1st... well - pilot is relatively exposed when we compare the P-47' cockpit to the P-39' (my virtual pilot seldom gets killed in the Airacobra). So, it may be reasonable.

 

The 2nd - it seems that damage to the turbo can result in a seized engine. That's clearly erroneous as a power loss should be the only consequence.

[Legioneod]

15 minutes ago, Ehret said:

There are two frequent occurrences what I have experienced with the P-47D, so far:

- the pilot gets killed

- engine seizes after damage taken to back of the fuselage

 

The 1st... well - pilot is relatively exposed when we compare the P-47' cockpit to the P-39' (my virtual pilot seldom gets killed in the Airacobra). So, it may be reasonable.

 

The 2nd - it seems that damage to the turbo can result in a seized engine. That's clearly erroneous as a power loss should be the only consequence.

 Agreed. Pilot kills are extremely common in the P-47, I wonder if that armor plate protects you from anything?

 

And I do agree that turbo damage or getting shot in the aft fuselage leads to engine damage, this shouldn't be the case and is one of my major annoyances with the current model (besides the engine quitting 2 seconds after being hit all the time)

[6./ZG26_Custard]

1 hour ago, Ehret said:

what I have experienced with the P-47D, so far:

- the pilot gets killed

Several times whilst flying online I have been 1 shot pilot killed flying the P-47. I have had no problem with this because I was shot down by the pesky K-4 with the Mk 108 in the nose. There is of course a big armour plate behind the pilot but with that big bubble canopy, the pilot is somewhat exposed and I can only assume that a Minengeschoß  hit near the canopy will be unhealthy for the pilot and the aircraft.

Personally, I have not noticed wings folding up or falling off from mg rounds but the 13 mm's pack a massive punch compared to 7.92 mm.

4 hours ago, unreasonable said:

Having done some more testing in the game I thought I would share the results.

Thanks very much for the testing      .

[CountZero]

1 hour ago, Ehret said:

There are two frequent occurrences what I have experienced with the P-47D, so far:

- the pilot gets killed

- engine seizes after damage taken to back of the fuselage

 

The 1st... well - pilot is relatively exposed when we compare the P-47' cockpit to the P-39' (my virtual pilot seldom gets killed in the Airacobra). So, it may be reasonable.

 

The 2nd - it seems that damage to the turbo can result in a seized engine. That's clearly erroneous as a power loss should be the only consequence.

 

i also see most of time im gone by pilot kill, (dfs vs g14s nd k4s)

i noticed damage icon for turbo when i was hit few times and my rpms were around 12000 then max.

i lose wings only when enemy is on my 6 long enough and hit my wings with many bullets, or if im turning or he dived at me from 90 deg off on my wings ( but that happends in this game for all airplanes so i usealy avoid big turn when some one shots at me if i can )

regarding the engine i had few differant damages, ones where i could fly for 10min+ and stil df, and ones where one pass gets my engine imidiatly.

also even on automatic rpm, if your going with your trottle up down hard ( 100% to 0 and back to 100% in dives) in df, your auto rpm can go abow 3300 and brake engine if left at 100% ( first time this happend i tought it was because of turbo at 100% but later test show it was rpm at 100% that in some situations could not control it fast enought )

Also i noticed like in 109s canopy offten gets blown away

Edited November 30, 2018 by 77.CountZero

[unreasonable]

If the rest of the plane was tougher than average, but the cockpit area the same as average, you would expect the last hit that shoots you down to be in the cockpit more often than flying an average type.  The cockpit area does not have to be any weaker than average in absolute terms - only weaker relative to the rest of the aircraft. 

[MiloMorai]

15 minutes ago, 77.CountZero said:

Also i noticed like in 109s canopy offten gets blown away

 

Naw, that is the pilot preparing to bail out when he sees the big ass bird bearing down him.?

[kurtj]

3 hours ago, Ehret said:

The 2nd - it seems that damage to the turbo can result in a seized engine. That's clearly erroneous as a power loss should be the only consequence.

 

Could it be possible that FOD from turbo damage might end up in engine cylinders?

[Ehret]

20 minutes ago, kurtj said:

Could it be possible that FOD from turbo damage might end up in engine cylinders?

 

FOD? I assume debris, right?

I don't know but there is an inter-cooler and a super-charger between the turbo and the engine. The connecting ducts are long too so... doubtful but could happen.

[MiloMorai]

The P-47s that are flying today don't have the turbocharger.