Wing damage model

[356thFS_Melonfish]

I'm looking for peoples thoughts and experiences on the current wing damage model in game?

rather than heading off to the suggestions or complaints section and posting a huge whine i'd like to see what peoples thoughts are on it and whether they think it's:
A. reasonable

2. realistic

D. too much

 

I've experienced a number of detrimental flight characteristic failures due to the loss of a wing, I know it did happen but i'm having a hard time sourcing combat reports that can define how often.

It seems in game at least to myself that the wing loss happens more than any other failure, which i can only attribute to either poor gunnery on my part  when shooting (likely) or extreme good luck when i'm the one being shot down (better my wing than my beautiful face)

however if you watch many of the more recent (since say 3.008) Youtube vids from the popular vloggers you'll note that wing removal seems to be the primary kill function.

though that said, I cannot confirm whether they primarily pick those kills over others whilst editing videos, or if it's a regular occurance, i would appreciate feedback on that.

 

finally there's actual footage, there are some good if somewhat shaky vids from ww2 and some do show a terminal lift failure in the form of a missing wing, but a rather large amount dont.

 

what are your experiences? and could anyone provide any combat reports or details that i could look over about this phenomenon?

As I say rather than posting a huge whine or rant I thought i'd see what peoples feelings are on the subject and whether it's generally well received and I should shut up (this is common) or whether it's something they'd perhaps like to see change.

Thanks everyone!

Pete

 

[SCG_motoadve]

7 minutes ago, Melonfish said:

too much

I think its too much, and its the least feature I like in IL2 series.

Mid wing explosions I dont mind, what I dont like is the wing coming off from the root, which happens a lot in 110s, 190s and P47s.

Never seen a real gun cam video of a wing coming off from the root.

 

[40plus]

I think comparing game to real life will invariably lead to a conflict between behavior because it is just a game. The attacker and prey don't have anything to lose.

 

In real life the prey would likely bug out after receiving critical engine damage because he doesn't want to die/get captured. In game I'll keep fighting until my wing is off.

As an attacker, I don't care about ammo, I can just spawn a new plane full of ammo so I keep shooting until I know he's dead, aka, wing off in most cases. It's the easiest way to be sure he's out of the fight. Allowing a a heavily smoking target to fly off is just asking to have someone else come in and take your kill.

 

Just a thought

[E4GLEyE]

Probably a bit too much. But at the same time I feel like us players in the sim are much more accurate shooters than real pilots as we do not fight for our lives nor we encounter Gforces in our chairs as we weave around in a fight. I have a hard time believing a wing would not detach if 4-6 20+mm ammunition exploded on/in it after penetration... Or at least wreck it enough that the slightest over G would not tear/deform it heavily. But those are my infinite noob sightings... I am a horrible shot so I usually take out pilots or engines with lucky bullets.

[69TD_Hajo_Garlic]

When I shoot a tempest with a mk108 and it takes 3 wing hits to come off I want to disagree but when I remove a 110 wing with mig 3 ub mg’s i have opposite feelings.  It depends on the weapon used and the target aircraft.  The damage model is pretty good but would like to see them refined at some point.

[Herne]

1 hour ago, II./JG77_motoadve said:

I think its too much, and its the least feature I like in IL2 series.

Mid wing explosions I dont mind, what I dont like is the wing coming off from the root, which happens a lot in 110s, 190s and P47s.

Never seen a real gun cam video of a wing coming off from the root.

 

 

quick search found me this :-
 

 

[71st_AH_Rob_XR-R]

6 minutes ago, ACG_Herne said:

 

quick search found me this :-
 

 

 

Most gun camera footage of wings coming off that I have seen is either from the PTO or if it is in the ETO it is almost always a Fw-190A.  The compilation appears to support this observation. 

 

I understand that the 190A lost wings when the cannon ammunition ignited and the Japanese aircraft that lost wings were ones that had  wing tanks that lacked self sealing bladders.

[SCG_motoadve]

1 hour ago, ACG_Herne said:

 

quick search found me this :-
 

 

Good find, and I dont mind the outer wing damage we get, its actually modeled pretty good.

It is the wing coming clean off the root the one I feel is overdone, usually no big explosion precedes this.

[PatrickAWlson]

1 hour ago, 71st_AH_Rob_XR-R said:

 

Most gun camera footage of wings coming off that I have seen is either from the PTO or if it is in the ETO it is almost always a Fw-190A.  The compilation appears to support this observation. 

 

I understand that the 190A lost wings when the cannon ammunition ignited and the Japanese aircraft that lost wings were ones that had  wing tanks that lacked self sealing bladders.

 

Thing to distinguish is whether the wing blew off or folded.

 

Pretty much any fighter with wing mounted guns is subject to getting them blown off.  The 190 would be the German plane of choice because the 109 didn't have guns in the wings and most of the footage is American.  I have read enough accounts from the other side to believe that US and British planes would also be prone to this.

 

Losing the wing at the root would seem to be fuel tanks.  There are photos of heavies having the wing blown off at the root but it is almost always a violent explosion and not just structural failure.

[HerrBree]

I personally think its too much. But i also think we should be seeing wing fires/explosion more often, along with with complete loss of control due to wing damage.

[Cpt_Siddy]

0.30 cal and comparable (under .50cal) machine guns over perform where it comes to structural damage in my opinion. 

 

I do not know how this game handles the damage modelling, but i have sneaking suspicion that the components don't differentiate the damage type. Meaning that X hits from .30 cals can equal Y hits from 20mm. In reality, materials have ability to simply ignore or mitigate some sort of damage, like how hardened steel parts would largely ignore 0.30 cals hits is probably not modeled in here (but if it is, then i stand corrected). Hence you can saw off P-47 wing with 7.7mm's. Something that should be more or less improbable in air to air conditions. 

But this is again, my observations, i could be wrong. 

 

For another example, the 20mm mineshots have almost no fragmentation effect to speak of, because of thin steel walls and high brisance of the explosive used. Their ability to penetrate anything with substance at bleak angle was also poor, so you could get explosions happening outside of the skin of aircraft (this is one reason you can read the memoirs of German pilots struggling to down the IL-2 if shooting at armored parts of the plane), but this was largely ineffective compared of the boom happening in confined space of the fuselage or wing.  However, when the mineshot got inside, the effects were devastating, often compromising the aerodynamics of the part completely and in the case of the wooden planes, delaminating the parts. Modelling this in is yet another challenge. How or if it is done, i have no clue. There has been some talk about weird behavior in some planes, where some part of fuselage seems to absorb the HE ammo and safeguard some other parts, like Pe-2's near immortal back gunner. 

 

Then there is the tendency of virtual pilots pulling far greater G's than real ones. This also contributes to wing rip off problem. There is numerous times i have limped home with shot up wing, only to have it crack on the landing. If i have pulled some G's with it, it would be goner. 

 

Then there is the armor piercing bullets, the 23mm that VVS have, in my case, cleaved off wings and tails with little effort. I asume they just delete the spar, tho, in the case of shooting off whole tail section, i don't know what you have to hit with AP to do that. They also seem to have ability to damage everything in its flight path, shooting the tail, you end up killing the pilot and engine so the depth of penetration is modeled to some extent.

 

 

In closing, the damage modelling is very complex and dynamic thing, it is hard to get it right even in the simplest of cases, and we are talking aerial combat here...

Edited October 8, 2019 by Cpt_Siddy

[PainGod85]

4 hours ago, ACG_Herne said:

 

quick search found me this :-
 

 

 

None of the structural failures show wing loss at or near the root, whereas in IL-2 it's exceedingly common for wings to get blown off at the section where the wing is the strongest, with up to five spars connecting the airfoil to the fuselage.

[Cpt_Siddy]

Just now, PainGod85 said:

 

None of the structural failures show wing loss at or near the root, whereas in IL-2 it's exceedingly common for wings to get blown off at the section where the wing is the strongest, with up to five spars connecting the airfoil to the fuselage.

 

This might be just the artifact from the game. There is limited coded/modeled points on the wing where it can be ripped off. So even if the wing is damaged elsewhere to point of failure, you have limited options to display that event.

 

If you want the rip to happen at the damaged site, you have to create a model where you can have dynamic structural modelling. This is something that modern super computers can just barely do in real time on simple models, so you might have to wait a bit before general computing catches up :-) 

[PainGod85]

Just now, Cpt_Siddy said:

 

This might be just the artifact from the game. There is limited coded/modeled points on the wing where it can be ripped off. So even if the wing is damaged elsewhere to point of failure, you have limited options to display that event.

 

If you want the rip to happen at the damaged site, you have to create a model where you can have dynamic structural modelling. This is something that modern super computers can just barely do in real time on simple models, so you might have to wait a bit before general computing catches up ?

 

While true, it begs to ask the question why there's even a point of failure implemented in a spot where it was exceedingly hard to actually cause catastrophic damage outside of an ammunition explosion or fuel deflagration.

[Cpt_Siddy]

Game design decision. You take X amount of most relevant failure points and model them in. 

 

What you are asking, really, is to lower the likelihood of displaying wing ripoff at wing root and up the likelihood of displaying the failure as mid wing failure. This is probably a separate issue from the likelihood of wing coming off at all.   

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

At least for the Tempest, and admittedly in this particular case, the model seems very good.  IIRC, there are reports of Tempest pilots getting home with this kind of damage.  Also, IIRC, it was known to the designers that it was possible to fly in this state before it made it's combat debut.    

 

 

Yes, another "I don't have the video" comment but, about a month ago in single player (pre-major update) I managed to damage a Yak-1.69's left wing the exact same way - 50% broken off -  and land it on a nearby airfield.  The cause was a wingtip strike on the ground.  How realistic this is for the Yak though, I couldn't say. 

[Herne]

46 minutes ago, PainGod85 said:

 

None of the structural failures show wing loss at or near the root, whereas in IL-2 it's exceedingly common for wings to get blown off at the section where the wing is the strongest, with up to five spars connecting the airfoil to the fuselage.

 

check about 1:10

 

[PainGod85]

Just now, ACG_Herne said:

 

check about 1:10

 

 

That doesn't show structural failure as a reason for wing loss, it shows an ammunition explosion causing the wing to be blown off.

[unreasonable]

Wings coming off at the root look dodgy to me too. Most single engine plane wings in BoX seem to have two or three hitboxes on each wing, excluding flaps, ailerons, ammunition areas etc.  Inner, outer and sometimes wing tip. 

 

I expect that fairly good shots in air combat are getting a large proportion of hits in the inner wing section: closest to the centre of aim and anyway has the largest area. So the hit points add up until they reach the maximum for that part and off it comes.

 

A possible solution might be to make the inner wing invincible, unless the ammunition area is hit. It could still suffer degradation to flying effects from damage. Then we can argue about how many shells there should be in the ammunition bay to cause catastrophic failure, should it only count HE or can 50 cals cook off, effect of a single mineshell ignited in the ammo bay, etc.  

[gimpy117]

personally I think wings on *some* aircraft come off too easy.  the early spit for example. seems every time I've been shot down its a wing missing and the last 2 times i've been clipped by stray AA shells in an he-111 my wing comes off...but that may be due to sniper AI flak more than anything 

[356thFS_Melonfish]

I actually expected something of a can of worms for this topic but I have to say there are some great points made, thank you everyone for keeping it grounded.

 

I think yes, my personal issue is the root failure of the wings, i've seen plenty of mid wing and that i don't mind so much but it's the root failure that gets me, it seems a little too unrealistic without the acompanying fuel/ammunition explosion, and perhaps that is modelled in but we don't have the big flashbang to go with?

I'm keen to see further work in this area I guess but i wanted a bit more direction before raising suggestions to the dev team.

 

Interestingly those that mention the 190, it's worth noting that the main fuel tanks were directly under the pilot, literally. the pilot sits on the main tanks and they occupy the space immediately behind the rear wing spar.

i'd imagine that would go boom rather well.

 

 

[Feathered_IV]

Often I get hit and don’t even realize my wing has gone.  I hear an impact or two and loose control, regain it and loose it again.  Eventually I look to the side and notice the downward view there has markedly improved.  Perhaps some increased buffeting noise or similar might be a good idea one day.  

[PainGod85]

Just now, Feathered_IV said:

Often I get hit and don’t even realize my wing has gone.  I hear an impact or two and loose control, regain it and loose it again.  Eventually I look to the side and notice the downward view there has markedly improved.  Perhaps some increased buffeting noise or similar might be a good idea one day.  

 

"Just trim it out."

"There's a hole in your right hole!"

[SCG_motoadve]

2 hours ago, Melonfish said:

it seems a little too unrealistic without the acompanying fuel/ammunition explosion, and perhaps that is modelled in but we don't have the big flashbang to go with?

This is key, at least if we get an explosion, it would be more believable.

[Alexmarine]

1 hour ago, II./JG77_motoadve said:

This is key, at least if we get an explosion, it would be more believable.

 

But we get them, explosions of fuel tanks and ammo belts are fully modelled, what we see too often in game are wings being broken clean at the wing root due to structural failure

[SCG_motoadve]

6 minutes ago, Alexmarine28 said:

 

But we get them, explosions of fuel tanks and ammo belts are fully modelled, what we see too often in game are wings being broken clean at the wing root due to structural failure

Look at the wings folding , minute 4:46 where is the big explosion?

 

 

[Sokol1]

23 hours ago, ACG_Herne said:

 

quick search found me this :-https://youtu.be/ukDgnp0l4Z0

 

 

Most are that Deja Vù Fw 190's with wing ammo boxes exploding, no one wing "cut in root" like we see in flight games.

 

Edited October 9, 2019 by Sokol1

[ECV56_Necathor]

The damage model is good, but if you fly a 109 damage of the wings affect less  on 109s than red planes.

[Alexmarine]

1 hour ago, II./JG77_motoadve said:

Look at the wings folding , minute 4:46 where is the big explosion?

 

 

 

You simply didn't caused it because it had a structural failure before that (also, the MG151/20 mine shells are probably not the best type to cause those internal explosions at least in BoX). Those are two different results but the point is that what happens in the video (the structural failure) is way to common and caused even by small calibers rounds in some cases

[ECV56_Necathor]

On 10/9/2019 at 10:51 AM, Alexmarine28 said:

 

You simply didn't caused it because it had a structural failure before that (also, the MG151/20 mine shells are probably not the best type to cause those internal explosions at least in BoX). Those are two different results but the point is that what happens in the video (the structural failure) is way to common and caused even by small calibers rounds in some cases

I got a question for you, can you tell me How you turn so easily if you loose one of your elevators?

Edited October 10, 2019 by 666GIAP_Necathor