P-38 Durability

[=EXPEND=CG_Justin]

Is it just me, or does the P-38 seem a bit fragile? I don't normally fly allied planes, but I tried the P-38 a couple times over the weekend and it seemed to be a "one burst kill" for me every time. I also noticed that when fighting against 38's, the elevator comes off 9 times out of 10 and the plane is doomed. It also seems that just a couple hits at the wing root (by cockpit) will make it fold like paper and break to pieces.

 

Thoughts? ?

[Field-Ops]

I think the biggest drawback is the elevator fragility. I think the elevator damage needs to be broken up into sections of thirds to make up for the fact that hits in any location will cause the whole elevator to fail. 

 

Other than that its pretty well done visually and in terms of general toughness. 

[Lusekofte]

It break up easily. But I don’t think it met so many enemies with 30 mm in real life

[Fern]

I dont think it's isolated to the P38. 30mm is a death cannon to all the allied planes. You're either PKing or the plane is losing a control surface, blacking out, falling to your death.

 

Maybe they could model destruction of control surfaces better instead of them just falling off.

 

Japanese 40mm hit 

Edited January 28, 2020 by Fern

[Lusekofte]

Yes main problem is complexity of dm. But still environment this sim simulate is not like real life. You can put anything on your plane and fuel plane and pilot is balanced

[LLv34_Flanker]

S! 

 

That picture of P-38 with tailboom almost shot off. For sure pilot did not dogfight and do crazy G maneuvers nor fly at full speed after being hit. Quite a bit of nursing the plane and lot of luck to get home. I could post a pic ofa Ju-88 A-4 hit by 2 x 37mm shots in the tail. Got back to base and flew in a couple of days. Again extremely lucky nothing critical damaged. 

[69th_Bazzer]

I think overall the P-38 DM is good. Sometimes it feels fragile in the tail section, as it's fairly common to see either the entire elevator fly off or the booms collapse in. However, I've also nursed some P-38's home that had no business staying in the air. Keep flying her, and watch your G's if you've been hit. it'll even out.

[II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson]

Does anyone have real world info on how the elevator is attached? It is one piece correct? How many connections are there? How stout are those connections? These are things to consider before feeling like something is wrong. Every time I hit a P38 it either folds in half or loses elevator; but I attribute that to the fact that when I hit it, it's usually with 2x30mm, 2x20mm, and 2x13mm cannons in a nice burst at convergence or closer.

 

Sidebar; I've begun to see how stout the P51 is modeled here. Recently I've made many good hits with cannons, including 30mm, in situations where it would be hard to miss with the 30 and only hit with 13s or 20s, (I love to fire from less than 100m) but observed as the P51 flew on nicely. The only exception is when I land a pilot kill in the first burst. 

Edited January 28, 2020 by III./JG7-MarkWilhelmsson

[HerrBree]

Multiple times now ive blown half the wing of a spitfire ix and it has continued to fly as if nothing were wrong. The most recent time I actually lost sight of him only to be engaged by the same wingless spit almost 4 minutes later.  He had just been flying around dog fighting my squad with 1 and a half wings. The p51 eats 30mm and doesnt die all the time.

All that being said, Im not really sure there is anything truly "wrong" with any of the damage models. I think this is a very complex game and sooner or later you are going to stumble across anomalous behaviors

Edited January 28, 2020 by HerrBree

[II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson]

Also, you may infer the destructive potential of the MK108 30mm by observing this photo. The projectile is simply monstrous.

 

 

Edited January 28, 2020 by III./JG7-MarkWilhelmsson

[Diggun]

9 minutes ago, HerrBree said:

Multiple times now ive blown half the wing of a spitfire ix and it has continued to fly as if nothing were wrong. The most recent time I actually lost sight of him only to be engaged almost 4 minutes later

Didja film that??

[HerrBree]

11 minutes ago, [_FLAPS_]Diggun said:

Didja film that??

As a matter of fact I did. But that will have to wait until I get off work. Additionally I believe this issue with the spits flying with 1 wing goes back to when the mkIX was released and thought a fix was made for it. 

However the point of my comment wasn't to necessarily point out something I thought was wrong but rather to point out the its not uncommon for bizarre or weird Sh*t to happen in this game. Clearly the spitfire wing thing is a rarity. p51 munching on 30mm not so much tho.

[MikhaVT]

59 minutes ago, III./JG7-MarkWilhelmsson said:

Does anyone have real world info on how the elevator is attached? It is one piece correct? How many connections are there? How stout are those connections? These are things to consider before feeling like something is wrong. Every time I hit a P38 it either folds in half or loses elevator; but I attribute that to the fact that when I hit it, it's usually with 2x30mm, 2x20mm, and 2x13mm cannons in a nice burst at convergence or closer.

 

Where the elevator attaches:

Wing:

 

The P-38 appears to have its wings attach similar to the P-47 with a pair of pins, one at the top, and one at the bottom. After those are in place there's additional bolts for the shear beams, and each of the bathtub fittings.

 

Source for pictures: http://legendsintheirowntime.com/LiTOT/P38/P38_Av_4408_DA.html

 

Assembly manual: https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/p-38-erection-and-maintenance-pages.20445/

[40plus]

Super gorgeous, fun to fly and apparently, made from papier-mâché

[Fern]

"Description - The elevator is made in one panel and is attached to the horizontal stabilizer by ball bearing hinges. The operating cables actuate a torque tube in each empennage boom. The torque tubes are fastened to the elevator by screws."   P38 Manual 03 https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/p-38-erection-and-maintenance-pages.20445/

 

 

[Barnacles]

Worth noting that Rapidus says here the DM is under review.

[Turban]

Yes DM is under review which is great.

 

I would agree that the P 38 breaks in half too easily. Elevator breaks and bomms part ways.

 

It's an exception though, most other allied planes will sometimes take fire from several enemies , even AAA and...keep fighting. lol.

A single smoking P51 dogfighting 3 germans over german AAA  as if nothing's wrong is an all too common thing these days.

 

So fingers crossed we get a better DM all around

[SCG_motoadve]

P38 too fragile, I agree and hate to see it brake in half, does not seem realistic specially without a big explosion, it just breaks in half like if made of cardboard.

Hope they revise the DM of this plane ,the P47, the 190s and 110s. Which wings detach too easily.

[HerrBree]

I just hope the new DM leads to more fires and more shoot downs due to loss of control/lift from damage sustained. Im no expert by any means but I feel like those would be the most common scenarios when scoring a kill followed or joined by pilot kills.

Edited January 28, 2020 by HerrBree

[Fern]

1 hour ago, Turban said:

Yes DM is under review which is great.

 

I would agree that the P 38 breaks in half too easily. Elevator breaks and bomms part ways.

 

It's an exception though, most other allied planes will sometimes take fire from several enemies , even AAA and...keep fighting. lol.

A single smoking P51 dogfighting 3 germans over german AAA  as if nothing's wrong is an all too common thing these days.

 

So fingers crossed we get a better DM all around

 

Fly Allies for a bit and tell how you think. You'll change your mind about the p51.

 

[Turban]

25 minutes ago, Fern said:

 

Fly Allies for a bit and tell how you think. You'll change your mind about the p51.

 

 

That'd would feel like hollidays

[Fern]

22 minutes ago, Turban said:

 

That'd would feel like hollidays

 

Do it! ?

[II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson]

51 minutes ago, Fern said:

 

Do it! ?

 

Last time i was putting hits on you I recall that it took quite a bit to cause you to stop being a threat. I exclaimed to my friends on Discord during the altercation my disbelief at how much the Mustang can take. I was in hard scissors with you and making hits on the passes from only a few meters away, so it's not like I was missing very much with my dual 30s.

 

Last night I had the same thing happen. I put a large burst into someone from a clean 300m in decent deflection. He flew after that like as if nothing happened and almost outran me on the deck. I had to mad lobb fire to hit again and make him break.

[Fern]

 

58 minutes ago, III./JG7-MarkWilhelmsson said:

 

Last time i was putting hits on you I recall that it took quite a bit to cause you to stop being a threat. I exclaimed to my friends on Discord during the altercation my disbelief at how much the Mustang can take. I was in hard scissors with you and making hits on the passes from only a few meters away, so it's not like I was missing very much with my dual 30s.

 

Last night I had the same thing happen. I put a large burst into someone from a clean 300m in decent deflection. He flew after that like as if nothing happened and almost outran me on the deck. I had to mad lobb fire to hit again and make him break.

 

Do you have a different ingame name? I'm looking at stats and dont see your name from last night.

[II./SG.1-MarkWilhelmsson]

16 minutes ago, Fern said:

 

 

Do you have a different ingame name? I'm looking at stats and dont see your name from last night.

 

We didn't meet last night; it was a couple days ago.

 

https://combatbox.net/en/sortie/log/332252/?tour=17

[Fern]

34 minutes ago, III./JG7-MarkWilhelmsson said:

 

We didn't meet last night; it was a couple days ago.

 

https://combatbox.net/en/sortie/log/332252/?tour=17

 

Haha I'm surprised I even lasted that long. 24 seconds of evasive maneuvers. I must be getting better....

[Charon]

Control surfaces definitely get shot away far, far too easily.

 

Pilots loved posing with their battle damaged planes. If someone brought a plane home missing an aileron, you can bet they'd try to get a picture of it. There's photos of battle damage all over, yet it's hard to find photos of planes that made it home with a whole control surface gone. You'll see all sorts of damage like this:

 

P-47 with multiple flak hits, yet flaps and ailerons are still there.

P-38 with a big hole in its aileron.

P-51 with a 37 or 40mm flak hit to the rudder.

 

The closest I can find to what we see in game are these:

 

B-25 with only a few shreds of aileron still attached.

RAAF Kittyhawk which lost a complete aileron, and a fair bit of its wing, to "a direct hit from an artillery shell" (note also the dangling ammo belt!).

TBM minus an aileron... and much of its wing.

 

But this isn't damage you see from 20mm or even 37mm guns. These are hits from large caliber flak. They might be shredded and lose effectiveness, sure, but 20mm shouldn't remove them completely. It's a problem with all planes, but it's more apparent with the P-38 because it lacks redundant elevators.

 

Someone's going to suggest that the damage shown is meant to model the control surfaces being shredded, but right now it doesn't seem to account for the larger surface area of the control surfaces on some larger planes. I can't count the number of times I've seen an aileron or elevator fall free from a He 111 or a Ju 88 following a quick burst of 20mm. They have huge control control surfaces. If they fall away in game to mimic the effect of them being shredded by fire, it should take proportionately more fire to destroy the control surfaces of these larger planes.

[ATAG_kiwiflieger]

28 minutes ago, Charon said:

Pilots loved posing with their battle damaged planes. If someone brought a plane home missing an aileron, you can bet they'd try to get a picture of it. There's photos of battle damage all over, yet it's hard to find photos of planes that made it home with a whole control surface gone.

 

Loss of control surfaces would decrease the chance of making it back to base though - hence the reason so few photos exist of such damage may be because most aircraft that lost control surfaces ended up as a smoking hole in the ground.

 

Good video here on the topic: 

 

 

That's not to say that this is responsible for the lack of 'total control surface loss' pictures but could be a factor. I agree that control surfaces (especially the P-38 elevator) do seem to detach too easily though.

 

 

 

[MikhaVT]

17 hours ago, SCG_motoadve said:

P38 too fragile, I agree and hate to see it brake in half, does not seem realistic specially without a big explosion, it just breaks in half like if made of cardboard.

Hope they revise the DM of this plane ,the P47, the 190s and 110s. Which wings detach too easily.

For the main spar, i dug up some more pictures from the following site: http://warbirdsnews.com/warbird-restorations/lightning-progress-downunder-p-38-restoration-report-january-2018.html

 

That center spar looks pretty heafty, but at the same time also kinda weak. It seems to be constructed of sheetmetal and riveted together primarily. I think if a shell detonated inside the spar it might be reasonable for some pretty bad failures. 

[Charon]

7 hours ago, ATAG_kiwiflieger said:

 

Loss of control surfaces would decrease the chance of making it back to base though - hence the reason so few photos exist of such damage may be because most aircraft that lost control surfaces ended up as a smoking hole in the ground.

 

That's true, and the other possibility is that the planes in our sim are too controllable when they shed a control surface. I know I regularly fly home missing control surfaces (I did so missing an aileron just this last Monday, even), and I'm not a great pilot. One way or another, if we regularly return missing control surfaces, and real pilots didn't, there's something wrong.

 

I don't think it's just survivor bias, though, because the P-40 and the B-25 I linked demonstrate that it was possible to fly home in this condition (The TBM crashed trying to land). All three of those examples involve large caliber flak. If it's possible for 20mm or 30mm or even 37mm to remove control surfaces, we would expect some of those planes to survive too. Where are those examples?

Edited January 29, 2020 by Charon
Grammar

[Turban]

Another occurence tonight......

 

Fun times...

 

I think it speaks for itself...

 

And I think it could have kept fighting, if the GROUND hadn't been there ...

 

https://combatbox.net/fr/sortie/log/343447/?tour=17

 

That P51 was able to maneuver pretty agressively till the very end, against several enemies !! .. it's just insane. The absolute beating it can take... I mean point blank salvos of explosive 20mms, and still it's the GROUND that has to finish the job...

 

 

Edited January 30, 2020 by Turban

[unreasonable]

People interested in DM effects might want to have a look at this thread based on systematic tests on various aircraft:  in short, the larger the plane the more hits you will take, but each hit individually  has a lower probability of shooting you down.  How these factors balance out varies: but I agree that P-51's seem a tougher than expected, while P-47s are weaker.  

 

 

 

[MikhaVT]

I'm starting to notice a possible trend, it seems aircraft which have cantilever wing attachments (P-51) are more durable in-game than aircraft like the P-38 and P-47 where the wings are attached initially through some pin joints and a series of bathtub fittings.

 

13 hours ago, unreasonable said:

People interested in DM effects might want to have a look at this thread based on systematic tests on various aircraft:  in short, the larger the plane the more hits you will take, but each hit individually  has a lower probability of shooting you down.  How these factors balance out varies: but I agree that P-51's seem a tougher than expected, while P-47s are weaker.  

Unreasonable, I remember you did some DM testing with the P-47 in game being compared to a US test of AA hits on the P-47. Do you know if they did any testing of hits to the wing attachment locations on the P-47?

[unreasonable]

1 hour ago, Kataphrakt said:

I'm starting to notice a possible trend, it seems aircraft which have cantilever wing attachments (P-51) are more durable in-game than aircraft like the P-38 and P-47 where the wings are attached initially through some pin joints and a series of bathtub fittings.

 

Unreasonable, I remember you did some DM testing with the P-47 in game being compared to a US test of AA hits on the P-47. Do you know if they did any testing of hits to the wing attachment locations on the P-47?

 

It would not surprise me but I do not recall it being specifically mentioned. The odd results with the P-47 in BoX are with the engine, which takes damage far more easily than the US test results suggest, plus some kind of fuel or oil leak from splinter hits in the fuselage.  In terms of damage to structures, my own test results showed the P-47 to be a little stronger than the US ballistics tests suggest, but not remarkably.

 

Unfortunately the reproduction of the report is very poor making the detailed appendices very hard to read, at least with my failing eyesight.  (Too much looking for the Hun in the sun....)

[357th_KW]

Do you happen to have a link for the original US testing?  

[Y-29.Silky]

On 1/28/2020 at 8:37 AM, III./JG7-MarkWilhelmsson said:

Also, you may infer the destructive potential of the MK108 30mm by observing this photo. The projectile is simply monstrous.

 

 

The 30mm was big, but it was still a bullet, that was meant for bombers, Chuck Yeager even said the 30mm rounds would explode outside of the wing and not damage and flight controls, but this game it's acting like artillery. There's no way it should be ripping planes in 4 pieces like it does now.

But the P-38 seems to only have 1 damage model... 

Edited January 30, 2020 by Y-29.Silky

[Fern]

23 hours ago, Turban said:

Another occurence tonight......

 

Fun times...

 

I think it speaks for itself...

 

And I think it could have kept fighting, if the GROUND hadn't been there ...

 

https://combatbox.net/fr/sortie/log/343447/?tour=17

 

That P51 was able to maneuver pretty agressively till the very end, against several enemies !! .. it's just insane. The absolute beating it can take... I mean point blank salvos of explosive 20mms, and still it's the GROUND that has to finish the job...

 

 

 

K-4 tonight. P-51 was down in 2 secs easy. Mk108s.

 

https://combatbox.net/en/sortie/log/345379/?tour=17

[unreasonable]

32 minutes ago, KW_1979 said:

Do you happen to have a link for the original US testing?  

 

https://apps.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA800394

[Turban]

9 hours ago, Fern said:

 

K-4 tonight. P-51 was down in 2 secs easy. Mk108s.

 

https://combatbox.net/en/sortie/log/345379/?tour=17

 

I'm well aware you can shoot down a P51 quickly or do a PK.

The problem is the number of occurrences where the damage is very minimal with zero consequences.  P51 staying active in fights despite being hit numerous times, because they can,  is not uncommon and pretty much anyone who has experience ingame and isn't disingenuous will admit it.

 

 

[Fern]

4 hours ago, Turban said:

 

I'm well aware you can shoot down a P51 quickly or do a PK.

The problem is the number of occurrences where the damage is very minimal with zero consequences.  P51 staying active in fights despite being hit numerous times, because they can,  is not uncommon and pretty much anyone who has experience ingame and isn't disingenuous will admit it.

 

 

 

When do you start your holiday?