.50 cal damage, or lack there of

July 12, 2020

This topic caused me alot of heartburn when I first read it. I am all too familiar with the terrible performance of the .50s in the original IL2 due to dispersion and ammo types. No one wanted a repeat of that mess. But I have always felt that after a patch or two after the release of the P-40E-1 in the BOS series, the .50s were very realistic and deadly.

So after reading this thread, I set up a series of quick missions in the P-40 versus Ju-52s. I modified the P-40 to carry only 4 guns- just to push the envelope as far as I could toward confirming the OPs statements. Surely, if the .50s had been porked, I would get nowhere carry only 4 of them.

It simply wasn't the case. I flew approximately 25 sorties in the above scenario, and- even though there were a few instances where a Junkers seemed to sustain alot of damage before going down, I was almost always able to dispatch 3 or 4 of them before running out of ammo with a standard loadout.

I then switched to the P-47D-22 with a full complement of 8 weapons. Very few of the enemy planes survived more than 2 short bursts. About a third of them readily caught fire with hits to the wing or engine.This was entirely consistent with what I had experienced with the .50s since shortly after they were introduced into the sim.

While I realize that my "test" was hardly extensive or scientific, I am skeptical that there has been any significant change in the performance of these weapons. They seem to perform as well they always have.

Edited July 12, 2020 by chris455

July 12, 2020

1 hour ago, chris455 said:

While I realize that my "test" was hardly extensive or scientific, I am skeptical that there has been any significant change in the performance of these weapons. They seem to perform as well they always have.

A lot of what we know or think we know in the game is supposition based on prior experience playing. Maybe everyone who thinks the .50s are off is actually wrong. I flew a few missions today and still struggled bringing down the 109G6s. Fw-190s seemed much easier to light up. Historically I've always thought it the reverse.

One oddity I did run into that I'm not sure I've noticed before was when I was firing bursts into a river while flying the P-51. As I dove, I'd get the usual water spouts and ricochets. As I got closer still firing at the river, the water spouts and ricochets disappeared. Then they resumed. Would that be an issue with the sim not being able to keep up with tracking the number of bullets hitting the water? Or is it possible something else is happening?

Edited July 12, 2020 by Rjel

July 12, 2020

Yes , u can shot down a enemys.

Yes, u can shot down a bombers, many times on second burst engine go on fire.

Problem is.

Enemy fighters can take a huge number of 0.5 impacts before suffers a noticiable lack of performance. ( bfs and Fws ) especially on wings and fuselage.

Edited July 12, 2020 by HRc_Tumu

July 12, 2020

18 hours ago, chris455 said:

This topic caused me alot of heartburn when I first read it. I am all too familiar with the terrible performance of the .50s in the original IL2 due to dispersion and ammo types. No one wanted a repeat of that mess. But I have always felt that after a patch or two after the release of the P-40E-1 in the BOS series, the .50s were very realistic and deadly.

So after reading this thread, I set up a series of quick missions in the P-40 versus Ju-52s. I modified the P-40 to carry only 4 guns- just to push the envelope as far as I could toward confirming the OPs statements. Surely, if the .50s had been porked, I would get nowhere carry only 4 of them.

It simply wasn't the case. I flew approximately 25 sorties in the above scenario, and- even though there were a few instances where a Junkers seemed to sustain alot of damage before going down, I was almost always able to dispatch 3 or 4 of them before running out of ammo with a standard loadout.

I then switched to the P-47D-22 with a full complement of 8 weapons. Very few of the enemy planes survived more than 2 short bursts. About a third of them readily caught fire with hits to the wing or engine.This was entirely consistent with what I had experienced with the .50s since shortly after they were introduced into the sim.

While I realize that my "test" was hardly extensive or scientific, I am skeptical that there has been any significant change in the performance of these weapons. They seem to perform as well they always have.

Most of the complaints about .50s are from people playing online multiplayer. I think something is going on there that may not happen as much in offline play. I don't think testing offline is a good way to validate the whether or not they are effective online. Our online tests have shown big problems in their effectiveness. We essentially fired an entire magazine of .50 from a P-39 (two guns) into the wing of a P-51 (and some other planes as well) with no reduction of speed or wing "heaviness". While a single burst of German 131 or Soviet 12.7 resulted in immediate speed loss and wing heaviness comparable to a 20mm round. The test was repeatable.

July 12, 2020

I guess the question is which is the problem?

The damage model of German aircraft
The lethality of .50 cal

July 12, 2020

32 minutes ago, BCI-Nazgul said:

Most of the complaints about .50s are from people playing online multiplayer. I think something is going on there that may not happen as much in offline play. I don't think testing offline is a good way to validate the whether or not they are effective online. Our online tests have shown big problems in their effectiveness. We essentially fired an entire magazine of .50 from a P-39 (two guns) into the wing of a P-51 (and some other planes as well) with no reduction of speed or wing "heaviness". While a single burst of German 131 or Soviet 12.7 resulted in immediate speed loss and wing heaviness comparable to a 20mm round. The test was repeatable.

In my own testing I was able to recreate the exact same issue I was seeing in multiplayer in single player. The key is using the IL-2 mission editor so you can create the exact scenario you need. QMB is basically useless for this as you can't get repeatable results.

One simple way to test the wing lift/structural damage theory would be to set a target aircraft flying along to a waypoint at "High" priority - they'll just keep flying straight and ignoring your fire until aircraft damage prevents them from doing so. The problem there is just that aerial gunnery can be challenging and its hard to be sure exactly how many rounds are hitting - especially with .50s where you will be firing a ton of them. Another option would be to use a target on the runway ready to takeoff and shoot it from a turret for the gun you want to test - that way you can get the precise hits you are trying to measure. And then have some other trigger to tell the AI plane to takeoff. Then just test until you find how much damage to the wing it takes with different calibers to prevent the aircraft from being able to takeoff.

July 12, 2020

1 hour ago, JG7_X-Man said:

I guess the question is which is the problem?

The damage model of German aircraft

The lethality of .50 cal

Both...

At least for the 109F/G/K because of the sponge of damage in the low 6.

And .50s for lack aerodynamic penalties and incendiary ammo

Edited July 12, 2020 by -332FG-Ursus_

July 12, 2020

1 hour ago, JG7_X-Man said:

I guess the question is which is the problem?

The damage model of German aircraft

The lethality of .50 cal

32 minutes ago, -332FG-Ursus_ said:

Both...

At least for the 109F/G/K because of the sponge of damage in the low 6.

And .50s for lack aerodynamic penalties and incendiary ammo

I tend to agree. I must say that in single player good shooting does deliver, though. Running over a bomber from 6 or 12 where the convergence point 'walks' tail-to-nose' (or vice versa) along the fuselage is almost a 100% guarantee of getting a kill. Convergence hits on engines, regardless of plane, will cause fires to develop or al least cause rapidly-degrading damage.

That said, fighter tail hits at convergence and volume of hits don't seem to cause the plane to even 'wince'. Neither do some pretty strong hits on wings. It's kind of rare to see a fighter that's in a high-bank turn getting hit on the high-side wing with a strong volley of .50s even flinch a little. It doesn't seem to matter that at least a handful of those rounds embedded into the interior structure of the wing instead simply punching clean through the skin. Five or six .50 rounds in the volley all coming to a sudden stop as they transfer energy into structural pieces should be enough to see some sort of reaction - even if it's a very slight one.

As for API.... Yes. Gimme! 'nuff said.

July 12, 2020

Well! Let's get if fixed then!

July 12, 2020

2 hours ago, KW_1979 said:

In my own testing I was able to recreate the exact same issue I was seeing in multiplayer in single player. The key is using the IL-2 mission editor so you can create the exact scenario you need. QMB is basically useless for this as you can't get repeatable results.

One simple way to test the wing lift/structural damage theory would be to set a target aircraft flying along to a waypoint at "High" priority - they'll just keep flying straight and ignoring your fire until aircraft damage prevents them from doing so. The problem there is just that aerial gunnery can be challenging and its hard to be sure exactly how many rounds are hitting - especially with .50s where you will be firing a ton of them. Another option would be to use a target on the runway ready to takeoff and shoot it from a turret for the gun you want to test - that way you can get the precise hits you are trying to measure. And then have some other trigger to tell the AI plane to takeoff. Then just test until you find how much damage to the wing it takes with different calibers to prevent the aircraft from being able to takeoff.

It can be far simpler than that. Merely set up whatever airplane you want to test as a friendly in the QMB mission where you can have multiple flights. Set them as the other flight on your side, unarmed and have a lone Ju-52 set as an enemy flight at a distance of 10000m to be in pursuit of. You can then shoot at say a friendly Bf-109G6, from varying attitudes and points of the compass for testing purposes or just practice. All you get is admonished by the sim for shooting at a friendly.

I do think the 109 if far too hard to kill from the six o'clock now. The engine seems very durable compared to even the Fw-190. Engine fires are few and far between when I test them this way.

Edited July 12, 2020 by Rjel
Clarity

July 13, 2020

8 hours ago, JG7_X-Man said:

I guess the question is which is the problem?

The damage model of German aircraft

The lethality of .50 cal

It's not DM of German planes. We tested on both US and German and the .50s are not effective on wing hits with either. Nor is it a certain model of plane. Our test included a 109, P-51 and P-40 all with similar results. It's the guns.

8 hours ago, KW_1979 said:

In my own testing I was able to recreate the exact same issue I was seeing in multiplayer in single player. The key is using the IL-2 mission editor so you can create the exact scenario you need. QMB is basically useless for this as you can't get repeatable results.

One simple way to test the wing lift/structural damage theory would be to set a target aircraft flying along to a waypoint at "High" priority - they'll just keep flying straight and ignoring your fire until aircraft damage prevents them from doing so. The problem there is just that aerial gunnery can be challenging and its hard to be sure exactly how many rounds are hitting - especially with .50s where you will be firing a ton of them. Another option would be to use a target on the runway ready to takeoff and shoot it from a turret for the gun you want to test - that way you can get the precise hits you are trying to measure. And then have some other trigger to tell the AI plane to takeoff. Then just test until you find how much damage to the wing it takes with different calibers to prevent the aircraft from being able to takeoff.

That's good info/news. It proves there is an all around problem. We never tested offline.

July 13, 2020

Combat Box. 136 rounds fired, 19 hits.

July 13, 2020

On 7/12/2020 at 1:34 AM, chris455 said:

This topic caused me alot of heartburn when I first read it. I am all too familiar with the terrible performance of the .50s in the original IL2 due to dispersion and ammo types. No one wanted a repeat of that mess. But I have always felt that after a patch or two after the release of the P-40E-1 in the BOS series, the .50s were very realistic and deadly.

So after reading this thread, I set up a series of quick missions in the P-40 versus Ju-52s. I modified the P-40 to carry only 4 guns- just to push the envelope as far as I could toward confirming the OPs statements. Surely, if the .50s had been porked, I would get nowhere carry only 4 of them.

It simply wasn't the case. I flew approximately 25 sorties in the above scenario, and- even though there were a few instances where a Junkers seemed to sustain alot of damage before going down, I was almost always able to dispatch 3 or 4 of them before running out of ammo with a standard loadout.

I then switched to the P-47D-22 with a full complement of 8 weapons. Very few of the enemy planes survived more than 2 short bursts. About a third of them readily caught fire with hits to the wing or engine.This was entirely consistent with what I had experienced with the .50s since shortly after they were introduced into the sim.

While I realize that my "test" was hardly extensive or scientific, I am skeptical that there has been any significant change in the performance of these weapons. They seem to perform as well they always have.

This is what I found too. No matter how much I wanted to prove the 50s are ineffective, every time I tried them in QM, if I got a good burst in, most of the time (66%-75%) the target was destroyed. Mostly through PK, but a lot were fires, and some were through loss if wing tips or I presume cutting of control wires.

There is a lot of whaterboutery saying what about that time when you do a snap shot and get a few hits and the 109 carries on flying regardless.

Well sometimes you should be able to have a few bullets pass through your wing with minimal effect.

The only objective issues I see are.

1. Online you see some monumental hits not result in any significant damage. @-332FG-Ursus_ once sneaked up on me, sat on convergence range and hosed me down. Literally not a single f**k given by my 190.
2. You can literally spray a wing with 50s (like 20 hits) and sometimes you can get very little aero penalty. (generally the case unless you knock off a wheel cover or control surface)
yet you can get hit by 1 x 13mm and have to fly fully crossed up to fly straight and level.

Yes mg 131 had HE filling but it was 1.7 grammes!

28 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

Combat Box. 136 rounds fired, 19 hits.

Casual! ?

July 13, 2020

QB. Shallot and unreasonable have made pretty clear points and summarised things well, including what limited info we know from the Dev's regarding the .50 calibre gun and its damage. I thank those who have provided evidence and videos.

Repeating, ignoring and repeating the same statements won't improve things, and neither will having a very strong opinion entitle anyone to increasing the damage effects of .50 calibre rounds. If you have WW2 data or verifiable evidence from that period then great, otherwise we've not seen much that contradicts what is in game [offline] and that's how new changes are filtered going forwards. I'd strongly suggest if things are different online then its not to do with the game itself but the online server's settings, or connection to it and the players.

Some people are ignoring all of the earlier posts written in this thread.

API will come sooner or later [for all guns that had them], but as stated... in order to do a thorough job that you guys really demand of this team - the detailed fuel system damage modelling needs to be worked first to effectively allow an API round to work DIFFERENTLY to how AP rounds currently work in a new framework... it was mentioned in one of the dev. blog's that this fuel system DM is being worked on right now.

As stated, it will take time to develop (we don't have more details yet) - don't expect answers just because this has all become a personal gripe - there is a development schedule and its being followed.

On 7/10/2020 at 6:22 PM, AbortedMan said:

If you're conceding to not let people provide data to request a fix for a clear issue with the DM simply because we don't live in a perfect world, then...just...wow.

I'm sure this same sentiment would not be coming out of you if Minengeschoß 20mm were modeled as ball ammo. Resolving this does not require a new fuel system since igniting fuel tanks and starting fires elsewere is already modeled in the game. The issue seems to be certain calibers not doing any aerodynamic damage to aircraft upon being hit multiple times. Multiple tests have confirmed this.

You've found a very long winded and creative way to say "git gud". I didn't mention anything specific about 109s, or my own personal performance, so I'm not sure what you're on about. This isn't an issue or a post about blue/red bias or wanting to buff an aspect of the aircraft I fly. I fly everything in the game regularly.

@AbortedMan

You didn't listen to anything I said in my post, and before the DM changes in updates 4.006 - 4.008 the 20mm and other cannon ammo was very much behaving like a large form of ball ammo for over six years since the game was relaunched - but we still didn't behave like this because we appreciated what we had. An excellent game... if you could believe it from some posts in these threads.

The thread is titled .50 calibre damage or lack thereof.. not "is Aurora Stealth a useful scapegoat for my generally angry and contemptuous demeanor". Neither is the title of the thread "why is 20mm cannon with HE rounds an effective air-to-air weapon" nor is it "why does the Bf 109 have a particular issue with penetration of its fuel tank and rear fuselage". Its also not called "can we have detailed convergence options for .50 calibre guns" or "is there insufficient aerodynamic / speed losses from .50 calibre rounds". There are already threads for all of those topics where this has been churned over to death.

I put a link to all of those threads on one of the previous pages here, but probably we'll just ignore all of those and instead beat the hell out of a Piñata and keep shouting like maniacs until the thread is closed out of respect for the Conservation of World Keyboards.

Cheers,

Edited July 13, 2020 by Aurora_Stealth

July 14, 2020

On 7/13/2020 at 9:57 AM, 71st_AH_Barnacles said:

Casual! ?

Actually is not that casual as you think.

Might sound as a contradiction. Because there is one in the DM.

That happens because the structure is weaked. Therefore: Structure is weaked, must be a severe aero penalty.

Problem? In speed terms, you never notice the drag, you only feel the structure beign week when your wing says BB taking the next fly to The Patagonia.

It already happened on my trials... Wings ripping off after a serious hit, but the speed was never affected. Catastrophic failure only happens when you apply G.

(This is also why I NEVER TAKE IN CONSIDERATION BERLOGA STORIES, its inducing factors wich should be out in a test)

Like on the video.

Edited July 14, 2020 by -332FG-Ursus_

July 14, 2020

Only real problem I have with the .50s is there lack of aerodynamic penalty. Multiple burst into my friend and he flew around just fine with no difficultly in maneuvering, meanwhile he hits me with a burst of Mg 131 and I can hardly control my aircraft.

Something just feels off, the .50s can certainly do the job but most times it just feels like there's no real penalty from having damaged skin from .50 hits.

July 14, 2020

On 7/13/2020 at 10:49 AM, BCI-Nazgul said:

It's not DM of German planes. We tested on both US and German and the .50s are not effective on wing hits with either. Nor is it a certain model of plane. Our test included a 109, P-51 and P-40 all with similar results. It's the guns.

That's good info/news. It proves there is an all around problem. We never tested offline.

I did test offline and posted about it in your thread. There is nothing wrong with the guns - if you get the visible stage 2 damage effect on a wing you will see a marked speed reduction.

July 14, 2020

So then why dose it take so many more rounds from M2 .50's to get the same result that a handful of 131 rounds can achieve? Do you really think that some rounds having a very small .9 g of PETN accounts for this difference? I find it hard to believe that it does considering that a few of these rounds, 3 or 4 of them in most cases but sometimes 1 or 2, can have the same observable effect as a single 20 mm HE round that packs a minimum of 18.6 g of the same explosive. If it is the case that this situation is accurate to history why did the Germans even bother with the 20 mm cannon? If this was the case why did they abandon HE filler in the 131's for an incendiary filler? If this is accurate why didn't the US produce similar rounds? Would you have us believe that the US was incapable of making .50 HE rounds? Maybe it was that they didn't know about HE fillers back then? Just ignore all those cannons. It couldn't possibly be that the sim is wrong and .50 AP rounds were more effective so an HE filler wasn't considered to be needed, could it? I suppose it could be that the effects of .50 and .51 HE rounds are drastically over modeled. In either case the disparity is telling.

You see, that is what this is actually about. Yes, the .50's have an effect but that effect is so small that you need to aggregate a large number, the argument holds an inordinately large number, of these effects to be worth anything in a combat situation.

July 14, 2020

1 hour ago, -SF-Disarray said:

So then why dose it take so many more rounds from M2 .50's to get the same result that a handful of 131 rounds can achieve? Do you really think that some rounds having a very small .9 g of PETN accounts for this difference? I find it hard to believe that it does considering that a few of these rounds, 3 or 4 of them in most cases but sometimes 1 or 2, can have the same observable effect as a single 20 mm HE round that packs a minimum of 18.6 g of the same explosive. If it is the case that this situation is accurate to history why did the Germans even bother with the 20 mm cannon? If this was the case why did they abandon HE filler in the 131's for an incendiary filler? If this is accurate why didn't the US produce similar rounds? Would you have us believe that the US was incapable of making .50 HE rounds? Maybe it was that they didn't know about HE fillers back then? Just ignore all those cannons. It couldn't possibly be that the sim is wrong and .50 AP rounds were more effective so an HE filler wasn't considered to be needed, could it? I suppose it could be that the effects of .50 and .51 HE rounds are drastically over modeled. In either case the disparity is telling.

You see, that is what this is actually about. Yes, the .50's have an effect but that effect is so small that you need to aggregate a large number, the argument holds an inordinately large number, of these effects to be worth anything in a combat situation.

The 50 cals need a large number because they are just a bullet. How many .303s do you think would be needed to get the same effect? To shred aircraft surfaces with .303s you need a huge number - quite rightly. One .50 cal bullet weighs about as much as 4.5 .303s but it only makes a hole ~2.7 times the size. It will do more damage internally but arguably the same weight of .303s will do more skin damage. Or how many 20mm AP? One HS AP shot weighs about as much as 3.7 .50 cal bullets, but similarly will do less skin damage for the same weight of shot.

Solid shot was just not made to tear up aircraft skins: it was made to penetrate. The .50 cal was a better gun than the .303 because the heavier shot was able to penetrate further and do more internal damage to vital components - not because it was good at shredding aircraft skin with a few hits.

MG131 HE rounds are a different issue best compared with a 20mm HE round. I have no idea if the ratio of damage between these is about right, btw, the MG131 may be too effective compared to HS 20mm HE. That is what should be checked if you have an issue with the explosive power. But you need to do it in a test that actually reaches the damage threshold to trigger the higher level damage graphic.

Replacing HE with incendiary makes perfect sense for the Germans because their aircraft had mixed armament: 20mm or 30mm firing HE (MS or conventional) will do the job of shredding structures, so an HE MG131 bullet really was not needed. An incendiary adds a useful additional effect, which with luck will appear in some future DM iteration.

Edited July 14, 2020 by unreasonable

July 14, 2020

1 hour ago, unreasonable said:

I did test offline and posted about it in your thread. There is nothing wrong with the guns - if you get the visible stage 2 damage effect on a wing you will see a marked speed reduction.

How many hits did it take to get to stage 2? Online, as I posted in my thread, we used the entire .50 ammo load of the P-39 (2x M2) with no aerodynamic penalties. You saw the test. I know you said we may not have hit the right part of the wing or we didn't get enough hits, but we were firing at a plane that was on level stabilizer and making no attempt to dodge. The people that fired aren't such terrible shots that they can't land a lot of hits against what is essentially a target drone. If it takes dozens of hits to get to level 2 damage (online) there is still a problem. It is quite possible (as I stated above) that the issue only appears in online play. Most of really dedicated players/IL2 supporters are online players. Frankly, I don't give a rat's hind end if the guns work fine offline. The only reason I play this game is for the online fun.

Also, why are the HE armed MGs operating like 20mm in online play? The slightest hit from them results in huge aerodynamic damage that takes a plane completely out of the fight. You saw that in our tests as well. When I feel like any US flyer is playing with one hand tied behind their back most of the time it's a little frustrating.

I can't help but think that the Devs fixing the .50 "problem" or at least testing to make sure there isn't a problem and stating that they work perfectly when compared to other weapons and why would be at least as important as raising the Moscow map by 50m.

Edited July 14, 2020 by BCI-Nazgul

July 14, 2020

What am I doing wrong?

July 14, 2020

1 hour ago, ACG_Smokejumper said:

What am I doing wrong?

No one is claiming that you can't get a critical hit or PK the pilot.

3 hours ago, unreasonable said:

Replacing HE with incendiary makes perfect sense for the Germans because their aircraft had mixed armament: 20mm or 30mm firing HE (MS or conventional) will do the job of shredding structures, so an HE MG131 bullet really was not needed. An incendiary adds a useful additional effect, which with luck will appear in some future DM iteration.

Is that what the Germans said or what you think?

July 14, 2020

I've noticed a lot of pilot gunnery with .50s isn't good. We've seen videos from guys complaining while they piss .50s all over the sky.

There is a reason the Sabre was the last fighter armed with them. Late models of Sabre switched to cannon. You need to put in a sustained burst unlike cannon where sometimes one is enough. Sometimes on .50 is enough though even in game.

I fly both sides and I can tell when someone has caught me in convergence. I get lit on fire, PK'd or have a wing sawn off. Thankfully the .50s no longer remove the entire empinage like they did when I whored P40's.

This is the same complaint I remember from Cliffs where guys using MG's had a harder time. I also suspect that a lot of the comparison between US .50s and the German ones is really a wing vs centre line debate.

I also think this is a DM fidelity issue. Has anyone had their guns shot out? Hydraulics shot out? Ever need to use the emergency gear release? How about fuel system fires over a fireball? Ever had an oil rad shot out? There are so many ways to fatally damage aircraft with .50s which are simply not modeled.

When the DM has more fidelity I suspect a lot of these issues will mostly go away but US and British machines will still have wing mounted guns. This gives you a small devastating fire window and so gunnery in those machines will always be more tricky than those with centre line guns.

On 7/11/2020 at 5:34 PM, chris455 said:

This topic caused me alot of heartburn when I first read it. I am all too familiar with the terrible performance of the .50s in the original IL2 due to dispersion and ammo types. No one wanted a repeat of that mess. But I have always felt that after a patch or two after the release of the P-40E-1 in the BOS series, the .50s were very realistic and deadly.

So after reading this thread, I set up a series of quick missions in the P-40 versus Ju-52s. I modified the P-40 to carry only 4 guns- just to push the envelope as far as I could toward confirming the OPs statements. Surely, if the .50s had been porked, I would get nowhere carry only 4 of them.

It simply wasn't the case. I flew approximately 25 sorties in the above scenario, and- even though there were a few instances where a Junkers seemed to sustain alot of damage before going down, I was almost always able to dispatch 3 or 4 of them before running out of ammo with a standard loadout.

I then switched to the P-47D-22 with a full complement of 8 weapons. Very few of the enemy planes survived more than 2 short bursts. About a third of them readily caught fire with hits to the wing or engine.This was entirely consistent with what I had experienced with the .50s since shortly after they were introduced into the sim.

While I realize that my "test" was hardly extensive or scientific, I am skeptical that there has been any significant change in the performance of these weapons. They seem to perform as well they always have.

I agree mostly. 109s are tougher than they where. I remember catching them just outside convergence in P40s and both horizontal stabs come off. I've also been the victim of that one a lot. 190 paper wings. Thankfully that was fixed.

That was lame.

1 hour ago, BCI-Nazgul said:

Is that what the Germans said or what you think?

Did they continue to load explosive mg bullets or not? They made them up until the end of the war I believe. Snipers used them and they where used to see MG hits.

If they stopped using them would it be safe to assume that they felt they where not needed?

Pretty neat bullet.

Sabre .50 gun camera. Six .50s in centre line still needed a few slaps before something catastrophic happened.

Anyway, take it all with a grain of salt. I'm just a keyboard commando. WTF do I know really? The biggest rounds I have any experience with are 30-06 in my hunting rifle. I hate that rifle..... The Savage is too light for that rifle to be any fun.

Edited July 14, 2020 by ACG_Smokejumper

July 15, 2020

The damage of the caliber 50 is bad, it is not only that the 109 is now harder than a 190, try to shoot a locomotive the amount of bursts it needs to be destroyed, also the trucks need a sustained burst and before it was not necessary . The damage model was damaged, after the update that reformed the entire damage model.

What an interesting way to defend the 109 that cannot be destroyed so easily, it shows that many fly only one side. I speak for both sides, if you fly the 109 and you are surprised by the 6 the possibility is very high to survive even if you are shot with a caliber 50 with convergence at 150mts, and that they shoot at exact 150mts.

I do not understand how they can argue about the damage of a weapon, if you are shooting at 150mts and you have the convergence at 150mts aligned with the target, and you take shots at the tail of the plane as 109 and the plane does not cut off the tail, don't you think there is something wrong? I fly a lot cooperatively and flying a 109 is a tremendous advantage, not only because of the plane is it good or does it have very good weaponry, but it is now a tank.???

Edited July 15, 2020 by [LAS]JanMcQuack

July 15, 2020

3 hours ago, [LAS]JanMcQuack said:

The damage of the caliber 50 is bad, it is not only that the 109 is now harder than a 190, try to shoot a locomotive the amount of bursts it needs to be destroyed, also the trucks need a sustained burst and before it was not necessary . The damage model was damaged, after the update that reformed the entire damage model.

What an interesting way to defend the 109 that cannot be destroyed so easily, it shows that many fly only one side. I speak for both sides, if you fly the 109 and you are surprised by the 6 the possibility is very high to survive even if you are shot with a caliber 50 with convergence at 150mts, and that they shoot at exact 150mts.

I do not understand how they can argue about the damage of a weapon, if you are shooting at 150mts and you have the convergence at 150mts aligned with the target, and you take shots at the tail of the plane as 109 and the plane does not cut off the tail, don't you think there is something wrong? I fly a lot cooperatively and flying a 109 is a tremendous advantage, not only because of the plane is it good or does it have very good weaponry, but it is now a tank.???

When DM got changed in 4.005 people complained that P-51 wings dont fall when they look at them so then hot fix sone come out and they found out there was extra spars in wings and so on... maybe there is extra pz.III in 109s tail, i would not be suprised as its tuffest airplane in game since then ?

July 15, 2020

13 hours ago, ACG_Smokejumper said:

What am I doing wrong?

@ACG_Smokejumper

In terms of shooting you're doing just fine.

At 0:13 to 0:15 the Bf 110 can be seen warping ... your issue seems linked to the net connection to the server and possible associated packet / data loss. I don't know which server you are on but recommend looking through the details if they have a website and also conducting a packet optimisation test. This may also be the same issue for many others - and needs to be examined as a broader online problem.

Anyway, here is the guide for optimisation via the combat box server, you can probably substitute the IP/website in this guide for other server's if you search.

https://static.combatbox.net/Combat Box MTU Guide.pdf

These issues were also raised before with the 37mm cannon on the Yak-9T. Then people realised the server wasn't calculating the hits properly compared to QMB and people changed server and had different results. So if you need to... raise a topic about issues about the servers or general online connection issues as this is a very clear red flag.

I'm not saying there aren't other issues (we know) but please do try and address this, as it could be linked to a lot of your frustration and at the least could ensure smoother game-play and consistency for you including with how your shooting is being sent through the net connection.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Aurora_Stealth

July 15, 2020

14 hours ago, ACG_Smokejumper said:

I also think this is a DM fidelity issue. Has anyone had their guns shot out? Hydraulics shot out? Ever need to use the emergency gear release? How about fuel system fires over a fireball? Ever had an oil rad shot out? There are so many ways to fatally damage aircraft with .50s which are simply not modeled

Exactly ,y thoughts.

July 16, 2020

15 hours ago, Aurora_Stealth said:

@ACG_Smokejumper

In terms of shooting you're doing just fine.

My post was a bit sarcastic. He went down in one pass with a nice sustained burst.

Maybe the .50s are under performing but perhaps so are the 30mm.

I suspect above all else the damage model isn't sophisticated enough. I can pump Mustangs and Spit wings full of cannon and all their MG's still work. I've never seen a fire lower than full catastrophic. I have seen fuel system and tail fabric fires in other sims.

I've never seen skin panels peel open from explosive damage with parts flapping in the breeze creating the parasitic drag we'd like to see.

My buddy last night said he shot a 109, 150 times with .50s before it went down. To me I feel that that is a symptom of missing aircraft systems. Something should have been cut I'm sure.

July 16, 2020

On 7/12/2020 at 3:23 PM, JG7_X-Man said:

I guess the question is which is the problem?

The damage model of German aircraft

The lethality of .50 cal

Pretty much this. Im currently flying Yak 1 in a BOS career and often the amount of damage a 109 can withstand is astounding. Its engine is tougher to damage than the radial engine of the 190!

So is the american .50 caliber really the issue here?

July 16, 2020

I think there should be the possibility to adjust convergence of each pait of guns separately. It was not uncommont to do so, as fighter pilots were not such a good shots, so they prefered kind of a shot gun spray and pray instead of a single convergence hit point of all 6 or 8 guns.

In the FW the same the inner guns were set for 550 m, and the outer for close range. Also when shooting bombers they were sametimes set to infinity.

This feature lacks in il2.

From my limited experience now it is much easier to have a pilot kill from 600 m, than a substantial damage at 300 m in the p51.

Edited July 16, 2020 by JG27_Kornezov

July 16, 2020

15 hours ago, ACG_Smokejumper said:

My post was a bit sarcastic. He went down in one pass with a nice sustained burst.

Maybe the .50s are under performing but perhaps so are the 30mm.

I suspect above all else the damage model isn't sophisticated enough. I can pump Mustangs and Spit wings full of cannon and all their MG's still work. I've never seen a fire lower than full catastrophic. I have seen fuel system and tail fabric fires in other sims.

I've never seen skin panels peel open from explosive damage with parts flapping in the breeze creating the parasitic drag we'd like to see.

My buddy last night said he shot a 109, 150 times with .50s before it went down. To me I feel that that is a symptom of missing aircraft systems. Something should have been cut I'm sure.

@ACG_Smokejumper

Well there's a lot of aircraft systems you could individually model, its a matter of which are the most universally agreed priorities. In order for it to be made a priority it needs to have an enabling/disabling effect on resulting game-play, or push forward in new areas of depth to the game-play.

As much as these things would be cool to see... like tail fabric fires, visual elements like flapping panels and peeling - they are all largely superficial visual effects (the damage model is calculating many of the underlying damage effects but these aren't always visually shown). Many of these types of visual effects are very time consuming, specific to an aircraft and not going to hugely change the game-play apart from immersion - if you're shot up then seeing the skin peeled rather than with small holes isn't going to be a drastic improvement to game-play. You can always find very specific exceptions if you try hard enough but its an obscure one.

People wanted the damage model (calculations) improved, it had to be re-worked multiple times for addressing specific issues, but this took 3 to 4 months. This came at the detriment of slowing down implementation of the fuel systems and drop tanks and other advances that could then follow such as API rounds. Now the airframe DM changes are largely implemented there is already lots of fingers pointing as to why API rounds were not originally implemented (?!) which needs a more complex fuel system lol.

Do you see, somewhere along the line a choice has to be made as to which is most important and prioritised first, lots of people clearly have different personal priorities and these rapidly change once another is solved. This is why there is a development plan, so that there is some sensible order on which more features and sophistication can be enabled.

So there's not much appetite to delay further the development of the fuel systems, drop tanks, API etc just for what are perceived as visual / immersion effects. Unfortunately, you can't have it all at once; its a steadily moving incremental process working down a universally agreed priority list.

Regarding that last statement - how can you be so sure? the DM is calculating control loss already, and cutting a cable with an AP or API round is such an obscure target from a distance.. the chances are extremely slim with the size and dispersion of the rounds - a cable or rod is only a few cm wide and typically people are firing from several hundred metres.

Edited July 16, 2020 by Aurora_Stealth

July 16, 2020

3 hours ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

Pretty much this. Im currently flying Yak 1 in a BOS career and often the amount of damage a 109 can withstand is astounding. Its engine is tougher to damage than the radial engine of the 190!

So is the american .50 caliber really the issue here?

The tracks in this post were taken a few weeks ago in some testing I helped with. The plane being shot is a P-51, chosen for no particular reason, the plane doing the shooting in one case is a P-39 with the wing guns removed so only 2xM2 .50 MG's. The effect of the guns is well displayed in isolation. The second track has a Yak-7 with the twin UBS .50 MG's that use HE rounds which produce an effect very similar to that found in 131's. We also took testing data of 131's in a similar test but I can't find where that track is posted, maybe Nazgul can post them here if he still has them. The point is, any oddities in the 109's DM aside, this shows that there is some oddity in the way guns are behaving. Yes, HE rounds should be more effective but not this much more.

On 6/26/2020 at 10:28 AM, BCI-Nazgul said:

I messed up on initial labeling on my original post. I have deleted the post. The one that said ShVAK in the original post was the P-39 firing at the P-51. They were swapped. I reposted the correct one below. The correct number should be dogfight.2020-06-20_13-19-11_00.trk I'm sorry if anyone else was confused.

TRACKS

OK, here is the M2 vs. a P51 wing. From a P-39 (x2 M2 .50 cal) my friend fires a short burst, then a few more until he's finally out of M2 rounds. He then finishes me with the 37mm cannon (you'll see the first wing tip hit with the 37mm.) Note there is no speed loss with the M2 even after he shoots off the flap and aileron.

M2vsP51Wing.zip 3.24 MB · 4 downloads

Next we fire the two MG 131s from an ME109 G14. One short burst and the P51 immediately loses 35 mph. He then follows up with enough bursts to down the P-51. Note these are all wing hits only just like the M2 tests.

MG131vsP51Wing.zip 3.43 MB · 3 downloads

And finally the Soviet SVAK (x2 YAK 7B) was used with the same test. It appears to be about the same as the MG131. Apparently it won't let me upload this one, but it's pretty much the same as the MG 131 test.

July 16, 2020

4 hours ago, -SF-Disarray said:

The tracks in this post were taken a few weeks ago in some testing I helped with. The plane being shot is a P-51, chosen for no particular reason, the plane doing the shooting in one case is a P-39 with the wing guns removed so only 2xM2 .50 MG's. The effect of the guns is well displayed in isolation. The second track has a Yak-7 with the twin UBS .50 MG's that use HE rounds which produce an effect very similar to that found in 131's. We also took testing data of 131's in a similar test but I can't find where that track is posted, maybe Nazgul can post them here if he still has them. The point is, any oddities in the 109's DM aside, this shows that there is some oddity in the way guns are behaving. Yes, HE rounds should be more effective but not this much more.

Sounds like both the 109 and the american .50 need tweaking then!

July 17, 2020

10 hours ago, Aurora_Stealth said:

@ACG_Smokejumper

Well there's a lot of aircraft systems you could individually model, its a matter of which are the most universally agreed priorities. In order for it to be made a priority it needs to have an enabling/disabling effect on resulting game-play, or push forward in new areas of depth to the game-play.

As much as these things would be cool to see... like tail fabric fires, visual elements like flapping panels and peeling - they are all largely superficial visual effects (the damage model is calculating many of the underlying damage effects but these aren't always visually shown). Many of these types of visual effects are very time consuming, specific to an aircraft and not going to hugely change the game-play apart from immersion - if you're shot up then seeing the skin peeled rather than with small holes isn't going to be a drastic improvement to game-play. You can always find very specific exceptions if you try hard enough but its an obscure one.

People wanted the damage model (calculations) improved, it had to be re-worked multiple times for addressing specific issues, but this took 3 to 4 months. This came at the detriment of slowing down implementation of the fuel systems and drop tanks and other advances that could then follow such as API rounds. Now the airframe DM changes are largely implemented there is already lots of fingers pointing as to why API rounds were not originally implemented (?!) which needs a more complex fuel system lol.

Do you see, somewhere along the line a choice has to be made as to which is most important and prioritised first, lots of people clearly have different personal priorities and these rapidly change once another is solved. This is why there is a development plan, so that there is some sensible order on which more features and sophistication can be enabled.

So there's not much appetite to delay further the development of the fuel systems, drop tanks, API etc just for what are perceived as visual / immersion effects. Unfortunately, you can't have it all at once; its a steadily moving incremental process working down a universally agreed priority list.

Regarding that last statement - how can you be so sure? the DM is calculating control loss already, and cutting a cable with an AP or API round is such an obscure target from a distance.. the chances are extremely slim with the size and dispersion of the rounds - a cable or rod is only a few cm wide and typically people are firing from several hundred metres.

Did you play Cliffs of Dover?

All the DM effects I described are all in Cliffs of Dover and it is noticeable. Not only is it noticeable I expect it out of a SIM. While I love BoX it's a great time there are missing aspects of it which have always made me think of this as more game than SIM.

I believe the Devs agree as they constantly improve the DM fidelity. Oil rads shot, shot magnetos, fuel system fires.... These really degrade performance. Having guns shot out degrades combat effectiveness. You can just put MG's in a wing and ruin the other aircrafts ability to fight. In Cliffs having one cannon shot out also ruins your shots causing yaw every time you fire.

If you run force feedback damage effects could be so bad your stick is kicking all over the place.

My point is while BoX developers make constant steady improvements but lack of damaged flight model and DM depth creates threads like the one we are all participating in.

I'm sure we'll get there. I see them constantly reinvesting in themselves and I am sure they want to make the best flight sim ever made.

On 7/12/2020 at 12:23 PM, JG7_X-Man said:

I guess the question is which is the problem?

The damage model of German aircraft

Imo it's this.

Edited July 17, 2020 by ACG_Smokejumper

July 17, 2020

2 hours ago, ACG_Smokejumper said:

Imo it's this.

IMHO it's both. Because @-SF-Disarray disarray has a point when stating this:

13 hours ago, -SF-Disarray said:

there is some oddity in the way guns are behaving. Yes, HE rounds should be more effective but not this much more.

If real life was like IL-2 Great Battles, then in real life I could score a dozen bulls eye hits on a duck with a shotgun and it would just keep flying. It would leak something and the feathers would show all sorts of visual damage, but it would keep flying as if nothing happened.

And if it was a cyborg duck, it would turn around and PK me with the first hit from it's bill.

Mike

July 17, 2020

HE rounds are fine as is, I've never had any trouble bringing down an aircraft with a good burst. One hit is all that's really needed to take an aircraft out of the fight and severely hamper it's performance.

.50s are capable as well, no-one is saying they can't get a kill with them. What we need to look at though is are .50s acting as they should and affecting aerodynamics in any significant way. .50s have alot of energy behind them and they don't always make a nice clean hole, they can tumble and hit internals that can cause even more damage to the skin when exiting.

Control Cables

Spars

Control Surfaces

Engine Cylinders

Coolant system

Oil System

Crankcase

guns

All these things are modeled to some degree and can be damaged/destroyed and I'm sure the devs are planning on adding even more systems if/when possible.

What we don't currently see (at least to any real degree) is aerodynamic penalties from .50 cal hits, imo this is the main areas .50 should be looked at. I'm not expecting them to cause the penalties of cannons, no one should but they should cause loss of lift speed the more damage you take.

July 17, 2020

HE rounds are fine as they are? One round is all it should take to render an aircraft inop? Please clarify or elaborate. Because the 131 .51 HE rounds only pack .9 g of high explosive, and the Soviet .50 HE rounds pack about the same. One such round should do that? In game one or two of these rounds can surely do the job, though it often takes more than one. By more, in this case, I mean 5 or so rounds. Again, if that is the case, I have to ask why they even bothered with cannons. Or why the US didn't use HE rounds in their .50 HMG's. Seems kind of silly if one round should do for a plane. Why a single P-47 would be able to take out the entire Luftwaffe and have ammo to spare.

Edited July 17, 2020 by -SF-Disarray

July 17, 2020

10 minutes ago, -SF-Disarray said:

HE rounds are fine as they are? One round is all it should take to render an aircraft inop? Please clarify or elaborate. Because the 131 .51 HE rounds only pack .9 g of high explosive, and the Soviet .50 HE rounds pack about the same. One such round should do that? In game one or two of these rounds can surely do the job, though it often takes more than one. By more, in this case, I mean 5 or so rounds. Again, if that is the case, I have to ask why they even bothered with cannons. Or why the US didn't use HE rounds in their .50 HMG's. Seems kind of silly if one round should do for a plane. Why a single P-47 would be able to take out the entire Luftwaffe and have ammo to spare.

Sorry, I didn't specify. I speaking of Cannon HE not machineguns with explosive filler. I agree that Mg131 seems to be producing too much damage imo, it's still only .9g of explosives, it's not a cannon HE and shouldn't do anywhere near the damage, at least in terms of aerodynamics.

Edited July 17, 2020 by Legioneod

July 17, 2020

6 hours ago, Legioneod said:

All these things are modeled to some degree and can be damaged/destroyed and I'm sure the devs are planning on adding even more systems if/when possible.

What we don't currently see (at least to any real degree) is aerodynamic penalties from .50 cal hits, imo this is the main areas .50 should be looked at. I'm not expecting them to cause the penalties of cannons, no one should but they should cause loss of lift speed the more damage you take.

But they do! Even in the tests posted above, when the wing damage on the P-51 target plane reached the second level of graphic overlay on the outer wing hit box, the speed started to drop. The same thing happened in my offline tests on a He111 - for that matter it is also how the DM works firing the He111 MG at it's own wing.

But you have to get to the second graphic level AFAIK - this is what appears to trigger the lift/drag penalty. dit - level 3 creates even more. The first level (ie the "bullet holes") appear to have no effect. The problem is getting enough hits into one wing hit box to reach level 2. This requires a reasonably concentrated squirt, how many hits needed probably varies by plane and hit box. A few hits at high deflection spread over the wing surface are not going to do it.

(If someone wanted to count exactly how many hits are needed they could do this online or offline using the A-20 as the firer since it is easier to count rounds fired than hits, with a target plane very close by in it's arc).

Edited July 17, 2020 by unreasonable

July 17, 2020

As i can understand .... "graphic" level of damage are progressive.

From second level, they start losing speed. We dont know how many hits need be concentrated on a hit box for reach second level...... Thats mean a single hit in single box dont do nothing ( on aerodinamics ) and several hits on several boxes have same effect , nothing. This can be a reasson for you see u do amount of hits along enemy but it continue flying like allways. For example imagine you are capable to do 8 hits for box, but single box need 10 hits for upgrade "graphical damage level" , and imagine you are capable to archive , 8 hits in 5 hitbox . U archive a 40 hits along objective, but none of hit box change graphical level.... then objective dont lose speed.

Im not sure if this is how it works... but if is the case . Will be nice improve system. I know is more simply an easy count a single hit who automatically change praphical level for next stage ( like one or two hits of 20mm ) and cause direct speed lost. But if other planes have another weapons system based on multiple small hits, this kind of weaponary , advantages and disavantadges need be represented.

Situation sometimes become fustrating and ilogical.

Will be interesting know how many 0.5 hits are needed for change to second damage graphic level

All of this are i think, especulations. I mean, i really dont know how DM works.

I know are some structural things called "Sparks??". Based on this system i can interpretate things about estructural failures.

I understand, multiple small hits in a extensive area have less effect than one single biggest hit on a lineal estructural element. I can imagine lineal reference for estructural element and detonation area and point for hit. Based on this sistem big weapons are more effective than small calibers

What i dont know is , if over this structural system, At DM level , we have another layer. For example called skin. This layer reflect holes and are vinculated to speed. I dont know if is more complex or simplyest.

"hitbox system" affect to estructural elements , and estructural damage to speed... or are present another more layer ( skin layer) on DM, and hitbox represent a part of estructural and skin too..

.

I dont know, but im curious about it.

.50 cal damage, or lack there of

Recommended Posts

chris455

Rjel

HR_Tumu

BCI-Nazgul

JG7_X-Man

357th_KW

-250H-Ursus_

69th_Mobile_BBQ

JG7_X-Man

Rjel

BCI-Nazgul

DD_Arthur

Barnacles

Aurora_Stealth

-250H-Ursus_

Legioneod

unreasonable

-SF-Disarray

unreasonable

BCI-Nazgul

ACG_Smokejumper

BCI-Nazgul

ACG_Smokejumper

[LAS]JanMcQuack

CountZero

Aurora_Stealth

SCG_motoadve

ACG_Smokejumper

I./JG52_Woutwocampe

JG27*Kornezov

Aurora_Stealth

-SF-Disarray

I./JG52_Woutwocampe

ACG_Smokejumper

SAS_Storebror

Legioneod

-SF-Disarray

Legioneod

unreasonable

HR_Tumu

Browse All

Activity