Ammunition description and information

[5th_Barone]

Dear devs,

 

The depth in ammunition and belt & convergence customization available in clod is still a big strong point of the game.

The material available on the internet on ammo description however is outdated to the pre-blitz edition and does not contain any info about all the ammunition added in TF5.

Would be possible to have an official manual or at least an official text description of all ammo in-game?

 

tks in advance

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

For Luftwaffe take a look at this:

 

http://michaelhiske.de/Wehrmacht/Luft/Luft/LDV_4000/TEIL_10/VORBEM_K.HTM

 

You can pretty much set up your belts historically for every German plane if you want to.

[5th_Barone]

Thanks J-hat. At least is something but would be nice to have some sort of official information for the game.

Any Devs that can help us?

Cheers

[FTC_Karaya]

What exactly do you need? Most ammo types are fairly self-explanatory.

 

The MG 15/17s have the following projectiles to choose from:

- SmK (AP)

- SmK L'Spur (APT) in 2 flavors (white, yellow)

- PmK (API)

- B Patrone (Observer)

 

The Browning .303s have by far the greatest number of projectiles:

- Several marks of Ball rounds, Mk.VII probably being the "best" and most used during WW2

- Several marks of Tracer ball type rounds

- AP

- Incendiary B Mk.IV "Buckingham", an incendiary tracer ball type round

- Incendiary B Mk.VI "De Wilde", basically a small HEI ball type round

- Observer

 

See here for reference:

https://sites.google.com/site/britmilammo/-303-inch

 

The MG FF has a number of rounds to choose from but historically speaking they were all the same HE type round. There was no dedicated AP or even Ball round for it, instead there were practice versions of the Spreng (HE) round that came without filler and detonator and acted as a "Vollgeschoss", i.e. Ball round. In the game there's no reason to pick anything other than the regular Sprenggranatpatrone.

 

The MG FF/M and MG 151/20 both fired the same projectiles but at different muzzle velocities due to the different casings and propellant loads. There's a whole variety of rounds available and they are fairly easy to decipher as their in service names are very modular:

 

"Panzer" --> AP

"Brand" --> Incendiary

"Spreng" --> HE

"Granatpatrone" --> Projectile

"Minengeschoss" --> Mine shell, basically a high capacity thin walled HE

 

The Italian Bredas also have a bunch of rounds to choose from which I wont go into as they are self-explanatory from their names. It's hard to find reliable data on them, especially regarding the type and amount of filler of the various rounds.

 

Most of the newer guns (.50 M2, MK101, Hispano Mk.I) are missing proper ingame projectile names and translations. Hopefully these will be added in at some point.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Karaya

[9./JG52_J-HAT]

You are right, Barone. The way I see it there is a lot of material scattered all over ATAG’s dating back almost a decade. It would be a matter of collecting them, filtering out the dated stuff and putting the larger more detailed manual together, part by part, as time allows.

 

Or something like Karaya’s Post above. That would work well in the manual. A summary on a single page with a short description and its intended use. Default configuration should be the recommended setup and anyone willing to change it can refer to that information (like we all did at some point in the past).

 

This would go a long way in helping new players in this matter. 

 

And like you wrote in your first post, I think this is the “most official” we have right now (pre TF5), even if it’s not linked to the game AFAIK (so players are unlikely to find it).

 

Ammunition for German types:
https://www.theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/wiki/doku.php?id=gerammunition
 

Ammunition for British types:

https://www.theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/wiki/doku.php?id=raf_ammunition
 

There are also detailed operation instructions there too. I wonder if they have been imported into the current official manual delivered with the game. 

[5th_Barone]

13 minutes ago, Karaya said:

What exactly do you need? Most ammo types are fairly self-explanatory.

 

The MG 15/17s have the following projectiles to choose from:

- SmK (AP)

- SmK L'Spur (APT) in 2 flavors (white, yellow)

- PmK (API)

- B Patrone (Observer)

 

The Browning .303s have by far the greatest number of projectiles:

- Several marks of Ball rounds, Mk.VII probably being the "best" and most used during WW2

- Several marks of Tracer ball type rounds

- AP

- Incendiary B Mk.IV "Buckingham", an incendiary tracer ball type round

- Incendiary B Mk.VI "De Wilde", basically a small HEI ball type round

- Observer

 

See here for reference:

https://sites.google.com/site/britmilammo/-303-inch

 

The MG FF has a number of rounds to choose from but historically speaking they were all the same HE type round. There was no dedicated AP or even Ball round for it, instead there were practice versions of the Spreng (HE) round that came without filler and detonator and acted as a "Vollgeschoss", i.e. Ball round. In the game there's no reason to pick anything other than the regular Sprenggranatpatrone.

 

The MG FF/M and MG 151/20 both fired the same projectiles but at different muzzle velocities due to the different casings and propellant loads. There's a whole variety of rounds available and they are fairly easy to decipher as their in service names are very modular:

 

"Panzer" --> AP

"Brand" --> Incendiary

"Spreng" --> HE

"Granatpatrone" --> Projectile

"Minengeschoss" --> Mine shell, basically a high capacity thin walled HE

 

The Italian Bredas also have a bunch of rounds to choose from which I wont go into as they are self-explanatory from their names. It's hard to find reliable data on them, especially regarding the type and amount of filler of the various rounds.

 

British and German ammo info can be found scattered in the forum since where explained for the old clod.

But for example I remember that there was a debate regarding the observer ammo for the mg17 which was modelled more as an HE. Has that been fixed?

 

The Breda are not a problem since I'm Italian and I can read the description (also the 12.7mm ammo is the same as in blitz).

 

16 minutes ago, Karaya said:

Most of the newer guns (.50 M2, MK101, Hispano Mk.I) are missing proper ingame projectile names and translations. Hopefully these will be added in at some point.

 

That's what I'm talking about. there's no material regarding the new ammo.

I really thank you both for the reference you posted, they are always a nice read, but there should be some kind of official material for how ammo are modelled in-game (since may differ from the textbook).

 

[FTC_Karaya]

52 minutes ago, 5th_Barone said:

But for example I remember that there was a debate regarding the observer ammo for the mg17 which was modelled more as an HE. Has that been fixed?

 

The problem was with the SmK Üb which was modelled incorrectly and acted as a fairly powerful HE round when it was just a self-destructing practice round IRL.

This to my knowledge has been fixed and the SmK Üb is now just a regular SmK round.

 

As for a in-depth explanation of how rounds are modelled ingame. I dont think we will see this.

 

Quote

That's what I'm talking about. there's no material regarding the new ammo.

 

There are no fancy projectile names ingame right now but they are coded as AP, HE, Ball, Incendiary and such so you still have a good idea of what is what.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Karaya

[=RS=Stix_09]

For American 50 cal guns.

 

This may be of use M2 .50 Caliber Browning (12.7 x 99 mm) Ammunition 
https://www.inetres.com/gp/military/infantry/mg/50_ammo.html

 

This is more detailed , chapter 9 has all the American 50 cal  M2 loads

ARMY AMMUNITION DATA SHEETSSMALL CALIBER AMMUNITIONFSC 1305

 

.303 ammo loads in game are the same as British ones.

 

50 cal ammo loads in game

 

Guns found on Marlet and P40

 

 

It would be nice if this was added to the current manual , as the old COD manual had all the ammo types at the time  and a better description of gun setup than the new manual currently does in "steamapps\common\IL-2 Sturmovik Cliffs of Dover Blitz\manuals"

 

The old manual COD (I still have) You can find old manual  here(LINK) (much info is still relevant and better described in the old manual)
 

FYI: In game current docs reside here

 

 

Edited October 26, 2020 by =RS=Stix_09