Why are US 50 cals restricted to (blue) AP rounds only?

[Mr_Pickles]

Why are US 50 cals restricted to (blue) AP rounds only?

 

The new P51B is highly ineffective using only 4 x 50 cals and restricted to AP rounds compared to other planes which use an incendiary mixture.

 

Is there a reason for this?

 

"Early in 1942, the standard belting sequence for the U.S. Army Air Corps was 3 Armor Piercing M2 + 2 Incendiaries M1 + 1 Tracer M1. From early 1943 on, the belting sequence was standardized with that for ground use with 2 Armor Piercing M2 + 2 Incendiaries M1 + 1 Tracer M1. At the end of 1943, in an attempt to fight against more heavily armored German planes, the belting sequence was modified to incorporate Armor Piercing Incendiary M8 while still keeping some Incendiary M1, which was better suited against fuel tanks. Belting sequence was then 1 Armor Piercing Incendiary M8 + 1 Incendiary M1 + 1 Armor Piercing Incendiary M8 + 1 Tracer M1. Early in 1944, for the feeding of the numerous Brownings onboard heavy bombers, the proportion of Incendiary M1 was increased with 1 Armor Piercing Incendiary M8 + 1 Incendiary M1 + 1 Armor Piercing Incendiary M8 + 1 Incendiary M1 + 1 Tracer M10. In July 1944, a specific belting sequence was adopted for ground strafing with 4 Armor Piercing Incendiary M8 + 1 tracer M21."

 

Here are two sources:

 

http://www.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=2210
https://history.army.mil/html/books/010/10-10/CMH_Pub_10-10.pdf

 

 

[the_emperor]

3 hours ago, Rub_n_Tug said:

The new P51B is highly ineffective using only 4 x 50 cals and restricted to AP rounds compared to other planes which use an incendiary mixture.

 

the game ist restricted to AP or HE rounds only. across all planes and nations. No incendiary ammo modelled for anyone.

[Mr_Pickles]

1 hour ago, the_emperor said:

 

the game ist restricted to AP or HE rounds only. across all planes and nations. No incendiary ammo modeled for anyone.

 

In simple terms.. Other nations get the orange bullets that set things on fire. The 50 cal is already a difficult round and it's limited to blue AP poking little holes in things.

 

I really don't care about the "modelling of incendiary rounds". I just want the rounds to be effective. Spraying a 109 8+ times with AP rounds is not very effective.

 

This is why the gun should be firing historically accurate incendiary rounds.

 

Just played 2 x quick missions.

 

Round 1: 4 x Ace P51Bs vs 4 x Ace 109 F4s.... Results: sprayed 1 x 109 more than 8 times and he finally went down streaming a rainbow. One after another my AI teammates called "out of ammo, returning to base"... I was faced with the remaining 3 x 109s... I ran out of ammo.

 

Round 2: 4 x Ace 109 F4s vs 4 x Ace P51Bs... Results: I killed all 4 P51Bs myself. The last one blew up in front of me. Zero friendly losses. Had more than half of my ammo remaining.

 

I love the new P51B but it is utterly painful to poke little holes in things when you are playing a competitive combat flight simulator.

 

Are there any plans to address this? Modeling incendiary ammo or just pretending its HE for the time being?

 

I'm not a rivet counter and I don't care about historically accurate effects of incendiary rounds. I just want the plane to be competitive.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Rub_n_Tug

[LukeFF]

Dude, there's like a thousand pages of discussions here about this topic already. ? There are tentative plans to address it at some point later. 

Edited December 29, 2021 by LukeFF

[Denum]

As Luke said they have (maybe) plans to look into it more. Judging from the drop tanks still being behind I suspect this will be sometime in the future. 

 

We just have to be happy with that we have for now. 

 

Recommendations 

 

Set convergence at or below 250m. I like 230m. Some of the killing machines online are at 200m. 

 

You're trying to penetrate the armored seat and you'll want to be closer then 200 yards. 

 

Deflection shooting try for the engine as you can make them burn pretty easy. 

 

If you have someone in front of you shoot to absolutely kill. There is no waiting for bail out. You don't do aerodynamic damage so even if you shoot them 30 times in the wing it has no effect on their performance.

 

If you treat the .50s like cannons and think good enough he will go down later you will find him behind you in 30 seconds.

The engines don't die fast enough to take a glycol leak seriously.

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Denum

[Rache-der-Boote]

6 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Dude, there's like a thousand pages of discussions here about this topic already. ? There are tentative plans to address it at some point later. 

Yes, this man is absolutely correct. Hundreds of threads and thousands of posts over the span of two and a half years and we still have buggered ballistics. @Rub_n_Tug your best bet is to "Go play DCS." ™

[Mr_Pickles]

53 minutes ago, perm said:

Yes, this man is absolutely correct. Hundreds of threads and thousands of posts over the span of two and a half years and we still have buggered ballistics. @Rub_n_Tug your best bet is to "Go play DCS." ™

The internet is a magical place. Hundreds of people are complaining about it over two and a half years... go play DCS. Thanks for your insight.

 

I think we can close this thread now perm.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Rub_n_Tug

[BCI-Nazgul]

I already said that the P-51B would be next to useless with only 4x.50s with the gun/damage modelling in this game and that is how it is.  In real life, even 2x.50s were considered quite deadly.  Meanwhile a single HE round of any size ends your combat effectiveness or kills you in IL2.

Edited December 30, 2021 by BCI-Nazgul

[gimpy117]

14 minutes ago, BCI-Nazgul said:

I already said that the P-51B would be next to useless with only 4x.50s with the gun/damage modelling in this game and that is how it is.  In real life, even 2x.50s were considered quite deadly.  Meanwhile a single HE round of any size ends your combat effectiveness or kills you in IL2.

remember when they modded small caliber (I think 13mm) rounds into .50's and it absolutely wrecked everything it touched?  Cannons overperform AP still is bad. The ballistics patch helped a bit, but it's still pretty sad. To make matters worse now HE rounds detonate aircraft for little to no reason. getting one tapped in a 110 feels pretty much inevitable every time I get in a fight.   

32 minutes ago, Rub_n_Tug said:

The internet is a magical place. Hundreds of people are complaining about it over two and a half years... go play DCS. Thanks for your insight.

 

I think we can close this thread now perm.

 

he says that because the devs pretty much refuse to do anything meaningful. but hey, we get a jet bomber now! seriously there's been a concerted effort with well done tests, doucments etc. getting anything fixed for Allied aircraft is a chore...you seemingly need to write a dissertation.  

[palker4]

8 hours ago, perm said:

Yes, this man is absolutely correct. Hundreds of threads and thousands of posts over the span of two and a half years and we still have buggered ballistics. @Rub_n_Tug your best bet is to "Go play DCS." ™

Or *cough* the other IL-2. Being on the receiving end of Martlet's 4 .50 cals few times I can attest they hurt a lot.

[RFG_Hisl]

I just think it is a great pity that this wonderfully modelled P51, in which an infinite amount of work was invested by the developers, cannot fulfil its tasks because it is denied the correct armament.
For some reason I thought they wouldn't do that. They did.

[MisterSmith]

Closing this one up. The .50 issue is well documented elsewhere in the forums. This is essentially a duplication post and has devolved into slagging the Dev Team. The Dev's are well aware of the issues and have made statements toward it's resolution. For better or worse, incendiary ammo has not been developed for this sim, for any aircraft, as of yet. It is apparently a difficult technical issue without an easy fix or it would be in the game already. There is not much more to say.

 

Smith