IL2 comical endurance

[FTC_Zero]

Most of the time it takes several passes in a fw190 with 4x20mm to shoot them down. It looks quite amusing how much you throw them off their flying path because of multiple 20mm impact blasts but they just do keep flying. While bombers burn and explode left and right and even explode from 13mm hits. Reading accounts of being very resilient against ground small arms fire seem quite believable according to the armour layout, but the way it just eats cannon rounds is just flat out mythical in nature IMO. 
 

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by ZeroCrack01

[jdoe33]

I think the bigger problem is how it is virtually impossible to make it leak fuel or coolant. Is there any historical reasoning there? The only way to shoot them down reliably with little ammo usage is hit the oil radiator at the bottom with 2-3 direct canon hits but eve then if it's close to an airfield it can still make it there within a few minutes of engine failure. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by jdoe33

[CountZero]

There was good reason why for so many years most comon kill was de-wing enemy airplane, DM in game was made to work that way, since they made parts of airplanes stronger you can see how flawed DM is.

[FTC_Zero]

1 hour ago, CountZero said:

There was good reason why for so many years most comon kill was de-wing enemy airplane, DM in game was made to work that way, since they made parts of airplanes stronger you can see how flawed DM is.

Ahh those famous wing folding planes... and now my squadron needs to hit a p51 8 times with 20mm before it goes down. That makes a more complex damage model (hydraulics, electrics etc,.. even more important), il2 has no fuel tanks in the wings and those are huge, practically unbreakable and virtually nothing in it. 

[Noisemaker]

Just curious, have any of you flown an IL-2 in career?  They are most certainly not invulnerable, and in my experience flying them, usually one (cannon) hit is enough to knock out a critical control surface resulting to you aborting your mission and trying to limp a crippled aircraft with full rudder deflection to control yaw and bank and using your engine to control pitch.  Since the wheels up, grass landing, pilot instant death update a while back, it's almost impossible to survive a cannon hit.  I can't speak for online, as I don't play it, but in career mode, I'm terrified of both AA and enemy fighters.

[FTC_Zero]

37 minutes ago, Noisemaker said:

Just curious, have any of you flown an IL-2 in career?  They are most certainly not invulnerable, and in my experience flying them, usually one (cannon) hit is enough to knock out a critical control surface resulting to you aborting your mission and trying to limp a crippled aircraft with full rudder deflection to control yaw and bank and using your engine to control pitch.  Since the wheels up, grass landing, pilot instant death update a while back, it's almost impossible to survive a cannon hit.  I can't speak for online, as I don't play it, but in career mode, I'm terrified of both AA and enemy fighters.

Not claiming that they are invulnerable, i always kill them. But the volume of fire they take is just comical in most cases

[Noisemaker]

5 minutes ago, ZeroCrack01 said:

Not claiming that they are invulnerable, i always kill them. But the volume of fire they take is just comical in most cases

My experience piloting them (in single player), is the opposite, at least when it comes to cannon rounds.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Noisemaker
Better sentence structure

[SYN_Ricky]

Having flown the Il-2 online quite a bit, I never felt invincible, and was shot down when intercepted most of the times...

[354thFG_Rails]

Sounds like a skill issue

[FTC_Zero]

2 hours ago, Noisemaker said:

My experience piloting them (in single player), is the opposite, at least when it comes to cannon rounds.

55 minutes ago, QB.Rails said:

Sounds like a skill issue

I wanna see that
 

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by ZeroCrack01

[Alexmarine]

Online, either getting shot at or shooting at them, I never felt that they were particularly hard targets

 

In SP definitely I felt sometimes that the AI seems able to retain them in the air better than a human pilot would given the same amount of damage

 

[FTC_Zero]

 

[354thFG_Rails]

Working as intended. I see nothing wrong. 

[Alexmarine]

The only issue I see is the AI being able to keep a damaged plane in the air longer than any human player can do. This is an AI issue, shared with any plane, not just the Il-2. An AI will simply be able to extent it's control on a damaged plane longer than a human is capable due to perfect coordination and no need to twist controls to keep a plane in asset.

The il-2 I shot down online have always taken half the time and half the firepower to be shot down compared to the SP AI controlled one

[FTC_Zero]

7 hours ago, QB.Rails said:

Working as intended. I see nothing wrong. 

I know, game is just perfect for you

[Yogiflight]

3 hours ago, Alexmarine said:

The only issue I see is the AI being able to keep a damaged plane in the air longer than any human player can do.

Not only keeping them in the air, but flying defensive maneuvers, you should only be able to fly with an undamaged aircraft. And they often do this with their bombload still on board. Most annoying if they fly hard turns with only one vertical stabilizer and elevator left.

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

There's something weird with the IL2. For some reason, the flight model and damage model feels different between the AI and the player.

 

I have an IL2 career, and I also have german careers in which of course I engage IL2s.

 

I noticed that the AI has an easier time flying a crippled IL2 than I do. The AI can fly, and land, an absolute swiss cheese when I would have crashed a long time ago with a less damaged but completely unflyable IL2.

 

Another oddity with the IL2, when I take off, I get outclimbed by every wingmen. 100% mixture, boost on with full MP, full rpm, rads closed, but still all other AI IL2s outclimb me and seem to accelerate way faster and number 2 always easily passes me looking a good 20 or 30 kmh faster than I do. I raise my flaps very quickly after taking off.

 

So, I always felt like the AI had better IL2s than the player. Really odd because its the only aircraft that leaves such an impression on me.

[357th_KW]

This is noticeable with many aircraft.  The Spitfire for instance is usually spinning out of control after a single cannon hit with a player at the controls.  But the AI can generally keep it under control.

[Noisemaker]

2 hours ago, VBF-12_KW said:

This is noticeable with many aircraft.  The Spitfire for instance is usually spinning out of control after a single cannon hit with a player at the controls.  But the AI can generally keep it under control.

On the other hand, we also have undamaged AI wingmen lawn-darting for absolutely no reason.

 

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

The IL-2 is about 10x harder to shoot down in-game than any other bomber including the B-25, which I find to be highly unlikely IRL. Flying tank or not, the IL-2 is far too hard to shoot down.

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

18 hours ago, VBF-12_KW said:

This is noticeable with many aircraft.  The Spitfire for instance is usually spinning out of control after a single cannon hit with a player at the controls.  But the AI can generally keep it under control.

 

Hmm for the spit I dont really agree with you. The AI has a tough time with it, I often see it spin out of control after a few hits. In somes cases, the AI even loses control of its Spit when evading, no hits taken. Same for the P-51D but not as bad.

[Yogiflight]

On 1/14/2022 at 3:54 AM, -332FG-drewm3i-VR said:

The IL-2 is about 10x harder to shoot down in-game than any other bomber including

except the Pe-2, which also can take a huge amount of damage.. But yes, the American bombers are pretty easy to shoot down.

[=RS=rulezcz]

Funny, I found this thread because I was actually thinking it's too easy to shoot down a Sturmovik. I am able to get 3 in one mission (with G-4 and 20 mm pods). Is that not a bit too many ?

[FTC_Zero]

9 hours ago, =RS=rulezcz said:

Funny, I found this thread because I was actually thinking it's too easy to shoot down a Sturmovik. I am able to get 3 in one mission (with G-4 and 20 mm pods). Is that not a bit too many ?

We hobby sim pilots have a much easier time aiming and making air kills, leading to usual absurdly high kill counts on carreers. The issue was that the average RL pilot could not hit a barn door, less the weapon effect. Even on selected gun cameras you see how much they missed.