What's your convergence?

[Majpalmer]

I know there's not magic number. I know that the armament layout on planes varies, as does the importance of convergence. Nevertheless....

 

I'd like to know what convergence settings people are using on aircraft where everything is mounted in the nose, as opposed to the wings. 

 

What's your favored setting? 

 

Thanks.

[Avimimus]

I find it quite annoying that the sim doesn't remember convergence for different aircraft to be honest. I'd have favourite settings if I didn't have to keep changing it everytime I switch the aircraft type... these days I forget.

[LukeFF]

230 meters for wing-mounted guns that include MGs, and 300 meters for everything else. 

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

I don't think convergence would be that much of a problem with nose mounted guns, with wing mounted I like 170m - 180m, ground attack I like to push that out to 380m - 400m, and then of course you have to remember to change the settings according to the requirements for the next mission selected !

[Gambit21]

1 hour ago, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

I don't think convergence would be that much of a problem with nose mounted guns, with wing mounted I like 170m - 180m, ground attack I like to push that out to 380m - 400m, and then of course you have to remember to change the settings according to the requirements for the next mission selected !

 

It’s not a “problem” per se, but there is vertical convergence to consider - even with a singie nose gun.

[oc2209]

I leave my guns on 200m for every plane I fly.

 

Hub Zemke said the P-51's ideal firing distance was 250 yards or less.

 

Most German pilot accounts I've read prefer close range. Even the top aces.

 

I think Pokryshkin might've mentioned staying close too.

 

It seems the majority of successful pilots in any nation prefer short range. There'll always be statistical aberrations; those rare pilots who can nail a target at 600m as easily as if it were 100m away. But for the overwhelming majority of pilots, firing much beyond 300m is a waste of ammo.

 

When reading pilot accounts, they often guess how experienced their enemy is by how long the enemy waits before he fires. Firing from too far away = rookie.

[messsucher]

I am so bad in gunnery I have convergence set at 100m.

[Yogiflight]

36 minutes ago, oc2209 said:

It seems the majority of successful pilots in any nation prefer short range.

When you take the Bf 109s for example, they had a convergence setting of 400m. This means in 400m the bullets cross the sightline by dropping from above. At 125m they cross the sightline the first time by climbing over it. So you don't need a short range convergence for shooting at short distances. For deflection shooting, longer convergence settings are even better, than short settings, because the bullets have to fly higher above the sightline between the first crossing of the sightline and the second one, so you don't have to place your aircraft's nose as much over your target as with a short range setting. In vertical convergence it doesn't make a big difference between fuselage mounted and wing mounted guns, in horizontal convergence it surely is better to have shorter convergence settings, as it was done back then.

 

I am using the historically correct convergence settings, for the aircrafts I know them (as far as possible), which means for the first years 400m and for the later aircrafts 550m.

[Guster]

200m seems to work. I mostly fly Mustangs. Often I end up getting so close I can only score hits with the guns in one wing at a time.

 

Usually I fit the K-14 but I switch off the gyro at close range. At longer range and when set up right it's almost like playing War Thunder. Feels a bit like cheating actually.

[Raptorattacker]

1 hour ago, Guster said:

it's almost like playing War Thunder.

Everyone!! He said it!! He SAID it!!!

 

[Cybermat47]

1 hour ago, Raptorattacker said:

Everyone!! He said it!! He SAID it!!!

 

 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Usually 150-200m for air-to-air, 500m for ground attack.

 

3 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

When you take the Bf 109s for example, they had a convergence setting of 400m. This means in 400m the bullets cross the sightline by dropping from above. At 125m they cross the sightline the first time by climbing over it. So you don't need a short range convergence for shooting at short distances. For deflection shooting, longer convergence settings are even better, than short settings, because the bullets have to fly higher above the sightline between the first crossing of the sightline and the second one, so you don't have to place your aircraft's nose as much over your target as with a short range setting.

Wouldn't the "height above the sightline" be exactly the same? As you say, with a convergence of 400m, the bullets will cross the sightline for the first time at 125m. This is true for a convergence setting of 125m as well, so the vertical component of the convergence must be equal for both. Given that the muzzle velocity won't suddenly change between settings, it follows that for both settings the second crossing with the sightline should happen at 400m and both reach the same height above the sightline.

Edited February 12, 2022 by AEthelraedUnraed

[Props]

I don't think there is one "magic" setting for convergence. It varies from plane to plane and the various weapons and from all the historical accounts I've come across from pilot to pilot flying the same mounts. You have to experiment with it till you find the best settings that fit your style of ACM. I've settled on 200 m across the board after a lot of trial and error, though I would agree that having the ability to set and save certain convergences for specific aircraft and weapons would be a welcome enhancement. 

 

I often get way closer to my target than 200m (as some ace once commented get close and when you think your close enough get closer) and have to use the rudder back and forth to firehose the enemy aircraft otherwise I'll just bracket him with no hits. This has been especially true of the wing mounted weapons aircraft I fly. But I do get very satisfying long range kills leaving my convergence at 200m as well. 

[Cravis]

I use 230m in Spitfire Mk IXe and XIV. Afaik that is the default setting they had back in WW2 and I figured they must have had some reason for that so I'm gonna use that...

 

In any case it would be cool if the game would save the convergence per aircraft instead of a global setting.

Wing mounted guns tend to need different settings than nose mounted guns. Having to change that setting because you hop from a BF109 into a P-47 is bothersome.

[Yogiflight]

3 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

As you say, with a convergence of 400m, the bullets will cross the sightline for the first time at 125m. This is true for a convergence setting of 125m as well

The convergence distance is the point at which the bullets cross the sightline from above, falling down to the ground. If you set the convergence to 125m, this would mean the bullets would have to cross the sightline earlier for the first time, when climbing above the sightline to then fall at 125m under the sightline. The convergence is always the last crossing of the sightline. With the 400m setting, the highest point over the sightline is about half a meter, IIRC. For a convergence setting of 125m it would be less than 10cm. IRL I am not even sure it would be possible to tilt the glass plate of the gunsight so that you would get 125m convergence, because the aircrafts nose might be in the way. And the engine gun coud not be moved, it was parallel to the engine axis.

[Rjel]

4 hours ago, Props said:

I often get way closer to my target than 200m (as some ace once commented get close and when you think your close enough get closer) and have to use the rudder back and forth to firehose the enemy aircraft otherwise I'll just bracket him with no hits. This has been especially true of the wing mounted weapons aircraft I fly. But I do get very satisfying long range kills leaving my convergence at 200m as well. 

 

I think that's a fallacy that has been around a long time. If both aircraft are at a similar wing level attitude and given the distance even the outermost gun is located from the centerline on a P-51, if your convergence is set to 200m your guns will still pepper a 190 or 109's wings to the point of failure. The picture below states the sighting target for a 250 yard convergence to be set 1000 inches in front of the fighter. That's about 83 feet. The bullet stream at it's outermost will only be about 14 feet apart. It'll be less obviously as the distance to the target increases. The only time the bullet stream spreads out so much that one might shoot around a target is at longer ranges.

 

Edited February 12, 2022 by Rjel
Increases = Further. Doh.

[Irishratticus72]

When I can smell the Borst, then I know what convergence to set my guns. 

[TRRA15]

270 for wing mounted guns.

 

300 for fuselage mounted guns

 

150 for the 12.7mm Breda-Safat guns on the Macchi.

[Voidhunger]

No need of convergence with MK108

[Guest deleted@83466]

I’m surprised that the number 230 has been mentioned by a few. That’s what I settled upon some years ago, and I’m not sure why…?  

 

Im just now learning that IL-2 doesn’t retain the set convergence distance from plane to plane.   I think I set it once, a long time ago, on one plane, and never looked at it again.?

[Swing]

230 in air...sometimes a little more for ground attack 

[CountZero]

1000m so you can shoot better at turn Dfs ?

[Gambit21]

28 minutes ago, SeaSerpent said:

I’m surprised that the number 230 has been mentioned by a few. That’s what I settled upon some years ago, and I’m not sure why…?  

 

Im just now learning that IL-2 doesn’t retain the set convergence distance from plane to plane.   I think I set it once, a long time ago, on one plane, and never looked at it again.?

 

I think 230 was mentioned in a book or two - Bud Anderson maybe? Can’t remember atm but I did read it somewhere.

[Denum]

230m for air combat, 300m if I'm doing ground attack.

[oc2209]

11 hours ago, messsucher said:

I am so bad in gunnery I have convergence set at 100m.

 

Pokryshkin advised to fire at 100m or less. 

 

So at least you're in good company.

 

11 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

When you take the Bf 109s for example, they had a convergence setting of 400m. This means in 400m the bullets cross the sightline by dropping from above. At 125m they cross the sightline the first time by climbing over it. So you don't need a short range convergence for shooting at short distances.

 

That maybe so, but I honestly just don't feel like changing settings for different planes. I like to fly a lot of different planes, depending on my mood. Even if they implemented a save feature for each plane's convergence, I still would keep everything at 200m because that's what I'm used to. No point in teaching old dogs new tricks.

 

3 hours ago, Rjel said:

 

I think that's a fallacy that has been around a long time. If both aircraft are at a similar wing level attitude and given the distance even the outermost gun is located from the centerline on a P-51, if your convergence is set to 200m your guns will still pepper a 190 or 109's wings to the point of failure.

 

 

Yeah, but who wants to waste the ammo hosing the target's wings? The sim's damage model makes wings essentially unbreakable at the root-to-midwing area. If it's a German plane (with no fuel tanks in the wings), you're not really going to achieve anything but the rare ammo detonation. The 109's outer wing breaks like glass, but you're better off hitting it with both banks of guns from deflection (in a turn). The outer wing is a very hard target to hit from dead astern, on any plane. 

 

The most satisfying explosive kills I've had with wing mounted .50s are where I line up one wing behind the target's fuselage at point blank range. Even a paltry 3-4 .50s will gut anything at point blank range.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

5 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

The convergence distance is the point at which the bullets cross the sightline from above, falling down to the ground. If you set the convergence to 125m, this would mean the bullets would have to cross the sightline earlier for the first time, when climbing above the sightline to then fall at 125m under the sightline. The convergence is always the last crossing of the sightline. With the 400m setting, the highest point over the sightline is about half a meter, IIRC. For a convergence setting of 125m it would be less than 10cm. IRL I am not even sure it would be possible to tilt the glass plate of the gunsight so that you would get 125m convergence, because the aircrafts nose might be in the way. And the engine gun coud not be moved, it was parallel to the engine axis.

I don't think you get what I mean. It's impossible the 125m crossing is the second crossing.

 

Just have a look at https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/projectile-motion. Initial velocity is the muzzle velocity, Initial height is the vertical distance between gun and visor (with a minus sign because the gun starts below the sightline). Angle of launch will be your convergence settings. If you fill in those parameters, Distance will give you the distance to the second crossing: "the point at which the bullets cross the sightline from above" (or at least an approximation of it; drag isn't modeled).

 

Guesstimating the muzzle velocity to be 800m/s and the Initial height to be 0.5m, playing around with the Angle of launch gives an angle of 89.945 degrees to have this second crossing at 125m. For all practical purposes, that's straight up! Therefore, for low convergence distances, it *must* be the first crossing, leading to exactly the same vertical convergence as for 400m (but horizontal will be different of course).

Edited February 12, 2022 by AEthelraedUnraed

[Rjel]

18 minutes ago, oc2209 said:

Yeah, but who wants to waste the ammo hosing the target's wings? The sim's damage model makes wings essentially unbreakable at the root-to-midwing area. If it's a German plane (with no fuel tanks in the wings), you're not really going to achieve anything but the rare ammo detonation. The 109's outer wing breaks like glass, but you're better off hitting it with both banks of guns from deflection (in a turn). The outer wing is a very hard target to hit from dead astern, on any plane. 

 

The most satisfying explosive kills I've had with wing mounted .50s are where I line up one wing behind the target's fuselage at point blank range. Even a paltry 3-4 .50s will gut anything at point blank range.

Yeah, but that's not what the original poster was talking about. And it also wasn't the point I was making. He mentioned shooting around a target at close range because of convergence. My post was about that being unlikely to happen if not completely impossible.

[FTC_Zero]

16 hours ago, Avimimus said:

I find it quite annoying that the sim doesn't remember convergence for different aircraft to be honest. I'd have favourite settings if I didn't have to keep changing it everytime I switch the aircraft type... these days I forget.

+1 i think that every time

[Yogiflight]

18 minutes ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I don't think you get what I mean. It's impossible the 125m crossing is the first crossing.

 

Just have a look at https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/projectile-motion. Initial velocity is the muzzle velocity, Initial height is the vertical distance between gun and visor (with a minus sign because the gun starts below the sightline). Angle of launch will be your convergence settings. If you fill in those parameters, Distance will give you the distance to the second crossing: "the point at which the bullets cross the sightline from above" (or at least an approximation of it; drag isn't modeled).

 

Guesstimating the muzzle velocity to be 800m/s and the Initial height to be 0.5m, playing around with the Angle of launch gives an angle of 89.945 degrees to have this second crossing at 125m. For all practical purposes, that's straight up! Therefore, for low convergence distances, it *must* be the first crossing, leading to exactly the same vertical convergence as for 400m (but horizontal will be different of course).

The 125m as second crossing was meant more as an example. What I wanted to say is, if 125m is the first crossing, then it is not the convergence. The convergence is the second crossing. I only mentioned the first crossing at 125m, to make clear, that between 125m and 400m the bullets are flying above the sightline, which makes it easier to shoot in deflection, because you don't need to have your aircrafts nose as much over the target as when you have your convergence set to let's say 200m.

[FTC_Zero]

11 hours ago, Yogiflight said:

When you take the Bf 109s for example, they had a convergence setting of 400m. This means in 400m the bullets cross the sightline by dropping from above. At 125m they cross the sightline the first time by climbing over it. So you don't need a short range convergence for shooting at short distances. For deflection shooting, longer convergence settings are even better, than short settings, because the bullets have to fly higher above the sightline between the first crossing of the sightline and the second one, so you don't have to place your aircraft's nose as much over your target as with a short range setting. In vertical convergence it doesn't make a big difference between fuselage mounted and wing mounted guns, in horizontal convergence it surely is better to have shorter convergence settings, as it was done back then.

 

I am using the historically correct convergence settings, for the aircrafts I know them (as far as possible), which means for the first years 400m and for the later aircrafts 550m.

Historically correct convergence is not possible due to vertical and horizontal conversion being interlinked, which is according to documents not the case.

[Knarley-Bob]

210-220 yrds for the P-51 seems to work well for me whilst in air combat.

For Strafing, I'll set them out to 1000 yards, to give a little 'stand off' distance. If set at 500 (Meters/feet), your spread would be about the original width of the guns @ 1000 (Meters/feet)

Nose mounts, are narrow enough to not need to cross horizontally, but vertically it will affect one's lead.

 

IMHO 

KB

[Yogiflight]

Just now, FTC_Zero said:

Historically correct convergence is not possible due to vertical and horizontal conversion being interlinked, which is according to documents not the case.

Unfortunately yes. I always go for the vertical convergence, as it is much more important for me. The vertical convergence decides if I am hitting, the horizontal convergence decides how spread over the target my rounds are.

2 hours ago, Voidhunger said:

No need of convergence with MK108

Because you don't hit anyway?

[Avimimus]

I wish there was a way to hard-code historic convergence... it'd be interesting to see in a sim of this fidelity.

[oc2209]

39 minutes ago, Rjel said:

Yeah, but that's not what the original poster was talking about. And it also wasn't the point I was making. He mentioned shooting around a target at close range because of convergence. My post was about that being unlikely to happen if not completely impossible.

 

We can agree that his statement 'bracketing with no hits' is incorrect, but I'm also saying that 'peppering a 109/190's wings with hits' is generally not going to get much done, especially against a 190. It's precisely this unfocused peppering effect that makes .50s seem ineffective to some people in the sim, and what makes .303s seem totally ineffective to pretty much everyone.

 

I've tested .303s at 100m convergence in the past, to see how much more effective it would be to A) hit a target as close as possible to eliminate poor penetration issues, and B) attempt to hit all guns at a single point, to test the efficacy of the gun in absolutely ideal circumstances.

 

Previously I was only able to saw off parts of the tail. Today, however, in only one attempt, I took the entire wing off at the root. Which in my experience never happens, or very nearly never. I must conclude that the de-winging only occurred because I was firing at half my normal convergence.

 

This is a Hurricane with 12x.303s, set to 100m convergence, with an average firing range of between 100-150m:

 

Short clip:

Spoiler

 

 

Full combat clip:

Spoiler

 

 

Unfortunately, leaving convergence set to 100m is impractical most of the time (when you can't literally hang on your enemy's ass).

 

But it's nice to see that, in a controlled testing environment (that is, against AI, offline), it does work mechanically at least.

[oc2209]

This is what I mean by the wing roots to mid-wing being indestructible (the vast majority of the time):

 

Spoiler

 

 

I wasn't aiming for the fuselage. The pilot kill and fire were accidental. I was trying to break the wing off.

 

As with the Hurricane, I set the P-47's convergence to 100m.

 

The convergence distance clearly was effective, but not for what I wanted to accomplish. I made 2 other attempts against the 190 where I also failed to break a wing; but this clip has, in my opinion, a large amount of concentrated strikes that one would assume would break a wing.

 

In any event, wing hits are only useful against the 109's glass wings, and any plane with fuel in the roots. It's pretty much a waste for other circumstances. Thick Hawker wings won't even break towards the wing tips, much less at the root.

Edited February 12, 2022 by oc2209

[LukeFF]

4 hours ago, SeaSerpent said:

I’m surprised that the number 230 has been mentioned by a few. That’s what I settled upon some years ago, and I’m not sure why…?  

 

Im just now learning that IL-2 doesn’t retain the set convergence distance from plane to plane.   I think I set it once, a long time ago, on one plane, and never looked at it again.?

 

230 meters is roughly 250 yards and was widely used by the Allies. 

 

[[CPT]Crunch]

.50's I set at 300 meters, since 1000 inches converts to 304.  Best flat trajectory for the sight, the bullet will never rise or fall more than 8" above or below the piper out beyond reasonable shooting range, about 800 yards.  Perfect for the straight line flyer ambush, piper on and squeeze.

 

Spits, agree with everyone else, pretty much useless on any other settings but 250 yards for me, sight calibration might be an issue, it does work set correct.

 

109 nose guns out to 400 on occasion, but not Mk 108's.

[oc2209]

An object lesson in muscle memory. I don't think while aiming; I just do everything by rote. The following will prove this.

 

Firing a 109's guns set to 100m convergence:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Firing a 109's guns set to 1,000m convergence:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Adjusting to the 100m setting was easy, since my norm is 200m; trying to do the same at 1,000m was laughably bad.

 

I realize no one sets their guns to 1,000m, but I wanted to try the extremes.

[Guster]

I have a rather awkward feeling that I've touched upon a subject that has been the matter of some controversy in my absence.

 

Anyway, 200m, and err, carry on!

 

 

[messsucher]

1 minute ago, Guster said:

I have a rather awkward feeling that I've touched upon a subject that has been the matter of some controversy in my absence.

 

Anyway, 200m, and err, carry on!

 

 

 

It depend of the pilot and enemy, no controversy.