Spitfire tail damage

[oFlyingDutchman]

Just wondering what are the reasons for all the spit's but especially the VB and the IX to get tail light when i get hit with 1 to 2 cannon rounds. It gets very hard to control and also very easy to enter into a spin. Is it because the spit is more in the end side of the "instable" aircraft?

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

Many aircrafts become almost unflyable when having their tail damaged. The Hurricane too, among others. 

 

And the Hurricane is certainely not an unstable, hard to control aircraft.

[Strewth]

Yes.
I too have noticed and mentioned in these discussions about nearly ever hit to a Spit makes it near uncontrollable due to damage of the elevators.
They are damaged, but still functioning, yet the behaviour is crazy as a result with very laggy responses. In the respect that although your elevators may be fully deflected downward, you aircraft continues to maintain an increasing climb and the suddenly goes into a dive about 3 seconds later, followed by a reverse scenario.
If the elevators are deflecting above the tail plane regardless of damage, they should create some form of deflection for that movement, the same as when the elevators are deflecting below the tail plane, they should create some sort of deflection in that direction. It is crazy to have an aircraft operating in a totally opposite fashion for several seconds. I realise that the effect of the elevators while still attached and functioning would be reduced, but they would still have an influence.

One very frustrating "feature". It became so bad the other day, where every single mission, whether hit by flack, AAA, or enemy aircraft, it was the exact same outcome every time. My aircraft was undamaged except for the elevators, which although damaged, were still functioning in direct relation to joystick movements. But my aircraft become totally unflyable. After about 6 or 7 times in a row, I gave up and stopped playing for the day.

[CUJO_1970]

So, what do you think should be the result of getting hit with 2 20mm rounds to the tail of the aircraft?

[BraveSirRobin]

7 minutes ago, CUJO_1970 said:

So, what do you think should be the result of getting hit with 2 20mm rounds to the tail of the aircraft?

 

Me shooting:  target should explode, catch fire, then explode again.

 

Me target:  No damage.

[=621=Samikatz]

I don't know if tail sections should become so incredibly unstable with one shot or not, but I do feel like whatever the response, it should be fairly similar across all the fighters, right?

[Strewth]

3 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

So, what do you think should be the result of getting hit with 2 20mm rounds to the tail of the aircraft?

Well if it blew the tail, rudder, elevators,or tail plane right off, probably not good.
But when it damages the surface of the elevators, but leaves them fully functional, then probably nowhere near as bad.

Sort of self explanatory to most, but since you asked.

 

3 hours ago, BraveSirRobin said:

 

Me shooting:  target should explode, catch fire, then explode again.

 

Me target:  No damage.

Not the case at all.
I would be happier to explode from a well aimed cannon fire than to have every single hit in 6+ flights in a row damage my surface skin of my elevators (and damaging nothing else) while leaving them otherwise fully functional, except for the totally unrealistic response from that point onward.

I am completely fine with and almost an expert in falling out of the sky in a crumpled ball of flame. Nothing unusual there. 
I just have a problem with the elevators being the only item damaged and while functional, being unrealistic in their response.

Cheers

 

Edited February 24, 2022 by Strewth

[Asgar]

22 minutes ago, Strewth said:

Well if it blew the tail, rudder, elevators,or tail plane right off, probably not good.
But when it damages the surface of the elevators, but leaves them fully functional, then probably nowhere near as bad.

Who says they’re fully functional? They can still be attached and have 0 functionality when you just cut the control wires

[Strewth]

28 minutes ago, Asgar said:

Who says they’re fully functional? They can still be attached and have 0 functionality when you just cut the control wires

Well.......................................
If you read my replies, you may have noticed my reference to the elevators directly responding to my joystick movements.
I would think that severed control wires may not show that exact comparison. Wouldn't you?

 

[the_emperor]

Well, I must say, that it some times feels like the Spitfires centre of gravity does change backward when the rear end gets damaged thus making it very unstable and wobbly to fly.

 

[[CPT]Crunch]

Just convert to Fw's, you can have your entire rudder and vertical stab shot off and still dogfight and win.?

[ZachariasX]

10 hours ago, BraveSirRobin said:

then explode again

[BlitzPig_EL]

BEEG BADA BOOM!

[CountZero]

56 minutes ago, [CPT]Crunch said:

Just convert to Fw's, you can have your entire rudder and vertical stab shot off and still dogfight and win.?

but you can still pk the pilot, so it still have a problem that needs to be fixed 

[-250H-Ursus_]

12 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

So, what do you think should be the result of getting hit with 2 20mm rounds to the tail of the aircraft?

Idk. 190s can handle the tail ripped off in game.

So 

Edited February 24, 2022 by -332FG-Ursus_

[oFlyingDutchman]

What i originally meant is that the spitfire behaves diferently from anyother aircraft when it gets shot in the tail. It feels just like @Strewth mentioned, almost like its loose and it behaves very strange, almost like theres lag betwen your input and the aircraft. I was just wondering why the spitfire had this behaviour and anyother aircraft didnt. I fly germans, americans, brits and russians, so no bias, just again, wondering what causes the behaviour on that aircraft in particular 

[[DBS]TH0R]

I would like to know the answer as well...

[357th_KW]

A while back the Mustang had a problem where a single 13mm to the tail basically rendered it unflyable.  A bug report with a nicely done video demonstrating the issue was submitted and it got fixed relatively quickly.  I’d bet a similar strategy could bear some fruit here.

Edited February 24, 2022 by VBF-12_KW

[Guest deleted@134347]

yeah, the tail damage is Spit's Achilles Heel.  It's been like that since day 1 of SpitV getting introduced. If you land one cannon hit on Spit's tail in dog fight you don't even need to look back to see how it's doing. Straight in to flat spin then ground.

 

straight to jail.

[CAFulcrum]

Isn't the spit inherently unstable, with a negative position COG or something like that?  I would expect it to react pretty severely to tail damage considering how easy it is to pull back and over-G.

[Denum]

Kinda makes me chuckle. 

 

Single 20mm to Spit. Death sentence. Flying back to base is nearly impossible.

 

109 takes a 20mm or several AP rounds. 

"Huh? Did someone hit me?"

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

19 hours ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

Many aircrafts become almost unflyable when having their tail damaged. The Hurricane too, among others. 

 

And the Hurricane is certainely not an unstable, hard to control aircraft.

*The Fw-190 has entered the chat*

15 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

So, what do you think should be the result of getting hit with 2 20mm rounds to the tail of the aircraft?

The FW-190 says nothing should happen.

[BlitzPig_EL]

I was engaging an AI 190D last night. Shot it's left horizontal stabilizer assembly completely off, and it just carried on unfazed, though it's turn radius was larger.  It kept being sporty for a while, as I was toying with it to see if it would lose control.  Finally I grew bored and put a good burst of .50 Browning in it's engine and set it alight.

Edited February 24, 2022 by BlitzPig_EL

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

6 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I was engaging an AI 190D last night. Shot it's left horizontal stabilizer assembly completely off, and it just carried on unfazed, though it's turn radius was larger.  It kept being sporty for a while, as I was toying with it to see if it would lose control.  Finally I grew bored and put a good burst of .50 Browning in it's engine and set it alight.

The Germans were 10 years ahead bro: that was a defining feature of the Butcher Bird (invisibility cloak over the tail) and made it nearly invincible in the skies above Europe.

[oc2209]

3 hours ago, VBF-12_KW said:

A while back the Mustang had a problem where a single 13mm to the tail basically rendered it unflyable.  A bug report with a nicely done video demonstrating the issue was submitted and it got fixed relatively quickly.  I’d bet a similar strategy could bear some fruit here.

 

The worst offenders I've seen for fatal tail hits are the Spit and the I-16. The I-16 makes a lot more sense than the Spit.

 

Anyway, how's this video?

 

Normal speed playback:

Spoiler

 

 

1/32 playback speed:

Spoiler

 

 

Such is the predictability of the tail-hit spaz out, I was able to make this recording in 1 out of 1 attempts.

 

If only the Spit had DVD, we could visually ascertain the impact point with greater precision. However, it's pretty obvious that the hit was forward of the tail plane; certainly not directly on a control surface. And all the control surfaces were still responsive afterwards.

 

So, yeah, pretty sad/funny.

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

Last year I had a 190A8 BoBP career running. I remember clearly that in a mission, I got a stabilizer damaged and of course the 190 became unstable like I was surfing but not as bad as other fighters such as the Spit, the I-16 and the Mustang for instance.

 

At some point though, my 190 became stable again! So I remained in the fight and shot down a couple more aircrafts.

 

Came back home, landed, then I realised when I ended the mission that I was actually missing the whole stabilizer! 

 

Yep, it probably fell off during a maneuver because it was already damaged. 

 

So yeah, if you take tail damage, just be sure you take enough so the whole stabilizer will go, this way you'll be just fine apparantly.

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, I./JG52_Woutwocampe said:

Last year I had a 190A8 BoBP career running. I remember clearly that in a mission, I got a stabilizer damaged and of course the 190 became unstable like I was surfing but not as bad as other fighters such as the Spit, the I-16 and the Mustang for instance.

 

No plane can ignore a missing stabilizer as much as a 190, but the Mustang isn't nearly as bad as the I-16 and Spit. It's somewhere in between.

 

Compare this level of damage to my Spitfire recording:

 

Spoiler

 

 

It takes 2x20mm well before the 30mm hit that blows the stabilizer clean off. Even after the 30mm hit, the plane's still controllable. Not enough to fight, but enough to fly for a while.

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

Believe it or not, I flew the I-16 a while in BOM not long ago before switching to the Hurricane and I managed to avoid extensive damage to the tail every single mission. I died though, oh yeah.

[CUJO_1970]

5 hours ago, drewm3i-VR said:

The FW-190 says nothing should happen.

Cool, go submit a bug report about it.

 

What should happen when multiple 20mm rounds hit the tail of a Spitfire?

[oc2209]

42 minutes ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Cool, go submit a bug report about it.

 

What should happen when multiple 20mm rounds hit the tail of a Spitfire?

 

In all fairness, the 190 does fly pretty well without half its stabilizer, while a Spit can be taken down, regularly, with one 20mm hit anywhere on the tail.

 

The 190's behavior is off-topic, however. The fact remains that the Spit does flip out very, very easily. Like I said, with an I-16, it makes sense. With the Spitfire, which neither suffers from the stubby wings nor the stubby fuselage of an I-16, I don't really understand why it would be so incredibly vulnerable to tail hits compared to every other plane.

 

Yes, the Spitfire has extremely sensitive elevators. But should that matter when there isn't excessive elevator input? Is it really so unstable at any given moment that one tail hit, not on a control surface, nor severing control linkages, should have such a dramatic result with regularity?

 

That's the issue.

 

If this were instead a matter of a Spitfire suffering a tail hit, and thereafter extremely difficult to fly, that would be different. This is an issue about a hit causing the plane to flick into an unrecoverable spin, consistently.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Also the fact that the damage causes utterly unrealistic control input lag. 

 

Have you flown a Spit that has sustained even a minor hit on it's tail CUJO?

[oc2209]

I made another recording. This time, instead of my usual starting altitude of 300m, I had the AI and I begin at 4000m. The impacts occurred at 3,100m.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Unfortunately I screwed up and hit him twice instead of once. Nevertheless, I find it remarkable that the AI (typically very good at controlling damaged planes) couldn't recover even with decent altitude to work with.

 

This implies to me that the aerodynamic functionality of the entire tail structure is simply gone. This isn't just about hitting a plane in the tail during a tight turn, and having the pilot spaz out and overcorrect into a spin. This looks much more like a plane being crippled. And since no other plane (again, barring perhaps the I-16) is similarly crippled by tail hits, that's where the behavior becomes difficult to understand.

[oc2209]

Here's a Typhoon getting hit 3 times (at least) in the tail:

 

Spoiler

 

 

The interesting part is how it appears to lose partial control function, yet still doesn't buck or otherwise appear unstable.

 

Now, while it is off-topic, I couldn't resist... I present the legend, the myth, the dream: the Focke-Wulf tail.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[CUJO_1970]

Interesting that the FW190 is the only one causing concern?

 

This Mustang had no problem whatsoever remaining in the fight and out turning my FW190 with ease, despite my sweet deflection shot:

 

 

A closer look:

 

 

No problem for this P-51 to keep right on flying and fighting, and out turning my 190. Multiple 20mm hits to the tail with no worries for P-51.

I could have taken down a B17 Flying Fortress with what it took to put this Mustang in the dirt.

 

But yeah, FW190 is only one to be concerned with.

13 hours ago, oc2209 said:

Yes, the Spitfire has extremely sensitive elevators. But should that matter when there isn't excessive elevator input? Is it really so unstable at any given moment that one tail hit, not on a control surface, nor severing control linkages, should have such a dramatic result with regularity?

 

That's the issue.

 

 

All aircraft, including the Spitfire - should be able to survive a cannon hit to the tail and survive **if** control linkage is not severed. We know this because there are many documented cases in which this happened. Such as this non-lethal 20mm hit:

 

 

Sometimes it is horizontal stab (non-lethal) and sometimes it is vertical stab (non-lethal) in which a round destroys the surface but not the controls or linkages itself.

 

So it depends on where the round hits and does more than one round hit...but even so - survival rate from taking 20mm tail hits were exception (with accompanying survivor bias) and not the rule. More than one hit, you are going down most likely.

 

For the Spitfire in the sim...it is likely a fragment left over from programming that needs to be cleaned up by the developers and I'm sure they will when they get enough time. Just don't expect or whine about it when the Spit gets shot down when taking multiple cannon rounds up it's rear end.

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by CUJO_1970

[Carl_infar]

The spit is very fragile in game and i dont speak  about its resistance to cannons hits. Like yesterday when on finnish i got hit in the wing by like 10-15 rounds from 110 tail gunner and the plane couldnt handle even moderate turns and spinned each time i attempted one...

Its also one of the easyest planes to Die in due to pilot kill as per my experience.

Anyway in comparidision to other planes, something is off

[oc2209]

3 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Interesting that the FW190 is the only one causing concern?

 

This Mustang had no problem whatsoever remaining in the fight and out turning my FW190 with ease, despite my sweet deflection shot:

 

No problem for this P-51 to keep right on flying and fighting, and out turning my 190. Multiple 20mm hits to the tail with no worries for P-51.

I could have taken down a B17 Flying Fortress with what it took to put this Mustang in the dirt.

 

But yeah, FW190 is only one to be concerned with.

 

If you watched my recordings, you'd see I already made one where a P-51 took 20mm and 30mm hits to the tail and was still flyable. So, no, you're not telling me anything new.

 

What makes the 190 exceptional is that it could fly (again, in my recording) with extensive 20mm HE wing damage and half a horizontal stabilizer missing. At least the 51 was just hit in the tail.

 

The point in all of this is that no planes react to being hit in the tail like the Spitfire does. Let's not get sidetracked by which planes arguably take too much damage.

 

4 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

All aircraft, including the Spitfire - should be able to survive a cannon hit to the tail and survive **if** control linkage is not severed. We know this because there are many documented cases in which this happened. Such as this non-lethal 20mm hit:

 

Yeah, and that's exactly what I'm showing in my recordings: a Spitfire taking 1-2 tail hits with the controls still clearly functional, yet the AI pilot is totally unable to fly the plane straight for even 3 seconds, much less regain and maintain total control of the plane, as the same AI is capable of doing with a much more damaged P-51 or Fw-190.

 

Again, that is the point.

 

4 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Just don't expect or whine about it when the Spit gets shot down when taking multiple cannon rounds up it's rear end.

 

Nobody's whining here.

 

When people bring up valid concerns that coincide with my observations, I post recordings that are representative of my experiences as a way of saying, 'no, this isn't just your imagination'.

 

When people bring up concerns that don't coincide with my observations, I also post recordings. All I'm doing is adding my two cents to a forum consensus.

 

The Spitfire's behavior when hit in the tail has always been one of those 'huh?' moments in the sim. As long as nobody talks about it much, I don't really care. But when someone brings it up, I'll definitely give my opinion.

[-=PHX=-SuperEtendard]

@CUJO_1970 The issue with the Spitfire tail is that the skin level damage (aerodynamic damage) makes it unstable to the point of causing it to spin most of the times without being able to recover, this isn't caused by control linkage damage or structural damage, it's the aero skin damage, and it can be triggered by just a couple heavy machine gun HE hits (Berezins too). No other plane in the game has this characteristic, they do get bad handling when hit but not to this extreme point.

 

[CUJO_1970]

35 minutes ago, -=PHX=-SuperEtendard said:

@CUJO_1970 The issue with the Spitfire tail is that the skin level damage (aerodynamic damage) makes it unstable to the point of causing it to spin most of the times without being able to recover, this isn't caused by control linkage damage or structural damage, it's the aero skin damage, and it can be triggered by just a couple heavy machine gun HE hits (Berezins too). No other plane in the game has this characteristic, they do get bad handling when hit but not to this extreme point.

 

 

I understand - as I said above it's probably something unfinished from programming that will be fixed when they have time.

I'm sure they'll squash that bug when they can.

 

 

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

Now that I think of it, yeah, I totally remember AI spitfires spinning out of control after suffering damage that I thought should have been superficial or at least far from lethal.

 

I always wondered why. Its most likely tail damage. 

[[CPT]Crunch]

It acts as if the tail was completely snapped off and missing.