Some good quality gun camera footage USAAF vs 109s & 190s

[the_emperor]

 

 

the engagement range seems to be a lot closer than in the game. 

Edited December 9, 2022 by the_emperor

[Oyster_KAI]

Long-range shooting in the game is very accurate...
You don't need to be close to shoot down enemy planes,
I think the long range spread of the bullets should have some room for adjustment.
If not...is it because the virtual pilots have 5,000 or even 10,000 flight hours??
Everybody is sniper.

[S10JlAbraxis]

Interesting thanks!  I wonder if these gun cameras had low power telephoto lenses on them?  Some of the film looks like a typical zoomed view (lower FOV view) in IL2.  Also interesting there seemes to be very littel dogfighting.  The pilot moves behind an aparently unaware German and it is all over in seconds.

Edited December 4, 2022 by S10JlAbraxis

[Raptorattacker]

Just now, S10JlAbraxis said:

Interesting thanks!  I wonder if these gun cameras had low power telephoto lenses on them?  Some of the film looks like a typical zoomed view (lower FOV view) in IL2.  Also interesting there seemes to be very littel dogfiting.  The pilot moves behind an aparently unaware German and it is all over in seconds.

It seems that (historically) dogfighting wasn't as common as in-game and that most pilots knew nothing (or not a lot) until they were hit.

[DragonDaddy]

35 minutes ago, S10JlAbraxis said:

The pilot moves behind an aparently unaware German and it is all over in seconds.

From what I’ve read, most air-to-air combat was not about dueling or dogfighting. Pilots tried to “get the drop” on enemy aircraft by surprise or superior numbers. Having an “unfair” advantage was a tactic, not some far fetched lack of chivalry. Most pilots were not trying to be heroes. They just wanted to do their jobs and return home alive. 

Edited December 4, 2022 by DragonDaddy
Grammar

[Eisvogel]

I wonder how many players actually read books/watch videos about WW2 air combat, because from my pov this guncam while being in very good quality is pretty basic, dogfight is a general therm for air combat, and guncams are cut, we see only the last moment (or intersting ones) of the aircrafts in front and we don't really what happened before and what will happen after and it's pretty logical, the fov is very bad if we had a full fight there is a very high probability you will see nothing 80% of the time.

 

About the dogfight in game, I played a lot DCS WW2 in the past and recently I returned to IL2 and I jumped on severs and I was amazed of the number of players just throwing themselves in (already lost) dogfights 5m above the ground without any energy,

 

From what I read I come to this : IRL most of fights were fast, in altitude, and generally didn't last very long. Experienced pilot as well as new recruits seemed to know that speed and surprise effect was the key, and if they were slow they were basically sitting ducks 

[Cpt_Cool]

2 hours ago, Oyster_KAI said:

is it because the virtual pilots have 5,000 or even 10,000 flight hours?

 

Almost certainly. And more than that the flight hours involve way more shooting than in real life. You can dual up quick mission after quick mission. Maybe win maybe die, analyze why you died. Erich Hartmann in his prime would get smoked by a below average flyer in IL 2.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Cpt_Cool

[the_emperor]

2 hours ago, Oyster_KAI said:

If not...is it because the virtual pilots have 5,000 or even 10,000 flight hours??
Everybody is sniper.

most definitely? and probably that we dont feel the forces exertet on the pilot, always having the perfect sight picture with our virtual head fixed behind the reticle

[Lusekofte]

Well if anyone here can be so kind placing themselves in front of my guns like that I shoot you down too

[BlitzPig_EL]

The Luftwaffe pilots in those gun cams flew like the AI do in the Fokker D.VIII.  Bunch of lazy turning, unaware n00bs.

[Wardog5711]

Quote

Bunch of lazy turning, unaware n00bs.

By Dec. 1944, that is probably close to the truth.  

[DD_Arthur]

1 hour ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

The Luftwaffe pilots in those gun cams flew like the AI do in the Fokker D.VIII.  Bunch of lazy turning, unaware n00bs.

You are seeing fleeting moments slowed down.

 

I think it was Fairchild that made most of the gun cameras fitted to P51’s, P47’s, etc.

 

They were 16mm cine cameras  with 35mm lenses precisely aligned to the inboard weapon.

This means they’re giving a much narrower field of view than the human eye(s) do.

 

Late in the war they started fitting 35mm cameras too. That’s why we have some colour footage. 

 

They also only operate when the gun button is depressed.

 

They are not fitted to ‘prove’ kills. They are part of a learning tool.

A friend of mine has a small brass model of a Spitfire mk.IIa. It’s around 4” in length. It’s not very detailed but it’s actually exactly in proportion and scale. It has a threaded hole in the bottom of the fuselage in line with the leading edge of the wing at the inner gun port.

He picked it up years ago in a charity shop.

A lot later he found it was part of a gun cam projector.

This was how they used gun cam footage in debriefs. These films were shown through a special projecter. The model Spitfire was mounted on a rod before the projector lens. The projector was set at an exact distance from the screen and the silhouette of the Spitfire was shown on the screen as the film ran.
 

In this way firing range and deflection could be measured.

 

Oh yeah; surprise,surprise!

 
What we do within this and all other sims has very, very little to do with the actuality of aerial combat in WW2. 
Most of the ‘victims’ in these films were simply bushwhacked.  That was and almost certainly remains the reality today.

They just didn’t know they were about to get it in the back of the head.

Dogfighting; as in going round and round and doing various aerobatic manoeuvres to get “guns on” mostly exists in our imaginations.

Don’t get me wrong, it certainly did happen but most - as in 99% of air combat between opposing fighters - was brief and fleeting. One pass and away.  No turning back to finish  off a damaged opponent.

No taking off randomly as a single or pair of aircraft either.

No taking off in bad weather,

no taking off with 50% fuel, no cruising at combat throttle, no missions lasting twenty minutes, etc.

 

No refly button.

 

Other than that, yes! We’re all better than Hartmann?

 

 

[ST_Catchov]

6 hours ago, the_emperor said:

engagement rage

 

^ I like it.

 

I guess if you come across a blissfully unaware inexperienced pilot you get as close as possible to make sure dontcha. But then we don't know the events that transpired before the footage.

[SCG_motoadve]

7 hours ago, Cpt_Cool said:

 

Almost certainly. And more than that the flight hours involve way more shooting than in real life. You can dual up quick mission after quick mission. Maybe win maybe die, analyze why you died. Erich Hartmann in his prime would get smoked by a below average flyer in IL 2.

IL2 is super easy, torque is very mild, no recoil, no wake turbulence, pilots kills almost the majority of kills, check six with a mouse or track IR, makes it super easy too.

Do we fly a lot more than real pilots did? for sure, but in the game you dont get to feel an airplane, no seat of the pants wear the airplane like an extension of yourself, like happens IRL.

If you put all the IL2 pilots from the community (that are not real pilots) dont think a single one will be able to even take off in a 109 IRL, which shows you its not accurate, most likely like this for gaming purposes or else people will leave the game after a few tries. DCS and CLOD feels more realistic each has their strong points.

 

 

[Oyster_KAI]

4 hours ago, SCG_motoadve said:

IL2 is super easy, torque is very mild, no recoil, no wake turbulence, pilots kills almost the majority of kills, check six with a mouse or track IR, makes it super easy too.

Do we fly a lot more than real pilots did? for sure, but in the game you dont get to feel an airplane, no seat of the pants wear the airplane like an extension of yourself, like happens IRL.

If you put all the IL2 pilots from the community (that are not real pilots) dont think a single one will be able to even take off in a 109 IRL, which shows you its not accurate, most likely like this for gaming purposes or else people will leave the game after a few tries. DCS and CLOD feels more realistic each has their strong points.

 

 

For these reasons, besides checking textures and testing games... I haven't flown in GB for almost 2 years.
I hope the global torque and recoil can be implemented on every aircraft as soon as possible...?

[firdimigdi]

12 hours ago, Cpt_Cool said:

Erich Hartmann in his prime would get smoked by a below average flyer in IL 2.

 

Apart from underestimating the physical toll that the average flyer of IL-2 would not be able to withstand there is the bit where a lot of what we do is either impossible or extremely hard to the point of being physically impossible.

Small example: we can keep our head on the gunsight perfectly still despite pulling quite a bit of Gs, we can map controls to buttons that are a finger movement - imagine being able to crank flaps, operate a throttle and yank around a heavy stick while pressing down on rudder pedals and all while instantly turning to look at your dead six and snapping back again to your perfect gunsight view all while in the middle of rolling scissors where the cockpit is basically a tumble drier spooling up.

[IckyATLAS]

This footage is a good reminder of what war is really. Forget about fair combat, chivalry an all that. There have been some very rare events in all theaters that can relate to that, after all we are a diverse bunch of human beings on both sides. This said winning the war is basically destroying the enemy or get destroyed until one of the party surrenders in a way or another. Same for aerial, naval, terrestrial. So here it means shooting down whenever possible your opponent and stay alive. But, if possible, eliminate the pilot first which will also doom the plane, and otherwise destroy the plane which may also doom the pilot but that is less sure. And if you are in the position of the execution squad (behind an unaware pilot in a fighter plane flying straight) all the better. This is why the pilots had in many cases steel plates on the back to protect them, but against 20mm cannon rounds not sure it was enough. The plane is an easily replaceable asset compared to a trained pilot. In the footage above it can be seen that the hits concentrate on the pilot cockpit region and engine. In a fighter these are very near to each other which is a bonus and then on the wings. Strategy with bombers was different as you had return fire and the plane is much larger and completely masks the cockpit further in front of the engines which are on the wings. So, engines and/or wing roots (fuel) were a higher priority to bring down the plane, except of frontal attacks that were aimed a bomber cockpit. The Japanese due to their historical culture completely missed that. The pilots where basically like "expandable" material. This ended up into situations like the Marianas Turkey Shoot. The US protected their assets and concentrated on training and did everything to keep and recover their pilots alive to fly again. There were also combat turns which gave also the opportunity to seasoned pilots to train other pilots. The Germans did value their pilots more than the Japanese but made them fly indefinitely and so exhausted them until they were inevitably lost, the final result being similar to Japan during the last year of the war. One advantage however for US pilots is that their training grounds were not exposed to enemy attacks.

 

[Cpt_Cool]

12 hours ago, SCG_motoadve said:

If you put all the IL2 pilots from the community (that are not real pilots) dont think a single one will be able to even take off in a 109 IRL,

 

 

 

I dont necessarily disagree with this either. But for the record i was talking about sitting down a real life ace at a computer and he will struggle to videogame dogfight.

[SCG_motoadve]

53 minutes ago, Cpt_Cool said:

 

I dont necessarily disagree with this either. But for the record i was talking about sitting down a real life ace at a computer and he will struggle to videogame dogfight.

Absolutely we have thousands of hrs flying IL2 in PC.

I did have a friend who owned real P51s, and a P47 , former Reno Air races winner, he had never flown any sim or game before, he got to fly IL2 in VR, he was blown away, he came to stay for a weekend, I could not have him leave my computer and IL2.

Of course he managed to take off, land, even shoot AI in his first attempt.

But an average IL2 pilot will beat him.