Something is very wrong with the Sh 37 (and to a lesser extent the other 37mm guns)

[Charon]

 

Stuka absorbs 11, 14 rounds of 37x198mm HE before dying. Meanwhile, 1-2 hits from 30x98RB are enough to remove the entire tail.

 

Tracks

 

https://user.fm/files/v2-d48e1c12605e5fcba429bcf301cdbdc3/37mm tests.zip

 

Individual tracks are zipped in sh37-stuka-11x, sh37-stuka-14x, sh37ap-stuka-11x, mk108-stuka-1x, and mk108-stuka-2x respectively. There are also tracks featuring some of the other 37mm guns.

 

Commentary

 

I was trying to test something very specific here: how these rounds perform when hitting the rear fuselage of a plane, because that seemed to be where they were under-performing the most. I didn't entirely succeed, particularly as the target drone starts to wobble, and some rounds wind up hitting the mid fuselage or the tail surfaces.

 

These tracks are somewhat cherry picked, but not so much as you might think. The Mk 108 tracks, for example, were recorded back-to-back: that sort of performance is consistent from it. 4-5 rounds seems typical from the Sh 37, with occasional outliers above and below.

 

In the second clip, note that the rear fuselage doesn't crack until the 14th hit (and even then, the tail stays attached as the plane dives into the ground).

 

The NS 37 seemed to perform a little better for some reason; it was common for hits to the rear fuselage to remove a stabilizer. Still, there are a couple of tracks showing the Stuka absorbing 5 rounds from the NS 37, so it seems to under-perform as well, and doesn't seem able to shatter the entire fuselage, as 30x98RB does.

 

The M4 cannon seemed like the best performer out of the 37s although I didn't test it extensively. Unlike the 37x198mm, it is at least capable of shattering the fuselage.

 

Edited December 30, 2022 by Charon

[Charon]

Is it possible to jam controls with hits to the fuselage, or only to the control surface itself? The fuselage should be full of control cables and associated hardware in a relatively small space, but my impression is that only hits to the surface itself count for the purpose of disabling it.

 

I suspect non-mineshell HE is too heavily dependent on the fragmentation effect and is doing very little structural damage to the component it hits directly. Note the hit to the left wing-root(?) that causes the right wheel to fall off. Hits to the rear fuselage are probably resulting in most of those fragments flying off into empty space, with occasional effect on the stabilizers, radiators, and landing gear. That fragmentation is likely over-performing in other scenarios (e.g. producing too many pilot kills), which means most cannons feel fine overall; it's only with large rounds that the player is attentive to individual hits and the scenarios where they under-perform become conspicuous.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Charon

[LukeFF]

I've passed this along to the developers, thanks. ?

[BubiHUN]

well thats how it should be with 30mm to all planes.
While what we have...

[Charon]

14 minutes ago, BubiHUN said:

well thats how it should be with 30mm to all planes.

Note, if you watch carefully, that I'm trying hard to put the rounds into the fuselage directly, which I think is uncommon in combat.

 

I suspect we often see rounds hitting the rudder or elevator first and wasting a lot of their effect. I suspect that if you can put a 30x98RB round directly into the fuselage of other light planes you'll see they behave similarly. Although I have not tested this.