Pe-2 vs. B-25 Durability

[MattS]

Hello all!

 

I’ve been out of the sim world for years it seems - got into some real life flying and working like a dog takes its toll ?

 

To unwind lately I like to attack 4-ship flights of bombers/attack planes in quick missions. Doing so, I’ve noticed a big disparity in the survivability of various targets.

 

Using the Fw-190 A8 with the heavy cannons, the Pe-2 seems to absorb a lot of punishment, except perhaps a tendency for the engines to catch fire easily. Almost never seem to get pilot kills and they keep flying for awhile at least even with massive damage to the wings and tail.

 

Against the B-25 on the other hand, I made 4 consecutive gun passes with a quick burst to the center of mass, and in each case both pilots were immediately killed.

 

Has anybody else found the B-25 to be very easy meat? The He-111 with similar open construction of the crew compartment doesn’t seem to suffer these insta-kills of the flight deck crew.

 

Could just be my shooting is bad but the guys in the B-25 wouldn’t know it lol.

 

 

 

 

[spreckair]

My experiences are the same as yours.  It seems to me that the Russian aircraft are noticeably harder to take down, the German aircraft are in the middle, and the US aircraft fall apart very easily.  I have no knowledge if this accurately represents the aircraft, nor how these determinations were made by the developers, but the differences are very noticeable, at least to me.

[Livai]

6 hours ago, MattS said:

The He-111 with similar open construction of the crew compartment doesn’t seem to suffer these insta-kills

 

In the He-111 fly tough guys. The turret - gunner use the open construction for their advantage. 

 

[MattS]

7 minutes ago, Livai said:

 

In the He-111 fly tough guys. The turret - gunner use the open construction for their advantage. 

 

Gang warfare ?

[Avimimus]

23 hours ago, MattS said:

Hello all!

 

I’ve been out of the sim world for years it seems - got into some real life flying and working like a dog takes its toll ?

 

To unwind lately I like to attack 4-ship flights of bombers/attack planes in quick missions. Doing so, I’ve noticed a big disparity in the survivability of various targets.

 

Using the Fw-190 A8 with the heavy cannons, the Pe-2 seems to absorb a lot of punishment, except perhaps a tendency for the engines to catch fire easily. Almost never seem to get pilot kills and they keep flying for awhile at least even with massive damage to the wings and tail.

 

Against the B-25 on the other hand, I made 4 consecutive gun passes with a quick burst to the center of mass, and in each case both pilots were immediately killed.

 

Has anybody else found the B-25 to be very easy meat? The He-111 with similar open construction of the crew compartment doesn’t seem to suffer these insta-kills of the flight deck crew.

 

Could just be my shooting is bad but the guys in the B-25 wouldn’t know it lol.

 

 

I did a lot of systematic testing - but it was all regarding where to aim to destroy a bomber with 7.62mm rounds. I did find that armoured seats for the pilot needed to be considered with that calibre.

 

However, I never have trouble killing a bomber on the first pass if I'm using 20mm and up (at least if I have more than one gun - if I haven't flown a Yak in a while, and I'm hesitant to waste ammo, and I miss...)

 

I do notice differences though. I think part of it has to do with the fusing of the rounds - the HE rounds will detonate against a vertical stabiliser of the Pe-2 and destroy it, paving the way for the rest of the burst to reach the engines and fuel tanks. In contrast, it is easier to shoot past the tail of the B-25 for some reason. The B-26 had a bug where its horizontal stabilisers could be easily shot off. At least that is my experience. The result is that I give the Pe-2 an extra second of fire.

 

Anyway, I'll do a few tests and see if my recollections are up-to-date (I've been mainly honing my skills in Flying Circus these days).

[Avimimus]

So I only had time for a couple of tests (flying a Fw-190A3 with default loadout - so 2xMG17 and 2xMG151).

 

I did notice that the B-25 crew seemed to be killed more often:

- The B-25 co-pilot seems to lack an armoured seat (and tended to get hit much more than the pilot who has an armoured seat).

- The Pe-2's pilot is seated in the centre of a relatively small fuselage, so near misses tend to become complete misses - and the wings and engines tend to take more hits. The pilot also has pretty extensive seat armouring.

 

It looks like any pullet has to pass through the bomb bay or the main fuel tank prior to reaching the crew compartment - so unless you are penetrating the armoured head rest with a direct hit - the pilot seems pretty superbly well protected from the rear:

 

The small diametre of the crew compartment also probably makes a direct hit from the front less likely - which will reduce the likelihood of crew being hit by fragments etc.

[MattS]

@Avimimus interesting, thanks.
 

On a related note I have generally assumed that 12.7mm machine guns or 20mm AP rounds would reach the pilot with no problem despite any kind of armor that was light enough to mount in an aircraft…the rareness of pilot kills against stuff like the IL-2 or Pe-2 seems to suggest otherwise.

 

Good stuff, thanks for your replies!

[Bilbo_Baggins]

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

So I only had time for a couple of tests (flying a Fw-190A3 with default loadout - so 2xMG17 and 2xMG151).

 

I did notice that the B-25 crew seemed to be killed more often:

- The B-25 co-pilot seems to lack an armoured seat (and tended to get hit much more than the pilot who has an armoured seat).

- The Pe-2's pilot is seated in the centre of a relatively small fuselage, so near misses tend to become complete misses - and the wings and engines tend to take more hits. The pilot also has pretty extensive seat armouring.

 

It looks like any pullet has to pass through the bomb bay or the main fuel tank prior to reaching the crew compartment - so unless you are penetrating the armoured head rest with a direct hit - the pilot seems pretty superbly well protected from the rear:

 

The small diametre of the crew compartment also probably makes a direct hit from the front less likely - which will reduce the likelihood of crew being hit by fragments etc.

 

Nice picture. What's that slanted object marked 32 on the bottom right?

[Guest deleted@83466]

I’m highly skeptical that the real Pe-2 was anywhere near as durable as a Mitchell.

[Avimimus]

5 hours ago, MattS said:

@Avimimus interesting, thanks.
 

On a related note I have generally assumed that 12.7mm machine guns or 20mm AP rounds would reach the pilot with no problem despite any kind of armor that was light enough to mount in an aircraft…the rareness of pilot kills against stuff like the IL-2 or Pe-2 seems to suggest otherwise.

 

Good stuff, thanks for your replies!

 

Yeah, that seems to be a reasonable assumption. There are a couple of limits to that though:

 

1) Initial impacts add yaw to the bullet, meaning that the bullet hits the next object at a greater angle... which means a larger surface area is presented and more deceleration takes place with each subsequent impact. This is especially significant on relatively lighter rounds, but should still have some impact on the penetration of larger rounds. The turret armour of the Leopard 2 is believed to make use of this principle.

 

2) Fluids produce more resistance the faster an object is passing through them. So a fuel tank a very high degree of resistance to a high speed projectile, and passing through that fuel tank would use up a lot of energy. There have been studies about using fuel as tank armour (I believe the British were very interested at one point) - but there are issues with shockwaves and rupturing of the fuel tanks.

 

So I think it is actually plausible that a 20mm AP round would lose its ability to penetrate the armoured seat after passing through the entire length of the Pe-2.

 

  

4 hours ago, Bilbo_Baggins said:

Nice picture. What's that slanted object marked 32 on the bottom right?

 

Truth be told - I'm not sure where the picture is from - and I'm pretty sure the text is in Russian. I'll see what I can find out though (if I remember).