Martlet is a Bomber Killer!

[Feldgrun]

Due to "stunt flying" spin tactics by AI fighter pilots, I mostly attack AI bombers. I love flying the Martlet, whose radial engine is nearly impervious to damage (unlike the inline engines in the Hurricane, Spitfire, P-40 variants, Bf 109, MC.202, etc). I can sit about .3-.4km behind bombers and light them up with the .50cals, with quite a bit of success. However, like most modern combat flight sims, perhaps this is a bit too much damage.

[Volant_Eagle]

I agree the Martlet is quite the beast for knocking down bombers. It's combination of toughness from the sturdy airframe and the radial engine with it's nasty punch from those .50 cals is very effective. The main question here in my opinion (and I imagine Feldgrun would agree), is not whether this performance is balanced, but whether it is realistic. If this is realistic then I have absolutely no problem with it. In my opinion a "simulator" is meant to "simulate" reality, not just facilitate some fun balanced historically themed gameplay. If an airplane was absolutely OP in real life, then I expect it to be so in a sim representing it. Likewise if an airplane was absolute crap in real life, then I expect it to be so in a sim representing it. To me balancing is one of the most cardinal of simulation sins. 

 

So is this realistic? I think it depends. If you're spreading only 275 .50 cal hits across 8 He 111s then I would expect to see very few if any catastrophic structural failures. .50 BMG can certainly cause structural failures but you'll need to concentrate several rounds on a key point with something like an He 111. If you're spraying short bursts from back at .3 to .4 km I highly doubt you'd be achieving this. Therefore, if you're seeing these He 111s braking apart with short bursts then I certainly would suspect there is something wrong with the damage model.

 

However, if these He 111s were going down for non-structural reasons like engine failures, fires, killed pilots, etc. Then I think this is likely realistic. There is very little in the light body of any aircraft that can stop something like an API .50 BMG. I would imagine most rounds would pass right through the entire airplane like a hot knife through butter. .50 cal can be armored against but I don't know of any aircraft at the time of the BoB that was caring such armor. Most early war aircraft only had armor that could stop rifle caliber rounds or had no armor at all. Armor of any sort was actually very rare at the start of the war for any combat aircraft worldwide.

 

I would expect that shooting any early war bomber in the fuselage from directly behind with even a short burst of non-explosive HMG rounds would be very devastating. If the Brits had .50 cals instead of .303s in the Battle of Britain, I think 8 bombers in a single mission would have certainly been possible. It would have been other factors like avoiding enemy fighters and the average pilot's gunnery skills which would have made such scores very unlikely in real life.

 

Overall I still think CloD has some of the most realistic DM behavior among contemporary combat sims. However, I do think there probably are a few things with the damage model that could use some tweaking. I would also say that if there is any round that might be behaving unrealistically in the game I think it's the HE 20mm. They seem to sometimes knock an entire stabilizer off of a bomber with only a hit or two. Knocking a control surface off of a fighter with one hit I suppose is believable. But a stabilizer on a fighter or a control surface on a bomber coming off with only one 20mm hit seems a bit fantastic to me. 20mm HE rounds make hand sized holes from what I've seem in pictures. It's going to take way more than a few of those to cut a stabilizer off of a welly but that seems to be what I see in the game.

 

As far as the AI stunt flying goes, Blenheims sure make some pretty insane maneuvers as well. So on the blue side even bomber intercepts turn into dogfights which is rather irritatingly unrealistic.

[Lorena_Scout]

Can you record and post on youtube?

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

DM seems plausible in most cases, with some quirks here and there. Debate of .50cal and 20mm will go on forever, among other things. But in general the CloD DM is one of best around.

 

The dogfighting Blenheims are a bit off, even the plane was maneuverable for it's size. Finnish bomber pilots evaded fighters in Blenheims, but that was really the last resort to gain at least some separation. Bomber AI could be less DF and more formation flying which gave protection.

 

Just a few thoughts..

Edited August 30, 2023 by LLv34_Flanker

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

@Volant_Eagle

About damage , US army and navy do make meticulus tests - optimum caliber program. You can learn about this from Greg videos 

 

 Start from second  video 

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by 1PL-Husar-1Esk

[Josp]

Hi Feldgrun,

 

what realism settings do you use? Especially the Realistic Gunnery option. Do you have it enabled or disabled?

 

That 49% hit rate shown in your screenshot is very high. I don't think real WW2 pilots were able to achieve this. Not even the best shooters.

If I remember right from what I have read, those with 10% hit rate were considered "sharpshooters".

 

If you can aim so well you hit with nearly 50% of your bullets from 400 meters with Realistic Gunnery on, it is impressive. I can be just envious about that. I'm not so good.

 

Josef

[Volant_Eagle]

I have to agree with Josp; 49% at 400 meters is a very high hit rate. Even with big targets that aren't maneuvering like a formation of Heinkels, that's some pretty impressive shooting. There were real pilot's who were insanely accurate though. Marsaille comes to mind. However, pilot's like that were extremely rare. For the majority of pilots a 10% hit rate being near the high end sounds reasonable.

 

I tried intercepting several formations of Heinkels with the Martlet earlier today. It went fairly well but I have to admit I never got anywhere near 8 kills with 500 rounds fired. It did seem like it would be possible with more practice though. I never had any aircraft brake up or fall apart on me which I think is accurate. I had a pretty mixed bag of results from one Heinkel to another. Some would soak up a long heavy burst and I'd have to come around again to finish it off. Others would go down almost instantly because I either killed the pilot or lit a wing tank. So I imagine one could get lucky and have a long string of those instant kills in a row. Maybe Felgrun has just cracked the code for where exactly the gunsight pipper needs to sit on a Heinkel to get those results reliably.

[Feldgrun]

12 hours ago, Josp said:

Hi Feldgrun,

 

what realism settings do you use? Especially the Realistic Gunnery option. Do you have it enabled or disabled?

 

That 49% hit rate shown in your screenshot is very high. I don't think real WW2 pilots were able to achieve this. Not even the best shooters.

If I remember right from what I have read, those with 10% hit rate were considered "sharpshooters".

 

If you can aim so well you hit with nearly 50% of your bullets from 400 meters with Realistic Gunnery on, it is impressive. I can be just envious about that. I'm not so good.

 

Josef

 

4 hours ago, Volant_Eagle said:

I have to agree with Josp; 49% at 400 meters is a very high hit rate. Even with big targets that aren't maneuvering like a formation of Heinkels, that's some pretty impressive shooting. There were real pilot's who were insanely accurate though. Marsaille comes to mind. However, pilot's like that were extremely rare. For the majority of pilots a 10% hit rate being near the high end sounds reasonable.

 

I tried intercepting several formations of Heinkels with the Martlet earlier today. It went fairly well but I have to admit I never got anywhere near 8 kills with 500 rounds fired. It did seem like it would be possible with more practice though. I never had any aircraft brake up or fall apart on me which I think is accurate. I had a pretty mixed bag of results from one Heinkel to another. Some would soak up a long heavy burst and I'd have to come around again to finish it off. Others would go down almost instantly because I either killed the pilot or lit a wing tank. So I imagine one could get lucky and have a long string of those instant kills in a row. Maybe Felgrun has just cracked the code for where exactly the gunsight pipper needs to sit on a Heinkel to get those results reliably.

 

I've tried to repeat it, but since then have only hit about 25%. The 49% was one helluva great run.

 

I also take my first shots at about 400 meters with occasional success, and then more shots the closer I get. I fire in short split-second bursts (like Marseille did), aiming for the engines or fuel tanks.

 

Gunnery is set at "Realistic."

 

 

Single Player / Quick Mission / Bomber Intercept - Channel

I played again today to see how it would go.

 

First shots at this He-111 at about 400 meters with no real hits:

 

Same view from the Martlet (painted as F4F Wildcat):

 

Second burst from a little closer gets hits on the fuel tank:

 

Another He-111, firing on right engine after first pass hit left engine which is leaking oil:

 

Most planes crash after a few hits on the wing & engine:

[Art-J]

We have to keep in mind If CloD featured a wake turbulence simulation (or any meaningful turbulence simulation for that matter), you wouldn't get anywhere close to that 25%, let alone higher number. That, combined with AI crews tendency to throw a tantrum and bail whenever their shiny ride gets a leak, makes the test not "realistic" anyway.

 

So we can pretty much only comment on .50 API effectiveness on poorly armoured fuel tanks and engines of these early war bombers. This is where I think the results seem plausible.

[Dagwoodyt]

On 8/27/2023 at 9:42 PM, Feldgrun said:

Due to "stunt flying" spin tactics by AI fighter pilots, I mostly attack AI bombers. I love flying the Martlet, whose radial engine is nearly impervious to damage (unlike the inline engines in the Hurricane, Spitfire, P-40 variants, Bf 109, MC.202, etc). I can sit about .3-.4km behind bombers and light them up with the .50cals, with quite a bit of success. However, like most modern combat flight sims, perhaps this is a bit too much damage.

Probably a good idea to check AI skill settings using the FMB when you get scores like what you are showing. AI can go brain dead with even moderate skill settings.