DXII nose up and balloon guns

[No.23_Starling]

Hi all, two bugs that I think could be fixed without massive developer input. These probably have been flagged already but if not see below.

 

DXII nose-up bug

This issue has come over from RoF. Once the DXII reaches a modest speed in a dive the nose pulls up and cannot be dipped making diving attacks very hard indeed and breaks a BnZ plane. There no evidence of this behaviour in any primary sources I own.
 

Balloon Guns Effectiveness

In RoF the balloon guns flamed balloons far more effectively than the normal Vickers (duh!!). Here they don’t seem to make any difference leaving little reason to even include them. Is there a modifier that can be easily applied to increase DMG vs balloons?

 

If I need to supply tracks etc let me know. The first issue is really more pressing.

 

S all.

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by US103_Rummell

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, US103_Rummell said:

If I need to supply tracks etc let me know.

 

Yes, track files are needed before I pass these reports over to the QA people.

[Russkly]

3 hours ago, US103_Rummell said:

Hi all, two bugs that I think could be fixed without massive developer input. These probably have been flagged already but if not see below.

 

DXII nose-up bug

This issue has come over from RoF. Once the DXII reaches a modest speed in a dive the nose pulls up and cannot be dipped making diving attacks very hard indeed and breaks a BnZ plane. There no evidence of this behaviour in any primary sources I own.
 

Balloon Guns Effectiveness

In RoF the balloon guns flamed balloons far more effectively than the normal Vickers (duh!!). Here they don’t seem to make any difference leaving little reason to even include them. Is there a modifier that can be easily applied to increase DMG vs balloons?

 

If I need to supply tracks etc let me know. The first issue is really more pressing.

 

S all.

 

 

I'm finding the same balloon gun issue in a Spad career in mid-1917 - they seem if anything to be less effective than normal Vickers rounds, and of course there are fewer of them. 

 

I have to remember to deselect them immediately and use the standard Vickers load-out.

 

I am also finding that, on occasions, I get a Spad VII with Le Prieur rockets according to the weapons load-out, but when I get into the mission, there are no rockets.

[No.23_TaxDollarsAtWork]

53 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Yes, track files are needed before I pass these reports over to the QA people.

I have a track but for some reason the forum will not let me upload it

Allowed file extensions are: jpg, png, zip, rar, txt, 7zip, gif, jpeg

[No.23_TaxDollarsAtWork]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

 

Yes, track files are needed before I pass these reports over to the QA people.

I have the track now for you, this is the Dive bug on the Pfalz 12.
I do some dives without counteracting it with forward stick. Some countering it.

Pfalz Dive Bug.zip

[No.23_Starling]

18 minutes ago, No.23_TaxDollarsAtWork said:

I have the track now for you, this is the Dive bug on the Pfalz 12.
I do some dives without counteracting it with forward stick. Some countering it.

Pfalz Dive Bug.zip 890.81 kB · 0 downloads

@LukeFF here’s the DXII track showing the nose up issue

[JG4_Moltke1871]

Even the Becker Gun seems quite ineffective against balloons. And against Tanks the 2cm AP rounds are simply useless.

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, Russkly said:

 

I'm finding the same balloon gun issue in a Spad career in mid-1917 - they seem if anything to be less effective than normal Vickers rounds, and of course there are fewer of them. 

 

I have to remember to deselect them immediately and use the standard Vickers load-out.

 

I am also finding that, on occasions, I get a Spad VII with Le Prieur rockets according to the weapons load-out, but when I get into the mission, there are no rockets.

 

1 hour ago, No.23_TaxDollarsAtWork said:

I have a track but for some reason the forum will not let me upload it

Allowed file extensions are: jpg, png, zip, rar, txt, 7zip, gif, jpeg

 

Thanks, guys, I'll post this.

[No.23_Starling]

2 hours ago, Russkly said:

 

I'm finding the same balloon gun issue in a Spad career in mid-1917 - they seem if anything to be less effective than normal Vickers rounds, and of course there are fewer of them. 

 

I have to remember to deselect them immediately and use the standard Vickers load-out.

 

I am also finding that, on occasions, I get a Spad VII with Le Prieur rockets according to the weapons load-out, but when I get into the mission, there are no rockets.

Can you record a track and post in a zip?

[Zooropa_Fly]

3 hours ago, JG4_Moltke1871 said:

And against Tanks the 2cm AP rounds are simply useless.

 

Last I checked, ww1 tanks can't destroy each other. 

Kinda spoils a tank battle. 

[No.23_TaxDollarsAtWork]

3 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

 

Thanks, guys, I'll post this.

This is the one with the SPAD vs Balloon
I ended up using about 150 rounds of ammo on each test, it seems the different armament made no difference.

SPAD 13 Gun Bug.zip

[No.23_Starling]

1 hour ago, No.23_TaxDollarsAtWork said:

This is the one with the SPAD vs Balloon
I ended up using about 150 rounds of ammo on each test, it seems the different armament made no difference.

SPAD 13 Gun Bug.zip 2.37 MB · 0 downloads

@LukeFF here is a track on the balloon gun ineffectiveness as requested. Many thanks to Tax for turning this around so quickly!

[Russkly]

12 hours ago, US103_Rummell said:

Can you record a track and post in a zip?

 

I'll try, but I haven't recorded a track in Il2 for decades and never in VR!

 

You want the balloon gun issue, or the non-appearing rockets?

[No.23_Starling]

2 hours ago, Russkly said:

 

I'll try, but I haven't recorded a track in Il2 for decades and never in VR!

 

You want the balloon gun issue, or the non-appearing rockets?

Both if you can. The more tracks the more evidence for bugs. Thanks

[J2_Trupobaw]

On 10/23/2023 at 3:17 PM, US103_Rummell said:

 

Balloon Guns Effectiveness

In RoF the balloon guns flamed balloons far more effectively than the normal Vickers (duh!!). Here they don’t seem to make any difference leaving little reason to even include them. Is there a modifier that can be easily applied to increase DMG vs balloons?

 

If I need to supply tracks etc let me know. The first issue is really more pressing.

 

S all.

 

The bug here is in Vickers guns being able to damage balloons at all. If Vickers was able to use Buckingham rounds, balloon guns would bever be built (and various weird Lewis mounts would disappear). The fix for that bug woud be to make balloons immune to to rounds fired from Vickers (clone existing .303 round, flag it as doing zero damage to balloons, and use it on Vickers while existing round is used by Lewis). 

Edited October 25, 2023 by J2_Trupobaw

[No.23_Starling]

14 minutes ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

The bug here is in Vickers guns being able to damage balloons at all. If Vickers was able to use Buckingham rounds, balloon guns would bever be built (and various weird Lewis mounts would disappear). The fix for that bug woud be to make balloons immune to to rounds fired from Vickers (clone existing .303 round, flag it as doing zero damage to balloons, and use it on Vickers while existing round is used by Lewis). 

Wouldn’t the tracer rounds still be able to ignite the hydrogen?

 

Id go the other way and say the BGs should do less damage to anything that isn’t a balloon. Biddle in his book talks about getting caught with BGs when trying to attack other aircraft and their unsuitability. I’d need to better understand the 11mm round used

[JGr2/J34b_Matthias]

On 10/23/2023 at 9:17 AM, US103_Rummell said:

Hi all, two bugs that I think could be fixed without massive developer input. These probably have been flagged already but if not see below.

 

DXII nose-up bug

This issue has come over from RoF. Once the DXII reaches a modest speed in a dive the nose pulls up and cannot be dipped making diving attacks very hard indeed and breaks a BnZ plane. There no evidence of this behaviour in any primary sources I own.
 

Balloon Guns Effectiveness

In RoF the balloon guns flamed balloons far more effectively than the normal Vickers (duh!!). Here they don’t seem to make any difference leaving little reason to even include them. Is there a modifier that can be easily applied to increase DMG vs balloons?

 

 

Thanks for posting these Rummell.
Both definitely need fixes.  The D.XII behavior appeared I think in the 5.106 patch.

Special emphasis on the balloon guns - the French specifically rejected the British .303 incendiary solutions that were developed in favor of the larger 11mm balloon gun with it's own incendiary catridge design.  The rockets fell out of use specifically because the balloon guns (mounted on the Spad XIII) took their place in the French arsenal.  So the increased damage to balloons needs to be modeled for sure for the benefit of the French as well as the Belgians - who used them heavily too!

Edited October 25, 2023 by J5_Matthias-Sch27b

[JGr2/J34b_Matthias]

5 hours ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

The bug here is in Vickers guns being able to damage balloons at all. If Vickers was able to use Buckingham rounds, balloon guns would bever be built (and various weird Lewis mounts would disappear). The fix for that bug woud be to make balloons immune to to rounds fired from Vickers (clone existing .303 round, flag it as doing zero damage to balloons, and use it on Vickers while existing round is used by Lewis). 

Map makers can sufficiently adjust the balloon kill difficuty to account for the availability of incendiary rounds at different time periods to different sides.  Is it 100% historical?  Nah.  But can we make it plausible in terms of how it actually plays out?  Sure!  It would honestly be much more of a pain if we had to start to specifically ban incendiary ammunition loadouts in certain time periods.  And even regular bullets should do some damage as the included tracers could ignite the hydrogen, and the tracers used were also continually improved as the war went on (at least on the German side).

Also while I agree on the Buckingham, I'm not 100% certain that the Vickers could also not use the Pomeroy and Brock incendiary bullets.  Granted the adopted mix for zeppelin hunting was to use a combination of Brock, Buckingham, AND Pomeroy because each on their own tested poorly.

Edited October 25, 2023 by J5_Matthias-Sch27b

[No.23_Starling]

On 10/23/2023 at 6:55 PM, US103_Rummell said:

@LukeFF here’s the DXII track showing the nose up issue

@LukeFF did you say the forced nose up problem with the DXII had been logged? I’m still getting this after the last patch.

[LukeFF]

9 hours ago, US103_Rummell said:

@LukeFF did you say the forced nose up problem with the DXII had been logged? I’m still getting this after the last patch.

 

I believe it has been logged, but nothing has been changed with it yet. 

[No.23_Starling]

Thanks Luke

[No.23_Triggers]

While this is a topic, Alb D.II has the same 'nose-up bug', and Nieuport 11 has some kind of nose down bug, where past a certain speed the plane involuntarily pitches sharply forward (onto its back) before immediately breaking apart. 

[Zooropa_Fly]

No comment as to whether it's a 'bug' or not, but the DII was a little nose-light in RoF as well.

[JGr2/J5_Klugermann]

4 hours ago, Zooropa_Fly said:

No comment as to whether it's a 'bug' or not, but the DII was a little nose-light in RoF as well.

 

Makes it a little harder to blast crap with the Becker. It will probably auto correct when the twin Becker version is introduced.

[No.23_Starling]

On 10/25/2023 at 12:36 PM, J2_Trupobaw said:

The bug here is in Vickers guns being able to damage balloons at all. If Vickers was able to use Buckingham rounds, balloon guns would bever be built (and various weird Lewis mounts would disappear). The fix for that bug woud be to make balloons immune to to rounds fired from Vickers (clone existing .303 round, flag it as doing zero damage to balloons, and use it on Vickers while existing round is used by Lewis). 

Hey man, just FYI the same book that mentions the single DII tested with the Becker also goes into detail about fragmenting rifle calibre rounds across all sides of the conflict. There is description of various type of German and Austrian rounds similar to the Buckingham, as well as medical evidence of fragmenting bullets - Kiffin Rockwell’s death and postmortem as described by Parsons in his book is one example.

Kent’s book on German ammo mentions several types in use. Im not advocating for ‘war crime’ ammo inclusion, but it’s worth understanding that both sides had specialist types with questionable fragmentation tendencies used against men and balloons. See Kent summarised (borrowed here from the Aerodrome):

 

For their 7.92x57 ammunition, Germany made the following special loadings for aircraft use during WW1:

1. A plain AP bullet (S.m.K. = Spitzgeschoss mit Stahlkern = pointed bullet with steel core) at least from 1915. 

2. An AP-tracer (S.m.K.L/spur = Leuchtspur) from 1916. 

3. A pure incendiary bullet (S.Pr. = Spitzgeschosss mit Phosphor) from February 1917. There is an RFC report, dated April 1917, into finding this S.Pr. ammo mixed with AP in a shot-down G.21. The ammo was examined by Buckingham, who confirmed that it was very similar to his design and contained 12.5 grains (0.8 g) pure phosphorous, which ignited after firing and continued to burn for 300-400m. 

4. A ranging bullet (LE Patrone = Luft-Einschiess) which was designed to detonate at 300-400m, with a bright flash and puff of smoke. This seems to have been used in bomber and airship defensive guns to judge the range to attacking fighters. The bullet was first captured in April 1916.

5. A pure explosive bullet (designation not known) which had a blunt nose which formed a large plunger-type fuze actuator. This appears to have been a copy of the Austrian 8mm bullet, and was first reported as being discovered by the Allies in August 1916.

6. An AP-HE-incendiary (designation not known, but was apparently "F.B."). On August 26 1917 von Richthofen complained that "the new, very bad F.B. ammunition had seriously damaged his engine" - he apparently nearly shot himself down with it, because the bullets detonated immediately after leaving the muzzle, showering the engine with fragments.

7. An AP-incendiary (believed to be known as "F Patrone" - Flugzeugbrand) which did not burn in flight, but only on impact with the target. This was a late-war development, intended purely for attacking aircraft (not balloons).

Edited December 17, 2023 by US103_Rummell