Headshots

[Sundancer777]

Head shots are ridiculous in this game... pilot cockpit kills were not common occurrence they were rare.. This game dishes them out like they were a common occurrence.  Squads could rack up large amount of kills and not have any one have done in a pilot by head shot.  Pilot injury leading to unconsciousness or bleed out I can buy... but headshot every mission set?  It just BS.  If you can't fix it get rid of them. 

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

I used to think so--and then I learned/practiced better defensive tactics. Here are my $.02: when being attacked, DO NOT pitch up and expose your canopy--if anything, tuck the nose to roll into a hard break turn or rolling scissors. You die way more when exposing your canopy. 

[Aurosa]

Those 5 people that voted no, most likely don't play a game at all. Sorry, but being instantly shot from an incoming airplane, from who knows how far, having the window of opportunity to make a shot last fraction of a second, and seeing a target similar to this of an apple (or less), and being able to land a shot like that, time and time again is a total BS, just one more example where AI cheating is being easily visible.

 

AI needs to be first and foremost fixed, and BS like that should be toned down, or only some sort of an ace pilot, that you see maybe once per 100 flights, should be able to pull a trick like that.

Edited March 12 by Aurosa
spelling.

[kraut1]

I am flying with IL-2 Great Battles since 2015 with realistic settings and mostly moderate ailevels in single player missions.

From my experience the question if the headshot issue occurs to frequently or not depends on different parameters:

-it depends on missions design and the used ailevels.

-it depends on used plane types and used additional equipments (e.g. additional bullet proof wind screens)

-dangerous are planes with all weapons concentrated near the center-line.

-maybe it depends too on single player or multiplayer? (I play 100% single player).

-it depends on tactics / see

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/90789-headshots/#findComment-1345414

 

For example:

I experienced similar issues when I flew a Quick Mission in a Lagg3 vs finnish BF109-G2 (ailevel normal).

During this session I was killed very frequently by headshots during dogfight.

-On the one hand it seems to me that I was in the focus of the enemies because in Quick Missions you are always the leader.

Suggestion: Quick Missions with option fly as wingman.

-The "normal" AI BF109 seemed to fire indeed too accurate from my point of view or maybe the effect of the 20mm mine shells is a bit exaggerated..

-I could try to use the tactic suggested by @356thFS_Drewm3i-VR

-sometimes I use makeshift modifications by modifying the ai shooting abilities (selfmade or e.g.: AI gunnery mod)

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/78388-ai-gunnery-mod/

 

 

Today I flew a test mission 2 FW190-A5 vs 7 ace B26 to test the effectiveness of the bomber armament.

The bomber gunners were shooting not bad, but it was possible to attack sucessfully from the side and I survived even a suicidal attack from straight 6 o'clock (with medium damage).

 

 

Edited March 5 by kraut1

[Knarley-Bob]

Doesn't seem the armor plate behind the pilot does much..........If anything.

Edited March 8 by Knarley-Bob

[357th_KW]

There is actually some research data available on this topic, courtesy of a USAF study carried out postwar.

 

This chart from that document compares aircraft lost vs hits to a specific structure for the F6F, F4U, TBM and SB2C during the late-war period.  Note that these were some of the most durable aircraft of the era.  As you can see here, strikes to the pilot or flight controls on these single pilot aircraft were producing a loss rate of over 75%.  Also interesting, is that in the limited data from multi-engine aircraft, that loss rate drops to around 20%.

 

This chart shows the total number of aircraft lost from damage to a given component.  In terms of the total number of losses, these cockpit hits were responsible for over 25% of losses.  This is hard to compare vs. numbers from in IL-2, as players tend to be much "braver" then their real life counterparts (particularly in multi-player) and very rarely bail out of an aircraft if there is any chance of recovering it.  Real world accounts tend to indicate that most pilots were pretty eager to live, and willing to jump out of or ditch damaged aircraft if things didn't look promising.  But what's important here is that strikes to the pilot were a significant source of historical aircraft losses, even in these extremely durable and heavily built US Navy aircraft.

 

 

[Knarley-Bob]

It's hard to compare Real life, and Computer-generated gaming. Just about every time I get shot up, I get the "Bloody goggles " effect. Way more than 25% anyway.

Perhaps I'm just that bad of pilot. I won't argue that one either.   😁

 

KB

Edited March 8 by Knarley-Bob

[czech693]

How do you know it's a head shot.  Could be a chest shot, gut shot, or a leg blown off.  The head shots don't ping like in Hell Let Loose.  Heavy machine gun (13mm and .50 cal) and cannon rounds do some damage.  The fragments would be enough to kill you.

 

The armor plate was originally put in the aircraft soon after the war started and was supposed to stop 8mm (.30 cal) projectiles.  I've fired a M2 .50 cal through both sides of a M113 and LVT on the range.  Of course their armor was not designed to stop projectiles that large.

[LukeFF]

Adding to what @czech693 said, it's important to remember that large-caliber weapons like the .50 cal/ 13 mm machine guns only really started becoming common around 1943. Before that, it wasn't unreasonable to install armor plating that would stop a rifle-caliber round but not much more than that.

It's also a tradeoff - yes, sure, you can install plating that can stop a larger-caliber round, but then you end up with a plane that's very heavy and not very useful for combating enemy fighters. That's why the "battering ram" 190s were only really good for combating bombers. 

[Stonehouse]

This is just an FYI post. I've written it in bits and pieces during the course of the day when I have had spare moments so apologies for any typos or things that don't quite read ok.

 

Looking at the pilot notes pics below, the P47 pilot has little protection from fire arriving from outside the shown arcs below. The armour is 3/8" or 9.53 mm thick based on 1945 P47D-28 pilot notes and only good against rifle calibre rounds according to the 1943 notes. The 1945 manual doesn't mention the calibre of the rounds the armour protects from and simply says "enemy fire".

 

My understanding is the P47 and P51 pilot protection was approximately the same. Presumably if you exclude aircraft like the IL2 this could be considered roughly representative for most fighter aircraft.

 

As you can see the protection arcs are quite narrow and really only cover 6 o'clock level or slightly high and near co-alt frontal attacks in the 1943 notes. The later 28 model had revised armour that gave better arcs as per second diagram from the 1945 notes. Still though the arcs of protection are fairly restricted, simply due to the width and height of the fuselage.

 

I don't know if the game takes into account the angle at which the round hits the armour - hitting at an angle greater or less than 90 deg means less penetration as the round tends to ricochet off. The pilot notes indicate that the armour protects against rifle calibre AP hitting at 90 deg to the armour. No mention of range between firer and target is given in the notes. I don't have any info to know whether the armour would still protect against very close-range fire of rifle calibre ammo.

 

I believe you can conceptually think of an aircraft damage model as an aircraft shaped envelope within which specific damage boxes are positioned in the proper location and defined to represent fuel tanks, engines, armour bulkheads (in bombers for instance), cockpit etc. I believe each round is treated separately and using the trajectory the round hits the appropriate damage boxes along its path and each box reduces the round's energy so reducing available damage potential to the next damage box until the round hits something it can't penetrate or runs out of energy. I don't believe the spaces between boxes have any effect on the round. ie "empty space"

HE rounds like 20mm HE have an explosive damage plus penetration damage and also produce fragments and each fragment has its own penetration and damage power like a mini-AP round. The fragments radiate out in a sphere from point of impact I believe.

 

I don't know how the game determines the round hits the head or body, I assume there are discrete damage boxes defined, and the head is hit when the round intersects the head's damage box.  

 

In game terms your head can take up to 50 points of direct damage and 100 points of fragmentation damage. Body is 250 and 500 respectively. I believe if you take 50 points of direct head damage or 100 points of head frag damage you are dead. Likewise, 250/500 body damage. I don't know if there is some sort of trade off where points of frag damage also means direct damage - it seems reasonable that it would as it is the same human body and head. So, as a made-up example perhaps the game might inflict 1 point of direct damage for every 2 frag damage to avoid the unrealistic situation of having an untouched direct damage pool with almost consumed fragmentation damage pool allowing a pilot to survive longer than they should.

 

Continuing with the P47 example. The D28 cockpit armour is configured as below when the canopy is closed. Back armour is 8 points. I have no idea whether 8 points represents 9.53mm of armour or not.

 

Based on the 1945 pilot notes and the 3/8-inch value, it should be 9, 9.53 (if decimals are allowed) or 10 points (if you round 9.53 up) if the value represents the real-life millimeters of equivalent armour (@LukeFFpossible bug ??)

 

 

 

 

The German 7.92 mm AP round has the following penetration configuration.  Translation is google only. Assuming I correctly understand how this works and also assuming the round hits no other damage cube before hitting the cockpit back armour, it appears that the round would penetrate the back armour and inflict damage at less than 100m - I don't know if this is correct or not. I think past 100m the round won't penetrate. I think that past 1500m the round is regarded as spent. 

 

Spoiler

// range, speed at this range (at 0m - specify 5km/h less than calculated), armor-damage pairs behind the armor. Will not penetrate armor greater than in the first pair
// damage at a range of 100m with zero armor is taken as the base, at max. armor the damage is equal to 0.25 of the base, at 0.8 max. armor the damage is equal to 0.5 of the base
// урон при нулевой броне уменьшается с дальностью по соотношению квадрата скоростей
// скорости по дальностям взяты из лога утилиты расчета .bin файлов пули (расчет таблиц наведения), на 10км/ч меньше ресчетной
// т.к. если скорость окажется больше расчетной на данной дальности, то дамага не будет
// базовый урон расчитан по соотношению кинетических энергий на дальности 100м между данной пулей и референсной пулей SHELL_GER_20x82_AP (=1000)

Armor=0,855,    12,44,    5,87,    0,174
Armor=100,800,    11,38,    4,76,    0,152
Armor=500,603,    7,22,    3,44,    0,87    // посчитано по референсной точке по бронепробиваемости для данной пули 300м-9мм
Armor=1500,300,    3,5,    1,11,    0,21

 

For comparison the M2 AP round looks like:

Spoiler

Armor=0,895,    28,191,    11,381,    0,762
Armor=100,852,    26,172,    10,345,    0,690
Armor=500,689,    19,113,    8,226,    0,452    // ïîñ÷èòàíî ïî ðåôåðåíñíîé òî÷êå ïî áðîíåïðîáèâàåìîñòè äëÿ äàííîé ïóëè 500ì-19ìì
Armor=1000,512,    12,62,    5,125,    0,250
Armor=2000,301,    6,22,    2,43,    0,86

 

For another comparison the Hispano AP round (Tempest, Spitfires for instance have mixed AP and HE belting):

Spoiler

Armor=1,798,    41,545,    16,1090,    0,2179
Armor=100,747,    37,477,    15,954,        0,1907
Armor=500,571,    25,279,    10,559,        0,1117    // ïîñ÷èòàíî ïî ðåôåðåíñíîé òî÷êå ïî áðîíåïðîáèâàåìîñòè äëÿ äàííîé ïóëè 500ì-25.4ìì
Armor=2000,257,    8,56,    3,113,        0,226

 

German 20mm AP from the MG151/20

Spoiler

Armor=1,705,    35,301,    14,603,    0,1206
Armor=100,642,    31,250,    12,501,    0,1001
Armor=500,426,    17,110,    7,220,    0,440    // ïîñ÷èòàíî ïî ðåôåðåíñíîé òî÷êå ïî áðîíåïðîáèâàåìîñòè äëÿ äàííîé ïóëè 300ì-23ìì
Armor=2000,143,    4,12,    2,25,    0,50

 

So, considering stock High and Normal skill AI pilots open fire in the 500-600m and looking at the penetration and damage values above it would appear the armour is quite limited protection in late war scenarios. Most of the weapons above will kill the pilot with 1 or 2 rounds in the body at that range so the head hit is in most cases instant death at 500m.   

 

Possibly people could ask for the head's damage box to be revisited by the devs and perhaps made smaller so it's harder to hit?

 

 

 

 

Edited March 12 by Stonehouse

[LukeFF]

9 hours ago, Stonehouse said:

Based on the 1945 pilot notes and the 3/8-inch value, it should be 9, 9.53 (if decimals are allowed) or 10 points (if you round 9.53 up) if the value represents the real-life millimeters of equivalent armour (@LukeFFpossible bug ??)

 

I'm not sure how the config files work for armor, so it might be something worth raising in the beta testing forum.

[Enceladus828]

On 3/5/2025 at 4:06 AM, Aurosa said:

AI needs to be first and foremost fixed, and BS like that should be toned down, or only some sort of and ace pilot, that you see maybe once per 100 flights, should be able to pull a trick like that.

Agree, the AI knows pretty much every movement you're going to do well in advance and aggressively swarms in on you and doesn't stop until literally the pilot is dead. A Bf-109E or F once shot up my Pe-2 and ignited both fuel tanks. I had dropped my bombs and rapidly broke out of formation and put it into a steep descent but he kept shooting at me until the pilot was dead. Encountering enemy aircraft while flying the Li-2 is 99% a death sentence because even one burst by a Bf-109E and boom, everyone is dead! (I did send a Track file for the latter.)

 

I'm not asking for health cheats nor am I suggesting that it was impossible in real life for someone to have gotten one of these Lucky Shots, it's just gotten rather ridiculous here with frequent Magic Bullets and Magic Richochets.

 

Another AI issue is that they look to have very precise onboard radar or are given precise real time tracking by those on the ground. I've had a number of situations where I bomb and airfield, head back to base, all of my wingmen are shot down, and then when I am 5 or so miles from the airfield, all of the enemy planes converge on me as if nothing else mattered (I have sent Track files for those).  

[Dagwoodyt]

I have been flying the I-16 vs "Ace" AI IAR-80's recently using the Stonehouse AI gunnery mod. I am pretty well satisfied that location of damage decals corresponds well to expected fight ending pilot injuries. For immersion's sake this is a much better situation than in that "other sim" where 1v1's against "Ace" AI (I-16vsI-16) can go on far longer than is realistic given location of damage decals. In that sim I have had numerous occasions of landing my I-16 after successful fights against "Ace" AI I-16's where location of damage decals indicates that I should have suffered fight ending injuries, deflating any "buzz"🙁

Edited March 12 by Dagwoodyt

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

I'm fine with headshots as long as the program really is reasonably calculating that that is where the bullet actually went.

Anecdotally, I'd say the shrapnel from exploding rounds is more of a problem than actual direct headshots.  Still, if a literal "grenade round" hits anywhere inside the cockpit, it's probably instant lights-out without actually hitting the pilot's head. 

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

On 3/12/2025 at 1:03 PM, Enceladus828 said:

Agree, the AI knows pretty much every movement you're going to do well in advance and aggressively swarms in on you and doesn't stop until literally the pilot is dead. A Bf-109E or F once shot up my Pe-2 and ignited both fuel tanks. I had dropped my bombs and rapidly broke out of formation and put it into a steep descent but he kept shooting at me until the pilot was dead. Encountering enemy aircraft while flying the Li-2 is 99% a death sentence because even one burst by a Bf-109E and boom, everyone is dead! (I did send a Track file for the latter.)

 

I'm not asking for health cheats nor am I suggesting that it was impossible in real life for someone to have gotten one of these Lucky Shots, it's just gotten rather ridiculous here with frequent Magic Bullets and Magic Richochets.

 

Another AI issue is that they look to have very precise onboard radar or are given precise real time tracking by those on the ground. I've had a number of situations where I bomb and airfield, head back to base, all of my wingmen are shot down, and then when I am 5 or so miles from the airfield, all of the enemy planes converge on me as if nothing else mattered (I have sent Track files for those).  

Are you using Stonehouse's AI mods? Highly recommend them as he fixes some of this behavior and accuracy.

[Enceladus828]

1 hour ago, 356thFS_Drewm3i-VR said:

Are you using Stonehouse's AI mods? Highly recommend them as he fixes some of this behavior and accuracy.

I'm not but will try it out. Not in a place right now where I can play the game.

 

On 3/20/2025 at 12:17 PM, 69th_Mobile_BBQ said:

Anecdotally, I'd say the shrapnel from exploding rounds is more of a problem than actual direct headshots.

Exactly!!

 

 

Edited March 22 by Enceladus828

[357th_KW]

A lot of these complaints can be solved by just using better coding methods for the AI. 

 

On 3/12/2025 at 10:03 AM, Enceladus828 said:

Another AI issue is that they look to have very precise onboard radar or are given precise real time tracking by those on the ground. I've had a number of situations where I bomb and airfield, head back to base, all of my wingmen are shot down, and then when I am 5 or so miles from the airfield, all of the enemy planes converge on me as if nothing else mattered (I have sent Track files for those).  

 

This for example is just awful.  Clearly all these enemy AI have been passed an "attack" MCU with no other bounds to limit them - they will follow you across the map until they run out of ammo or fuel or are shot down.  As an alternative, you could set them to "attack area" over the target zone they should cover, or "cover" ground units at the airfield, or just use a timer and drive them to RTB after a period of time - you could even link that timer to a proximity detection so they won't give up if they are still close to the enemy (say within 1-2km).  There are tons of ways to skin this cat so that they will attack you, but not perma-chase you like a Terminator.

[Knarley-Bob]

Another thing is the type of steel used. Mild steel, and AR (Abrasion Resistant) are two different critters.

[LeLv30_Redwing-]

Headshot=Me 410 tail gunner. The most ridiculous and un-realistic feature in this game.