Damage models on aircraft do not apper to be accurate...

[III./SG77S_Falke]

Hello...

 

I just saw a documentary on the realities of fighters in combat during WWII.  Historically, it was very difficult to shoot down an opponent's aircraft.

 

However, I have noticed, especially when I am flying 190s, that a single shot from behind has often taken me out of action.  This simply doesn't make sense as the average number of bullets fired at an aircraft before making a single was between 170 and 200 projectiles.

 

And yet, I often find that just  handful of shots takes my aircraft out.  This appears to have become worse as the updates have come in, in the past year.

 

Now, I am no dog-fighter.  I'll be the first to admit that.  However, when I am flying a Stuka,a 110, or a 410 (my usual aircraft), it takes a bit more to take me down.

 

The later aircraft of the Luftwaffe were increasingly armored as the war wore on, making it even more difficult to shoot down an enemy aircraft.

 

Am I missing something here or do we have a lot of excellent marksmen flying Allied fighters???

[BlitzPig_EL]

You have to remember that it is almost impossible to obtain historical outcomes in a sim.  Why?  Because you are up against pilots with 20+ years of experience, whereas in the real thing  most pilots only had around 5 years, at most. Also if you are flying for the Axis powers in late war scenarios, realistically many times you should be just looking out the window of your barracks at a row of airplanes that have no fuel in them and if you did manage to get off the ground, you would be facing overwhelming numbers of Allied aircraft that have all the fuel, spare parts, and qualified maintenance personnel needed for them.

 

Things may change some in the new sim which will have a much more granular damage model, but that may work against you as well, as there will be more things to break on your aircraft that could spell your demise.

Edited September 6 by BlitzPig_EL

[BraveSirRobin]

3 hours ago, III./SG77S_Falke said:

 

Am I missing something here or do we have a lot of excellent marksmen flying Allied fighters???

There are plenty of excellent marksmen on both sides.  Almost always with 100x the combat hours of real WW2 aces.  

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

Trying to obtain historical outcomes is like all the time travel stories where someone goes back in time and every little change they make in the past echoes changes in the future (present). Doing something as small as killing John instead of Steve would already create an alternate history where Steve lived instead of John, or failing to stop a tank advance that was stopped historically would also create an alternate history, and countless of these changes are happening every sortie.

[Panzerlang]

6 hours ago, III./SG77S_Falke said:

Hello...

 

I just saw a documentary on the realities of fighters in combat during WWII.  Historically, it was very difficult to shoot down an opponent's aircraft.

 

However, I have noticed, especially when I am flying 190s, that a single shot from behind has often taken me out of action.  This simply doesn't make sense as the average number of bullets fired at an aircraft before making a single was between 170 and 200 projectiles.

 

And yet, I often find that just  handful of shots takes my aircraft out.  This appears to have become worse as the updates have come in, in the past year.

 

Now, I am no dog-fighter.  I'll be the first to admit that.  However, when I am flying a Stuka,a 110, or a 410 (my usual aircraft), it takes a bit more to take me down.

 

The later aircraft of the Luftwaffe were increasingly armored as the war wore on, making it even more difficult to shoot down an enemy aircraft.

 

Am I missing something here or do we have a lot of excellent marksmen flying Allied fighters???

Weird, my experience (in SP) seems to be quite the opposite. My plane (109 or 190) seems to be able to take quite a beating before I have to bail or belly and I can't recall the last time I was killed in the cockpit.

[MDzmitry]

First, the point regarding experience and marksmanship has already been covered.

Second, in a simulator there's no G force affecting the pilot (the real one), which makes shooting in a turn or at a high deflection easier.

Third, as a primarily SP pilot myself, both sides' aircraft can be quite sturdy if you don't aim specifically for crucial components like engines, cockpit or tail controls. 

 

I'd personally love to see a change to fuel tanks to make them less "tanky" before bursting into flames, but that's one of the few real nitpicks I have in regards to the damage modeling.

[Kubert]

I would say it is programmed well. It varies based on aircraft flown, target hit and luck.

 

Few examples:

 

Spoiler

Three LaGGs in sight, easy target...isn't it?

 

Well, no. I did hit two of them, with more then one cannon hit each, and both flown away.

 

Spoiler

This Yak-1 got hit by plenty of cannon rounds and managed to run away. He must have been still in the air when I finished the mission, because I didn't get a credit for him.

 

 

Spoiler

On the other side...this Cobra got just one lucky hit and exploded immediately.

 

 

But another Cobra, few missions later, survived a lot more and crash landed on the way home.

 

In my opinion it is fine as it is.

Edited September 7 by Kubert

[MDzmitry]

@Kubert Your examples remind me of the LW gun camera footage where fighters like the La-5 or Hurricane soak up entire bursts of 20mm rounds

Sure, we cannot evaluate the specific damage they suffer, but the overall feel of it is pretty similar to what I've personally seen in Il-2 GB.

 

(It still pains me to see 109s brush off whole bursts of 20mm from straight six with nothing but a leak, though. But that's just a personal gripe of mine since the fuel tank in this scenario takes on the majority of possible damage.)

Edited September 7 by MDzmitry

[III./SG77S_Falke]

Thank you all for replying.

 

I am a ground-attack pilot, and no matter the year of the war, I am still partial to the Stuka.  I find it is far more durable than an Me110 E2, which to me appears to be made out of paper-mache.  I like the Me110 G2 however, and find it has better maneuverability than the E2.  After the Stuka, my go-to attacker is the Me410.  Like the Stuka, it is built like a tank.

 

I can agree with most everyone's points here except one.  As a software engineer myself and given the incredible capabilities of the IL2 Development Team, I see no reason why they cannot simulate better accuracy in gunfire in terms of the amount of actual shots it takes to shoot down an opponent.

 

As I had mentioned initially, based on the documentary (which has been corroborated by other documentaries I have seen), the average number of shots it took to land even a single bullet on an enemy aircraft was between 170 and 200 shots.  And dependent on the aircraft, many survived with as many as 150 to 200 hits on both sides of the conflict.

 

This means then that such historical averages are not being taken into account allowing many pilots to destroy their opponents with far less strikes on their opponent.  Since this is basically an implementation of averages, I see no reason that shooting accuracy not be made more random and less accurate.

 

Sim or not (and I agree with the observation regarding the ability of pilots in a sim to do things that normally cannot be done in real-life) the ability to shoot down an aircraft with a single burst is simply not accurate for most pilots, no matter their abilities.

 

The great aces of the war rarely fought excellent pilots. In fact, Eric Hartmann (Super Ace with 325 kills) stated that he never went head-to-head with an experienced pilot as the outcome of doing so was too unpredictable.  He would simply look for the least experienced pilot in any formation and attack him and then get the hell out of Dodge.

 

The same was true for the greatest, recognized ace of WWI, Baron Manfred von Richtofen, who like Hartmann, would fly above his squadron and somewhat behind to see who was in any enemy formation.  When he found the weak-link, he pounced.

 

His death, which was attributed to Roy Brown, but was actually the result of a sergeant in the trenches below, was a result of the Red Baron ignoring his standard protocols and attempting to take on Roy Brown, who was actually a superior fighter pilot, gave altitude to engage him.  Richtofen also admitted that he didn't see himself as a top fighter pilot, but instead as a "hunter".

 

I agree there is a lot in a flight simulation that cannot be easily implemented to render complete historical accuracy.  However, the algorithms that are applied to shooting accuracy, I am fairly sure, are a mix of Calculus and Physics.  Randomness, for example, can be more easily implemented just by using actual averages.  In this case, if I line up  shot on an enemy aircraft, which is perfectly sited, then each such shot simply goes through an analysis of whether that shot would hit the target or not.  If the historical average shows that a perfectly sited shot had only a 20% chance of hitting the opponent's aircraft due to weather, winds, and\or opponent maneuvers, then 80% of the time the shot would fail to hit the enemy opponent, at least where initially sited for.

 

In my view, this issue I have brought up is then one of averages and not having much to do with skill, though skill would provide definitive offset to a highly capable sim-pilot.

Edited September 7 by III./SG77S_Falke

[DD_Arthur]

 

 

[Panzerlang]

Comparing with real gun-cam footage, it seems IL2 has nailed it.
 

 

[MDzmitry]

@III./SG77S_Falke I've only heard claims of hundreds of hits about the rifle-caliber machine guns, primarily from the time of Battle of Britain. When it comes to cannons or even high caliber mgs, with precision shooting even a couple of hits were enough to cause a fire or a serious enough damage to inner components.

 

There's a Soviet trial which showed that just 1-2 20mm hits were enough to severely hinder a single-engined aircraft with average armour protection. Meanwhile the Americans evaluated the incendiary effect of the .50cal API rounds to be around 2 hits to cause a fuel tank fire from the distance of 150-200 yards. 

 

So yeah, in this purely theoretical aspect Il-2's DM is quite forgiving, as it tries to compensate for lots of unpredictable variables including much better personal skill and aim of the attacker.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Ah... API, if only we had it.

[SCG_motoadve]

18 hours ago, III./SG77S_Falke said:

Sim or not (and I agree with the observation regarding the ability of pilots in a sim to do things that normally cannot be done in real-life) the ability to shoot down an aircraft with a single burst is simply not accurate for most pilots, no matter their abilities.

+1000

[[CPT]Crunch]

The ability to fly upsidedown under bridges and through hangers isn't exactly realistic either, but I'm somehow OK with it.

[R33GZ]

On 9/8/2025 at 11:27 AM, III./SG77S_Falke said:

based on the documentary (which has been corroborated by other documentaries I have seen), the average number of shots it took to land even a single bullet on an enemy aircraft was between 170 and 200 shots.

Something seems a bit off with that statement. By that logic a 109 E4 with 60 rounds of 20mm per gun is statisically unlikely to land a single hit from a full wing mounted ammunition load.

 

Also, how did the documentary creators prove this? They would have needed evidence of total rounds expended from the chase plane and then cross checked that to bullet holes on the target plane. That would have been impossible at the time and even more difficult decades later wouldn't it?

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

We are not average, most of us are like  Marseille or better in game world.

On 9/8/2025 at 1:27 AM, III./SG77S_Falke said:

I see no reason that shooting accuracy not be made more random and less accurate.

That mistake was made in ROF. They will not make it happen again.

Edited September 9 by 1PL-Husar-1Esk

[III./SG77S_Falke]

Thank you very much for your additional replies.

 

To the poster who commented on the accuracy of the documentary, I would tend to agree with your analysis.  However, the documentary did go into pilot records and damge reports.

 

Nonetheless, in terms of cannon-fire, those shells are fairly dangerous.  That being said, I can understand against a 190.  However, a 410 is like a flying-tank, so I believe it would take a few more shells than the very few I have been hit with and have taken me down, to do the damage that was inflicted.

 

Anyway, it is just a flight-sim, so I will just have to accept my fate as a ground-attack pilot...