I'm only going on experiance from years and years of IL2 and being part of that community but it would make allot of sense to do something similar for BOP.

Yes, that would make sense, but you said visual damage was not related to physical damage...so if someone blew a hole (physically) in your right wing tip, would it show up in the same spot on the wing every time? The middle of the wing or something?

I get the feeling that the damage in this will not truly represent where you put the rounds but will show damage as close to that designated area with a predetermined damage effect.
The only flight sim i ever played where the damage was true what you actually inflicted upon it, was B-17: Mighty Eighth. you could shot other b-17s in formation and watch the holes appear and see the sky through the other side. or shoot huge gaping chunks from the tail and see the other bombers through the airframe. That was about 8 years ago and the game was very ahead of its time much like il2, and sadly i have not seen damage like that since. hopefully i am wrong and BoP will take it to the next level.

True that, I remember how amazed I was by that game :)

Its not related in the sense that if a 30mm shell hits a wing, there is no associated calculation that says the aluminium must behave a certain way and show this visibly. In IL2 if you get hit in the wing with a 30mm shell the visual damage will show a hole in the wing but it will be a model asset rather than a dynamic damage model.

That said, some aircraft in IL2 have very large variations in the possible damage you can inflict, especially the aircraft done in the last few years or those reworked, its not dynamic but its as good as. Look at it this way, most of the time your not looking at damage when looking at another plane, your looking through your gun sight or looking at it in your mirror trying to be evasive. Generally you only pick up on things like control surfaces shot off or dewinged or burning aircraft, you own damage is often more apparent due to lack of control surface, the need to trim the damage out or gauges showing something isn't right. Duel tank damage is dynamic however as all you have to do is show the fire effect.

In IL2 you get different levels of damage which are preset in the visual damage model (you can find images of these on the official ubi forums by searching). These are also there because of the LOD model has to represent these as you the view out.

I really suggest you all go and buy IL2 1946, play locked cockpit and you'll see for youselves.

thanks a lot Mondo! I guess some of us know half of what we're saying...;)