I applogise I could have sworn the guide was there on realistic. Ignore everything I said in the thread. Been playing the game for 15 months and can't even tell if a floating crosshair in front of me I deserve booming and zooming with a 163 or tailgunning by an IL!

The FM for BOP is dumbed down from IL1946 and integrated to the graphics engine developed by Gaigin. All I can tell you is that the default in IL1946 is 500m but the player can of course alter that. It doessn't really matter that the convergence isn't stated since .303 machine guns have exactly the same damage ability as cannons at whatever range you fire them in BOP, in reality .303 Machine guns were pretty useless at anything over 250ft away. Just practice and get a feel for what works best, as I said in an ealier post, game lag (even slight levels) will mean you will have to adjust your deflection angle!

that doesn't mean your not crazy popey.;)

well, it might depend on which view you use. i generally use virtual cockpit and there is a round pipper in real. played today and payed attention to it. now in other views there may not be one.

do u mean the vector indicator ?that is the key to getting quicker killis,if you are having to use rudder to keep the bore sight where you think the shot is- you will wobble
if you can get the vector sight settled where you think the deflection is and then line up bore sight and fire,you will get cleaner kills

Not sure I understand you. Is that the thing that shows you your true heading so you can gauge your angle of attack? I don't really use that while dogfighting. Its usefull when flying very slowly or at high altitude. The only times I use that indicator in combat is in head to head attacks, I like to use a lot of rudder so my plane is crabing along so I can shoot at the plane and at the same time see that i'm not flying straight into it. I don't believe it can help you get more or easier kills though.

yes thats the one pope

Use the Training area in Realistic mode so that you can see distances. The Mustang and Spit I would say have convergences set around 750 ft or around 250m. The convergence on the Thunderbolt seems a bit farther out. 500 meters sounds a bit far (~1500 ft).

You can tag an opponent at greater distances to kill maneuvering and close to around the convergence point to finish him off.

Wing mounted guns at high deflection provide a somewhat tricky spread because of the convergence pattern. However the planes with fuselage mounted guns are typically slow firing cannon or just one or two mg's. You can't spray and pray.

The bf 109 G-6 has wing mounted cannons and fuselage mounted cannon/MG's which makes it very potent as being a bit of a mix. The LA-5 is easiest to fly to full potential (can't stall it on full sensitivity at full throttle - just yank and bank) and has cowl mounted twin 20 mm cannon.

The American 50 cal ballistics are great in terms of straight lines without arcing down. The Russian cannons will arc down quickly in a deflection scenario.

All these variables make the game interesting and fun.

i dont know what its called but for the k14 it was called a pipper. in virtual cockpit (Xbox in all 3 modes) you have basically an artificial horizon guage....2 vertical lines set in + or - degrees connected with a horizonal at "0" or level flight. this guage remains consistent in relation to the ground. in the middle of it is a large circle with a dot in it...which shows AoA and straight ahead direction. then there is a smaller floating circle...pipper which looks like it compensates for pos or neg Gs. the B!t<# is they are hard to see against the clouds or sky so i really cant tell if the pipper is off or by how much. it would be better if you could set the contrast on that...but anyways. thats what i am talking about. i dont remember seeing a pipper on the gunsite in the regular cockpit mode.

Yes its a velocity vector symbol. It tells you the path the plane is flying in. A gun pipper looks simarlar but is different, it uses a targeting computer to predict the path of the bullets. They usually move around the HUD pretty much together, but if your angle of attack goes up your Vector symbol drops so you can see your real degree of climb/decent but the gun pipper would stay around the middle or even move up the HUD if you were decending.

I don't think radar gun pippers existed in WWII. I belive the F86 Sabre was the one of the first to have one.