In various video clips I've seen the armourers making up the belts for the fighters, basically it's a couple of blokes sitting at a desk with a machine, they have a hopper of links and a chute they feed the bullets into. They pull the leaver and the round is added to the belt.

Now what woiuld be interesting would be knowing what the procedure was for varying the make up of the belts. Was it just a matter of getting someone with sufficient rank to go down and ask them to put together a belt with a certain sequence? Or did it require a request to the Air Ministry or some other board like that?

How much freedom did they have at squadron level with things like belting configurations and convergences? As proffessional pilots did they sit around over cocktails discussing thier belting and having a go the next day?

I assume if they had supply issues of any particular round they'd have to use an alternative sequence, who was responsible and what was the procedure for choosing it?

In the British loadout sections we have a range of unusual rounds like the MKI and MKVI ball ammo. These rounds run about 500fps slower than most of the other rounds on the list. Would you really want to have these rounds in a belt with the H/V rounds? They'ld have completely different ballistics and would throw your convergense right out the window.

Cheers!

At a guess, I'd say the armaments officer told the C/O what was available in the stores, and they agreed a mix which best matched the experiences of the Squadron at that time.

Then when a new delivery arrived, they'd have another meeting. If they had time that is, although it's doubtful they'd discuss it over cocktails. 'No shop talk in the Mess, Old Boy!'. ;)

No doubt there were some Air Ministry guidelines (there usually were, for better or worse) given the research done by Sorley and his successors, but as with 'Fighting Area Attacks', the Squadrons would soon develop their own approach.

But of course I'm guessing. Nothing 'full real sim' about that. Or is there? :)

No matter how it will turn out for sever choice Im VERY pleased to see ATAG is against it and will do full real the historic way, where you can make your belt at the type of sorties you are going to fly. They did that in real life, depending if they are going to attack a convoy or you simple fly a cap protecting your area. Thanks for that ATAG. Alway a great server to fly on.

I think its a bit sad to see how sombody will try to limmit people to fly diffrent cind of sorties and make it more arcade. But the sad part is, they are using the arguments like its more historical and realistic. Its certainly not the case. They changes ammo belts depending of there mission. And so should you.

@Skoshi Tiger: You are right

They did discuss thier belting and make there crew put in the ammo belt for the next sortie.


~S~

Still think that your not looking at this the right way no one said that a single load out would be enforced, whose to say that the server limits you to one historical loadout i.e. you could have a few historical loadouts from which to choose from and therefore choose the historical one for the type of mission you are planning on going on!!

I believe that the rounds, which were limited then, should be limited on a "full real" server also.

That would be, afaik, the "Hartkern" (Tungsten) and the "Beobachtungsgeschoss" on the german side and the "DeWilde" on the british side.

All other rounds were more or less unlimited available, afaik.

So except for the limited ammo everything should be free chooseable, imo.

Thanks mate!

But I must point out that the opinions I express on this forum are my own, and not necessarily the opinions of ATAG as a group, or any of it's other members!

Cheers!

Not to be offensive, but I think im looking at it the right way. But thats subjective, of course :D
Do this mean, that evrey server have to research in correct historical loadout at all type of sorties /aircraft / time(year) to please some few? Sorry I dont see it happen the right way. I think we will se severs come to some standard ammo belt for dogfight, accuse the server owner to favor one side or some ammo are mission / should not been there. Basig it will never be historical nor realistic that way. We just ask for more troble and accuseing. Do we realy need more of this?

Cut the next demant be that players have correct callnames / correct historical skinns and then force the swastika on? Sorry I did not ment this for serious - I just could not resist. Sorry sorry sorry......... Will newer ever happen again ... promise ;)

Basig is. I simply can not follow the habbit to controll all, which does not even exist in reality. They had options and therefore in my opinion, it should be left as it is.

~S~

Rgr that Dutch.

One can only hope they have the same view of the subject. But now we will see. I hope Dev know best and keep continue their development. Perhaps it will be released several functions in the cockpit, such as arm gun correctly use of Magnito and so on in CEM settings.

~S~

The big thing I see with this is the question "what is historical?" - something that cannot really be answered with any degree of certainty for either side in question.
Sure some documents and "first hand" reports do float around for people to read and interpret however there is no set "belts were made like THIS XYZ" etc.

The main thing is the issue of supply: The beltings were not factory made with set patterns, they were made at individual unit level by the staffel and Gruppe armourers for the luftwaffe and at the squadron and airfield level by the RAF armourers. Even now ammo belts are normally put together at unit level: hell I had to arse about belting up row after row of 5.56 for the minimi with a mix of ball and tracer with no "you must do it this way" guidance given.

With regards to the way belts were made up during the war; my interpretation through seeing the few clips available and reading wartime diaries is that the belts were indeed put together by armourers sitting around a table with the belting machines and boxes of ammo by type, (tracer/ball/etc.) and they had a rough guidline of how to mix them up with specific beltings made up when the pilots knew in advance their mission type, I also believe that the crew chief for each aircraft liased with the armourers for the belts whenever pilots requested certain types of ammo if possible and supplies were readily available - as such having the loadout system as it stands at present without the restrictions proposed does have a certain standing if being historically correct.

Obviously if supplies are low or there are no "type XYZ" available then that is something that could be factored in - but with this where do you stop? of sorry, you can't fly your aircraft today as the last time you flew on this server you crash landed and your aicraft still ahs two days to go before it is repaired? or even stopping people using custom convergence distance?

Now, as for my oppinion in game, I personally do not like seeing E4's taking whole belts of minengeschoss since I doubt that was a widely used belting option or the Brits having full beltings of DeWilde ammo - although in reality belts like that were probably used at some point either by request/ lack of other ammo type or any other wartime reason. - It's not as if we have access to wide reams of day to day beltings or a fully detailed supply chain for each type of ammo - we can barely piece together full information on aircraft supply or even camo scheme regulations (for the Luftwaffe as the RAF ones were a little more standardised) let alone something as small as ammunition types and availability.

I have to agree with Red and Dutch on this one, pushing for something on the basis of "realism" when it doesn't have enough supporting evidence isn't the right path on this one and will likely serve to only further alienate people and provide more fuel for red/blue bias whiners.
V

concur.