I fly at lot of Quick Combat bomber intercept missions. One single-engined fighter vs. big formations of massed bombers.
That means I inevitably take hits to the front of the plane, usually clustered around the engine and cockpit, even when I use proper tactics.
To see the effects of my gunnery I usually fly in arcade mode. That means I see exactly where the bullets hit - both mine and theirs.
While I've complained about specific fighters being quite vulnerable to attacks from dead ahead before, I now think that it's a generic problem, from Bf-109 to Yak.
1) Frontal armor doesn't seem to be modeled at all for single-engined fighters. That is, armored propeller mounts, armor in front of oil or fuel tanks mounted ahead of the pilot in the nose, armored firewalls between the engine compartment and the pilot, and armor glass to the pilot's front don't seem to slow down bullets at all, even against rifle caliber bullets at several hundred meters of range.
Additionally, the "armoring" effects of bullet penetration through liquid aren't modeled at all.
For example, I regularly get pilot wounded results from bullets which pass through the fuel or oil tank bulkhead/armor, through the oil/fuel tank itself (about 20-30 cm of liquid for an oil tank) and then through the forward firewall armor!
While this is realistic for 20 mm or 0.50 caliber bullets, it seems impossible that a 0.30 caliber bullet could do the same.
PK results usually occur when a bullet goes directly through the armor glass. Again, realistic for a .50 caliber/12.7 mm bullet or a cannon shell, but not so much for a 7.62/.30/.303 bullet, especially at much more than 50 meters range.
2) There seem to be gaps in frontal armor. That is, all the plane models have a slight gap between where the armor plate for the forward firewall ends and the armor glass begins. Often, I get PK results from bullets which pass through the bottom of the cockpit frame between the armor plate and armor glass.
If that's realistic, congratulations to the modelers. I suspect, however, that there would not have been gaps, since engineers and mechanics would have closed them or engineered overlaps between armor plate and armor glass.
3) Engines, especially inline engines, seem to be extremely vulnerable to just about any damage. It doesn't matter what plane you fly, if it's got an inline engine, any hit from dead ahead through the prop boss will usually smoke it.
While this sort of damage is realistic for hits to oil and coolant radiators, and for hits from 0.50 caliber or larger bullets, it seems a bit unrealistic for shrapnel hits at anything other than point-blank range, and for rifle-caliber bullet hits to engines at ranges beyond about 100 meters.
First, the game doesn't appear to model all the parts between the propeller spinner and the engine block (perhaps another 25-50 mm of mixed aluminum, mild steel and tool steel).
Second, it doesn't appear that the game models angle of penetration, chance that the bullet will ricochet or fragment, or the inherent toughness of the engine block itself (perhaps 25-50 mm of cast iron, with about 1/10 the penetration resistance of homogenous rolled armor plate).
Since I'm not sure that the game can model angle of armor penetration, and I know it can't model the exact thickness of each engine block, it seems more reasonable to apply some sort simple penetration reduction modifier based on "angle off" from the gun to the target, which isn't applied at 0 or 90 degrees, and is maximized at 45 degrees. Additionally, there should be some sort of randomized penetration reduction (perhaps 1-20%) for any engine hit to represent chance of fragmentation, ricochet, hits to non-vital parts and the inherent toughness of the engine block.
4) It seems far too easy to blow big pieces off of bombers. For example, my target of choice these days is the Wellington, and despite its notably strong geodesic construction, the damage modeling allows me to blow the entire nose, wing or tail off using just a few 20 mm cannon shells!
The same problem applies to other notably tough aircraft such as the Ju-88, B-29 or B-17.
While I know that parts breaking off is supposed to represent the sort of catastrophic damage that the game can't properly model, it still seems unrealistic for bomber to be torn apart by anything other than a collision with another bomber, severe fire or massive explosion. I find it unrealistic that I can blow the wings off a B-17 or a Wellington with just a few 20 cannon hits.
Would it be possible to model lethal damage to bombers without modeling breaking parts? For example, would it be possible to set the threshold at which the crew bails out of AI planes and the plane becomes unflyable short of the level at which the wings come off?
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