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Originally Posted by IceFire
I know what you mean with this but I think this would be useful in cases where the gun has actually jammed (perhaps due to overheating or reliability issues) which isn't in IL-2 1946 right now. The guns jammed is really because the gun mechanism or the barrel was "destroyed".
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I agree that there's really no good way to realistically model gun damage in IL2, largely because it would have to dynamically track ammo in ammo trays. Given the work that would entail, it would be effort better spent to model fuel transfer and dynamic CoG.
The second issue I mentioned is a bit more doable, since occasionally you'll get a gun jam result without damage, especially if you shoot in a high G turn. To my mind, that indicates a simple stoppage which could potentially be cleared.
IL2 doesn't model gun stoppage due to gun overheat. You can hold down the trigger all day (at least with unlimited ammo) and the guns will keep shooting.
What IL2 could possibly do, although it would require lots of DM work, is distinguish between the gun and feed mechanisms and the ammo supply. Once you've got that modeled, you can then have three types of gun hits: "Gun destroyed," "delayed gun destroyed" or "jam."
Gun destroyed represents an unfixable hit to the gun or ammo feed mechanisms which instantly renders the weapon unusable.
Delayed gun destroyed represents damage to ammunition or ammo feed mechanisms which will make the gun stop working at some point in the future. Basically, you lose some percentage of your remaining ammo, or the gun stops working after x more seconds of shooting. There might be a small chance that you could unjam such a problem.
Jam represents a simple stoppage, or a damaged bullet which can be fixed by recharging the guns.
While it might not be best practice, the quick(ish) and dirty method of getting more accuracy in gun hits would be to just assign percentages to each kind of hit, perhaps based on bullet type.
For example, a hit by a heavy MG bullet might have a 60% chance of a gun destroyed result, 35% chance of delayed gun destroyed, an 5% chance of stoppage, while a light MG bullet might have a 40% chance of gun destroyed, 25% chance of delayed gun destroyed and 35% chance of stoppage. No actual data for any of these things, though, I'm making up numbers here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IceFire
So what we'd need first is reliability type things (length of firing duration, heating, etc.) implemented and then another mechanism to unjam them.
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A bit of research shows that the problem of overheating is actually hugely overrated - at least for WW2 and later aircraft weapons. I know that this is contrary to popular wisdom, but bear with me.
Realistically, an airplane just doesn't carry enough ammo for the barrel to overheat to the point where it destroys the barrel. Machine gun manuals since WW2 are pretty consistent that you can shoot for up to a minute on full auto before you need to change the barrel. But, most aircraft only carry enough ammo for 5-30 seconds of full auto fire. So, in most cases, you don't have enough ammo to overheat the gun. (That said, for optimum barrel life, gunners tried to keep their bursts short - 2-3 seconds normally, 6-9 seconds maximum.)
Second, the steel used to make the barrels is designed to stay tough at up to thousands of degrees C, and there actually isn't enough energy generated by the bullets and propellants to melt the barrel. There's a huge difference between abusing the gun to the level that the barrel needs to be replaced and abusing it to the point that you blow up the gun or physically melt the barrel.
As an example: