.303 ammunition expierence exchange

[Hellbender]

Hello everybody,
i would like to know what experiences you made with the different kinds of ammo for the British fighter planes in CoD. In which way, if you have done it, have you modified your ammo belts with which kinds of ammo.

Share you experiences about the .303 standard rounds, incendiary rounds, DeWilde HE rounds and armor piercing rounds with us .

Personally, I´m trying out the DeWilde at the moment and I kinda find it not very useful. Can´t really ignite the german fighter planes successfully like I would use the German MGs with their phosphor rounds.

Anyone tried to fly around with mainly armor piercing against german planes and had success/less success than the standard ammo mixture?

[Tavingon]

Id love to but I can never seem to change the amunition ingame before a battle!

[SEE]

George Beurling, in his book, mentions the Loadout sequence for each belt for his Spit - Incendiary, Tracer, AP, Ball. Strangely enough, that was the loadout I use in CloD as I only bought the book recently (I only have tracer rounds in guns 1 and 8

I still cannot be sure that the loadouts for allied ac are separate rounds or sequenced. When you read the description in the loadout menu it looks like a defined sequence but the one that matches George Beurlings description looks like it has a white tracer but doesn't when you load that into a gun.

I have tried various loadouts but stuck with the above. Irrespective of loadout, what I find most critical is correct convergence and hitting the correct part of the target, i.e. Ju88b - Starboard Engine and wing section just to the side of it as the BoB pilots always went for.

BTW, someone posted a script that is very usful for assessing weapons loadouts - it displays the damage you are inflicting as your rounds hit.

[Gerbil Maximus]

The .303's are under powered. You can read many accounts from pilots that state giving german aircraft in the battle a 2-3 second burst and watching the aircraft disintegrate before their eyes. For larger aircraft of course more power was needed hence the introduction of the 20mm.
But everyone presumes that because the round is a .303 it wont do much damage, a single .303 wont do much thats true but were are talking huge volumes of rounds.
Lets do the maths }
8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

A 3 second burst into an enemy aircraft unleashes 1,440 rounds into it.
The hurricane and spitfire both had around 16 seconds worth of fire.
Logically it speaks for itself.
Maybe the aircraft might not suffer structual failure (like a spit or hurricane would) but the vital parts would most likely be hit and pilot killed/wounded.

[TomcatViP]

Originally Posted by Gerbil Maximus

The .303's are under powered. You can read many accounts from pilots that state giving german aircraft in the battle a 2-3 second burst and watching the aircraft disintegrate before their eyes. For larger aircraft of course more power was needed hence the introduction of the 20mm.
But everyone presumes that because the round is a .303 it wont do much damage, a single .303 wont do much thats true but were are talking huge volumes of rounds.
Lets do the maths }
8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

A 3 second burst into an enemy aircraft unleashes 1,440 rounds into it.
The hurricane and spitfire both had around 16 seconds worth of fire.
Logically it speaks for itself.
Maybe the aircraft might not suffer structual failure (like a spit or hurricane would) but the vital parts would most likely be hit and pilot killed/wounded.

HALT!!!!

not all the rounds scored a hit. Actually the proportion is more ard 10% from dead six.

You have to think that you are dealing with munitions that does not have a straight path, are fired from a flexible wing out of a vibrating barrel from a 100m distance.

That's all abt nose mounted armament, high RoF, low offset time and huge kinetic/Explosive power.

Obviously for all of us it shld remain difficult to score a kill with less than 2sec or 3 sec well aimed burst. (ideally without modded guns )

[Geronimo989]

Is there any point in using ball ammo? I take it that it is just a regular bullet? Wouldnt it be better if it was armor piercing or incendiary?

[Gerbil Maximus]

Originally Posted by TomcatViP

HALT!!!!

not all the rounds scored a hit. Actually the proportion is more ard 10% from dead six.

You have to think that you are dealing with munitions that does not have a straight path, are fired from a flexible wing out of a vibrating barrel from a 100m distance.

That's all abt nose mounted armament, high RoF, low offset time and huge kinetic/Explosive power.

Obviously for all of us it shld remain difficult to score a kill with less than 2sec or 3 sec well aimed burst. (ideally without modded guns )

Correct all rounds fired would not hit but..
Thats why the guns are harmonized and a gunsight was fitted that could be adjusted so the rounds crossed at the required point.
As for the munitions not having a straight path, you are sort of right.
The correct expression would be ballistic drop which can be accounted for when firing when pilots set their sights at 200 to 250 yds yealding less time to drop before the rounds struck.
Machine guns the same as all weapons of this era they have rifled barrels making the bullet spin and travel straighter and not tumble.
As for the vibrations and flexible wing, have you ever fired a machine gun? Firing when prone is considered stable enough to easily put 80% of the rounds on target at about 300yds, I can then presume using my experience of weaponry that having 8 would cause a large degree of shake within the aircraft but I'm certain the aircrafts build would have been designed to compensate for that shake and for sure the mg mounts within the wing had dampening to reduce this redundancy.

Originally Posted by Gerbil Maximus

The .303's are under powered. You can read many accounts from pilots that state giving german aircraft in the battle a 2-3 second burst and watching the aircraft disintegrate before their eyes. For larger aircraft of course more power was needed hence the introduction of the 20mm.
But everyone presumes that because the round is a .303 it wont do much damage, a single .303 wont do much thats true but were are talking huge volumes of rounds.
Lets do the maths }
8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

A 3 second burst into an enemy aircraft unleashes 1,440 rounds into it.
The hurricane and spitfire both had around 16 seconds worth of fire.
Logically it speaks for itself.
Maybe the aircraft might not suffer structual failure (like a spit or hurricane would) but the vital parts would most likely be hit and pilot killed/wounded.

I have the same issue with the M-geschoss. Or the canon ammo in the E3 /E4. Does not seem very powerfull.

[tools4fools]

8 guns
Each gun can fire 1,200 rpm (lightened breaches etc for aircraft use)
So thats 9,600rounds in 1 minute.
So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.
20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.
480x3=1440

Moment.
9600 rpm divided by 60 sec is 160.
Times 3 gives 480 rounds for a 3 sec burst from all 8 guns.

So if we divide 1,200 by 60 that gives us 20 rounds from 1 gun every second.

Correct.

20x8=480 rounds from all guns in a 1 second period.

Not correct.

20 rounds x 8 guns = 160 rounds per second - not 480
(160 x 3 we get back to the 480 bullets per 3 second burst, not 1440)

As said only few of those will actually hit.

Haven't tried CoD yet but managed to shoot down twin engines easily with my poor Hayabusa in IL-2.
But I never shoot at 200-300m - I open fire earliest when at about 120-150m, down to 50m or so. One short burst will smoke an engine. If aimed accurately that is.

So out to those who play CoD: how do those 0.303 perform in CoD when you get close in, aim at and hit porperly an engine?

[Hellbender]

From close range, in order to inflict serious damage, one has to fire from 6 o´clock high or low and hit fro mthere the engine area. Straight from the 6 of the twin engien bomber, you only do little damage. When the bullets penetrate the wings and enter the engien area they do little damage, except the armor piercing rounds, which do a little more damage in that way.