BF109's and Stukas too hard to shoot down? Anyone else finding this?

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by ReconNZ

Yeah good call re the convergence, unfortunately the bug whereby u cant set up your guns in the QMB is frustrating.

The tails of planes are largely empty right? So that many rounds into the tail, surely some of them would go on to harm the pilot? And where are the fuel tanks? Have yet to see a plane explode.

I've seen .303 rounds shoot through tree trunks, add in armour piercing rounds and surely a pilot would be harmed by that many rounds going into the back of his plane?

Plus when we take rounds from bombers, it only takes a couple before our planes are smoking or we are wounded, doesnt seem to be the same for AI planes..

The tails of planes are indeed largely empty, but the first thing your bullets meet is the armor plate protecting the pilot's back.
As for explosions, it's possible but harder and probably more realistic to achieve than it was in IL2. It seems that having fuel is enough to cause a fire but not an explosion, for the plane to explode we actually need to have vaporized fuel.

I have seen two Heinkels explode in the same sortie and i was flying a tracerless Spitfire with its less than ideal concentration of guns (the Hurricanes are usually more accurate to shoot with), in another one a Blenheim exploded as i was shooting it with the 110's machine guns and no cannons at all (i was out of cannon ammo and my gunner was reloading it).

The trick is to fire at the wings in concentrated short bursts and try to start a fuel leak. First burst starts the leak, you let it develop for a couple of seconds and then you fire a second burst that can possibly ignite the fuel vapors.

[JG53Harti]

No problem to down a 109 or Stuka.

[Breakfastmachine]

How are people changing their convergence? I can't seem to change mine and it's the only thing keeping me from playing the game.


Yeah it's the saving that's the problem. Spend 10 minutes setting it up - can't select my loadout. I want to play so bad, but the default convergence frustrates the hell out of me.
VVVVV

[BadAim]

Under Options/plane/loadout. It's a little buggy but the convergence seems to work OK. You have to set the convergence for each gun individually, and you can also set the belting for each gun, but saving the belting is buggy and sometimes you get nothing for your 5-10 minutes work.

That said, if you do it right it makes a huge difference I set up my spitfire with 4 guns AP and 4 guns DeWilde (yellow tracers every 4th rd on only 2 guns and 50 red tracers at the end of the belt on 2 guns). The outboard guns are set to 250 yds, next in at 225, and the four inboard at 200, giving a nice pattern right from 250yds to point blank. With this loadout I've taken down 2 He 111's and left a third limping home on one engine looking like a leaky block of Swiss cheese. I've shot the whole load at one plane and gotten nothing for it, so like I sad before, shit happens. (This setup comes right from my squadmate Jediteo, I'm sure knowing him he came up with this setup using a complex algorithm that only he and Einstein would understand)