F4u-4 and F8F

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by IceFire

That's interesting... most people consider them to be chronically underpowered. Why would you think that?

Perhaps it's related to gunnery accuracy, but many times I've been shot down (PK or engine fire) flying against planes equipped with single 0.30/5.62 mm flexible gun positions. Sometimes I've been stupid and have been making almost dead astern attacks without manuevering, but a few times I've gotten zapped while doing things properly and making head-on or high-side high deflection shots.

Also, it seems like light caliber guns are a bit too effective at getting control surface critical hits.

Of course, on the other hand, flying planes like the Ki-43 or Hurricane Mk I is a challenge due to their light armament. But, that's sort of realistic since it reflects a conscious armament decision by the planes' builders which didn't work out so well in reality.

Originally Posted by IceFire

The reason for the feeling of them being underpowered is due to the lack of a really complex damage modeling system so weapons that do a lot of structural damage are getting most of the benefit and other weapons that do internal systems damage are not getting as much of an effect.

Hmm. I thought that each bullet is modeled as an "arrow" which penetrates through the plane model, like in "arcade mode". If it intersects with a vital system, there's a chance for a "critical hit." If it hits armor, it gets slowed or blocked. That's about as realistic as you can get without modeling things like explosive shell/bullet bursts, bullet fragmentation, or deflection/ricochet effects.

Originally Posted by IceFire

Example... radiator cooling systems are not fully modeled so you can shoot a 109 in the radiator with little real effect.

Isn't this a problem with individual planes (especially the older ones) rather than a systemic problem? Since I haven't looked at the DM for the various planes I don't know.

The problem with the Japanese guns is twofold:

Originally Posted by IceFire

1) Lack of sources of detailed information on weapons and correct belting

Strange. You'd think that the US military would have collected this sort of information. They did pretty extensive testing of just about every weapon they captured.

Originally Posted by IceFire

2) The in-game guns use close approximations of whatever the Japanese were using and often use the German equivalent.

Strange, since it's at least possible to get ballistic data for Japanese weapons.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Perhaps it's related to gunnery accuracy, but many times I've been shot down (PK or engine fire) flying against planes equipped with single 0.30/5.62 mm flexible gun positions. Sometimes I've been stupid and have been making almost dead astern attacks without manuevering, but a few times I've gotten zapped while doing things properly and making head-on or high-side high deflection shots.

Also, it seems like light caliber guns are a bit too effective at getting control surface critical hits.

Of course, on the other hand, flying planes like the Ki-43 or Hurricane Mk I is a challenge due to their light armament. But, that's sort of realistic since it reflects a conscious armament decision by the planes' builders which didn't work out so well in reality.



Hmm. I thought that each bullet is modeled as an "arrow" which penetrates through the plane model, like in "arcade mode". If it intersects with a vital system, there's a chance for a "critical hit." If it hits armor, it gets slowed or blocked. That's about as realistic as you can get without modeling things like explosive shell/bullet bursts, bullet fragmentation, or deflection/ricochet effects.



Isn't this a problem with individual planes (especially the older ones) rather than a systemic problem? Since I haven't looked at the DM for the various planes I don't know.

The problem with the Japanese guns is twofold:



Strange. You'd think that the US military would have collected this sort of information. They did pretty extensive testing of just about every weapon they captured.



Strange, since it's at least possible to get ballistic data for Japanese weapons.

So you're probably talking more about turret gunners which used to badly suffer from and still have some slight issues with being oddly accurate. These days TD has made them much less accurate to the point where its much more realistic... they still make the odd shot that you can either count as lucky or impossible. But this is a different story than normal gunnery as the bullet is hitting some of the vulnerable sections of the plane... the engine, the cockpit, etc. The heavy machine guns in particularly would be devastating and control damage is just the sort of thing that you might expect from bomber firing at you as you hover near their six.

I use the 109 as an example but yes this problem is pervasive with all planes. Some systems are modelled. Others are simply not. Every single bullet fired is calculated and tracked and when they hit an aircraft it is possible for them to hit a subsystem... absolutely. The DM system for IL-2 was, in its day, very good. The problem is that some systems don't exist in the model... the radiator systems for example. So even when you put a .50cal through that sub section you aren't doing all that much damage as there's nothing to hit.

The machine guns do structural damage too but not like the explosive rounds on the cannons. So IL-2's damage model is largely biased towards heavy cannons in my experience... this is something I'd consider general knowledge amongst the veterans in particular. It has gotten better... if you only started playing 2-3 years ago then you haven't seen what we used to have to deal with

If the US did collect information on Japanese weaponry its not easily recovered. I haven't been able to find it on any web resources anyways. The best I've found is a site with some of the individual shell details but not enough to reconstruct the guns accurately.