FWs Durabillity

[Janosch]

I took tail gunner shots from an Il-2 (apparently 12,7 mm bullets) on my Fw-190 A6 wing. The left wingtip/emblem area looked very, very ugly - bullet holes and large dark splotches. With such damage, fighting is pretty much out of the question, but the plane is far from unflyable, and landing requires just a bit more caution than usually, so that the plane doesn't roll left when you least expect it! My wheels touched down roughly at 45% of standard grass runway length, and the plane came to full stop at 96%, give or take a few percent. I'd say that's good enough for a damaged plane. In lab conditions, the landing distance needed is naturally shorter.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

If a plane was well-liked by its crew, they were likely to overlook its lesser faults and sing its praises.

Or maybe there were no faults at all, and they were very musical people. I haven't come across a Focke Wulf - Lied, though

[KG26_Alpha]

A typical FW190 discussion from years ago, there's been plenty of them around over the years.

Lol post#107 from this old discussion on FW190 refers to old DM discussions around that time.

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...-series-Forums

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

A typical FW190 discussion from years ago, there's been plenty of them around over the years.

Lol post#107 from this old discussion on FW190 refers to old DM discussions around that time.

http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...-series-Forums

That discussion thread actually pulls in a lot of good evidence - although much of it anecdotal - about how the FW-190 flew and took damage.

That's good for players learning how to fly the plane, and for mission builders, but not so good for developers. Anecdotes are useless there. Instead, what we need is numbers, ideally statistics, and perhaps good photographs.

The exceptions might be reports by very experienced test pilots. For example, I might take Eric Brown's or Hanna Reitsch's opinions at face value.

For pilots with less experience flying different aircraft types, what's valuable is simpler numbers about the planes they knew best. For example, if Robert Johnson said that the P-47C-10 could go X mph at 20,000' at Y inches of manifold pressure, then he's probably right.

But that only applies to flight modeling. DM modeling is a can of worms. There's just no way it can be as realistic as FM since we literally lack the tools to model it correctly. All you can do is get it "in the ballpark," relative to other planes.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Janosch

I took tail gunner shots from an Il-2 (apparently 12,7 mm bullets) on my Fw-190 A6 wing. The left wingtip/emblem area looked very, very ugly - bullet holes and large dark splotches.

That's the "heavy damage" texture.

Originally Posted by Janosch

With such damage, fighting is pretty much out of the question, but the plane is far from unflyable, and landing requires just a bit more caution than usually, so that the plane doesn't roll left when you least expect it!

That's my experience, too.

But, the issue is how much damage is required to trigger the wing heavy damage texture, not just for the FW-190, but also for other planes of equivalent size and construction.

I think that the .30/.303 cal/7.62 mm MG is way to effective in inflicting airframe damage in the game, and that the .50 cal/12.7 mm MG is somewhat too effective. The 20 & 30 mm cannons seem about right in terms of the damage they inflict.

[gaunt1]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

I think that the .30/.303 cal/7.62 mm MG is way to effective in inflicting airframe damage in the game, and that the .50 cal/12.7 mm MG is somewhat too effective. The 20 & 30 mm cannons seem about right in terms of the damage they inflict.

soviet 12.7 is underpowered currently. For 20mm, some are good (Hispano, MG-151, some are vastly overpowered (ShVAK), some are a bit weak (certain japanese guns)

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

soviet 12.7 is underpowered currently. For 20mm, some are good (Hispano, MG-151, some are vastly overpowered (ShVAK), some are a bit weak (certain japanese guns)

Presumably, they all use some sort of calculation for weight of fire, based on bullet mass, muzzle velocity & ballistic coefficient. While there might be other elements of how a bullet inflicts damage based on terminal ballistics (e.g., likelihood of tumbling or shattering on impact), that seems like the best way to do it.

My point wasn't that some heavy MG are comparatively over- or underpowered, its that I think there's a good argument to be made that ALL HMG are a bit overpowered in their ability to inflict airframe damage.

[RPS69]

When I posted about 190 wings having their ammo exploded, got curious and checked available guncams videos to see what was over there.

This one:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKbQqTeGcL4

look at 1:25, and 1:27

You could see a clear explosion on the wing. It just doesn't break, it exploded.

I find just one more with an exploding wing. All the other guncams were with smoking planes. IF there are someone over there that could post some more examples will be nice.

[KG26_Alpha]

That video, along with others, has been done to death in the past regarding FW wings exploding.

But would it mean all aircraft with wing ammo are classed the same damage wise.

Or just the Fw190 !!

03:10
04:18

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyeltf58BaU

[RPS69]

Funny, or those videos got some cut and paste, or I'm getting some deja vu on those broken wings.

They always break on the same place. It looks like some repetitive damage on an arcade game.

I will look for videos from the german guncams, but they look really worst than the american ones.

Also, the idea was to see .50's breaking wings.

My point, is that they may, if they hit the ammo rack.