This cant be realistic - 500+ hits, plane still flying??

[brando]

It's kind of obvious surely, that firing a stream of bullets at surfaces that are sloping away from you means that a large proportion of these rounds will be deflected - the angle of incidence is just too narrow. Even thin metal sheet will deflect a round when the angle is around 5 or 10 degrees. The fuselage may allow for more penetration, but it contains armoured bulkheads to protect the crew, and any number of metal fittings that may stop a round that has already lost a lot of energy penetrating the fuselage. So attacks from the rear are really the least effective of all types.

Attacks from head on were always the most effective, and several Hurricane squadrons were noted for practising this - but the danger of this high closing-speed manoeuvre was always collision. Notwithstanding this, a stream of bullets hitting the glazed front of a Heinkel could cause enormous (often fatal) damage to the crew and the controls.

Attacks from almost any quarter could be more effective than a dead six pursuit as far as bullet penetration was concerned, though an awareness of the defensive positions, ie gunner stations, is necessary. Likewise a knowledge of deflection shooting is also important.

[SturmKreator]

Originally Posted by ReconNZ

OK - I know HE111's are big planes, but i sat dead astern one, and put over 500 rounds into him, he was just slightly smoking!

C'mon Luthier and the team, surely this can not be accurate??? Ive seen what a .303 round can do - most if not all of my hits were to the wings, in line with the engines. I could have sawed a wing off i hit it that many times!!



Lets keep a scorecard - what's your record - most hits without downing a plane???

could you please read more books? in the reality you need 3 hurris or spit to down one he 111, becouse .303 suck really sucks

[Ze-Jamz]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

There are plenty of historical references to He 111s returning to base with hundreds of .303 rounds in them.

Why do you think the RAF went to 20mm Hispanos as soon as they could get them reliable?

The.303 British cartridge, like all .30+/- inch rifle caliber machine guns were totally out dated relics of the WW1 era, as far as aerial combat goes.

Sure things

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by ReconNZ

dead astern one

That's exactly the problem. You're firing a bunch of rifle caliber rounds in line with the angle where all the armor is concentrated.

Originally Posted by ReconNZ

Lets keep a scorecard - what's your record - most hits without downing a plane???

What's the most planes one can down before ammo runs out would be a more interesting scorecard
He111s are sturdier than others, try the Do17s if you want to practice a bit and see some results. I can easily down 3-5 with a Hurricane.

In general, +1 to what the other guys said in their advice. Also, try a Hurricane as the guns on that one are more closely grouped together and it's more stable, it will give you a much better concentration of rounds.

[Widowmaker214]

While the 303 is a crap round for trying to take down an aircraft...

dont, forget, your convergence.

I havnt really checked to much on it in COD yet... but standard in IL2 was quite a bit out.

I prefer to do my gunning at under 200 yards. Depending on the aircraft, I usually set a convergence of between 150 and 200 yards.. and thats where I do my shooting.

If you are trying to hit the engine, (or any specific spot) convergence makes all the difference in the world. IF you are not flying AT your convergence distance, and put your cross hairs on the engine..you're going to miss it. Plain and simple. your bullets will either fly on either side of it.. or they will cross before the engine and still fly by on either side.

Having looked at it briefly in COD, it looks like you can set the convergence for each pair of guns (correct me if Im wrong) (also it looks like you can adjust elevation on COD which you couldnt in IL2)

In that case,you could set half at say 150 or 200. then the other half at 200-250 (depending on where you like to shoot from) That way you can get a good punch through a range of distance. 150 for one set.. 200 for the other. Gives you good hit power through a 50+ yard range.

whatever you decide though.. convergence is a big deal.

[ariyaner]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhkmN...layer_embedded

[Viper2000]

Originally Posted by ReconNZ

OK - I know HE111's are big planes, but i sat dead astern one, and put over 500 rounds into him, he was just slightly smoking!

C'mon Luthier and the team, surely this can not be accurate??? Ive seen what a .303 round can do - most if not all of my hits were to the wings, in line with the engines. I could have sawed a wing off i hit it that many times!!

Simple experiment for you.

Take a sheet of paper. Make a paper aeroplane.

Get it flying nicely.

Get a pin. Make a hole in the wing. See if it still flies. Make another hole. See if it still flies...

Assumptions - A paper dart has a wingspan of 210 mm if it's made of A4 paper. He-111 has a wingspan of about 22.6 m, so roughly 100 times bigger. Meanwhile 0.303" ~ 7.7 mm, and 100th would be 0.077 mm, which is a pretty tiny pin hole.

Yes, there are lots of differences between a paper aeroplane and a real He-111, but this should give you a rough idea of the scale problem.

It's really rather difficult to cause structural failure with machine gun rounds. Mostly you score kills by killing the crew, causing fuel/coolant/hydraulic leaks, breaking engines and starting fires.

If you want to regularly break your target into little bits then you need missiles full of HE...

[609_Huetz]

I don't even think it's that much of a problem of scale, it's much more a problem of when you are shooting where.

You can plaster their fuselage all day long from virtually any side (as has already been said), but as long as you don't score hits on the pilot, that is quite a useless effort. If you are however sitting directly astern, try shooting up the wing tanks in your convergence range. I usually bring down 2 out of 3 Heinkels doing that. The sweet spots are the wingroot and just outside the engine mounts.

Doing so will also greatly satisfy the "I want to see things go boom" type of player.

[Avimimus]

The sim also models bullet speeds - they quickly drop into the subsonic range and then gradually slow from there. This means that close range shots have supersonic bullets with a lot more KE than medium range shots. In Il-2 this amounted to about three times the effectiveness. Ideally you want to be within 30 metres of your target before you start firing (unless it is a head on attack!)

This isn't really an issue with cannons - since the rounds detonate on impact (creating supersonic shrapnel).

[JG14_Jagr]

Originally Posted by ReconNZ

OK - I know HE111's are big planes, but i sat dead astern one, and put over 500 rounds into him, he was just slightly smoking!

C'mon Luthier and the team, surely this can not be accurate??? Ive seen what a .303 round can do - most if not all of my hits were to the wings, in line with the engines. I could have sawed a wing off i hit it that many times!!



Lets keep a scorecard - what's your record - most hits without downing a plane???

Thats absolutely accurate and realistic... I've seen photos of Do 17's with that many holes that landed back in france..

KEY POINT: "HOLES" do not bring down aircraft... holes in important things ON THOSE AIRCRAFT do.. HO an He111 and hit the cockpit hard and you will kill the pilot and navigator with a short burst.. hit cooling lines..his fuel tanks... You are too used to seeing planes go BOOM! when you shoot at them..that for the most part is arcade game results.. many planes slowly lost altitude on the way home and when the crew realized they could not make it they had to ditch or bail.