S3 Series

Was it just me or are the guns on all the a/c totally useless? I saw literally a dozen 109s each taking multiple passes on a Fokker on the deck and it took minutes before he finally went down. We emptied 1000s of 20mm rounds and millions of mg rounds into enemy a/c and had almost no victories after 3 hours. The allied a/c didn't seem to have it any/much better. How are the guns lethality determined? Were the guns of 1940 that much worse than 1943 or 1945?

Respectfully submitted,
SAS

I was not in the fight, but over TS I heard the very same thing, Sas. I know LF6 gang-banged a few Fokkers only to watch them skip-away.

I know I had hit a 109 several times and so did Swanee with no effect.

Yep, from Allied point of view, guns on Fokker really weak. We were hitting the 109 solid from D1 - D3 with no real effect.
Granted Fokker only has 4 303s.
Traded bullets with a few 109s low, and the only one that got killed in our skirmish was one that augured behind me.
My Fokker was taking a lot of hits, and I ended up auguring after losing flaps and trying to turn tight when low.
Not sure if I stayed up how much more she would have taken.

As for the LW guns vs the Fokker, I know in the main they are very hard to bring down with just about any type of gun. They are tough birds. Not sure if setting is same in S3

It is noteworthy, however, that 2 of our guys did get killed very quickly when we got bounced over 58. One was killed before they could even scream on the radio.
PK perhaps.

Can't speak for the 109s, but the Fokker guns were pretty useless outside D1, and not too good up close and personal.

Juggo's guns seemed to work on me well enough (PK <S>). Of course about 4 other of his buddies were ripping holes in my little plane at the same time. Both sides seem to have to gang tackle their opponents this series.

Oskar

.303s are definitely on the comparative weak side. Not sure on the FF 20mm. Annectodtally they were described as, paraphrasing, "meh". Basically slinging 2cm slugs. Still hurt but not as destructive with shrapnel as the Mine shells later. If I remember right the ammunition is on a damage scale with .303s at 1, the weakest.

I was leading the charge on the low 58 bounce. Got to D2 at Mach 9 before laying down the fire and got the PK. Quickly ran out of 20mm on other targets with, seemingly, no effect. After that it was a matter of speed and keep peppering the .303s until something gave. I think it was 4v1 trying to combine firepower at the end. You were one squirrelly SOB Swanee!

Rifle caliber MGs were replaced for a reason...



Do-17 that made it home with over 200 hits from .303...


Hit the engines or the pilot when using the pea shooters...that's about it....

--

(Just because most of you guys expect me to say it)

ALL guns work at D1.
In the case of the Fokker they work better at D.5.

Converge at 165 or so, and act like you are at a sewing machine stitching the wing root or stitching a circle around the head in the cockpit or such.
If the stitch does not complete the line or circle, I expect nothing. Problem is, it takes about 1.5 seconds to complete a stitch, and, to be D.5 to D1 when you do it.

So as you guys know, waiting for the right time to go fangs out is critical, picking your spot or calling your shot then others hitting the same spot is very useful.

To get a kill, you leave yourself vulnerable during all that time in the early war sets.

To me, its a ton of fun though.

A pleasure Gentlemen,

Juice

Love the photo, Jman. Really hits home the point of small calibre ammunition versus iron construction.

Salute! Horrido!

I like that pic as well, Jman.

More than one of us in the sim have seen .30 cal stuff used in places other than a forest when hunting deer,

From personal experience, one day I took 40 - 50 - 60 rounds of 7.62 in my A-37 and "only" thing they did was cause a massive fuel leak. If a few were were just 6 inches away from the main fuel line to my fuse tank I would have had a good day. My flight lead got hit, as well, and one was a 12.7 ( read .50 cal) that was not API, and it blew a 4 or 5 inch hole thru the upper wing skin and missed his wing tanks.

Bear in mind that the folks shooting were only 200 -300 feet below me and had a "zero deflection" shot. Basic spray and pray as I dropped nape and CBU on them.

So I agree that unless you have a half-dozen deer rifles firing at a high rate and within 500 or 6oo feet you are p$ssing in the wind. Our A-37 7.62 minigun was so bad we could not use the standard "foul line" at the range because the bullets were too slow to register on the acoustic mikes. We had to shoot within 1200 feet or so, and our normal speed was about 250 - 300 knots added to the speed of the round at launch. Sucker slowed down real fast and had maybe 10 or so feet of drop at 1200 feel slant range. Damn things were so slow that some of the tracers would stick in the plywood panels or the posts and cause the tgt to burn down! There went a great score, huh?

Regardless, we have to use the guns they had and do our best to model them and also work on our basic gunnery, ya think?

Gums sends...