IJA 7.7mm AAMG vs 7.7mm aircraft MG

[Yaab]

We all know that Japanese fighters equipped with 7.7mm MGs cannot destroy Allied fighters which sport level 1 armor. They can damage them, but they cannot outright destroy them. I thought this would also apply to 7.7mm AAMGs used by Japanese LCUs. However, in my DDB-C tests I was able to destroy, with fire from 7.7mm AAMGs, the following Allied aircraft when they dropped to 100 and 1000 feet for strafing runs:

A-20A Havoc (durability 35, armor 1)
P-40E Warhawk (durability 29, armor1)
Wirraway (durability 28, armor 0)

However, I was not able to destroy any version of Beaufighter (durability 38,armor 1.

The Jap LCUs in the test were exclusively armed with 7.7mm AAMGs. No 13.2mm AAMGs or cannons were present.

So I went to Tracker to check the values of both the AAMG and MG, and it seems the AAMG version has effect of 4 while the MG version is just effect 2, with other criteria being more or less the same.

So if you think you can strafe hapless Japs with impunity, think twice. Your armor is not enough!

[Alpha77]

This is because this armor of the planes you name have is (generally speaking) not against ground fire it is against fire from other planes.

IE the "underside" of these planes is not armored. Compare that however to special ground attack planes like IL2 or A10 or SU25, these have armor against ground fire mostly....I guess forWW2 IL2 must be the prime example...

[Yaab]

Does that mean that aircraft armor is not used when calculating aircraft damage from AA fire? Is it aircraft durability vs AA fire then?

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Does that mean that aircraft armor is not used when calculating aircraft damage from AA fire? Is it aircraft durability vs AA fire then?

No idea as I was talking about the "real world" how it is moddelled in the game need someone explain with "in game" knowledge Note the armor is mostly for the pilot and the fuel tanks in fighter (or fighter bombers), but in ground attack planes vs. ground fire. Makes sense right ? Except you have a plane of 20 tons then you can armor it for both but how fast would that plane be and how far would it fly ? Combat plane design is always a trade off.

EDIT: About "tank buster" plane "myth":

http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/04/04/grou ... k-busters/

[geofflambert]

The armor in most cases is to protect the crew. If a fighter attacks from the front the armor will not so much protect the crew and not protect the engine or propeller etc.. The 7.7 has the potential of putting any engine out of operation, even if only by severing fuel lines and spark wires. A single engine plane is thus more vulnerable than a two engine plane like the Beaufighter regardless of where the armor is.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Does that mean that aircraft armor is not used when calculating aircraft damage from AA fire? Is it aircraft durability vs AA fire then?

No idea as I was talking about the "real world" how it is moddelled in the game need someone explain with "in game" knowledge Note the armor is mostly for the pilot and the fuel tanks in fighter (or fighter bombers), but in ground attack planes vs. ground fire. Makes sense right ? Except you have a plane of 20 tons then you can armor it for both but how fast would that plane be and how far would it fly ? Combat plane design is always a trade off.

EDIT: About "tank buster" plane "myth":

http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/04/04/grou ... k-busters/

I know that more knowledgeable people will chime in but Panzer and Panzer grenadier divisions tended to only move at night in the second half of '44, otherwise you had roads clogged with burning vehicles including tanks. I know, there were Ewoks using timbers to crush them.

[Yaab]

Wait. If armor is not used in the game in ground attacks, than how dedicated ground attack aircraft like IL-2 are supposed to resist the AA fire? Isn't IL-2 equipped with armor 2 in WITP:AE? Maybe higher level of armor protects from ground fire after all?

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

ORIGINAL: Yaab

Does that mean that aircraft armor is not used when calculating aircraft damage from AA fire? Is it aircraft durability vs AA fire then?

No idea as I was talking about the "real world" how it is moddelled in the game need someone explain with "in game" knowledge Note the armor is mostly for the pilot and the fuel tanks in fighter (or fighter bombers), but in ground attack planes vs. ground fire. Makes sense right ? Except you have a plane of 20 tons then you can armor it for both but how fast would that plane be and how far would it fly ? Combat plane design is always a trade off.

EDIT: About "tank buster" plane "myth":

http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/04/04/grou ... k-busters/

I know that more knowledgeable people will chime in but Panzer and Panzer grenadier divisions tended to only move at night in the second half of '44, otherwise you had roads clogged with burning vehicles including tanks. I know, there were Ewoks using timbers to crush them.

You were pretty fast reading that article. It would takek ca. 15-20mins. incl. comments. You did it all in 3-5 Mins. ? [;)][>:] They provide prove that tank kills were totally overstated (by all sides). If you brigade has say 50 tanks and pilots claim 60 destroyed...something must be wrong. And if briagde records show only 5 destroyed that day even more so... [:'(] It was a bit OT cause the article is not really about armor of planes, but of tanks....still interesting.

[geofflambert]

I didn't need to read the article, the premise was false. In any case, tanks cannot operate without fuel trucks and other support vehicles including half tracks and other infantry transport vehicles etc. and the engine compartments of German tanks were vulnerable from the air. Look at the Ardennes offensive. The Panzer and Panzergrenadier units were only able to move in the day with an overcast. I'm not making this stuff up. I did waste a little time today looking at this article that said an iron hammer was found in Texas encased in a rock that was radiocarbon dated to be 500 million years old! Since radiocarbon dating is only effective (and barely even then) to 50,000 years ago that was clearly total BS. If you look for it you will find it. That was from a site called "Boredom Therapy" by the way, so everyone stay away from that. Does everyone know that a certain person was born in Mombasa in 1961? The British kept immaculate records so of course we have a copy of his birth certificate. I bet you didn't know that in 1961 Mombasa was part of Zanzibar, not Kenya. It's amazing what you can find out if you depend on The National Enquirer for your facts.

[JeffroK]

Wrong, Zanzibar handed the control of Mombasa back to the British in 1898.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

We all know that Japanese fighters equipped with 7.7mm MGs cannot destroy Allied fighters which sport level 1 armor. They can damage them, but they cannot outright destroy them. I thought this would also apply to 7.7mm AAMGs used by Japanese LCUs. However, in my DDB-C tests I was able to destroy, with fire from 7.7mm AAMGs, the following Allied aircraft when they dropped to 100 and 1000 feet for strafing runs:

A-20A Havoc (durability 35, armor 1)
P-40E Warhawk (durability 29, armor1)
Wirraway (durability 28, armor 0)

However, I was not able to destroy any version of Beaufighter (durability 38,armor 1.

The Jap LCUs in the test were exclusively armed with 7.7mm AAMGs. No 13.2mm AAMGs or cannons were present.

So I went to Tracker to check the values of both the AAMG and MG, and it seems the AAMG version has effect of 4 while the MG version is just effect 2, with other criteria being more or less the same.

So if you think you can strafe hapless Japs with impunity, think twice. Your armor is not enough!

From http://users.telenet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin ... un-pe.html

No country had so many different guns in use as Japan, with so many different types of ammunition. The Japanese Army and Navy independently produced nearly identical weapons, and with non-interchangeable ammunition; this is symbolic for the lack of cooperation between the two services.

The Army used copies of the Vickers as the Type 89 fixed and the Te-1, which was a flexible version of this gun. The 7.7 mm Type 89 flexible was an indigeneous magazine-fed design used in flexible, defensive installations, twin guns being placed on a single mount. If these guns were used individually, they were known as the Te-4 or Type 89 (modified single). The Type 100 or Type 1 were Japanese versions of a Czech design, also used in twins, and firing 7.92 x 57 ammunition. Finally, the German MG 15 was used the Type 98 flexible.

The Japanese Navy used the Type 92, a copy of the Lewis and again used in flexible installations, the Type 97, an improved Vickers, and the Type 1, also based on the MG 15.

These varied with ROF from 750 to 1500 rpm using the same ammunition, plus fuselage mounted weapons had to contend with syncronisation and had further constraints.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Wrong, Zanzibar handed the control of Mombasa back to the British in 1898.

Wrong back to you. Zanzibar was a British protectorate to '63 and retained Mombasa. They didn't give anything to the British.

[witpqs]

Questioning the premise of the thread: is it really true that IJ fighters with the 7.7 mm MG cannot destroy Allied fighters which have level 1 armor??

[geofflambert]

I'm going to have to back off of assertions I've made (in good faith in my opinion) about Mombasa vis a vis Zanzibar and Kenya. I had heard or read things to the contrary, but I cannot substantiate any claim that Mombasa was not part of Kenya prior to 1963. Britain was running both "protectorates" so their records should be taken seriously. Anyways, while I may continue to assert I heard or read things to the contrary, I cannot at this time confirm that Mombasa fell under the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1961.

I am so glad that people can be held to confirm assertions they make. I hope we never get to a place where no one requires that.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

I'm going to have to back off of assertions I've made (in good faith in my opinion) about Mombasa vis a vis Zanzibar and Kenya. I had heard or read things to the contrary, but I cannot substantiate any claim that Mombasa was not part of Kenya prior to 1963. Britain was running both "protectorates" so their records should be taken seriously. Anyways, while I may continue to assert I heard or read things to the contrary, I cannot at this time confirm that Mombasa fell under the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1961.

I am so glad that people can be held to confirm assertions they make. I hope we never get to a place where no one requires that.

My memory of geography back in the sixties was that Zanzibar and Tanganyika merged to become Tanzania, so they were never really part of Kenya?
I am not sure which former colony had the port of Mombasa. Or Dadbasa either, for that matter.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Wrong, Zanzibar handed the control of Mombasa back to the British in 1898.

Wrong back to you. Zanzibar was a British protectorate to '63 and retained Mombasa. They didn't give anything to the British.

In lieu of a better source, from Wiki.

From 9 February 1824 to 25 July 1826, there was a British protectorate over Mombasa, represented by Governors. Omani rule was restored in 1826; seven liwalis where appointed. On 24 June 1837, it was nominally annexed by Said bin Sultan of Muscat and Oman. On 25 May 1887, its administration was relinquished to the British East Africa Association, later the Imperial British East Africa Company. It soon became the capital of the British East Africa Protectorate and the sea terminal of the Uganda Railway, which was started in 1896. Many workers were brought in from British India to build the railway, and the city's fortunes revived. The Sultan of Zanzibar formally presented the town to the British in 1898.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

I'm going to have to back off of assertions I've made (in good faith in my opinion) about Mombasa vis a vis Zanzibar and Kenya. I had heard or read things to the contrary, but I cannot substantiate any claim that Mombasa was not part of Kenya prior to 1963. Britain was running both "protectorates" so their records should be taken seriously. Anyways, while I may continue to assert I heard or read things to the contrary, I cannot at this time confirm that Mombasa fell under the sovereignty of the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1961.

I am so glad that people can be held to confirm assertions they make. I hope we never get to a place where no one requires that.

I believe the former Zanzibar controlled area was a British Protectorate from 1898 until 1963 when it properly became part of Kenya. I also think the Zanzibar claim had been very "thin" for the 40-50 years prior to the British Protecturate.

[Yaab]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

The armor in most cases is to protect the crew. If a fighter attacks from the front the armor will not so much protect the crew and not protect the engine or propeller etc.. The 7.7 has the potential of putting any engine out of operation, even if only by severing fuel lines and spark wires. A single engine plane is thus more vulnerable than a two engine plane like the Beaufighter regardless of where the armor is.

Right, but what about radial vs inline engine? When one reads the stuff from WWII re strafing, the radial engine was the prefered one by pilots flying strafing missions. Supposedly, it soaked AA fire better and offered pilots more protection.

Here, a pilot reminisces about P-47's engine:

https://www.google.pl/search?q=radial+e ... 8wfIhJCADQ

"The huge radial engine was practically indestructible. It protected pilots from injuries during intense flak, mortar, cannon and machine-gun fire".

So, if armor is only taken into account in dogfights, and radial/inline engine is not taken into account when strafing, then it should be possible to destroy P-47s with 7.7mm AAMG fire during the game. Also, IL-2s are dead meat too.

[witpqs]

Yaab - I still question your original premise.

[Yaab]

I don't recall any Allied fighter with armor 1 getting destroyed by 7.7mm MGs fire. I do get messages of damaged Warhawska being destroyed on landing after a dogfight with Nates, but that is it. No outright destruction in aerial combat.