Aircraft Weapons, their Pro Allied slant in WiTP

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Brady


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Big B, Thanks[:)]

Per Nada Brady![:)]

You know what I really wish?

I wish we here on the left coast could get together at some suitable Southland local - like the Queen Mary, and have our own Piss-Up like those lucky folks in Euroupe had posted a short while ago. Meeting the folks on this website would be very nice indeed!
Keep those fascinatiting photos comming Brady!
Maybe someday we can all meet for drinks!

Cheers!

B

[Herrbear]

From a number of sources, I took a stab at changing the Effectivenes. You seem to be very knowledgable on the subject so I thought I would post it for your comments.

Device # Gun Game Eff Revised Eff
146 7.7 Vickers 2 1
147 12.7 Vickers 3 3
148 .303 Lewis 2 1
149 .303 Vickers K 1 1
150 .303 Browning 2 1
151 .303 Vickers V 2 1
152 .303 Vickers I 2 1
153 7.7 Type 89N 2 1
154 7.7 Type 97N 2 1
155 13 Type 2N 4 3
156 7.92 FN 2 1
157 12.7 Type 1N 3 2
158 12.7 Ho-103N 3 2
159 7.9 MG 81 2 1
160 .50 Browning N 3 3
161 .50 Browning 3 3
162 13 MG 131 3 2
163 15 MG 151 3 4
164 2cm Solothum 4 5
165 20 HS404 4 5
166 20 MG151 4 9
167 20 Hispano N 4 9
168 20 Hispano 4 11
169 30 MK 108 5 NA
170 30 MK 103 5 NA
171 37 Bk 3.7 4 NA
172 37 T9 4 7
173 37 M4 4 7
174 12.7 BS 3 4
175 12.7 UBS 3 3
176 7.62 ShKAS 2 2
177 12.7 UBT 3 4
178 20 ShVAK 4 7
179 23 VYa 5 10
180 20 B-20 4 7
181 13 Type 2 4 3
182 12.7 Type 1 3 1
183 7.7 Type 89 2 1
184 7.7 Type 97 2 1
185 7.7 Type 92 2 1
186 7.92 Type 98 2 1
187 12.7 Ho-103 3 2
188 20 Type 99 4 5
189 20 Type 99 mod 2 4 6
190 20 Ho-3 4 5
191 20 Ho-5 4 7
192 30 Ho-155 5 8
193 30 Type 5 5 8
194 37 Type 98 4 4

Sorry for not being able to keep the lines aligned.

[Brady]

Those numbers look interesting, but I nead a fresh strat to realy pounder them, like tomarow morning[:)]

Part of the equation in all this is the relative durabality values of the planes and how the penatration figures efect their fate in A to A.

In other words does the "efect" take efect in game if the "penatration" value is not suficient to acheave the desired result aganst the target?

It is my asumption that WiTP models this penatration and armor value on planes in this way, I may be wrong,and if I am I would realy like to hear how this works. My fear is that the penatration is modeled ala the US method, that is put enough holes in the plane and your going hit someting vital..as aposed to the Blow the plan apart method, the later does not realy on penatration, at least not to the degree the former does.

If this is indead the case then abstracted values for penatration nead be aplied to wepaons that did not realy on it, understand how they both complement one another in the game is important I should think and I am not to clear on that.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Brady


Those numbers look interesting, but I nead a fresh strat to realy pounder them, like tomarow morning[:)]

Part of the equation in all this is the relative durabality values of the planes and how the penatration figures efect their fate in A to A.

In other words does the "efect" take efect in game if the "penatration" value is not suficient to acheave the desired result aganst the target?

It is my asumption that WiTP models this penatration and armor value on planes in this way, I may be wrong,and if I am I would realy like to hear how this works. My fear is that the penatration is modeled ala the US method, that is put enough holes in the plane and your going hit someting vital..as aposed to the Blow the plan apart method, the later does not realy on penatration, at least not to the degree the former does.

If this is indead the case then abstracted values for penatration nead be aplied to wepaons that did not realy on it, understand how they both complement one another in the game is important I should think and I am not to clear on that.

I've been loosely following this thread ...you may also want to consider modding your penetration values to account for ammunition limits.

Is a 50 shot 30mm more effective at the scale being represented than a 1000 shot .50 caliber? I have no clue as to what appropriate ammo loadouts would be but this may be something that could be used to account for ammo differences.

[Feinder]

Brady, I haven't read the entire thread, but...

1. WitP simply uses TOTAL shell weight for effectiveness rating (which includes casing and charge). I don't agree with this, but this is the standard by which all effectiveness rating are done. There is no slant.

2. The game engine does not take into account (very well, if all), for ROF.

3. We all know "ammo" means nothing in air-to-air combat in WitP.

4. If the accuracy rating of a weapon in WitP is roughly the percent chance of it's scoring a successful hit (relatively true in WitP terms), then the 20mm cannons are VERY over-rated (indeed the same can be true of the 50 cals). But again, as ROF is not well modeled (perhaps fudging thru accuracy?).

The best thing to do here is to simply produce your own mod, and make the 20mm cannons as lethal as you like. Frankly, the air combat model was what the devs spent the most time on, as it really is the heart of the game. It is (arguablely) the most accurate part of WitP, but we can certainly agree that it is far from perfect.

-F-

[Herrbear]

By having effectiveness account for ROF also, ie size of shell X ROF, wouldn't that solve that part of the equation?

[mdiehl]

A couple things. The .50cal had penetration greater than any armor fielded by any WW2 aircraft at any time at normal "firing range" (typicall less than 200m) and at 100m (considered the real lethal zone) had energy on target of about 12,000 foot pounds. This compares with about 1200-2000 foot pounds for rifle caliber MGs, which is why most combatants that started the war with .30s upgraded to .50s (or comparable such as the Japanese 12.7mm). That said, the US .50s (used also by the UK and USSR in aircraft) had the highest velocities so the most energy on target.

20mm cannons were of value but had problems with working out the fusing requirements. It was common in the early part of the war for Japanese 20mm to burst against the armored seatbacks of Allied fighters but not harm the pilot (owing to inability to penetrate, improper fusing, or both) and lacked the bursting charge to do serious damage to allied a/c unless they hit an engine or wing tank. Axis aircraft found the 20mm to be even more limited against larger aircraft such as bombers because of the larger void spaces and the redundancy of engines, resulting in a tendency throughout the war to increase cannon size. This reduced the effectiveness against Allied fighters (owing to the lower mvs of the larger guns and lower cyclical rofs) but increased their effectiveness against bombers. And yes, Virginia, penetration can be more useful than bursting charge if you are targeting a well built plane. There are legions of P-47s for example that suffered multiple 30mm hits in the fuselage, wings, and cockpit seat back that brought their pilots home without severe pilot injury. There were NO axis pilots who took a .50cal in the seatback that did not have serious injuries from a penetrating round.

The .50 probably should be rated higher than any of the other weapons in the chart for hitting targets and the damage should be comparable or greater than damage induced by 20mm hits.

Prety much every other combantant in WW2, Japan, Germay, Russia, Italy, adopted this method, which focused on firing Largely HEI rounds at reasionable velocitys, optimised for efecive shoting ranges in the 400 meter range or lower

That is understandable given that all of these powers faced bombing in their own countries by well armored bombers targeting strategic assets. The US and Australia were uniquely favored by the fortunes of war in not facing anything like an HE111, B25, Wellington, B24, B17, B29, Halifax, or Lancaster. The only US designated pre-war specialized interceptor was the P-39; its antibomber role emphasized by its 37mm cannon.

[Brady]

treespider- Ammo limits aparently dont count in WiTP, and they could be argued away for a varity of reasions, one the Japanese guns dident realy have a rof limit on them US .50 cals did for most of the war, so the larger ammo load is kinda a mute point, esoichaly when most planes will not get more than a kill or two anyway.

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Feinder- I did not know this:

"1. WitP simply uses TOTAL shell weight for effectiveness rating (which includes casing and charge). I don't agree with this, but this is the standard by which all effectiveness rating are done. There is no slant. "

This, actualy is quiet distreasing and represents a tremendious slant, though the figures are off anyway, The Slant is that the Allies (except Russsia to a degree) us the Hispano or the .50 cal as their primary aircraft weapon type, these guns fired primarly AP (solid shot) rounds, even the US 50 cal API rounds used at the end of the war had a very small amout of Incenday in them, so their rounds are very heavy by comparasion (exception Type 99 rounds), The Japanese used Ammo with a Large HEI content this results in a lighter round but not a less deadly round, so using just weight favores the allies unjustifiably.

4. Depends on the cannon type, the Early MGFF type like the 20mm Type 99 MK I, was hard to get hits with unless you were close, ala the Japanese tactic of doing just that, so this is mute to a point, sma eis true of some early Russian 20mm cannons, Also true to a point of the 37mm in the P-39 thought not as bad. The Type 99 MK II was considerably more accurate do to the longer barel and increased charge, the Hispanos were very accurate as were the .50 cal Brownings, and the Ho-103's and Ho-5's withen their their efective ranges. In general it can be said the wepaons were accurate enough, the real variables were piolet skill/training, another variable not realy acounted for is the weapons placement, wing mounted guns particulary the ones used by many allied tpyes (P-38 notable exception,Beaufighter as well) were notiriously inacurate by comparsion to centerline weapons, prety much all Japanese aircraft guns were much closer to the centerline of the aircraft, 2 out of 4 were always on the centerline (N1K2 exception), the wing guns were also generaly in closer than their allied counterparts, so hear we should see a bonious but I dont think we do, Lemurs did some tweaking for CHS in this regard.

Yes I am shure at some point I will make a mode, based on wone of the others curently out their that incoperates these changes, and some others.

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Herrbear- I am not shure, weight of fire is calculated in this way at times, but it does not realy give a true feal of the weapons potential lethality due to ammo chain compasation in the case of HE and HEI shels.

[Damien Thorn]

In the miniatures game "Seekrieg" the 20mm is given a rating of 8.5 while the 50 cal is given a rating of 2.5. I guess the designers read the same book as Brady quoted at the beginning of this thread.

They went on to calculate the minimum speed for a plane to complete a 2g turn as:

squareroot(( EmptyPlaneWeight / WingArea)/ 1.56) * 19.66 * 1.414

Their final Attack rating for a plane was: Sum of values for all guns firing forward / (minimum speed to complete a 2g turn * 0.01).

Defense value was EmptyWeight ^ 0.46

This gave some values for the planes (Attack / Defense) as:

A6M2 22 / 44
A6M5c 25 / 48
Me 109b 6 / 42
Me 109e 17 / 46
Sea Hurricane II 32 / 53
P-40b 7 / 53
F4F-3 10 / 52
F4F-4 14 / 54
F6F-5 23 / 67
P-38J 14 / 77
F4U-4 13 / 67
P51d 12 / 59

Some very different values than we see in WitP, huh?

[Mike Scholl]

The problem with this whole thread is it has no context. Any type of statistical analysis of the weapons used has to be balanced within the context of the actual historic results of air-to-air combat in the theatre. It is only one factor among many (airframe strength, armor, manueverability at combat speeds. pilot skill, self-sealing tanks, aiming systems, aircraft stability as a gun platform, etc.). Just concentrating on one of these factors produces warped results. If I picked self-sealing tanks to get excited about I could produce statistics that say Japanese planes should be shot down 10 or 20 times as often as Allied ones. All of the factors have to be considered together, and compared with the actual historic results, for the discussion to have any value

[Nikademus]

I understand the technical angle your coming from Brady.....however in game terms...where is the Allied slant?

[Brady]

The pudding.


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Nikademus- As I mentioned above I do not feal this was intentional, but the way the guns are modled in WiTP gives the US a distenct advantage in this area over the weapons of their enemy, one they did not enjoy Historicaly. As noted elsewhear in WiTP the Gun value is a very high consideration. I have watched over the past few months of Air Battles in the Game with Mogami as an example, some very off results given the piolet experance levals the plane types and the over all condations, I do not feal the results are historicaly justified.

Presently I have isue with two aspects of the A to A model, one is the manuaver ratings, the other is the gun topic at hand. In an effort to seak out why some of these odd results have occured I have looked for and found suspect these two variables.

My perspective is, that the tools should be modled the way they were, they should not be tweaked to acheave a historical outcome no mater what, other factors will acheave this, in the end, things like piolet experance, leadership and player controle of assests. In a nut shell if a player uses his forces wisely and still has skilled men around to fly planes like the Ki-84, they should do well aganst an aponet, not be neautered by the game to preform as bad as they may of with green piolets in 1945. The double jepordy Manuaver ratings and the bad gun values are slanting the scale in favor of the allies more than they deserve.

Their are several allied and Japanese plane types whose preformance is other than it should be imo, When looking at the figures for them they seam to point to why...

P-38, while not doing badely imo it should be more domanate, This is imo partly do to the Cannon isue, though the 20 mm Hispano was often removed from them do to reliabality isues this is not realy modeled in WiTP, another problem is it's manuaver rating, it should be a bit better.

F4U-Sweat Jesious...

Thier are many planes that could use adjustments but in general the Cannon armed planes are being shorted in the lethality department, this coupled with the formented Manuaver rating isue is resulting in some unrealistic outcomes.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Brady


As I mentioned above I do not feal this was intentional, but the way the guns are modled in WiTP gives the US a distenct advantage in this area over the weapons of their enemy, one they did not enjoy Historicaly.

Only problem here is that there is no US advantage here because the high firepower works equally if not even more well for the Japanese as it does for Allied planes. A6M2's can kill much more durable Allied aircraft with the same propensity as the high gun value Allied planes can kill the Japanese planes. Do you see any real difference between how well SBD's or F4F's hold up vs Zeros or Vals when struck? I dont.

F4U is 'uber' primarily in the game because of it's speed edge. The high gun value is there too, but its not one that the Zero itself doesn't also posess. One can argue the finer points of the 50cal and the 20mm cannon till they're blue in the face but in game terms it doesn't really matter. Below a certain DUR value, the 2x7.7/2x20mm armament is as equally potent as the 6x50 armament.

[Brady]

Some plane types do face off fairly well aganst one another, at least as much as I would expect they should, though to be honest I think the Wildcats are fairing a bit better than they should.

Some are Not, imo, many types are not fairing as well as I would suspect. It is a complicated and slipery isue though.

F4U-1: Durabality 32, Armor 1

F4F-4: 29/1

Ki-61: 29/1

Ki-84: 30/1

Ki-44: 28/1

N1K2: 30/1

P40B- 29/1

With all guns fairly close in terms of lethality, that is the .50 cal and the various 20mm cannons, with similar penatration values, their is no way given the diferance in number of guns carried that yuor going to see the results you should, to acheave parity you nead to increase the efecxct of the 20 mm cannons, planes like the N1K2 should be more lethal. remember that the Type 99 should be about three times as lethal as a .50 cal,as should the Hispano, but I cant posably imagne the game designers doing this, twice is probably more than I could posably hope for, not that I realy think they will change this.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Brady


With all guns fairly close in terms of lethality, that is the .50 cal and the various 20mm cannons, with similar penatration values, their is no way given the diferance in number of guns carried that yuor going to see the results you should, to acheave parity you nead to increase the efecxct of the 20 mm cannons, planes like the N1K2 should be more lethal.

well i cant agree with that based on what i've seen and tested. Any gun armament from 4 x .50/12.7 on up is pretty lethal to anything from DUR 60 on down (armor 0/1...also depending on exp level) and there's no appreciable difference between a cannon/MG armament or an all .50 when attacking with a pulse of fire. My next mod version will attempt to better distinquish the greater durability and toughness of Allied aircraft without tilting the kill ratio.










[/quote]

[Brady]

" there's no appreciable difference between a cannon/MG armament or an all .50 when attacking with a pulse of fire."

What does this mean exactly?

[Nikademus]

It means that if for example you have an A6M attacking an F4F with better DUR and armor=1 the 'pulse' of fire will likely result in a kill as often as when the F4F fires a pulse at the A6M with it's lower Dur rating and no armor. You've never noticed this? I noticed the lack of distinction between the two sides during the first a2a battles in UV. You can pretty much interchange Vals, Kates, SBD's, TBF's and planes like A6M and F4F they preform the same under fire.

[Brady]

Ahh. yes I have and as I mentioned above some planes seam to preform fairly well aganst each other, it jsut that I am now playing in 1943 mostly and I am seeing some things that are off, I am seeing Army planes and Japanese Navy planes getting damages aganst their foe's when I feal they should be getting kills. The bigest problem the Japanese had after a point was even getting into aplace to get a shot off do to the spead diferances, not nescessarly killing the target once they did.

I do see your point though no mater how porked the guns figures may be on papper if their haveing good results in game they are fine, but imo they are not, and as we progress toward the end of the war my fealing is based on what I am seeing in the first part of 43 their are going to more problems with this.

[mdiehl]

There is no reason any 20mm should be rated as "more lethal" than a .50BMG. The problem here is that no combat is an ideal situation where one hangs up your favorite japanese plane on a string, plants an allied aircraft in front of it at optimal range, and calculates the throw weight of the shell. All 20mm were underpowered against armored targets, which is why late war Luftwaffe interceptors were upgrading to a mixed load of 20mm and 30mm. No 20mm in the Axis arsenal could *penetrate* the most heavily armored positions on an American (and most UK) fighter, and the 20mm's bursting charge was inadequate to do enough damage quickly in low tot situations such as aerial combat with fighters. That is one of the reason why the Axis pilots did not intensively train at deflection shooting. Their best approach on a fighter was up the six and close to about 100m before opening fire.

In contrast the .50 had much more ammo than any 20mm or larger and a higher cyclic rof than most. The 12000 ft-lb energy in the "kill zone" was sufficient to do as much kinetic energy damage to wing tanks and engines as any 20mm could achieve through bursting. It's true that the 20mm was more likely to do damage in void spaces where he only vulnerable pieces were hydraulic lines or cables but it takes alot of accumulated 20mm damage to bring down anything. So in the end the most vulnerable targets were the cockpit, fuel tanks, and engines. The .50 was as good as any 20mm at damaging the first two and probably more lethal on engines (because you could penetrate through the whole engine with one .50).

The problem for the Axis was that their interceptors had incompatible missions. Kill bombers (which required, to be really good at it, 30mm or larger) and kill agile fighters (which required better deflection shooting, more ammo, and better penetration than could be obtained with a 20mm he round).

As Mike Scholl indicated, the thing is a sim, so you have to judge the results by the context. If in the end one sees, say, F4Fs shooting down about 1.2 Zeroes per F4F lost from December 1941 through September 1942 then there is no "Allied bias" because that its the correct and most plausible range of results. If you see deviations from that (statistically determined after the results of a sufficient number of combats) then there might be a problem. If you're getting kill ratios from 1:1 (favoring neither) to 1.4:1 (favoring the Allies) then the Wildcat vs. A6M part of the model is working just fine.

By 1943 the kill ratio across the board should be on the order of 2:1. By mid 1943 about 3:1 favoring the Allies. By 1944, 10:1. By 1945, 20:1.

[Nomad]

I worked on A-1Es in Thailand. They had 4 20mm in the wings and the ammo we used was dated 1945. It was all percussion primed ammo, most newer 20mm is electrical primed. The point of this is the we used a load out of 2AP-2HEI-1Tracer for ammo loads. The question here is, "didn't the Axis use any AP 20mm ammo?" I have not looked to see if they did or what the kinetic energy would be from the various guns, but it would be interesting to find out.