The U.S. Navy did a detailed study on the effectiveness of the .50 calibre versus the Hispano 20mm. They found that three .50 calibres did equivalent damage to one 20mm.

The question is, in the game, do three .50 cals do the same work as one Hispano 20mm?

I fly both the Spitfire with the twin Hispanos, (I do not fire with the .303's in normal combat, I save them for defensive fire in an emergency if I run out of 20mm's) and also the U.S. aircraft with the triple .50 cals in the wings, and for my money, I would take the twin Hispanos anytime.

I fear you did miss something:
A non-experienced pilot who would use "spray'n pray" tactic can't,indeed,hope a proper result in a fighter against fighter confrontation,but even with a MG151/20,German 109 experienced pilots shot at CLOSE ranges,IE about 100 meters from the targeted enemy fighter.

Concerning the MK108 speed projectile,attendant the shell type,the muzzle velocity were rather 525m/s,which corresponds to about 2000kph.

I wish you can explain to me HOW a fat and large P51/47 could avoid a 109 shooting at barely 100 meters behind with a gun that throws twelve shells per second at about 2000kph each,knowing the fact that *only one hit* will butcher the enemy fighter all around the sky..!

I wonder what plane could be fast and agile enough to avoid such a tragedy in such conditions...




Again,at short range,anything was possible.If it connects,their won't be witness i fear.



I don't find the comparison between cal .50 bullet and MK108 shell very relevant;
Concerning the MK108 shell shape,instead of debating about its aerodynamic and trajectory,i would look at the projectile destructive power...And as a matter of fact,IRL the MK108 HE shells contained 85g explosive,which was simply ENORMOUS.
The purpose of this is clear:Crush anything that could be hit,whatever it is easy or not to do such.
And at a close range with 11/12 shells fired per second,whatever the targeted aircraft is,a sensible fighter pilot who is placed in front should consider this gun as a major threat.

- Some IRL infos about MK108

- Some IRL infos about MK108 bis

Oh and BTW,

- MG151/20 ammo details here with other guns

As for the MK108,Germans made MinenGeschoB shells as well for the MG151/20,with 20g for each 20mm shell.Enormous,again.

Hey,by the way and AFAIK,we don't have MG shell for the MG151/20 ingame...No complain about this Buzzaw?

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A lot of the discussion boils down to this IMHO. The game engine is almost a decade old by now, and there are quite understandably a lot of variables that it doesn't take into account. Like you I strongly suspect that projectile aerodynamics is one of them.


This seems to fit with the calculations made by Tony Williams and others. My impression is that it fits fairly well with the game too.


For comparison, a 20 mm Hispano shell contains about 6 grams of explosive. Of course four Hispanos each firing at a rate 15% faster than the MK 108 will still produce quite a bit of HE per second, but clearly the MK 108 is the winner when it comes to HE content. The reason is a clever piece of engineering, with the 30x90RB shell having extra thin walls to make room for more HE.

The MK 108 was not strictly an anti-bomber weapon. The Germans calculated that the ideal bomber destroyer gun was a 40 mm, but mounting a gun that big in a fighter was problematic so they eventually settled on the MK 108 instead. Their calculations showed that it would take four 30 mm hits to destroy a heavy bomber, compared to just one 40 mm hit. The best description of the MK 108 would be "heavy general purpose aircraft gun" or something like that.

I thought about this for quite a while. In my mind the reason why the twin Hispanos seems like more than the .50cal...at least in my mind...is that while its perfectly obvious that I'm hitting with both Hispanos its less obvious if I'm connecting with all 6 .50cals consistently. When I do get a good shot off and I see multiple strikes on the enemy he usually goes down but I'm just not good enough to make a perfect shot with all 6 guns connecting at the same time. Thats just in my mind...as I like the .50cal effect of shredding the target but I also find the Hispano to be overall a more effective weapon.

I have temptation to say yes and... no...

So, parameters are not so numerous, BUT.... if aerodynamics and some parameters like shape are not directly implemented, it is a parameter that is really intereting to simulate a good or bad shape for a shell.... (not sure to be clear, my english is horrible, sorry).

It is the parameter named Kaliber.... it don't represent the exact caliber of the shell, but a value that can be taken in account to calculate ability of a shell to penetrate an armor.... so, you can adjust this value for a given shell to penetrate or not a determinated thickness....

For the MK108, if you reduce this parameter, it will penetrate before exploding, but if you take poor aredynamics and light thin shape, you increase the parameter kaliber and your shell no more penetrate...... a way to take aerodynamics and low speed at impact in account Loss rate of speed is not taken in account, but.... general calculation and perfo ability are a pretty good way to have something coherent, or at least with a certain credibility if not totally accurate.

This game is old, but a bit advanced for weapons..... you can set different types of shell, like Ball, AP, API, HE with or without tracers, life time of bullet...

After that, game use same algo to calculate ballistics, by complex physical calculation (don't all understand, not good enough in maths and physics)....


So, surely one of the strongest feature of the game, due to his age, i think.

Wrong.

After a huge series of complaint threads, Oleg implemented MG shells for all German weapons, and in fact made up the ammo loads for these weapons to predominatly contain MG shells, although those types of loads were not nessesarily the most common. This is one of the reasons that the MG151/20 is now more effective than the Hispano 20mm in the game, even though most experts rated the Hispano as better, in fact one highly respected author rates the Hispano as the best weapon in the war, even when stacked up against the Mk 108. I would suggest you take the time to read the following article and study the tables:

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/WW2guneffect.htm

The whole issue of HE shells is one which is also a weak point in the game.

Airborne HE shells are dependent for much of their effectiveness on the penetration of the target's outer skin. A confined explosion is going to do a lot more damage. A shell which explodes outside the skin of the target is only going to direct some 20% of its force against the target, the remainder will be directed harmlessly into the surrounding air.

From what I see of the game, HE shells automatically penetrate. There are no instances that I have seen of shells bouncing off and exploding outside the aircraft.

In fact, a large percentage of HE shells would not penetrate, especially at longer ranges. This is for two reasons. First, HE shells are lighter than comparable Armour Piercing shells, thus possess less kinetic energy. Most of the time, HE shells have a lower muzzle velocity. The combination of the two means less chance of penetration, since a round travelling at a lower speed and with less kinetic energy will have less chance of penetrating. Second, HE shells have flat noses, as opposed to the shaped noses of the AP shells, thus increasing the likelyhood of the shells bouncing off.

The Germans realized this was a problem with their Mk 108 round, and at the end of the war did a re-design which reduced the overall amount of HE in favour of a heavier round, as well as modifying the shape of the round.

There is also the fact that experts concluded that some 5% of HE shells are 'duds', and do not explode on contact. In the case of the German ammunition, this figure is likely higher, since much of the their ammo was manufactured using slave labour, where sabotage was a very common occurence. Obviously this is not modelled in the game.

The games modelling gives a large advantage to weapons which predominantly fire HE, when that advantage does not nessesarily apply in real life situations.

Your comments about the 'experienced' German pilots only firing at 100 meters is completely irrelevant. You obviously have difficulty in grasping the concept of gravitational drop. Whatever range the target is at, there is less chance of a lower velocity round hitting the target than a high velocity round, especially if the firing aircraft has any kind of bank.

At 100 meters range, gravitational drop for a Mk 108 would be more than TRIPLE the distance of the drop for a .50 cal.

Hummmm, Buzzsaw, Vike is right for MG shells, we have not really MG in game, far of that.... (i know perfectly what i state)

Prob for hispano in the game is (was) Lacking of SAPI...... just ball and HE...

And german API (widly used for 20mm in eastfront) have a really very poor ability to perforate in game (much, much lesser as a shvak, by example)

I think you have not really an idea of what we have in the game..... Oleg said many things and.... reality is not allways same in game

Lol,see Josse's post.




OMG,do you really know how did MK108 HE shells perform????
It seems not:
Their purpose wasn't to penetrate the target at all but to explode externally,using the shell bottom as a duct to orientate a maximum destructive power onto the target skin!

For such a purpose,30mm HE shells noses were very sensitive and then exploded immediately after impact,implying NO bounce possible,or it would be really rare.

Before trolling against Me109 or MK108,have a good read Buzzaw

"An enemy plane had to be approached quite close to enshure hits. However, if an enemy plane was hit, the results were spectecular; one hit of an M-shell destroyed a fighter instantaneously, 3 to 5 hits were sufficient to destroy any heavy bomber"

- Details about cartridges for the 30 mm Mk108 gun




AFAIK,the MK108 has only one drawback: Its low muzzle velocity,which implied that German pilots had to use it at close range.Every drawback like jamming when banking sharply were corrected early during the war,making this gun irrefutably the best multi-purpose anti-aircraft gun of the WW-II,just before the MG151/20 and the russian Berezin B20.



Yes,for a guy who IS only USED TO fire .50 cal...

Now please,take into account the pilots who were using MK108 were GERMAN,who were used to fire with some bigger guns than the .50 cal,like MG131/13,MG151/20,MG-FF/M for years.

BTW,I'm still waiting explanations for how a big target like P51/47 could avoid a MK108 burst at 100 meters from behind...

Maybe by going faster than 2000kph and by doing 11 or 12 evasive maneuvers per second..!

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I will trust Oleg sooner than I will trust you. If Oleg says he implemented MG then I believe him.



Actually I think you need to read the site you linked, obviously you haven't or you would have seen this:

To quote:

"Type 2 - 3cm M Geschoß 108 ausführung A mit zerleger (3cm Mineshell 108 type A with self destruct mechanism). A Mineshell filled with 85 grams of penthrite and fuzed with the ZZ1589B (Zerlegezunder / self destruct fuze 1589B, -mechanical-). The shell could also be filled with 85 grams of HA41 (Hexogen Aluminium). Weight of shell : 330± 8 grams. Note that the shell has a different type of detonator, the VC70. This duplex detonator had a delay curcuit that delayed the shell for about 10 cm of flightpath, enabeling it to enter the target before exploding inside of it."

The description of the MG shell clearly states that it needed to have a delay on the fuse, so it could explode inside the target to be effective.



You show the weakness of your argument by insisting on repeating this absurd comment.

First of all, it may surprise you to understand that not all allied pilots were polite enough to fly straight and level and allow Germans to approach closely to 100 meters behind, that yes, they actually forced the Germans to take some shots from positions which were not as easy, which included high deflection. In those situations, the Mk-108 is definitely at a huge disadvantage.

Your continued insistance that the Mk-108 was designed as an anti-fighter weapon indicates your lack of understanding of the basics of both weapons and projectiles.

Another quote re. the Mk-108 from the site you link:

"It's disadvantages where: low muzzle velocity (±520 m/s), resulting in a very curved projectile trajectory and a short range. An enemy plane had to be approached quite close to enshure hits."

This as you want.
Then,i would think the US 12,7mm are perfectly moddelled ingame,exactly like the MK108.
Oleg said it,then i follow you..!



Hey,did you even look at the photos corresponding to the shells in the bottom of the page i posted?
There are seven types of MG shells described into this page,among them,only two were using the VC70 detonator that permitt such a delay...



Interesting.Where did i say "MK108 as an "anti-fighter weapon"..?

I wait.

I'm still waiting.

I was only talking about *versatility* about this gun.Knowing that only ONE hit would bring a fighter down..!



Good.
Just let me add the rest of this sentence you mysteriously omitt,still from the same site:
"An enemy plane had to be approached quite close to enshure hits. However, if an enemy plane was hit, the results were spectecular; one hit of an M-shell destroyed a fighter instantaneously,"

And what was the favorite method of German expertens when engaging an enemy?
Still No clue?

Close range.

You persist to consider German pilots as awful noobs that would only know .50 cal machineguns,this is quite intriguing and particularily irrelevant.In one word: Absurd.



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