Hey guys,

Think I must be missing a trick here, but I just can't kill anything with a sensible amount of rounds ??

I run full realism but have tested with unlimited ammo as well, I am pouring hundreds of rounds on target with very little effect.

I am not a novice, and was in fact once upon a time a flight leader some moons ago over at RAF74, so I like to think I still have some clue wtf I am doing ???

I have flown against bombers and fighters, both with little to show for the amount of lead poured on target, I once emptied and entire ammo load into the starboard engine of a HE111 and the bloody thing just cruised on, no vapour, no smoke, plenty of generic pieces falling off tho.

What gives guys ???

S!

More or less the same here. Although smoke, glycol trails and the likes do show up.
Without canons, I personally prefer to go after the crew but success rate is pretty low for lack of gunnery skills. It is devastating when done right.

Cheers,
Slug

For the He 111, try to aim all your rounds at the wing where it joins the outboard side of the engine. Be patient and make multiple passes. The Spitfire default belting has all tracers in #1 & #8. You can add 2 slots of AP in addition to the tracers for more hitting power while still having the benefit of tracers. Even with my rotten gunnery skills I can take the wing right off without any fuss:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/4534gtu8t5wu87k/spit1-v-he111.trk

Do you dial in convergence and wingspan in your gunsight? - It makes a big difference.

As in IL2 for some reason the He111 is very difficult to bring down. Not sure why because in real life it was no different to the Do17 etc. where a few rounds in an engine brought them down. What gets me is you can sit behind the He111s and there is a shower of debris coming back off them but they carry on as if nothing has happened!

I don't spend too much effort on them but try and damage them and move onto something else.

Shooting at convergence is key, and remember you don't need to blow the thing to pieces, or shoot it down in flames. If you can get one engine smoking or leaking half reasonably then chances are it won't make it home. I usually do that and then move on to the next target. It is easy enough to get 3 kills per sortie doing this if you are interested in a glowing score card!

Craig

I managed to sever the wing from one the other day with nothing more than a second long burst from a Hurricane, previous efforts had taken far far more ammunition so I guess it's just the enhanced damage model coming into effect.

I posted a track that shows exactly how to bring down the He 111 with the Spitfire. There's no mystery, just watch the track

To me these are signs of sophisticated damage modelling: attacks which superficially ressemble each other lead to very different outcomes. I have it all the time, but hardly ever do I produce spectacular catastrophic damage. Mostly just smokers and planes that slowly descend... - Which is very realistic, I think, if not as cinematic as in other, earlier sims.

OK, no sign of the original thread starter in here, but I'll still repost this:

My gunnery efficiency was improved IMMENSELY when I started to use the gunsight correctly. You have to fire at the right range. If you do it you will see dramatic results.

This picture was uploaded by Eklund89 of the banana forums:



It seems there is a small error in CoD regarding the gunsights. Instead of measuring the wingspan from horizontal line to horizontal line, as they did in real life, the CoD sights measure the distance from the central dot to the horizontal line.

This means that you have to double the setting on the range dial.

So, if you set your convergence (in the settings screen, before entering the mission) to, say, 150 yards, then you have to set the range dial to 300. That is your upper dial on the gunsight. Do that before take-off.

Then, when you're up and flying and come across a bogey, you have to enter his wing span with the lower dial. So, enter 60 with the dial if you're going up against a Do-17.

With all that set correctly you should then hold your fire till the enemy wingtips touch the two horizontal lines in your gunsight. Then fire away and you will be amazed at the results, I guarantee you! Don't waste your time shooting from closer up or further away. The cone of fire will converge at just the right distance and with devastating results.

Apart from the small range bug (which might have been corrected with one of the latest patches, I don't know, but for which there is an easy work-around, as you can see) 1C has really modelled convergence shooting fantastically well.

Hope this helps.

PS: I haven't used this technique yet in any of my videos, which are strictly spray and pray!

Good post, Frey. I'm going to assign a couple of HOTAS buttons to the gun site; should've done that long ago!

I think that may be the issue in a nutshell. Flying a few He111 missions at the moment and can tell you, they (we) most definitely can be shot down, and are not at all invulnerable. But they do not explode in a big fireball and unlike in IL2, wings falling off is rarer. Watching what happens to my own kite, and to the AI around me, wings and other structure rarely fall off, though they are damaged and that impacts airworthyness. Pilots and gunners are killed, though more often gunners, than pilots (I guess they are more exposed to rear attacks).

But what brings the Heinkel down most often is engine damage. If you aren't patient, and don't follow the bomber pack home, you won't see this, but I can assure you engines fail, and when they do, more often than not the Heinkel will crash or ditch in the Channel on the way home.

So they may look invulnerable as they exit the battlespace, but they are goners nonetheless.

You can see a description of that in the He111 AAR report on this page (halfway down). Of the 4 He111s lost, only one was shot down in the actual dogfight. The rest crashed on the trip home:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3295421/12/Luftwaffe_campaign_walkthrough.html

H

Ok thanks for those snippets and tips, I hold my hands high, not touched the gunsight settings, tried a reduced convergence in the options (which won't save as a profile grrrrrr) and relied purely on getting in close, real close.

Will give these tips a spin, btw, wasn't just the HE111 I was struggling with, had major problems taking down an E1, and just to clarify, I do see vapour and smoke sometimes, just rarely smoke.

Thanks again.

Wow! Good post there Frey! I do have to get off my duff and start to learn more about the intricacies of this game... like the gun sight and more of the CEM stuff... Though right now I'm doing well enough just using the "Force" for my shooting.

Thanks for all the help with gunnery but I have a more fundamental question - How do you estimate the number of yards to the target? I set convergence on my hurricanes at 332 but I have no idea what 332 means in the game space.

Is there a way to estimate that?

Practice with Icon’s on and it will train your eye. The gunsight, as Frey explained it can be calibrated to show you when you are at convergence, so if your gun convergence is set to 332 then set the gunsight accordingly (I double the distance so it is horizontal line to horizontal line).

JD
AKA_MattE

There is indeed and that is what the gunsight is for! - Gotta go back and read my posting above. Hint: It involves dialling in the "known" wingspan of enemy fighters or bombers.

That post on page1 which shows how to set convergence should be part of some CoD FAQ.
So simple thing, yet big effect.

Heres something I put together ages ago accrued from the web, my own stuff and links to useful vid.

I havent checked, they might not work but take a look, apologies for no credits it was all internal stuff....



Gunnery inc missions

Mell

Thanks for that info Frey, it should help a lot

OK, I think I'll repost it in a separate thread, seems it is useful to most!

Absolutely, I had no idea how to get the gunsight set correctly, before seeing your post with the gunsight settings and as you say it makes all the diference when you get your convergence correctly, Avimimus has a FAQ post stickied, not sure if it is worth adding to that as well, it is quite an old post now.

One thing I found, I changed my loadout to Tracer/AP/Incendiary/Ball/Tracer, the first shot I took gave me a nice exploding 109 with just a 1 sec burst, I made every gun with the same load, might not be realistic and I may make some adjustments but it did work.

That is really good info, Bong. Gonna have to try that. Thanks for sharing this!