Here is another great article from Dart over at SHQ...

IL-2 Series: Fundamentals of Gunnery

Katywhompus!

The film-clip is really good too. S! @ that man!

B

Great stuff, thanks for posting BC
Gotta go work on my Katywhatchamacallit.
Dag

* Blush *

A list of all the SimHQ articles I wrote:

http://www.darts-page.com/news.htm

The hard part will be making an actual gunnery film that's under five minutes.

Nice job Dart!

well done dart, i espcially enjoyed your videos

thank you

Great work -

~S~

Dart,

Triad

Excellent article, Dart. The articles and videos have been a big help to me lately. Thank you.

Without a doubt your videos and articles are THE best resource I've seen. I even love the elevator music!

Big thanks from me Dart!

Hey, Dart, thanks! Great work as always

A question: I fly BF109 a lot, and with the nose-mounted cannon I've wondered if convergence might work opposite from how you describe it in the vertical plane, since the weapon is mounted below the pilot's point of view. So if we say the convergence is set at 200 meters, wouldn't the shell be rising up towards the aimpoint for the first 200m, then rising above the aimpoint for a while after crossing it at 200m , then as it starts to fall due to gravity, re-crossing the aimpoint at a point ways futher out (I'm guessing a little less than 400m)? And therefore, wouldn't the cannon shells hit a target at 100m somewhat BELOW the aiming point, requiring a pilot to aim HIGH at a target closer than the convergence?

I guess I could methodically test this myself in game by attempting to set up the situation, recording and scrutinizing tracks, but it's much easier to ask the experten!

-s-

Actually, it's pretty flat to convergence, so the rise wouldn't be much beyond that unless one really brought the convergence in.

That nose mounted cannon is at navel level to a sitting pilot, after all.

The one big problem cannon rounds have is the energy drain due to size. They don't have near the velocity of machinegun rounds and past 400 meters drop like stones.

The trade off, of course, is that cannon rounds penetrate due to explosive charge, not that whole mass times velocity thing Newton kept blabbering on about.

Most often the opposite effect is taken advantage of - the round firing high of convergence on a ballistic arc downward.

Since most folks shoot inside their own convergence settings and don't lead enough, the shot against a rising opponent usually hits true. The convergence setting is forcing the cannon rounds to fire high, which makes up for the lack of deflection by the firing pilot.

I've looked a thousands of online tracks and I'd say that a good 50% of all solid hits are against a rising target, 40% against co-altitude, and only 10% against a diving target.

Diving away worked for real pilots in WWII (for a host of reasons) and it works in the simulation as well.

Of course we're all suicidal morons with no sense of mission that will endlessly chase one plane in a flight that is clearly running away.

Or, conversely, suicidal morons that will successfully run away only to re-enter combat with low energy, low ammo, but substantial damage.

Very Nice!!

quote:

Originally posted by GvSAP_Dart:Or, conversely, suicidal morons that will successfully run away only to re-enter combat with low energy, low ammo, but substantial damage.

me to a t

quote:

Originally posted by GvSAP_Dart:Or, conversely, suicidal morons that will successfully run away only to re-enter combat with low energy, low ammo, but substantial damage.

I still have ammo?......So whats the problem?

That is a good article, but I am not surprised given Darts past history of stuff like that. Another fine piece of work

er sry i newbie can i ask why i cannot toggle arresting hook and why i cannot drop bombs

quote:

Originally posted by silverrealm:
er sry i newbie can i ask why i cannot toggle arresting hook and why i cannot drop bombs

1.Map "Toggle Arresting Hook" under your controls to whatever key you want.
2.You probably can't drop all bombs from your bomber because you set "Unlimited Ammo" under difficulty options, that way for instance, if you fly Ju-87 Stuka with 2xSC250 + 1xSC500, you'll only be able to release wing mounted bombs and not the one under fuselage.

quote:

Originally posted by GvSAP_Dart:
* Blush *
The hard part will be making an actual gunnery film that's under five minutes.

Well if anyone can do it, you can, Dart.