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P51D gun effectiveness (against ground targets)


davidtsw

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So I recently bought the P51D. I was supposed to wait for the summer sale but since I already got Normandy and the assets, I figured I need something that can shoot. Flying around in the free, unarmed Mustang gets old quickly :smilewink:

 

Overall I'm very happy with the plane. I don't have a HOTAS setup yet so I was worried flying it with the keyboard might not work well, but it's surprisingly easy.

 

However, there is something I noticed when attacking ground targets. I haven't tried any A2A action with the Mustang yet so I don't know if that's any better, but it seems that the cannons/machine guns are not very effective against ground targets. I expected them to absolutely tear apart soft targets like infantry or trucks and light armor but it's not the case. I was attacking some targets watching the real time damage thing and it looks like:

 

a) when attacking that lightly armored mechanized truck with a MG, it literally does 1% of damage for each round landing on target. My aiming might not be the best but I've landed quite a few shots on target and was only able to cause around 30% of damage after a couple of passes

 

b) with unarmed trucks it's more effective obviously but still seems like around 15% each time I hit the target. Wouldn't these cannon be able to severely damage a truck faster in real life ?

 

c) with infantry I'm not quite sure what would be realistic. I guess a direct hit is needed to cause damage, right? And then 1 round should obviously be enough to kill an infantryman.

 

Or am I doing something wrong ?

 

P.S. I assume that not every round is a tracer, right ? Any idea about what the ratio of tracers/normal rounds is ?

 

I don't wanna start another discussion on the damage model itself. We all know it needs to be improved and a vehicle damaged in 80% shouldn't be able to operate normally and should probably be immobilized and/or unable to shoot with visible damage on the model.


Edited by davidtsw
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b) with unarmed trucks it's more effective obviously but still seems like around 15% each time I hit the target. Wouldn't these cannon be able to severely damage a truck faster in real life ?

 

Depends. If you always hit the tires, you wouldn't do much damage would you? So it obviously depends where you hit. But of course, if you hit the engine, it looks different.

 

And once the healthbar is low, the vehicles are limited in some aspects. For example, they drive slower than usual. But that's about all that I could see...

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Depends. If you always hit the tires, you wouldn't do much damage would you? So it obviously depends where you hit. But of course, if you hit the engine, it looks different.

 

But is this simulated with the current damage model ? I haven't noticed any variations in how fast I can destroy a truck.

 

On the other hand, it seems that the guns are very effective against trains, both locomotives and carriages. I might be wrong but it doesn't seem to be right. A locomotive shouldn't be easier to destroy than a truck I think.

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Unfortunately damage model of ground units is something with the lowest quality in DCS W.

 

3 kinds of ground targets are here...

 

1st lights, you need "only one bullet" hit to kill it, they are trucks, trains, some AAA ..

2nd medium, short direct burst kill them, APCs, btw. SAU Msta and so on, but not M12 Gun Motor Carriage ..

3rd hard, these are tanks, M12, etc. "undestroyable" with guns, you can kill them only with direct bomb hit ..

 

That is way how do i divide them according to my experience.

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Everything is destroyable by guns. The Vehicles have some sort of damage multiplier depending on where you hit. So if you shoot an Abrams with an AK, it is possible to destroy it, you just need enough bullets to do so.

 

And no David, the example you quoted was more directed to real life.

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p-51 dont have cannos small fix. it has 6 x 50cal MGs 12.7mm

and it would completly obliterate truck :P 6 of those mgs actualy are very powerfull high muzzle velocity good accuracy

i think everything up to light armored vechicles would be obliterated

remebe that bullets actualy have added velocity becouse of airplane velocity so bullets from thos mgs would exeed stacionary armor pearcing tests

System specs: I7 14700KF, Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Elite, 64GB DDR4 3600MHz, Gigabyte RTX 4090,Win 11, 48" OLED LG TV + 42" LG LED monitor

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I'm still not sure how the current damage model works. Does it take into account where a vehicle is it ? The velocity of the rounds when hitting the target ?

 

Still torturing the Kfz 251 :lol: According to wiki its armor was 6-14.5 mm thick. Shouldn't 0.50 cal rounds, especially fired from a plane travelling at 600 km/h further increasing the muzzle velocity of the rounds, have no problems at all destroying this APC ? Cause what I'm seeing is that a very long and accurate burst is needed to severely damage the 251 and destroying it in one run is almost impossible.

 

The current damage model might be better than I think it is and take into account things like the distance to the target and the angle at which the rounds hit. Or it might be so bad that it needs xx rounds to destroy a certain type of a vehicle regardless of all the other factors.

 

Does anyone know for sure how it works ?

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I'm still not sure how the current damage model works. Does it take into account where a vehicle is it ? The velocity of the rounds when hitting the target ?

 

Still torturing the Kfz 251 :lol: According to wiki its armor was 6-14.5 mm thick. Shouldn't 0.50 cal rounds, especially fired from a plane travelling at 600 km/h further increasing the muzzle velocity of the rounds, have no problems at all destroying this APC ? Cause what I'm seeing is that a very long and accurate burst is needed to severely damage the 251 and destroying it in one run is almost impossible.

 

The current damage model might be better than I think it is and take into account things like the distance to the target and the angle at which the rounds hit. Or it might be so bad that it needs xx rounds to destroy a certain type of a vehicle regardless of all the other factors.

 

Does anyone know for sure how it works ?

DM model for vehicles is very simply. but 0.5 cal ammo aspecialy AP rounds shoudl have no problem abliterate this kfz251:)

System specs: I7 14700KF, Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Elite, 64GB DDR4 3600MHz, Gigabyte RTX 4090,Win 11, 48" OLED LG TV + 42" LG LED monitor

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The "Visual" damage model has two modes:

1) Alive

2) Dead

 

But, there is an underlying damage model that you can see if you turn on the health icons on the F10 map. In addition, units will show degraded performance as they accrue damage. eg Tanks will slow down and fall out of formation as well as shoot less frequently than their healthy counterparts.

 

Unfortunately, we can't see thrown tracks, bent gun barrels, smoking engines, stunned or wounded crew, etc. that would be visual clues that something is damaged.

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The "Visual" damage model has two modes:

But, there is an underlying damage model that you can see if you turn on the health icons on the F10 map. In addition, units will show degraded performance as they accrue damage. eg Tanks will slow down and fall out of formation as well as shoot less frequently than their healthy counterparts.

 

OK, but do you have more information on this ? Can I find it anywhere ?

 

When will tanks or trucks slow down ? After losing how many % of "health" ? How much will they slow down ? Is their aiming also affected ? I'm looking for details.

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Your bullet logic is...well, illogical. Missiles fired from a plane going faster go faster because they are propelled. Bullets fire from a plane going faster hit higher resistance and slow immediately, so neither muzzle velocity nor terminal bullet speed change because friction and gravity are always slowing a bullet down.

 

6x.50's should be able to tear up light armor vehicles and soft targets like trucks. In real life a .50 passing close to a human is enough to disable if not outright kill a human. I think people get wound up on effectiveness of the .50 though; while it is a high velocity, high energy round it's still a small caliber bullet. It has no mass really, so for it to be effective you have to put a shitload of rounds in target AND hit your target at convergence. If you aren't massing your bullets you aren't getting your all out of a set of .50's. That was the magic of that weapons system, when you hit on convergence you have the energy and the bullet mass to do real work.

 

I'm sure a lot of you have time behind the M2 like I do. It's an impressive weapon in many regards!!

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  • 4 months later...

Glad to report things have definitely been improved!

 

I took a break from DCS and only fired it up tonight. Created a quick mission in the editor and one of the first things I noticed was that lightly armored vehicles are no longer indestructible . The Sd.Kfz.251 can now be destroyed quite easily even by a not-so-current virtual P51 pilot using good old mouse and keyboard combo :) Trucks seem to take more damage, too. The .50 cals on the Mustang finally feel like a powerful weapon so thanks ED for fixing it.

 

I wonder what you're going to say now Robert. I may not have real-world experience behind the M2 but it turns out you don't need to in order to know what is and isn't underpowered after a little research.

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Your bullet logic is...well, illogical. Missiles fired from a plane going faster go faster because they are propelled. Bullets fire from a plane going faster hit higher resistance and slow immediately, so neither muzzle velocity nor terminal bullet speed change because friction and gravity are always slowing a bullet down.

 

6x.50's should be able to tear up light armor vehicles and soft targets like trucks. In real life a .50 passing close to a human is enough to disable if not outright kill a human. I think people get wound up on effectiveness of the .50 though; while it is a high velocity, high energy round it's still a small caliber bullet. It has no mass really, so for it to be effective you have to put a shitload of rounds in target AND hit your target at convergence. If you aren't massing your bullets you aren't getting your all out of a set of .50's. That was the magic of that weapons system, when you hit on convergence you have the energy and the bullet mass to do real work.

 

I'm sure a lot of you have time behind the M2 like I do. It's an impressive weapon in many regards!!

 

 

:megalol:

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