[FIXED] M-61 Vulcan and Gau-8 Avenger dispersion values

I know that changes are coming for the GAU-8, and I just wanted to pass along what I had been observing with the new DM in relation to impact points. With such a large error in point of impact and point of effect being drawn, I wanted to make everyone aware that the 2 could cause visual results to be somewhat skewed both good and bad.

 

It wasn't a challenge on your tests, only a, what I considered to be, a helpful tip.

Ok, well that's really the only way I could reasonable read it as but i'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Of note, yes lets say this error even exists in the version that I did the tests on a difference of 3 ft may or may not be a major amount. Plus one has to ask is this just for aircraft or is this the same for where the bullet hole in the ground decal is applied to as well. In the gau tests a difference of 3 ft, if that 3 ft was exactly applied in the ground plane and not vertically would only induce a 3% error which, as you noted, could always work backwards as well.

I hope the changes are accurate to what it is irl, 5mills for 80% 13mills for 100% with the majority of the remaining falling just outside of that 80% circle. And if this is the case the Vulcan should absolutely be reduced very shortly afterwords as can easily be seen in the video that started this thread they shoot very similarly in dispersion.

I personally have zero issues with the gun strafe modeling, the dispersion with PGU bullets or the damage effects modeling. I think its very cool as well as seeming to be very realistic.

The issue with the PGU (beyond dispersion) is that its a more modern aerodynamic design than the rounds used on the other jets resulting in a rather noticeable increase in range over the M56 line of rounds. Currently it uses the same drag values as the M56 which is not correct but seems it will be getting fixed soon.

Ok and has there been any discussion internally about CIWS that you know of?

Ok and has there been any discussion internally about CIWS that you know of?

Why are we worried about CIWS?? Are you talking about for AI modeling?

Currently american CIWS uses the same 20+ milliradian dispersion as the airborne Vulcan. And the same rounds which is not accurate. Making it more accurate by significantly reducing the dispersion down to under 1 milliradian and giving it the more potent MK141 round would also make the system more capable.

No I don't mind i'll get together what I have and i'll make it when I can get on my computer and not mobile.

Hey nighthawk2174, I just wanted to say Thank You for staying on this for so long!

Looking forward to future adjustments to the dispersion.

I actually just found this today and I think it supports the -34-1-1 F15 manuals 8mill 100% cone of fire. This impact area is not much bigger than the dot in the center of the actual gun reticule. Now I don't know what the size of the piper in the 15E is and I hope someone out there knows! But if its anything like the 15C, which it appears to be when you see it at 4:49, the actual dot is 2mills.

Interesting that ED's own manual gives at least the proper values for the maximum allowed dispersion before tear down:

Maybe a fix for the Vulcan is in our near future?

1) In game tests

The provided numbers though are odd mostly as they don't match up to the ingame values. There aren't any of your own ingame tests to back them up. But as much as I want to give ED the benefit of the doubt my own tests have a different outcome entirely.

- overlay from project Vulcan reports, it is one of the worst dispersion values out of the lot tested.

Green = 80% within 10.04mills

100% within 25.78mills

 

Red = 80% within 9.45mills

100% within 22.86mills

--Setting the gun to .0008 in the shell table file----

Orange = 80% within 4.27mills

100% within 10.18mills

2) The numbers,

From my understanding of the 8/12 number is this value is a do not exceed beyond value for the dispersion of the gun. We know from both the project Vulcan tests and from a video (now removed unfortunately) that these guns are fully capable and quite often shoot well below that. In the case of project vulcun ~5.1 for 80% and in the case of the F104 (which had already had 1000's of rounds put through it) was ~4.5mills for 80%. Now in the case of the viper iirc mover indicated the 80% circle for the viper was 6mills. Which aligns quite well with project Vulcan reports. I haven't found this clip yet but when I do i'll update this post. Additionally in some of the DOD docs I provided the numbers are much lower:

“The average mean radius of all target impacts resulting from sample cartridges, conditioned at 68 to 72° F, shall be not. greater than 15 Inches at a range of 500 yards.”

 

http://everyspec.com/MIL-SPECS/MIL-S...DMENT-1_25748/

 

Even the M163 the self propelled air defense Vulcan is more accurate than the in game vulcan. The M163 has It’s accuracy listed at 5 mil for the circular clamp.

https://books.google.com/books?id=UA...page&q&f=false

which I think supports the argument that the DOD numbers are the do not exceed and if you do repair values, not the ones on guns that aren't just about to go down for repair.

3) The Gau-8, F14, and other guns

Something else odd is the gau8 now has a value of .0011 set in the code whereas the Vulcan is .0022. Yet not only in terms of specification but video evidence they are very similar.

Yet then why is the Vulcan more than double this value? Not only that but other guns such as the Russian 23's, 30's, and the BMP gun are all in the range of 5, 5, 4 mills for their 100% circles respectively. And in game their values would seem to indicate this is true being .0005 and .0004 respectively.

I think the final nail for this point is the F14, a module with such a massive dedication to portraying the jet as accurately as is even possible uses a value of .001 in the code... Less then half of what it is now. Now this is on the upper end of what I use in my own gun mod but it is well within what is acceptable for me.

4) The F15-34-1-1

https://i.imgur.com/53TDkf5.png

5)Video Evidence

F18 Strafing footage I think is the most compelling not only that the values irl are probably lower than the 8/12 but are most certainly lower than in DCS.

According to the people in the video the orange target is a 20x20ft target with the poles adding no more than 20 extra ft. Now we also get some HUD footage which shows they fired at exactly 6000ft:

The left and right dispersion is just around the size of the target and if bigger by only a few feet. Which would put the dispersion at But what does DCS look like?

Using a BTR as its just under 20ft long, the same size as the Target (not the poles just the orange target), you get:

which is many times the size of the target not just a little but a lot.

6) This doesn't address the CIWS problem

-I don't think its even possible to logically say that the ingame CIWS dispersion is correct, just any video of CRAM in action will prove this to be the case. Will this issue be fixed?

- pre fixes introduced for the second gen phalanx

Some stats:

MK-149 APDS

V0 = 1160m/s

Dispersion = ~.7-.9mills

Round mass = ~74.1g for tungsten and ~73.3g for DU (assuming solid slug as per diagram)

Explosives = not sure, at first I thought there was but i'm not so sure anymore.

Caliber = 12mm (subcaliber shell)

Drag = No data but should be quite good the shell slows down much slower than the PGU

-----------------------------------------------

Conclusion I don't see how its possible to say that DCS is correct, with all due respect of course, but just the in game tests alone and the difference from the now mostly fixed Vulcan should prove this. The Gau-8 has already been proven wrong and ED admited as much reducing its dispersion by 150%. Mostly fixing the gun and at a minimum this should have forced the vulcuns values down as well. With the new minimum being the new values for the GAU-8. The dispersion is very high currently, over 2x, compared to what it should be and it is my very educated opinion that in the code the value should be set to somewhere in the range of .0008 to .0009 to be accurate; with .001 like the tomcat being completely acceptable.

---------------

edit: test of new Gau-8 value

edit2:

edit3: thanks to a user they took this:

this is at ~2000ft and the rounds are going beyond the wingtips of the SU25 who's wingspan is 47ft. If the ingame values were even acutally 8/12 you would see most of the rounds at 16ft and a few just beyond that and every once and a while up to 24 ft or around half the wingspan.

this is what it should look like:

edit4: thanks to people sending me stuff!

edit5: ok so i've been looking through my stuff more closly and these popped out. This was sent to me a while ago and its a manual for the M117. Now based on what Yo-Yo has said

it seems that the increased dispersion was based of of the existence of this clamp:

But as you can see from the picture:

its a rather distinct addition to the system and not one aircraft in the game has a clamp that looks like this. Plus as far as we can tell this was a one off for the army hence the name "AIR DEFENSE MUZZLE CLAMP

although ironically enough a 5mill dispersion clamp aslo exists and it looks exactly like what's on jets. (also red tracers XD )

I think it's fantastic that ED have arrived at the result of 8/12 with certainty, but now that has to be put into the game so that the ingame M61 reflects these findings, much like the GAU-8 was tweaked to reflect new findings.

The M61 ingame doesn't fire 8/12 at the moment, it fires 11.7/17.6 at the moment, as stated by YoYo:

So, 0.0022 will give about 17.5 mils. Why it was choosen? There was an information that the cannon has different barrel clamps to obtain different dispersion patterns.

You can find the current ingame values in \DCS World\Scripts\Database\Weapons as Da0 for the M61 series of rounds - they are all set to 0.0022 which as YoYo says, gives 17.5mils when multiplied by 8. The correct value to give 12 mils would be 0.0015 if I'm not mistaken.

As a disclaimer: I'm no expert, and I may be wrong, it's just what I've noticed from some comment in Reddit and what YoYo said

To suggest we don't have a massive dedication to portraying everything we do as realistic and as accurate as possible really is kind of a kick in the teeth. It's kind of a sideways tactic to get your way on the subject and in defence to every single one of our developers, I have to say, I am proud of each and every one of them.

This is not the point i'm sure we can go for a while on this but your reading and putting a lot more into my statement then what was said what I may feel about ED in this matter is irrelevant to the conversation.

As for the F-14 guns vs other guns in the sim, I have heard other arguments as well, that the dispersion is too tight on the F-14, and it shows in gunfights, sure if you get it on target it does the job, but it's hard to get on target because it's so tight. But this isn't about the F-14 vs ED M-61, this is about what ED's M-61 is based off and how we feel it is correct as shown in sim.

Well see I know you say you feel its correct but i'm trying to show with overwhelming evidence that its not correct and what correct looks like is something like the 14's M61. I mean saying that the in game guns shoots 8/12 doesn't even pass the basic sniff tests. Like one of the guys on the discord i'm on literally tested in about 15sec with the SU25 pic and there is no way that's right. If ED's value is actually 8/12 in game it would not be shooting over 47ft of dispersion at 2000ft. It would look like the F14.

ut it's hard to get on target because it's so tight.

[/Quote]

This is a give an take subject yes while its harder to hit the target when you do it is a guaranteed kill as instead of maybe getting 1 to 5 hits its more like 20+. And what we feel is ultimately not important what's important is what it is in the real jet and we work around that.

 

hey have worked for a very long time to bring the most realistic combat flight simulation to know to us fans

[/Quote]

 

Good! then lets act on the documentation out there:

 

 

The main questions now:

Like can we get a definitive sneak peak at the code to see for sure what is going on with the dispersion value? How is dispersion calculated? How does the game get its 50%,80%,90%,100% values from one entered number? Why is it the case that in all the tests i've done the value currently entered of .0022 give me an aprox dispersion of 22-25mills? How come with the gau which you guys said is 13mills max based on your own new research has a new values of .0011 if it was really multiplied by 8 then wouldn't it be more like .0016?

In the Su-25 screenshots, why does the label of the first aircraft say 0.4 nm (2500ish feet?) and the second 0.2 nm?

I can only say that what Nighthawk and Santi are saying its very reasonable.

After all its done its good that finally it reach that conclusion, but now it would be reasonable to get those values in the game itself

In the Su-25 screenshots, why does the label of the first aircraft say 0.4 nm (2500ish feet?) and the second 0.2 nm?

Just noticed that lol probably a mistake on their end. I'll add on with the correct distance when I can.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Updating with evidence given to me recently:

edit: test of new Gau-8 value https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comm...ee_how_ed_did/ (fixed link sorry about that)

edit2: https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comm...rong_what_ive/ - extra documents and videos here.

edit3: thanks to a user they took this:

this is at ~2000ft and the rounds are going beyond the wingtips of the SU25 who's wingspan is 47ft. If the ingame values were even acutally 8/12 you would see most of the rounds at 16ft and a few just beyond that and every once and a while up to 24 ft or around half the wingspan.

this is what it should look like:

edit4: thanks to people sending me stuff!

edit5: ok so i've been looking through my stuff more closly and these popped out. This was sent to me a while ago and its a manual for the M117. Now based on what Yo-Yo has said

it seems that the increased dispersion was based of of the existence of this clamp:

But as you can see from the picture its a rather distinct addition to the system and not one aircraft in the game has a clamp that looks like this. Plus as far as we can tell this was a one off for the army hence the name "AIR DEFENSE MUZZLE CLAMP

although ironically enough a 5mill dispersion clamp aslo exists and it looks exactly like what's on jets. (also red tracers XD )

----------------------------------------------------------------------

My question posed on the ED thread still stands as well:

Like can we get a definitive sneak peak at the code to see for sure what is going on with the dispersion value? How is dispersion calculated? How does the game get its 50%,80%,90%,100% values from one entered number? Why is it the case that in all the tests i've done the value currently entered of .0022 give me an aprox dispersion of 22-25mills? How come with the gau which you guys said is 13mills max based on your own new research has a new values of .0011 if it was really multiplied by 8 then wouldn't it be more like .0016?

Two guys replied to the other "official response" thread that was locked and my post was lost because either this forum or my opera browser settings don't recover it when hitting backward, I could recover it from memory by dumping the tab's process but it wasn't that important to waste time on that.

I just said that this is normal scrutiny for a product striving to hit the highest marks and it's would be bad if both sides aren't satisfied in the end, it may come with bigger consequences because the main point driving interest for the core community is the incredible attention for detail, but they're far more than just details in the minds of those.

The players who are arguing that it's not correct in the game should make sure they really tested on the latest beta version, you guys could make a video with the version number and date/time info clearly displayed to remove any doubts, and then make a comparison between the official value currently and the values you think should be, so you guys mod the game your self and see what it does, but the point is make a proper video for it for even more clarity, and the other thing is, hopefully the developers aren't talking about the internal builds that may have not released yet but are the main one they're working on, hopefully we can figure this out.

Just don't jump to conclusios.

Looking forward for ED to actually implement the values they tested and claimed to be true :)

1) In game tests

The provided numbers though are odd mostly as they don't match up to the ingame values. There aren't any of your own ingame tests to back them up. But as much as I want to give ED the benefit of the doubt my own tests have a different outcome entirely.

- overlay from project Vulcan reports, it is one of the worst dispersion values out of the lot tested.

 

 

 

2) The numbers,

 

From my understanding of the 8/12 number is this value is a do not exceed beyond value for the dispersion of the gun. We know from both the project Vulcan tests and from a video (now removed unfortunately) that these guns are fully capable and quite often shoot well below that. In the case of project vulcun ~5.1 for 80% and in the case of the F104 (which had already had 1000's of rounds put through it) was ~4.5mills for 80%. Now in the case of the viper iirc mover indicated the 80% circle for the viper was 6mills. Which aligns quite well with project Vulcan reports. I haven't found this clip yet but when I do i'll update this post. Additionally in some of the DOD docs I provided the numbers are much lower:

 

 

 

which I think supports the argument that the DOD numbers are the do not exceed and if you do repair values, not the ones on guns that aren't just about to go down for repair.

 

3) The Gau-8, F14, and other guns

 

Something else odd is the gau8 now has a value of .0011 set in the code whereas the Vulcan is .0022. Yet not only in terms of specification but video evidence they are very similar.

Yet then why is the Vulcan more than double this value? Not only that but other guns such as the Russian 23's, 30's, and the BMP gun are all in the range of 5, 5, 4 mills for their 100% circles respectively. And in game their values would seem to indicate this is true being .0005 and .0004 respectively.

 

I think the final nail for this point is the F14, a module with such a massive dedication to portraying the jet as accurately as is even possible uses a value of .001 in the code... Less then half of what it is now. Now this is on the upper end of what I use in my own gun mod but it is well within what is acceptable for me.

 

4) The F15-34-1-1

https://i.imgur.com/53TDkf5.png

 

5)Video Evidence

 

F18 Strafing footage I think is the most compelling not only that the values irl are probably lower than the 8/12 but are most certainly lower than in DCS.

 

- link with timestamp

 

According to the people in the video the orange target is a 20x20ft target with the poles adding no more than 20 extra ft. Now we also get some HUD footage which shows they fired at exactly 6000ft:

 

The left and right dispersion is just around the size of the target and if bigger by only a few feet. Which would put the dispersion at But what does DCS look like?

 

Using a BTR as its just under 20ft long, the same size as the Target (not the poles just the orange target), you get:

which is many times the size of the target not just a little but a lot.

 

6) This doesn't address the CIWS problem

-I don't think its even possible to logically say that the ingame CIWS dispersion is correct, just any video of CRAM in action will prove this to be the case. Will this issue be fixed?

 

- pre fixes introduced for the second gen phalanx

Some stats:

MK-149 APDS

V0 = 1160m/s

Dispersion = ~.7-.9mills

Round mass = ~74.1g for tungsten and ~73.3g for DU (assuming solid slug as per diagram)

Explosives = not sure, at first I thought there was but i'm not so sure anymore.

Caliber = 12mm (subcaliber shell)

Drag = No data but should be quite good the shell slows down much slower than the PGU

 

-----------------------------------------------

 

Conclusion I don't see how its possible to say that DCS is correct, with all due respect of course, but just the in game tests alone and the difference from the now mostly fixed Vulcan should prove this. The Gau-8 has already been proven wrong and ED admited as much reducing its dispersion by 150%. Mostly fixing the gun and at a minimum this should have forced the vulcuns values down as well. With the new minimum being the new values for the GAU-8. The dispersion is very high currently, over 2x, compared to what it should be and it is my very educated opinion that in the code the value should be set to somewhere in the range of .0008 to .0009 to be accurate; with .001 like the tomcat being completely acceptable.

 

 

---------------

edit: test of new Gau-8 value

(fixed link sorry about that)

edit2:

- extra documents and videos here.

edit3: thanks to a user they took this:

this is at ~2000ft and the rounds are going beyond the wingtips of the SU25 who's wingspan is 47ft. If the ingame values were even acutally 8/12 you would see most of the rounds at 16ft and a few just beyond that and every once and a while up to 24 ft or around half the wingspan.

this is what it should look like:

 

edit4: thanks to people sending me stuff!

 

edit5: ok so i've been looking through my stuff more closly and these popped out. This was sent to me a while ago and its a manual for the M117. Now based on what Yo-Yo has said

it seems that the increased dispersion was based of of the existence of this clamp:

But as you can see from the picture:

its a rather distinct addition to the system and not one aircraft in the game has a clamp that looks like this. Plus as far as we can tell this was a one off for the army hence the name "AIR DEFENSE MUZZLE CLAMP

although ironically enough a 5mill dispersion clamp aslo exists and it looks exactly like what's on jets. (also red tracers XD )

Holy cow, someone's got WAAAAY too much time on their hands. Seriously? It's a game, but you make it sound like this is life or death stuff to you. I'm all for getting stuff accurate, but to obsess to this level of detail is..... well...... obsession. Chill dude.

Holy cow, someone's got WAAAAY too much time on their hands. Seriously? It's a game, but you make it sound like this is life or death stuff to you. I'm all for getting stuff accurate, but to obsess to this level of detail is..... well...... obsession. Chill dude.

The issue with gun dispersion and things related to it has been a topic of discussion for a great amount of time. People like accuracy and precision when it comes to details in a simulation. Please stick to the relevant issue and leave the ad hominem arguments out of the discussion as they contribute absolutely nothing to the discussion but creating conflict. We are all trying to solve this issue in an adult manner.

Holy cow, someone's got WAAAAY too much time on their hands. Seriously? It's a game, but you make it sound like this is life or death stuff to you. I'm all for getting stuff accurate, but to obsess to this level of detail is..... well...... obsession. Chill dude.

Well its more that every piece of evidence collected so far has done nothing so I'd show one piece then another and another and another until well the above nearly a decades worth of peoples posts are represented somewhere.

The issue with gun dispersion and things related to it has been a topic of discussion for a great amount of time. People like accuracy and precision when it comes to details in a simulation. Please stick to the relevant issue and leave the ad hominem arguments out of the discussion as they contribute absolutely nothing to the discussion but creating conflict. We are all trying to solve this issue in an adult manner.

[/Quote]

+1

Holy cow, someone's got WAAAAY too much time on their hands. Seriously? It's a game, but you make it sound like this is life or death stuff to you. I'm all for getting stuff accurate, but to obsess to this level of detail is..... well...... obsession. Chill dude.

You do realise it's DCS right?

I'm all for getting this stuff accurate, especially for the CIWS, which as Nighthawk correctly stated, is using the wrong round and has a higher dispersion than it should be.

As far as I'm considered nighthawk, obsess away! Your work is great! :thumbup: