Gun convergence

Has anyone found any information now that the Spit is out that tells us definitively what distance the guns are set to converge at in DCS?

It would be good to know what the official convergence range is set at in DCS. Some experiments have suggested that it's around 275 yards, but we really need to know the confirmed official setting as it is very important when setting the gunsight on the Spitfire. Can this be found in the files somewhere?

Cheers, Scream.

I was doing some research on the DCS Spit and came across your post and seeing as how I was already doing this breakdown for my own reasons I thought you may want it as well based on your post.

 

So here is the current DCS Spitfire ammunition loadout translated from numbers into types of ammunition, so you know what exactly is in the belt and in what order. As you can see they did keep the Observer rounds and like you, I agree they are useless however DCS does have them configured and tagged as HE rounds in the coding, with explosives inside. So, maybe they will be more effective on here.

 

So here you go:

 

Hispano MkII x 2 (Both cannons are configured with the same ammo belt)

 

3, 1, 3, 2 = HE, AP, HE, HET

 

LH Inner Browning .303

8, 3, 3, 11, 3, 3, 13, 3, 3, 14 = Tracer, Ball, Ball, Armor Piercing, Ball, Ball, Incendiary HE (De Wilde), Ball, Ball, Observer

 

LH Outer Browning .303

3, 8, 3, 11, 3, 13, 3, 3, 14 = Ball, Tracer, Ball, Armor Piercing, Ball, Incendiary HE (De Wilde), Ball, Ball, Observer

 

RH Inner Browning .303

3, 3, 11, 8, 3, 3, 3, 3, 14, 13 = Ball, Ball, Armor Piercing, Tracer, Ball, Ball, Ball, Ball, Observer, Incendiary HE (De Wilde)

 

RH Outer Browning .303

11, 3, 3, 8, 3, 13, 14 = Armor Piercing, Ball, Ball, Tracer, Ball, Incendiary HE (De Wilde), Observer

Alphazulu,

Thanks very much for this; I am not very PC literate, so all the file code stuff tends to leave me blank.

Spitfire Devs,

Would it be possible for someone to confirm were we stand regarding the .303 machine gun load out? I stand to be corrected, but at the moment the .303 machine gun load out appears to be more 1940 battle of Britain, rather than to 1943/44/45 specification. Ball rounds and observer rounds were very much 'old hat' once aircraft had more armour protection after the Battle of Britain.

Thank you in anticipation of your kind attention to this matter.

Happy landings,

56RAF_Talisman

Hi Folks,

Further to the above, please find the following link:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=183520

Happy landings,

56RAF_Talisman

P.S. Looks like by 1942 the standard loading for fixed .303s was half loaded with AP and half with incendiary bullets.

Hi Folks,

 

Further to the above, please find the following link:

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=183520

 

Happy landings,

 

56RAF_Talisman

 

P.S. Looks like by 1942 the standard loading for fixed .303s was half loaded with AP and half with incendiary bullets.

Hopefully, that is exactly what we will get. When I mod my own gun loadout in single player that is exactly what I load it out with, AP then Incendiary (De Wilde) rounds and it works awesome.

What file did you find this in?

Hi HH,

I put that info together but I got the information about the types of ammo from the DCS World/CoreMods/WWII Units/Weapons/Weapons.lua

Then I pulled the ammo mixes from each gun from the DCS World/CoreMods/WWII Units/SpitfireLFmkIX/Spitfire.lua

Other then the Mustang all the WWII units weapons info are in the single Weapons.lua (with the path above) and each plane has it's load out in the WWII Units folder in a lua under the directory of the aircraft's name (just like the Spit lua above).

One thing that I have noticed that I find interesting. If there is no plan to allow people to adjust their ammo belt then why have they created so many extra kinds of ammunition that are not used in the default loadout. The .303 Brownings have 14 types of ammo but only a hand full are even used in the default loadout. The 109's MK 108 cannon also has a tracer round built into the sim but again, it is not part of the loadout.

Getting back to convergence question, I decided to make a little experiment, similar to the ones others did in previous threads on the subject.

Just rolled towards the tallest building near Nalchik airbase apron (attachment 1, me on the left, building on the right) and fired some short bursts in the last but one highest floor - turns out, these were almost in convergence point already (attachment 2 - almost within one window width for .303 fire only). Ruler tool in map view said I was 210 m away horizontally from the "target wall" (attachment 3), while altitude tool in F11 view said the window was 45 m above ground level. Basic trigonometry would indicate then the actual distance to the impact points was ~ 215 m away, which equals 235 yds. Given the fact, that the actual convergence point was a bit further, under the ceiling of someone's lovely apartment :D, while cannon hits, not shown on screenshots, seemed to be a bit closer to each other, I'd say the programmed-in convergence is most probably 250 yds.

Getting back to convergence question, I decided to make a little experiment, similar to the ones others did in previous threads on the subject.

 

Just rolled towards the tallest building near Nalchik airbase apron (attachment 1, me on the left, building on the right) and fired some short bursts in the last but one highest floor - turns out, these were almost in convergence point already (attachment 2 - almost within one window width for .303 fire only). Ruler tool in map view said I was 210 m away horizontally from the "target wall" (attachment 3), while altitude tool in F11 view said the window was 45 m above ground level. Basic trigonometry would indicate then the actual distance to the impact points was ~ 215 m away, which equals 235 yds. Given the fact, that the actual convergence point was a bit further, under the ceiling of someone's lovely apartment :D, while cannon hits, not shown on screenshots, seemed to be a bit closer to each other, I'd say the programmed-in convergence is most probably 250 yds.

I think you should report this in the bug forum. I believe YoYo said that the Spit's convergence should be about the same as the Mustangs.

Playing the Devil's Advocate™ , you are not perpendicular to the building, you cannot be certain that your wings are 100% horizontal, which might be impossible to prove, or attain. Although the turn/bank/slew indicator might show it.

How about positioning yourself exactly perpendicular to one side of the building and starting way back further than the point of convergence. Fire a few rounds to record where they hit, then move up about 5 yards.

Rinse and repeat until you find the convergence distance.

Don't forget, the map is measuring ground distance. Your bullets are flying at an upward angle, and actually have an arched trajectory.

Pilot interviews about setting up guns.

Captain Orso, he is actually using Pythagoras theorem to figure it out. He doesn't have to be perpendicular to the building if the building is perpendicular to the ground.

setting up guns

Here is a good set of interviews with a WW2 pilot on setting up guns. If they could do that did they also have choose of loadout as well?

One could try to take more precise measurement using the "building method" and switching to imperial units, but:

a) there are no buildings high enough on Caucasus map. This generic tower block is the highest type. Also, its physical collision model doesn't match the gfx 3D model - I did actually start further, aiming just under the ceiling of the top floor, but the bullets were flying through. The building started "registering" hits only one floor below and I was already a little short of convergence range. Obviously there are higher buildings on Nevada map, but I couldn't land the Spit in the middle of Vegas (believe me, I tried hard :D);

b) I was more interested in ballpark figure, a dozen of meters plus or minus doesn't matter, just wanted to see if it's closer to 250 or 300 yds.

I don't think it's worth reporting, 'cause It's not even a bug per se. Depending on book sources, apparently 250 and 300 are commonly cited as RAF standards from 1941 onwards and someone at ED probably chose the former. Personally, I don't give a flying sh..t, since I'm not that crazy about UK planes apart from Beaufighter anyway. We don't even know if Yo-Yo is the one who programs ballistic parameters of weapons in DCS modules. It would be good to have an official confirmation though, just for the sake of setting up the gunsight.

Captain Orso, he is actually using Pythagoras theorem to figure it out. He doesn't have to be perpendicular to the building if the building is perpendicular to the ground.

True, but the distance between the left and right streams of projectiles will be askew, if you are firing at the building from an angle.

The I forgot that Art-J measured the hight of the hits on the building and using trig to calculate the actual flight distance :doh:

:P

One could try to take more precise measurement using the "building method" and switching to imperial units, but:

 

a) there are no buildings high enough on Caucasus map. This generic tower block is the highest type. Also, its physical collision model doesn't match the gfx 3D model - I did actually start further, aiming just under the ceiling of the top floor, but the bullets were flying through. The building started "registering" hits only one floor below and I was already a little short of convergence range. Obviously there are higher buildings on Nevada map, but I couldn't land the Spit in the middle of Vegas (believe me, I tried hard :D);

 

b) I was more interested in ballpark figure, a dozen of meters plus or minus doesn't matter, just wanted to see if it's closer to 250 or 300 yds.

 

I don't think it's worth reporting, 'cause It's not even a bug per se. Depending on book sources, apparently 250 and 300 are commonly cited as RAF standards from 1941 onwards and someone at ED probably chose the former. Personally, I don't give a flying sh..t, since I'm not that crazy about UK planes apart from Beaufighter anyway. We don't even know if Yo-Yo is the one who programs ballistic parameters of weapons in DCS modules. It would be good to have an official confirmation though, just for the sake of setting up the gunsight.

What one would really need would be a mod to be able to jack-up the tail of the aircraft until the wings are parallel to the ground, and then a target, which you could place at exact wished distances from the gun(s), and which would actually register the exact position of bullet hits, then a way to fire guns singly in single shots and short bursts, and THEN a way to adjust and lock the convergence down for each gun... or ED could do it all for you and give you a set of convergence settings you could simply select like a mod with JSGME or OvGME or whatever :D

Hi AZ This might help you in your research

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=180672&highlight=gun+convergence

Decibel dB,

Thanks for the link but I think I will avoid that rat trap. That thread seems to me to have gone out of control with people making ridiculous analogies and people who appear to be extremely against convergence settings simply because it will be of no advantage to themselves. Making nonsense statements like it will be abused or used for cheating but then fail to defend the statement when asked how it can be abused or used for cheating. There do appear to be tons of posts sighting evidence of convergence changes by pilots but not a single one (that I saw) was addressed by anyone from ED.

Pilot interviews about setting up guns.

Nice find, this is very compelling evidence. He actually says "We were trained on how to synchronize the guns" and he also says "you could synchronize the guns the way you wanted".

Convergence settings are or have been kicked around by ED, no information and no timeline or if its even going to happen, but they are looking at it.

Well, that is great to hear that the issue is being discussed at ED. Hopefully, something will be implemented and it will just add another great aspect to DCS.

Thanks,

Alpha