Aircraft Strafing

[vic]

Hiya all,

I was wondering why strafing aircraft seem to have minimal effect (causalty wise) on infantry. I checked the weapons stats in mobhack and found the aircraft class (11) .50 MG had the same weapons stats (HE kill etc.) as the version the grunts tote around. This is all well and good, however the aircraft weren't carrying ONE .50 they had many. E.g. the P-38 had 4 (plus a cannon) and the P-47 had 6 (or was it 8?) .50's.

Therefore, it appears that the way the game is modeled these formidable ground attack aircraft are sallying forth with only one MG loaded. (Unless of course there is some code that adjusts lethality for class 11 weapons. Y/N?) Given the weapons slot limitation (4 slots) one can't get the requisite number of MG's aboard much less the other ordinance (bombs, rockets etc.).

I'd like to mobhack myself a class 11 "weapon" that represents multiple MG's (6, 8 etc.) so the flyboys have all the punch they deserve. However, I am unsure how much to juice up the existing .50 stats to represent multiple guns. I want higher strafing lethality for these aircraft but I don't want to inadvertently create an uberweapon either.

Any hints on how to "scale up" existing .50 stats to represent 6 or 8 MG's?

Many thanks!

Best,
Vic

[thatguy96]

If you were to open up MOBHack or read the helpfile for it, you'd notice that multiple guns for strike aircraft are created by increasing the number in the AP ammo category. So strike aircraft with 8 machine guns usually have 15-20 HE ammo, plus 8 AP ammo. You should notice a "x Y" stat in-game in the unit info for aircraft denoting the number of guns per type.

Now I'd just like to point out that aircraft moving at high speed without the benefit of good aim devices do in fact have a hard time hitting a small target such as a person, or even a cluster of people. You have a far greater margain of error with a bomb or even a rocket. Have you taken terrain into account as well? Shooting up guys in a forest from the air is more difficult than it is if they're out in the open, and you're not likely to achieve kills or even suppress as much in those cases.

This is why you have the three maxims of increasing aircraft firepower prior to major improvements in aim aids and the like, which were 1) increase the size of the guns, 2) increase the number of guns, or 3) increase the rate of fire of the guns (or some combination thereof). This was all to create a greater effect, but still relied on an aircraft traveling likely at well over 100 miles an hour to put the round on target using in many cases pretty rudimentry optical devices. Its not as easy as just as easy as pointing the airplane at the target.

I'm actually reading a book on the US Tank Destoryer Force, and from what I gather there were in many cases pretty regular harassment airstrikes on the TDF in North Africa. They suffered few casualties as a result of this in the majority of situations, even when vehicles and troops on the ground were actually hit.

[vic]

I stand enlightened.

Thank you!

Best,
Vic

[Marek_Tucan]

Try strafing a ground target in sme of UbiSoft's sims starting with Il-2 Sturmovik (very realistic, cannot evaluate the other sims but I like these very much) and you'll see yourself how hard is it to hit even a hangar. You'll find your main concern if not obsession won't be the target but the ground and height, or lack of the second and abundance of the first Esp. since Russian aircrafts also have rather weak weaponry so even if you hit it can be of a little effect.