----Training Discussions----

 

Lethal Bullet Range

by Fuzeman
Feb 2009

 

 

Tired of getting many assists and not enough kills? That can be frustrating but it's a problem that with some work can be fixed.

There are a few reasons you may be getting assists. They can range from inaccurate shooting, accurate shooting but with a 'bad' convergence, Firing outside the generally accepted lethal range of your weapon to name a few.

BULLETS:

For example, lets look at the .303 or .30 calibre gun. Although it doesnt pack the punch of a cannon or even a .50 cal bullet .30s can be lethal if used right. Bullets use their kinetic energy to do damage opposed to the explosive nature of cannon shells. Therefore you should be rather close to the target to inflict lethal damage. If you fire too far out with .30s their small size and low velocity will conspire to give you assists. Any bird with .30s you should have a fairly close in convergence. Somewhere in the 200 to 250 range is better than 300+. You HAVE to have the discipline to hold your fire until you ARE IN that lethal range. Too far out and while you may hit the target, chances are you will not damage him enough to do anything but get an assist and you poke holes in his airplane. You also have to hold the trigger down and fire enough bullets to damage them enough. With .30s I definately suggest a point convergence, that is haveing all guns set to the same convergence.

The other weapon we seem to use alot is the .50 calibre bullet. This round has more weight to it than a .30 so it will inflict more damage but it still looses some of its lethality at father ranges. You may ping a target with a bullet or three at 800 or 1000 but again its not going fast enough to do serious damage. I'd say most of my planes have .50s and I generally like the weapon. It still isnt and dramatic and lethal as a cannon round can be but 6 or 8 .50s can perform kill shots routinely. The trick is to get all bullets on target in a lethal range. What is a good lethal range you may ask. It can be alot of pilot preference or what yoru used to but I have a few things I do to make sure I fire at lethal range. Gun convergence is one of them. I have most of my .50 cal guns set to a convergence of 275. Why you may ask. For a good reason I think. With the enemy icon system we have the enemy icon chan ges in 200 yard increments. It will change from D400 to D200 right at 300 yards. If I have the patience to hold my fire until I see a D200 I usually am right at my convergence setting and that results in me putting most of my rounds ON target giving me a better chance to inflict lethal damage resulting in a kill opposed to a assist.

This email is getting somewhat long and as I have to do the paper thing shortly I'll cut it off here.

I do want to discuss cannon rounds also. They are more lethal but usually have worse ballistics than bullets requiring yoiu to get in close, similar to when you use .30s. For the 30mm shell on german planes I've heard people say they do not fire until D200 which is very close indeed. Of course the 20mm hispano is among the better weapons we have in Aces High. Very lethal with good ballistics.

Another thing that can hurt yoiur lethality is never getting to 'know' a gun well. If you jump around to many planes which use a variety of weapons from .30cal to .50 to a bird that has cannons you are changeing your firing requirements each time and can't settle in and get good with a certain weapon

Don't forget to film every flight!

 

 

I used to film every flight and after I was done flying for the night I would go watch my films. Right as you fire you slide the film speed to zero, jump into the cockpit as I am usually watching films from outside the plane. Then see where the enemy was in relation to your piper. then jump into the enemy plane to see where your bullets missed. Then jump back into your plane to study the sight picture. As you know from shooting the real thing, I assume most of you have shot a real gun before, sight picture is the key to hitting what you shoot at. The next time you are in that same situation you adjust your SIGHT picture to bring the bullets on target.

 

I also set convergence different for each plane. This works for me and I am not recommending it for anyone else. I set my convergence out to 650 for cannons mounted in close to the prop. The reason is for what Fuze was talking about. Cannons are slow moving rounds, so to get them to go 650 yards the gun has to fire them UP. So if you are shooting them up and a enemy is doing a Break turn in front of you, your deflection shot has a better chance of scoring a hit. It took a lot of practice to get this down. I flew Saturday with a TEMPEST set at 650 and I got some kills, here is the screen shot. It is 3 meg so I am not sure it will send but I am going to try