Lethality How to test the lethality offline? The red-shaded headquarters building beside the Zeppelin hangar at F20 in the "daawf1.trn" terrain was chosen as a target. Each aircraft was started on the ground and then taxied to a stop in front of the building. Those inside were given 60 seconds to evacuate. The gunsight was placed between the first floor windows and the trigger(s) held down until the building exploded (or not). The first figure is the ammunition load of each weapon "system", given in number of rounds. The second figure is the duration of a sustained burst, until empty, in each weapon "system". The third figure (Time To...) is the time it took to destroy the building with a sustained burst. Figures are given for single and paired weapons in both standard fighter and "balloon busting" incendiary loads. These figures are then applied to the aircraft in question. Tail gunner/observer weapons were not tested as they cannot fire while on the ground and are marked with the "CNFOG" note. Bombs were not tested. Note: The Allied and Axis aircraft have equal lethality in these tests. The Spandau pairs are equal to the Vickers pairs. The Spandau singles are equal to the Vickers singles... Note2: The single .303 Lewis Gun on the SE5a just failed the test by half a second. Firing both the Lewis and Vickers together gave the SE5a a score of 19 seconds on the "Armament Standard Load" test.
The MGs which the back seaters and the gunners on the Zeppelin use (Parabellum and Lewis), should have higher rates of fire than the synchronised guns on the aircraft. The Lewis gun on the SE5a should also have a higher rate of fire as it is not synchronised. The synchronised Vickers and Spandaus on the aircraft have the same rate of fire at about 484rpm in DoA. The Spandau in WWI had a higher rate of fire than the Vickers though. So why are these different rates not modelled? "Sinbad" wrote some thoughts on this. They are reprinted below. "Fire rates given in manuals for machine-guns are theoretical maxima, based on the assumption that the gun is fired continuously and is not slowed by the action of any synchronisation gear, i.e. it's not being fired through the airscrew arc. A typical synchronised gun's theoretical fire rate was about 200-300 rounds per minute, continuous', rather less in real combat. The two-seater observer's gun wasn't synchronised, of course, and potential firing rate was therefore higher. With the g-forces acting on aircraft-mounted guns and ammunition feeds and much of the cooling apparatus stripped off those guns for lightness, it would have been a miracle if a Vickers or Spandau (LMG Model 08, etc) managed to fire much more than a five-second continuous burst without either a round jamming in the breech or the feed belt jamming. Ammunition quality was often quite poor as well, and incendiary ammunition was prone to swell and jam even more than ball shot. Most scout pilots carried a small rawhide mallet to knock breech-jammed rounds clear. I read a manual once that reckoned there were 26 different ways a Vickers could jam, 14 of which the pilot had some chance of fixing. The stripped Lewis and Parabellums weren't much better. So pilots and observers fired their guns in short bursts, to conserve ammunition and to reduce the risk of jamming. I reckon that iEN have been a bit generous in their fire-rates based on your findings, probably to promote 'playability' - otherwise, I think the new firing model is the best feature of v1.3 - it would be even more realistic if the time taken to change ammo drums on Lewis and Parabellum guns was simulated by a set time-break, and gun jams were modelled, together with a similar time-break to represent the time necessary to clear the jam." Simba. 6th RFC Black Lions. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
