Guns and deflection shooting.

[trooperrob]

Just watching a ww2 documentary.
They are talking about Spit / Hurricane.
One pilot saying that Deflection shooting in the Spit meant that shooting with any deflection meant guesswork, as the target was below the engine.

How is that usually dealt with. ( in ww2 or modern aircraft)
I guess having guns that point above the nose would be good for air combat, but that would mean nose pointing at the ground for ground pounding?

are guns / gun pods adjustable (vertically?)
I know they could be synchronised to converge at a range in WW2.

thanks

[Borat Sagdiyev]

You can adjust sights for wingspan, With ww2 just pre lead the shot for them to hit

[Gunfreak]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

Just watching a ww2 documentary.
They are talking about Spit / Hurricane.
One pilot saying that Deflection shooting in the Spit meant that shooting with any deflection meant guesswork, as the target was below the engine.

How is that usually dealt with. ( in ww2 or modern aircraft)
I guess having guns that point above the nose would be good for air combat, but that would mean nose pointing at the ground for ground pounding?

are guns / gun pods adjustable (vertically?)
I know they could be synchronised to converge at a range in WW2.

thanks

Deflection shooting is something sim players excel at, but in real life very few pilots mastered it. Including the top aces. The vast majority of aircraft getting shot down while flying straight. And usually without knowing the enemy was there. Once the action started and all sides started to weeve and turn. The very few aircraft got shot down unless they were unlucky.

Modern aircraft use radar. It's locked on the enemy and the HUD show were you need to point the nose to hit.(the P51 and P47 in DCS, has a very old school version of this usually an analogue computer and gyro gunsight.)

When shooting at the ground in a ww2, you just put the middle of the sight on the target. And wait for the target to be in range. All the ww2 aircraft are set to default factory settings on guns. So about 250-300 meters for the Allied aircraft and 500 for the German (since the German usually had more center mounted guns. And the harmonising was somewhat less important (still need to take into account the bullet drop.

[trooperrob]

Thanks, I was getting at the fact that in many cases if you have to appy lead the target will be below the nose.
I think there is at least one ww2 bird with a sloping down engine cowling, I wonder if that in any way helped.

[Troll Norris]

The most helpfull thing was to use tracer bullets. But tracers had disadvantage by losing the surprise moment.

[Gunfreak]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

Thanks, I was getting at the fact that in many cases if you have to appy lead the target will be below the nose.
I think there is at least one ww2 bird with a sloping down engine cowling, I wonder if that in any way helped.

None of the warbirds are great for deflection shooting. The Spitfire is the worst. It also has 15 seconds of machine gun fire and 10 seconds of 20mm. So you can't afford to miss a lot.
In the end you'll just learn to guesstimate to hit. However if the enemy aircraft changes direction while it's hidden by your nose, you'll miss, and there isn't anything you can do about that.
The P51 is easier to use. And it has 28-34 seconds of ammo.
The P51(and P57) also has the K14 gun sight. When you adjust the wingspan and range to target. It can be extremely effective.
As shown here. With the k14 dield in just right.
https://youtube.com/shorts/TMMxVVLy8Bs?si=7gbV5ILdCpCKrrjA

[Troll Norris]

Originally posted by Gunfreak:

Originally posted by trooperrob:

Thanks, I was getting at the fact that in many cases if you have to appy lead the target will be below the nose.
I think there is at least one ww2 bird with a sloping down engine cowling, I wonder if that in any way helped.

None of the warbirds are great for deflection shooting. The Spitfire is the worst. It also has 15 seconds of machine gun fire and 10 seconds of 20mm. So you can't afford to miss a lot.
In the end you'll just learn to guesstimate to hit. However if the enemy aircraft changes direction while it's hidden by your nose, you'll miss, and there isn't anything you can do about that.
The P51 is easier to use. And it has 28-34 seconds of ammo.
The P51(and P57) also has the K14 gun sight. When you adjust the wingspan and range to target. It can be extremely effective.
As shown here. With the k14 dield in just right.
https://youtube.com/shorts/TMMxVVLy8Bs?si=7gbV5ILdCpCKrrjA

In P-51D you have to count with the gun barrell overheating. You should perform around 30s pause between bursts or the muzzle velocity and accurancy will rapidly go down.

[Gunfreak]

Originally posted by Troll Norris:

Originally posted by Gunfreak:

None of the warbirds are great for deflection shooting. The Spitfire is the worst. It also has 15 seconds of machine gun fire and 10 seconds of 20mm. So you can't afford to miss a lot.
In the end you'll just learn to guesstimate to hit. However if the enemy aircraft changes direction while it's hidden by your nose, you'll miss, and there isn't anything you can do about that.
The P51 is easier to use. And it has 28-34 seconds of ammo.
The P51(and P57) also has the K14 gun sight. When you adjust the wingspan and range to target. It can be extremely effective.
As shown here. With the k14 dield in just right.
https://youtube.com/shorts/TMMxVVLy8Bs?si=7gbV5ILdCpCKrrjA

In P-51D you have to count with the gun barrell overheating. You should perform around 30s pause between bursts or the muzzle velocity and accurancy will rapidly go down.

Yes. But you still have about 30 seconds of ammo. Which gives you more chances to hit.
We are talking how many seconds ammo the aircraft has. Not what you should be shooting continously.

[Gunfreak]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

Thanks, I was getting at the fact that in many cases if you have to appy lead the target will be below the nose.
I think there is at least one ww2 bird with a sloping down engine cowling, I wonder if that in any way helped.

Here's a video better showing the usefulness of the K14 gun sight you get in the P51/P47.
Don't even need tracers. Once the range and wingspan is correct. Just put the thing on the thing and you should hit very effectively

https://youtube.com/shorts/FediN6fGFlM?si=JJrYOGxd9n6UuiGJ

[trooperrob]

Thanks, these are all interesting, I understand that gunsights evolved, but haven't read a comprehensive history / evaluation.

I was more trying to get at the aspect of planes being unable to lead aircraft in combat enough due to losing visibility, how this is mitigated (high seat? low engine cowling? guns firing slightly up).
which are good / bad for this? - not necessarily specifically those in DCS.

[Gunfreak]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

Thanks, these are all interesting, I understand that gunsights evolved, but haven't read a comprehensive history / evaluation.

I was more trying to get at the aspect of planes being unable to lead aircraft in combat enough due to losing visibility, how this is mitigated (high seat? low engine cowling? guns firing slightly up).
which are good / bad for this? - not necessarily specifically those in DCS.

Once the engine was moved from the front to the back, the problem mostly disappeared. And the cockpit was moved up mostly, with radar guided gunsights and generally larger targets. It's unlikely that you needed worrying about the target being below you nose. A Su27 that looks like it has the same size as a Fw190 is way way further away then the Fw190 would be, so if you imagine a 190 beeing 100 meters from a spitfire and would be below the nose of the spit, you can imagine the Su27 would be something like 400 meters away to fill the same space in your hud. And so the need for deflection shooting is less.

In some very peculiar instances, you might have to blind fire in your jet, if the enemy is extremely close crossing your nose. This will most likely not happen in real life, but will sometimes happen in sims, basically all you have to do is hold in the trigger and the enemy aircraft till just fly into your bullets.