How to have effective targeting distance for planes?

[stallion319]

Hi all I have recently started playing planes for arcade. Just wonder what is the effective targeting range for planes with 7mm, 12mm machine guns and 20mm cannons respectively? I usually set it at 300m for turn fighters and 500m for BZ fighters.

In addition, does it matter if the cannon is mounted on the nose or on its wings?

[rodbarker007]

I like 500 mtrs for all wing mounted weapons and all nose mounted I shift it to 800 .

With nose mounted in head-ons take the shot at around 1.2k .

[stallion319]

Originally posted by rodbarker007:

I like 500 mtrs for all wing mounted weapons and all nose mounted I shift it to 800 .

With nose mounted in head-ons take the shot at around 1.2k .

But we can only set one targeting distance for all weapons mounted, correct?

[Azi]

Originally posted by stallion319:

Originally posted by rodbarker007:

I like 500 mtrs for all wing mounted weapons and all nose mounted I shift it to 800 .

With nose mounted in head-ons take the shot at around 1.2k .

But we can only set one targeting distance for all weapons mounted, correct?

yes

[Azi]

Nouse mounted weaponry doesn't usually need convergence due to being in the nose and the accuracy being good.

Wing mounted weaponry on the other hand does usually need convergence due to being in the wing and thus having bad accuracy.

I personally set my convergevce to 500 for air and 300 for ground.

[rodbarker007]

Originally posted by stallion319:

Originally posted by rodbarker007:

I like 500 mtrs for all wing mounted weapons and all nose mounted I shift it to 800 .

With nose mounted in head-ons take the shot at around 1.2k .

But we can only set one targeting distance for all weapons mounted, correct?

Yes but you can change them right before battle allowing you to change for different planes just remember it changes all so keep that in mind and remember to turn it back if its wing mounted.

[stallion319]

Thanks all.

1. But most of the time a fighter will have guns and cannon mounted on both the nose and wings of the plane. So can I say that, the targetting distance is set mainly for wing-mounted ones as the nose one should not be affected by the setting?

2. What do you set for turn fighters and BZ fighters? I am mainly playing Russia and believe that LaGG and MiG are mainly energy fighters - thus I set it at 500M. For Yak, I set it at around 400M for turn fighting.

3. For the selection of belts, I dont go for stealth as my aiming still sucks. Can I say that in general we should go for air target or tracer (like the Russian ones) with higher chance of setting enemy on fire? What is the purpose of pure AP rounds?

At the moment I only aim at getting fighters for aerial battles, while bombing is really boring for me. I have tier 2 line up for the US, Russia and Britain.

[Drewskii]

Nose mounted guns are almost always better, unless it's something like the Hurricane when it doesn't matter.

[Wales Grey]

Originally posted by stallion319:

Hi all I have recently started playing planes for arcade. Just wonder what is the effective targeting range for planes with 7mm, 12mm machine guns and 20mm cannons respectively? I usually set it at 300m for turn fighters and 500m for BZ fighters.

In addition, does it matter if the cannon is mounted on the nose or on its wings?

what do you mean by "targeting distance"? do you mean "convergence settings" or "what range should I start shooting at" or some other question I've failed to consider?

if you meant "convergence" then you should probably run it at the distance you're most comfortable shooting with. unless you have vertical convergence enabled, convergence only applies to wing guns. personally i reccomend anywhere from 250m to 500m depending on the guns you're using. (closer is better for a variety of reasons imo but it's really a matter of preference/skill)

if you meant "what range should i start shooting at" then the answer is "when you have an effective firing solution on the target". yes, the "correct" answer is as vague and fluid as that sounds.

[Wales Grey]

Originally posted by stallion319:

But we can only set one targeting distance for all weapons mounted, correct?

only having one harmonization scheme is ahistoric but convienent/easy/not really that big a deal

[cpl trout]

set them to 150 i usally get 8 to 15 kills per game

[Shrubber]

Originally posted by stallion319:

What is the purpose of pure AP rounds? .

Probably better if you want to chase behind or shoot center of mass, mainly bombers (since its harder to hit wings from behind), other wise you better of looking for an angle to break wings or hit the pilot from the canopy.

[Futuristic Hexagon]

I typically set my convergence to 250 to 300m for RB, though 400 for AB. It works pretty well for me, though with Japanese and Italians, I always need to set a closer convergence since those are pretty low velocity guns that lose a lot of effectiveness past that point.

[stallion319]

Thanks all! Valuable feedback.

Yes I am referring to convergence. I mainly fly Russian aircraft at the moment, currently at 2.3 with all fighters. I need to adopt to it as they are very different from flying I-15/16!!! I tend to overshoot while trying to BZ.

Overall, does it mean that for turn fighting the convergence needs to be a lot lower (like 200 - 300M), while for BZ it needs to be higher like 400 - 500M?

Since nose-mounted cannon are not affected by convergence, I can just start shooting even at range of 700M?

Flying is very fun!

[Futuristic Hexagon]

Originally posted by stallion319:

Thanks all! Valuable feedback.

Yes I am referring to convergence. I mainly fly Russian aircraft at the moment, currently at 2.3 with all fighters. I need to adopt to it as they are very different from flying I-15/16!!! I tend to overshoot while trying to BZ.

Overall, does it mean that for turn fighting the convergence needs to be a lot lower (like 200 - 300M), while for BZ it needs to be higher like 400 - 500M?

Since nose-mounted cannon are not affected by convergence, I can just start shooting even at range of 700M?

Flying is very fun!

In RB, I often avoid having to shoot outside 400m. There are cases when it can prove beneficial (the few times where going head on can work out well, against bombers, very high velocity weapons with large ammo counts (i.e. 50 cals), etc), but in RB, ammo is limited and will not be restocked until you RTB, so I prefer to shoot closer in most cases, BnZ or TnB.

I still wouldn't get too giddy about shooting from whatever distance in the case of nose mounted weapons. You still have Vertical Convergence to deal with if you have that on (and many people do say it helps), not to mention earlier what I said about limited ammo. If you shoot closer, you're more likely to land the shot and make it count. It takes a lot of trigger disipline and plenty of frustration, but once you get the hang of it, you'll find you'll use less rounds to take down an opponent.

Just learn your aircraft and your opponent's and learn where you can overpower them in, and learn big mistakes you could make (i.e. going head on against most everyone, especailly Germans in Fw190s).

[Wales Grey]

Originally posted by stallion319:

Thanks all! Valuable feedback.

Yes I am referring to convergence. I mainly fly Russian aircraft at the moment, currently at 2.3 with all fighters. I need to adopt to it as they are very different from flying I-15/16!!! I tend to overshoot while trying to BZ.

ah, many/most russian planes have nose-mounted guns only so convergence isn't something you need to worry about with them.

Originally posted by stallion319:

Overall, does it mean that for turn fighting the convergence needs to be a lot lower (like 200 - 300M), while for BZ it needs to be higher like 400 - 500M?

not exactly, no. convergence should be set at what you can most effectively hit your targets at.

Originally posted by stallion319:

Since nose-mounted cannon are not affected by convergence, I can just start shooting even at range of 700M?

you can start shooting out farther but unless you're going to hit the target there's no point in firing early. properly leading shots is something that will take time to learn, and it's important to note that the arcade lead indicator is for the center mass of the target at the current heading and velocity. think of it less as "shoot here" and more as "this plane is travelling in this direction so lead about this much".