How do I Flak?

[SievertChaser]

So, I spent an evening trying to perfect a good anti-flyer shell. I'll deal with the gun set-up later - I used to make a good twin 3-incher auto, but can't anymore, some-why - and in the meanwhile I am pondering the contents of the shell. Hopefully, I'm not the only one.

Thus far I've experimented with two payloads.

• One is a straight-up AHEAD shell, with a bunch of shrapnel charges with a 180 cone, and a timer to set them off 0.4 sec before they reach the target. Thus far they've proved to be underwhelming, but I may have used too few powder charges.
  
• Dual-fuse semi-AP shell - Composite head with twin Flak or HE warheads and a timer. The explosive effect seems lacking when merely exploding near the target, but the damage of direct impacts is nice.
  
• APDS-T - two sabot pieces and a tracer, my simplest design. Handy for puncturing balloons, nice flat trajectory, but seems to do very little damage.

[Vectura]

Try a few frag pieces set to 180 degrees (or is it 90 degrees? Whichever one makes a semicircle in from of the missile). Have it set with the timer fuse, and try different times for exploding before target. That way, as long as the shell hasn't gone past the enemy, they will take a fair few fragments. I think bigger shells contain more fragments too, which could help.

[SievertChaser]

Originally posted by CMDR Vectura #noobandproud:

Try a few frag pieces set to 180 degrees (or is it 90 degrees? Whichever one makes a semicircle in from of the missile). Have it set with the timer fuse, and try different times for exploding before target. That way, as long as the shell hasn't gone past the enemy, they will take a fair few fragments. I think bigger shells contain more fragments too, which could help.

I guess I should try very big flag guns. But the ones I've tried have blanketed the target head-on - but haven't caused much damage.

[bigoakley02]

Originally posted by CMDR Vectura #noobandproud:

Try a few frag pieces set to 180 degrees (or is it 90 degrees? Whichever one makes a semicircle in from of the missile). Have it set with the timer fuse, and try different times for exploding before target. That way, as long as the shell hasn't gone past the enemy, they will take a fair few fragments. I think bigger shells contain more fragments too, which could help.

in real life 180 would be semicircular, because 180 degrees is a straight line, whereas 90 degrees is a right angle. not sure about the mathematics in FtD though

[Admiral Obvious]

Originally posted by bigoakley02:

Originally posted by CMDR Vectura #noobandproud:

Try a few frag pieces set to 180 degrees (or is it 90 degrees? Whichever one makes a semicircle in from of the missile). Have it set with the timer fuse, and try different times for exploding before target. That way, as long as the shell hasn't gone past the enemy, they will take a fair few fragments. I think bigger shells contain more fragments too, which could help.

in real life 180 would be semicircular, because 180 degrees is a straight line, whereas 90 degrees is a right angle. not sure about the mathematics in FtD though

Take a half circle and it would be accurate. Use a protractor and you'll see what I mean. 180 is indeed a straight line, where 90 degrees, once put in a full circle is actually about 45 degrees in practice. It's confusing, but it kinda makes sense.

[bigoakley02]

Originally posted by Admiral Obvious:

Originally posted by bigoakley02:

in real life 180 would be semicircular, because 180 degrees is a straight line, whereas 90 degrees is a right angle. not sure about the mathematics in FtD though

Take a half circle and it would be accurate. Use a protractor and you'll see what I mean. 180 is indeed a straight line, where 90 degrees, once put in a full circle is actually about 45 degrees in practice. It's confusing, but it kinda makes sense.

i do see your logic

[Vectura]

I am just can't remember if it works like camera doc, where 90 actually means 90 degrees to each side for a total of a 180 degree view.

[bigoakley02]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=526051143

[bigoakley02]

Originally posted by CMDR Vectura #noobandproud:

I am just can't remember if it works like camera doc, where 90 actually means 90 degrees to each side for a total of a 180 degree view.

ahh ok

[A Fish]

Try Flak, not frag.

Its basically a larger AOE/smaller HE dmg variant of the HE warhead.

My favorite 30cm flak round -> 3xgunpowder, stabilizer, timer fuse, 2xflak, composite cone.

The cone is only there for AP and velocity, as the timer fuse blows the round with or without impact.

Be sure to use a laser designator with your flak rounds!

[A Fish]

and you can easily replace the stabilizer with a bleeder for higher muzzle velocity

[breakthrough]

Originally posted by FungiAmongi:

Try Flak, not frag.

Its basically a larger AOE/smaller HE dmg variant of the HE warhead.

My favorite 30cm flak round -> 3xgunpowder, stabilizer, timer fuse, 2xflak, composite cone.

The cone is only there for AP and velocity, as the timer fuse blows the round with or without impact.

Be sure to use a laser designator with your flak rounds!

That requires 4m autoloaders when a 25cm would fit in 2m autoloaders. How big is the difference in blast radius?

[SievertChaser]

Originally posted by breakthrough:

Originally posted by FungiAmongi:

Try Flak, not frag.

Its basically a larger AOE/smaller HE dmg variant of the HE warhead.

My favorite 30cm flak round -> 3xgunpowder, stabilizer, timer fuse, 2xflak, composite cone.

The cone is only there for AP and velocity, as the timer fuse blows the round with or without impact.

Be sure to use a laser designator with your flak rounds!

That requires 4m autoloaders when a 25cm would fit in 2m autoloaders. How big is the difference in blast radius?

I'd rather keep the bores within 130 mm and get a decent rate of fire.

Will try to build a smaller 76 mm with contact SAPHE rounds later today. Maybe.

[rditto48801]

I think fragments from the frag warheads only have a 'range' of a few dozen meters, so detonating to far from target is not going to be of much use.

Detonating 0.4 seconds short of target is going to be to far away. Unless your round is to slow.
I try to go for at least 300m/s for AA rounds.

3in shells are not good for using a wide angle on frag warheads in my opinion, due so few fragments per warhead.

My basic WIP 3in/76mm AA guns only have 2 frag warheads at 90 degrees, with either a timed or proximity fuse and a composite nose, with I think 6x gunpowder (although 8x would put it close to a real life 3in AA cartridge length). For timed fuses, I like to set the laser rangefinder to detonate the timed fuse 0.1 seconds short of target.

If going for any sort of AP or otherwise impact based AA round, you might want to go for volume of fire. Or a very fast and precise round. Which means going smaller than 76mm.
For an example of fast firing and fast rounds, a 6 barrel 30mm gun with 6 belt autoloaders, with 6 part shells (5x gunpowder, composite nose), plus a few of the hydraulic recoil things and guage coolers to minimize cooldown times. Setup right, it can consistently fire 18 rounds per second. Up it to 12x belt autoloaders with double high clips and at least 4 inputs per stack, and it doesn't really need to stop firing ever, because the first 6 clips/magazines will be mostly or fully filled by the time the second batch of 6 runs out.
The rounds may sound simple, but they go around 600m/s, do around 110 kinetic damage and have about 18 AP. So spitting them out at 18 per second really adds up fast in the damage department.
A tiny fire delay (maybe about 1/6 the cooldown of a single gun) allows it to fire the rounds evenly spread out like a regular machine gun.


I like to test AA weapons on that accursed drunken flying rodent of doom the DWG uses.
Even scratching its paint within a minute's time with a stray fragment is considered a success for the AA weapon in my eyes. A resounding success if it consistantly involves a giant fireball in less than 15 seconds of opening fire.

[SievertChaser]

On the other hand, a smaller frag cone reduces the number of shells that hit the rather small flyer at all.

Hm, what's your opinion on tracers?

[rditto48801]

Fragments don't seem to do that much damage in the first place (at least not for smaller shells), so spreading few fragments over a wide area seems like it is not doing to do much, even against a small craft made of wood. More so when you consider maybe 2 dozen fragments spread out randomly into an area accounting for half of a sphere, if air bursting via proximity or time fuse, very few will even hit the target, unless it is a 'direct hit' of some sort.
I generally won't use full 180 angle with frag warheads unless it is a bigger gun, like 127mm or 152mm, with 2 frag warheads.

It's another good reason to use faster shells with a smaller gun like the 76mm, so there is less time between firing the shell and it getting to its destination point, improving the chances of hitting with a narrower frag spread.
If shell muzzle velocity adds to fragment velocity, then it would be yet another reason to lean toward fewer frag warheads on a faster round.


I have not had a chance to try out tracers yet.
I also have not had a chance to try out the flak warhead, either, but the description sounds like it might be a possible alternative for smaller AA shells that have few fragments per frag warhead.