Pilot or a/c first

I've read somewhere estimated that it took (on average) about 70 to 90 rounds (actual hits) to bring down a single engine fighter in WWII. I've heard of instances where it took several hundreds of rounds to bring down WWI aircraft. I assume that in these instances many of these shots missed their mark. Question being, while I know that 1 bullet can do the trick, how many rounds could the a/c take? and what usually went first, the a/c or the pilot?

Also, does anyone know how to speed the rate of the machine gun fire up in RB3D? I think that while damage seems somewhat proportional, it just a little slow.

Just my vote for the best a/c in the game: Nieuport 24 (especially with the 2 guns). Did they confuse the 24 & the 28 (which seems to only have 1 gun. Other opinions ...

Thanks

[Barrett]

We had a thread on this topic early last year, I believe. The answer is unknowable--only way to know fershure would have been to count the holes in every wreck, add 'em up and divide by the number of wrecks for an average. Frequently we know the number of rounds fired from various combat reports, but that doesn't tell us how many hit the target. And remember that WW I aircraft were relatively impervious to marginal hits: easily repaired doped fabric and wood structure. There's an example from Ham Coolidge's SPAD 13 in the Champlin Fighter Museum. As in all other fusilogical endeavors, only the good hits count. MvR is THE classic example: Popkin fired about 90 rounds at the Tripe; one hit the aircraft and that round went through the pilot's thorax.

[mike_baram]

It seems that the speed of the gun is dependent on the plane you're flying. I've noticed that the rate of fire on the earlier planes is slower than on the later models, and that the Spandaus seem to have a higher rate than than the Vickers, but I might be imagining that, given the different sounds produced by the weapons.
Also, computer memory and CPU speed might have an effect, depending on the age of your machine.
As for the Nieuport 28, it has 2 guns, but one is on the left side of the fuselage, out of sight from the pilots viewpoint. It's a weird aiming situation.
Regards,
Mike

The damage caused by bullets would be according to what the bullet hit. There are lots of cloth areas where the bullets could pass thru with little damage. As far as I know you can't speed up the rate of fire in RB3D. There was a file in RBII where the bullet "mass" could be increased. This increased the damage done by each hit. But this file was removed from RB3D. You would have to transfer the file from RBII. The N28 has two guns. The second Vickers is located down low on the port side of the ship. You can see the flash from this gun when firing.

[Vic_Mouton]

You can try www.golden.net/~ksharman/rb/main.html for tips on editing files in RB2 & RB3D.

VBR
Vic

Regarding cyclic rate of your guns.
The german "Spandau" would fire at 600 rpm. This was the normal operating rate for this piece. The Vickers could fire at up to 800 rpm. These figures would vary with the speed of the engine since the timing of each gun depended on the passing of each prop blade past the gun's muzzle. Each a/c could carry up to 1000 rounds of ammo. Most of these a/c guns were sighted at the 2-3 hundred yard range.

Concerning a/c damage of WW1 vs WW2 a/c.
This is an interesting subject. As was mentioned before, WW1 a/c primary structure was of wood and fabric for most machines, and not terribly complex. However, if you read combat accounts of that time, you will find that quite a number of a/c literally fell apart when under enemy fire. Main structures were sawn in two or blown apart by the withering close in fire of the 7.92 or .303 rounds that were commonly used by all combatants.
It did not take too many bullet strikes to transform a wing spar into splinters! In addition, there was little to no armour used on WW1 a/c. Killing the pilot was almost a sure thing when firing at one of these machines. The Red Baron stated that the best way to down a machine was to go after the pilot.

World War ll a/c are a whole different subject. These machines were VERY complex, armoured, and had weapons with frightning capabilities. However, early in the war, both the british and germans continued to use the same caliber rounds that they had in the first world war. They quickly found these weapons to be inadequate. Hence the move to heavy caliber weapons and cannons. What also complicates the comparison is the fact that the number of weapons carried on WW2 a/c was multiplied by a factor of 3-4. In addition, cyclic rate was also increased by at least two times for most of these guns. Increased mass and hitting power was the goal of the time

I really dont't believe you can compare these two situations. Both have too many variables.

FYI

C.Grube

[Billy_Bishop]

First, the machine guns in RB3D should NOT be shooting any faster. In fact, only the NON-synchronized guns should be faster.

Second. The Nieuport 28 in RB3D DOES have two guns. Go to the outside view (press F4) and circle around to the left side of the plane. Now press the firing button. You'll see two streams of bullets.

Third. The Nieuport 24 along with the Nieuport 17 is almost certainly screwed up for the RFC. Since both aircraft in RFC service used ONLY the wing mounted Lewis gun(99.5%of the time). In French service, they should have either the Vickers, or the Vickers AND the Lewis gun. But NOT twin Vickers. AND the rudder on the Nieuport 24 is wrong too. It should have the same rudder as the 28. At least that is close to the actual 24 rudder.

VBR,

Al Lowe
one of the many faceless/nameless RB3D Playtesters
That no one listened to anyways....all the time.

I have never played RB3D (or even II for that matter), but I have read accounts that the Sopwith Pup had a very low rate of fire due to an inefficient interrupter gear setup. Does the game reflect this? If so, I would imagine that the rate of fire would depend greatly on the machine.

Graham

[Vigilant]

Here's some empirical evidence:

On 27 Oct.18 Barker's Sopwith Snipe E8102 ran into JG3, took over 300 bullets and was still controllable to a forced landing. Barker himself took 4 I think and was pulled out of the machine by men of the Highland Light Infantry. Potentially, it seems both aircraft and pilots could take a lot of punishment! In this case it was the damage to the pilot that forced him down (unconscious at one point) but damage to the machine can't have been far behind.

Some other thoughts:
1. Were semi-monocoque fuselages (as in the Albatros D.V or Pfalz D.III) able to take more damage?
2. Were internally braced wings (like the Fokker Dr.1 or D.VII) less likely to come off under fire since there were no crucial flying wires to be cut through?

[Billy_Bishop]

RB3D doesn't bother with the early faults that some aircraft had, but then got fixed. i.e. ALL machine guns fire at the same rate, although, the German MGs sound like they shoot faster. I don't know that this is neccessarily so.

VBR,

Al Lowe