Guns only, Cannon only, or Guns and Cannon?

[staffy]

I've been away from Combat Sims for a while and now I'm real keen again. I've just reset all the buttons on my Saiteck and included seperate buttons for Guns,Cannon, Guns and Cannon together, since provision is made for these 3 functions in the key commands.Then it occured to me that, with realism in mind, I don't really know when I should be using these 3 seperate functions.
For instance,would you use Guns only in a dog fight with an enemy fighter? Guns and Cannon when trying to bring a bomber down? Cannon only against enemy installations?There are no doubt times when you might use guns and cannon and rockets as well against a single target.Would be interested to hear what the most realistic approach to using the different armaments would be.
staffy

[ndicki]

Generally, I use guns to get the rounds in the right place - making sure I'm actually hitting the target - before giving a quick squirt with cannon. Obviously, only a couple of cannon shells can do for a fighter, while a heavy can usually absorb quite a lot of punishment.

For ground attack, it rather depends - guns against people and soft skinned vehicles, and cannon for light armour. In reality, don't expect to be able to knock out tanks with 20mm cannon.

As CFS3 can't unfortunately model panic, the most effective ground-attack weapons don't work... Statistically, RPs hit very few targets - what did the most damage was the drivers and troops panicking. Think of a column of vehicles in CFS3 - you shoot off a couple of RPs at the leading vehicle and, needless to say, miss. The column carries on calmly without changing speed or troops disembarking or anything. In real life, the vehicles would be trying to get off the road, and the men would be trying to get off the vehicles, and this alone would cause plenty of disruption even if you didn't hit a thing.

Pity that can't be done...

[OldCrow]

I've always wondered how many aircraft actually had seperate triggers for the guns and cannons?

OR, how about seperate triggers for the cannons if you have 4 like a Typhoon, Tempest, or Me 262?

[hairyspin]

Spits and Hurricanes (Mk IVd tank-buster) certainly had a cunning rocker switch for that - up for Brownings, down for cannon and push the centre for both. Typhoons and Tempests had a 'fire' button and that was all - rockets or bombs were released by a button on the throttle lever.

[ndicki]

Typhoons and Tempests had a 'fire' button and that was all - rockets or bombs were released by a button on the throttle lever.

And if you've ever tried to drop bombs or fire RPs with a button on your stick, you know why it was on the throttle! Which mine is, of course...

[hairyspin]

Something else on the throttle of late WW2 aircraft was a twist control which 'ranged-in' the gyro gunsight. Quite beyond the capabilities of CFS3, alas!

[ndicki]

The one I know, it was on the base of the gyro unit, right in front of you. With the a/c types written on it - FW190, ME210, etc, etc, so you could dial it in quickly.

[greycap.raf]

You're both right. The switch on the gunsight unit was used to select the size of the aircraft being targeted but there was indeed a control on the throttle to alter the size of the aiming "diamond ring" to tell the computer how far the target was.

On topic, depends on what I'm flying and what I'm against. On a Spitfire I seldom use the Brownings at all as they are good for little else than nice looking fireworks, if there are heavy machine guns in my disposal I usually use mostly them and only resort to cannon fire if the target keeps flying too stubbornly.

[hairyspin]

edit: Beat me to it, greycap!

You're talking about the Mk.IID gyro gunsight, with the dial on the front. That selected the aircraft type - basically its size. The twist grip then adjusted the circle of six diamonds in the gunsight and the trick was to keep them matching the wingspan of the target, thus keeping the sight adjusted for range.

So long as the pilot then remembered to press the firing button, the result was as expected...


There's a good article on the different types of gyro sight here:- http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=160621 (http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=160621)

[staffy]

Thanks for the information,I've got more of an idea now.

[Cromwell]

As CFS3 can't unfortunately model panic, the most effective ground-attack weapons don't work... Statistically, RPs hit very few targets - what did the most damage was the drivers and troops panicking. Think of a column of vehicles in CFS3 - you shoot off a couple of RPs at the leading vehicle and, needless to say, miss. The column carries on calmly without changing speed or troops disembarking or anything. In real life, the vehicles would be trying to get off the road, and the men would be trying to get off the vehicles, and this alone would cause plenty of disruption even if you didn't hit a thing.

Pity that can't be done...

I seem to recall that IL2 had an attempt at panic in ground targets. Vehicle would collide with each other and personnel would be legging it all over the place. Trouble was you kept watching the fun and usually impacted the ground!!

[ndicki]

I seem to recall that IL2 had an attempt at panic in ground targets. Vehicle would collide with each other and personnel would be legging it all over the place. Trouble was you kept watching the fun and usually impacted the ground!!

I'll have to check that out! I can't remember it, but that may be because I never use IL-2!