[wimsma]

I did some research on the internet about te effects of aa guns. Especially on heavy aa guns. I wanted to know how many guns are realistic in a mission. Of course it is very dificult to guess how the skills of the aa crew in il2 are compared with reality. (day, night, weather, tradar training level etc.)

But let's essume you are going to bomb Malta in 1942. I found this map.

So...if you are in the middle of the island on 16000 ft theoretical there are 80 heavy guns firing. I think 80 guns would not fire at one plane.... But..if you plan a mission with 12 bombers you should place about 7 heavy aa. The map is about HEAVY aa guns, so when you are bombing at medium altitude, the bofors are also firing what makes the risk being shot down much greater.

I also found out about proximity fuzes. they were used later in the war. Planning a bombing mission on Malta in 1944 is 3 times more dangerous.

I wonder if anyone has ever figured out what the statistics of being hit by heavy aa guns in il2 are.

[Guest]

I wonder if anyone has ever figured out what the statistics of being hit by heavy aa guns in il2 are.

i can't give you any figures, but imho, the AA guns have always been overly accurate.
a fine example which sticks in my mind: flying escort for B-24's in a P-40, it had been a long, uneventful flight, but we were now over enemy territory, and nearing the target. Its a clear day, and we're at 5500m altitude. No enemy air activity, and the odd scattered AAA gun below, but noone had fired on us yet.
All of a sudden, I get the 'Black Screen of Death' ......wtf?
Switching to externals, I see no damage to the plane, but the pilot, virtual me, is dead.....wtf?
So i watch the replay, and true as feck, 5500m below me, an enemy 88 decides to have a shot at the aircraft overhead. This shot exploded just above my cockpit, killing me in the process. This also happened to be the only shot the friggin' AA took, after that he decided we were out of range...
Not bad, basically headshotting people 5 and a half klicks above you, with your first shot. :? hock:
So, yeah, thats a prime example of why i think they are too accurate.... 8)

[=XIII=Widow]

You were just unlucky... :wink:

[P/O W. 'Moggy' Cattermole]

Hmm, i think bigbossmalone has a point, the european AA is uncannily good at causing damage. I prefer the ack ack you get in the PF maps, like on carriers. It can be deadly, but it's less likely to hit. It's fun, there's more of it, but flying near a ship is no guarentee you'll get knocked out of the sky, which it is on the fb type maps.

[VF101hawk]

Well they arent that accurat.
Using canons channel map i had loads of flak around every airbase and also around every port and other important places.

Using defoult hight on the aaa i found out that flying over 4000 meters usually wasnt that bad and i could fly for quite a long time before getting shoot down if i was shoot down at all.
The most dangerouse hight to fly i found out was between 1000 and 2000 meters. here chance of survival is almost nothing.

But ofcourse even at 4000 meters you would see a haile of black puffs all around you and here the schrapnel hit your plane. but seldom shoot down at that hight even when flying in a stright line.

Then it happens you get shoot down on the first pop at you but thats mostly verry bad luck..

Like when i after surviving 16 campaigns with 37 shoot down enemies got PK by my own friendly AAA on my return to base..

[ColHut]

Don't worry about realism - about one real gun per battery is enough.
AA guns never run out of ammo, overheat, sufffer barrel wear or crew exhaustion. For heavy AA think of Commando. Each 88 is manned by Arnie - he picks the gun off the mount and swivels it like a toy nailing high and low flying crossing targets with ease. There is no wind, and so far as I can tell (and no cpmplaint here) no actual modelling of heavy (or light AA) shootting procedure. Usualy in real life the first salvoes were often the most accurate - and the lead plane in a flight was often the aim. After that standard evasions by the aircraft could make it a bit harder. Of course if you don't budge or are on the bomb run then good luck. Before radar VT fuses it was all pretty hard - the hardest thing being to accurate altitudes, and after GFC radar could give this late in the war - getting the mechanical time fuses right another problem. For a good read see the British Official history of the Air Defence of Great Britain, or see the Soviet Staff studies on Stalingrad and Moscow - both give good detail on how heavy and light flak really worked. I'm pretty sure there must be alot more around too. Or try Military Science today - about 1940 edition!

In practice in IL 2 - in a level bomber - you are safe from 20mm above about 2000m , and 37mm about 4000m. One heavy AA gun per target gives occasional losses and a good atmosphere - 2 can be hairy, and 3-4 lethal...

YMMV

regards

[P/O W. 'Moggy' Cattermole]

I think that's the trouble, the guns have a bead on you with accuracy as only a computer could achieve. By contrast, the pf style flak is more variable, sometimes it'll get you spot on; othertimes it'll miss by miles.

[Jg3_Hartmann]

Well, I

[ColHut]

That seems to be a game limit. The range of th guns -as you say is not properly modelled.
Try 4500m and your 80 aa guns!

[Jg3_Hartmann]

Well, I looked into the files, but don

[{HVY-E}Jinxx]

You can also change the AI experience of the gunners.
Try setting them to different levels. I range mine from Advanced to Ace and get a Barrage of AAA from only 4 - 8 guns.

[RedrumSalad]

i should probably set the waypoint heights a little higher than 1000m on my doolittle mission before i upload it here then, i actually got the B25C to take off of carriers fully loaded, u will need any mod that includes a flyable B25C

[patton521]

I've tought for a long time that the aa guns where way to accurite in-game in comparison with reallife. During WW2 there where large amount of aa guns around cities because of the fact that the aa guns where not 100% accurite 100% of the time, so they would compensate this by having large numbers. For example during the Battle of Britian London had a total of 250 aa guns surrounding the city, 92 where located in London proper. The lowering of the aa guns experiance doesn't help much it mostly reduces the rate of fire, but not it how accurite the aa guns are. If there is a way to decrease the aa guns accuricy I would love to hear it.

[Divine-wind]

Personally I love carrier-mounted guns, the effect you get with them (Ridiculous amounts of flak puffs and light AA spewing all over the place) makes for a fun and mostly harmless bit of eye candy. Unless you get shot, of course, but most of the time the shots either go wide or just barely graze you.

Unfortunately the closest I can come to recreating this in the European theater (short of sticking a carrier in the ground) is packed with bofors, which are a lot more accurate in my experience. Usually I set every gun to rookie, but even then I still get wiped out pretty quickly. (The effect is pretty frickin cool though, even on an old Dell running at -5 FPS )

Maybe there is some way to 'transfer' the AI from the PF guns to what we have in FB/1946?

[Stratodog]

You can also change the AI experience of the gunners.
Try setting them to different levels. I range mine from Advanced to Ace and get a Barrage of AAA from only 4 - 8 guns.

I can't find a way to do this using the FMB. Perhaps setting the gun as a vehicle?