Deflection shots
- Thread starter Grey Wolf
- Start date
Generally, deflection shots do more damage to whoever is getting shot by them. As was mentioned, it all depends on the angle you fire at the target. The reason for the increased damage is because the round will be deflected inside the target being shot. If the round is going in one direction, and the target in another, then the round will be 'pulled' along the target's path. Because of this 'pulling' action, the round will start to tumble as opposed to just punching its way through. This tumbling action results in more components being affected by the round. At least, this is my take on the deflection impacts.
From Microsoft Combat Flight Sim:
Attacking an enemy aircraft from in front or behind is easy. Just aim and shoot when you're close enough to hit the target. Attacking from other angles is more complicated. You must coordinate your shooting with your speed, and fire ahead of the target so that he runs into your bullets. This difficult skill is called "deflection shooting," and it is the mark of a good combat pilot. Learning it is essential to your success.
jim
Attacking an enemy aircraft from in front or behind is easy. Just aim and shoot when you're close enough to hit the target. Attacking from other angles is more complicated. You must coordinate your shooting with your speed, and fire ahead of the target so that he runs into your bullets. This difficult skill is called "deflection shooting," and it is the mark of a good combat pilot. Learning it is essential to your success.
jim
Bloodspray
Spaceman
Tumbling isn't really an issue. Once a bullet penetrates the a/c skin it begins to hit spars, cabling, armor and so on and will tumble and ricochet no matter what angle you hit it from.
The real benefit of deflection shooting is that WWII fighters generally had the most pilot protection at 12 oclock (the engine) and at dead 6. More often than not, pouring lead into a target from dead 6 didnt' really do all that much because of the pilot armor and the lack of any vitals. However, on a deflection shot, you are able to hit other surfaces, wing surfaces/roots, canopy/cockpit sides, and even the engine. This gives a far greater likelihood of fatal damage to the plane or pilot.
I'm just coming of a year and a half WWII sim craze. lol
The real benefit of deflection shooting is that WWII fighters generally had the most pilot protection at 12 oclock (the engine) and at dead 6. More often than not, pouring lead into a target from dead 6 didnt' really do all that much because of the pilot armor and the lack of any vitals. However, on a deflection shot, you are able to hit other surfaces, wing surfaces/roots, canopy/cockpit sides, and even the engine. This gives a far greater likelihood of fatal damage to the plane or pilot.
I'm just coming of a year and a half WWII sim craze. lol
Bloodspray
Spaceman
PeteyG said:
They can be.
Generally you can't see the target becuause it's under your nose. You have to factor your speed, the targets speed, the vectors of each, your G load and corresponding turn rate, the targets movement (aside from just speed), and the ballistics of your weaponry. Something like an LW Mk108 has poor ballistics because it's a light, large (30mm) projectile with a slow muzzle velocity. The angle of the shot is sometimes referred to synonymously with "defelction", so the greater the angle, the greater the deflection, and a high angle shot would be a high deflection shot.
When you are moving at 600kph and the target is moving at 400kph and you are having to pull Gs to hit a jinking target that you can't see (as I mentioned above)....oh yeah, can be a real PITA.
One thing that has always troubled me about WC though, why do the weapons allow for defelction? I can rationalize the range on the lasers, but, just about any of them are particle weapons (even the mass drivers since they are unlimited and rely on capacitor energy), so they should be moving at or near c. Even with craft moving at hundreds of km per second, it's still not fast enough to warrant deflection with weapons having that sort of muzzle velocity. :::sigh::: the fly in the ointment. Everything else about WC flight is plausible but that.
Bloodspray
Spaceman
Revenant said:
heh heh
For the longest time, I always loved WC inspite of myself. I'm a hardcore reaslism fan. The more realistic the better. Many people never understood how I could like WC, and even I just accepted it as an arcade shooter. But(!).....
In this latest (the umpteen-odd millionth for me lol) I noticed the sliding a lot more than I ever did before for some reason. And, out of nowhere, it just clicked - presence of shield technology hand in hand with artificial gravity. Plus each fighter is equipped with "accleration absorbers". Add that to the method of limitless propulsion (the fighters don't use fuel when not using the burners - that is, they can go at max speed forever on an empty tank), and the FMs of the fighters is not "arcadey" necessarily.
Every sci-fi universe that has FTL, and artificial gravity, seems to have atmospheric looking space flight (and usually shield as well). It could be "magic level" tech, but, I think the key is the manipulation of fields. If you can create a rechargable shield, and artificial gravity, you can most likley create some sort of inertial damping. If you can do that, you can eliminate that annoying vectoring encountered in space and artificially create flight characterisitics more akin to atmospheres, and more intuitive for pilots.
If you watch closely, it WC seems to do just that. Exceed the speed setting even just a little bit and you begin to slide. Even while going at set speed on certain fighters like the rapier, there seems to be a little bit of sliding going on in real hard turns. And, heavy fighters are slower than lighter ones generally - can be explained as the inertial damping system being less effective so the fighter is constricted to a slower max speed.
IDK if it was intended this way or not, but, it really does work amazing well. At least for me.
It's actually added a whole new dimention to WC for me. Which just makes me love it even more (not an easy feat lol).Don't spend too many brain cycles on trying to make science and Wing Commander agree... you'll only end up hurting yourself.Bloodspray said:
But wow. you weren't kidding about being really into them WW2 flight sims. I never considered those things you just talked about.
Bloodspray
Spaceman
PeteyG said:
lol I can't help myself.
LikeI said though, that's the one thing that doesn't jibe. And that clearly was done for playability.I gotta hand it to Oleg Maddox, it wasn't just entertainment, it was a learning experience. Both through the game(s) directly, and through the research it motivated me to do.