GUNS AIR
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Guns and Gunnery
The idea of launching a fighter into the air is to find and destroy the enemy in the air (and sometimes to blow stuff up on the ground). This can only be achieved by closing to the appropriate range, there to open devastating and destructive fire with your forward-firing armament. This seems straightforward enough but is indeed a rather daunting task, as you will certainly experience. For there is more to air combat than merely pointing your guns at the enemy – you will first have to fly your aircraft to a promising position, and avoid countless dangers on the way to that position, and then stay there long enough to deliver effective fire.
A brief history
Fighters are traditionally armed with rifle-caliber machineguns (7,5 – 7,98 mm) and/or heavy machineguns (typically 12,7 mm) and/or cannons (15 – 30 mm), usually arranged in the nose and/or in the wings. There are many variations, including weapons in underwing gondolas and belly packs, according to the standards and doctrines of the combatant nation. For instance, the German Luftwaffe adopted the 20-mm cannon as its main aerial weapon with RC weaponry as secondary armament while the RAF stuck to multiples of machineguns until well into 1941. France, Russia and the US adopted a combination of RC and cannon armament: the US eventually settled for caliber .50 and equipped all of its combat aircraft with this single caliber.
Learn more about Aircraft Weapons
Guns and convergence
Fighters with nose- or cowling-mounted weaponry enjoy a distinct advantage over fighters with wing-mounted guns. Because the centrally placed guns are aligned wih the fighter’s longitudinal axis, the guns fire straight forward to the limit of their range, making aiming and delivery considerably easier. Wing-mounted guns on the other hand must be harmonized to deliver a concentration at a specific range lest the fire be delivered in a largely ineffective “sheet” pattern. Because of this, fighters with wing-mounted guns are only 100% effective when firing with the target at or close to the convergence point. If the target is closer to or beyond the convergence point, a proportion of the fire will scatter and thus be less effective.
Where to set your convergence is highly dependent on your weapon, your typical fighting style and at what range you normally open destructive fire. RC machineguns lose most of their punch outside 150 meters whereas caliber .50 rounds are effective out to 800-1,000 meters – though you are better served by setting a closer convergence unless you are an expert marksman.
If you like to motor up close and personal before opening fire, such as you need to do anyway if you are armed with RC guns, set your convergence to 75-150 meters.
The default convergence is 200 meters, which is good enough for most pilots and aircraft. If you prefer the long and fast attacks where closure is massive, you will benefit from a convergence setting of 200-300 meters.
A higher convergence setting is possible but not recommended since you will then rob yourself of delivery performance at close range. Go for a happy medium, and above all, evaluate your gunnery and set your convergence to the range where you typically score hits.
To set a specific convergence distance, press Return and type .conv 300 (or whatever distance you wish to set). Press Return to send your new setting to the system. Note that your convergence setting will take effect upon your next spawn-in to the game world.
You will also need to take bullet drop into account. The projectile trajectory is higher than the aiming point inside convergence and drops off below the aiming point outside 500-600 meters range. This is highly dependent on your guns’ muzzle velocity: the higher the muzzle velocity, the less parabolic the trajectory. As a rule of thumb, a greater caliber round has a more pronounced drop, e.g. the German 30-mm round.
Deflection
In general, the easiest shot is delivered from a position just aft of the enemy with the shooter matching the target’s speed at a range of 100-200 meters. Getting into this position, and staying there for the duration required to deliver destructive fire, is however a whole science of its own. The benefits of firing from six o’clock are that the enemy may be completely unaware of his impending destruction; you get more firing time at his six than from any other direction; and if the bandit breaks you are well placed to match his manouevre and regain a shot position. The drawback is that the bandit offers a small target area and that your bullets may ricochet off the enemy due to the low angle of attack.
Most of the time you will be coming into guns range with the target more or less offset, i.e. travelling across or through your field of view. In all situations other than the true six o’clock attack you will have to lead the target to some degree. The idea is that you must fire ahead of the target, i.e. in his future flight path, so that your bullets and the target arrive at this point at the same instant.
Consider the situation where the target is moving left to right across your steady shot solution: if you aim and fire straight at the target your bullets will arrive too late and fall well behind. Therefore you must aim a certain distance to the right of the target in this case, so that bullets and target coincide in space and time. The amount of lead, also known as deflection, is highly dependent on firing range, target rate of speed across your view, and to a lesser degree on your weapon’s muzzle velocity. The idea is to hold a steady firing solution (so that your fire will be concentrated when it arrives) and allow the enemy to fly into your stream of fire.
In extreme cases you will have to fire blindly, i.e. with the target hidden beneath your nose. A typical situation is when you are cutting across the circle of a bandit moving at a good rate of speed, at short range: your wingline will be roughly level to his, therefore your wings and engine will be hiding him from view at the precise instance when you need to open fire – if you hold your fire until you regain sight of the target you will surely miss. The solution to the dilemma is to roll 180 degrees to inverted so that the bandit travels through your vision from top to bottom instead, though this shot is exceptionally tricky and not for every occasion – and following the shot you will be in a less beneficial position if your fire misses.
Where to aim?
Most of the time you will not have the opportunity to choose a particular aiming point but be happy to fire in the general direction of the target’s centre mass. When you do have the opportunity to aim however, go for the following areas in order of importance:
- Engine
- Pilot
- Fuel tank (usually in the centre fuselage just aft or in front of the pilot)
- Wingroot (where the wing is attached to the fuselage)
- Empennage (tail unit)
Closure
Closure, or the rate of your closing speed, is important to consider for it affects the efficacy of your fire. The ideal is to have a moderate closure on the bandit so as to get enough time to set up a steady, well-aimed, shot of two to three seconds duration. If your closure is so high as to only afford you a brief snapshot when you draw into range, the shot volume is likely to be insufficient to cause catastrophic destruction and you will even more likely collide with your quarry due to target fixation. If your closure is too low you end up in a lengthy tail chase which also causes target fixation and conspires to make you predictable, allowing other enemy to motor in and finish you off before you get a chance to fire.
You will get the sweetest shots on bandits who appear to be largely stationary due to your high rate of closure. This is particularly true when you come in hot on a bandit who is climbing or just about to stall out – he will show you his entire planform (i.e. a top-down view of his aircraft) and in this instance you can aim more or less straight at him.
Manage your (high) closure either by shedding speed or by displacing in his stern quarter (lag pursuit), or by a combination of the two if the target is exceptionally slow. Shedding speed is easy, though be aware that it is a dangerous thing to do in a multi-bandit environment: chop throttle, and if that is insufficient, deploy flaps (Q) to slow down yet further – just remember to retract flaps (W) when you judge your closure to be comfortable. Displacing is also easy, and usually more effective when you have a massive energy overhead and wish to keep it. Consider the situation where the bandit is moving right to left across your forward view and slightly low: instead of pointing straight at him and diving in for a brief (and tricky) snapshot, keep your altitude and heading so that the bandit moves further to your left. You are now moving into his long and high astern. As you approach his wake, make a decisive turn to left and move in on his six o’clock. If your speed is excessive during the preliminary manouevre, pitch up to shed some speed in the vertical before hauling around to dive in on his six – in this manner you conserve energy and avoid blacking out during the turn.
The head-on shot
The most frequent shot opportunity you will experience as a beginner is the head-on shot, because at this stage in your career you will likely fly directly at any contact you encounter rather than manouevre to set up behind his wingline. Know then that the head-on shot is the worst imaginable proposition, for a number of reasons:
- You give the enemy an equal chance to fire back at you
- You will collide
- If you survive the encounter you must manouevre 180 degrees around to get another shot opportunity – as must the enemy, setting up another head-on situation with the same low odds of survival
If you persist in going head-on, do yourself a favour and write down your success rate on a slip of paper – I bet a thousand dollars that it will be less than 50%.
Instead of accepting the head-on, or worse, seeking it, learn to manouevre (i.e. fly) to avoid it. It is eminently simple: just do not fly “pipper-on” your target but fly well to the side of him instead. Chances are that the enemy has not yet seen you and will go on his merry way, allowing you a free ride on to his six o’clock. If he has indeed seen you, you will know this because he turns towards you – now then is the time to turn towards him, though still not directly at him but well to the side of him. You should only turn directly at the enemy shortly before he moves past your wingtip (or wingline) – in this manner you are manouevring in his stern aspect rather than in his front aspect, and will eventually gain a profitable position in his rear quarter.
The only time you should actively seek a near head-on merge is when you have no intention of fighting but wish to disengage instead. In this case, seek to pass the enemy slightly low and inside his effective turn radius – though well outside his shot window. If you pass him so, and keep on trucking, you will conserve your energy and quickly draw out of guns range, because the bandit must spend time and energy to haul around in your long six o’clock.
Guns defence
Know that it is exceptionally easy to defend against any type of attack – though it presupposes that you can SEE the developing attack and have enough energy to manouevre against it. Lose sight, lose the fight!
Key to understanding guns defence is knowledge and awareness of the attacker’s manouevre and guns “envelopes”, i.e. what actions the enemy is capable of given his speed, guns and approach. These envelopes are narrow enough, as you may have experienced already by trying to gun someone down.
Consider the situation where you are coming in hot (i.e. with massive closure) on a bandit moving straight ahead in your general direction. You are hunkered down in the gunsight and itching to mash the trigger. Shortly before you reach guns range, the enemy makes a radical turn to left and up: it takes a fraction of an instant to react to and compute his new flight path (which is changing fractionally throughout, causing you much headache), and in the mean time you are drawing well into guns range but still heading toward his former position in the sky. Before you know it the bandit has moved well out of your gunsight, and there is no time left for you to correct your flightpath or seek a new guns solution. In fact, the enemy has displaced so much as to deny you opportunity to saddle up anew, forcing an overshoot into his rear aspect. The enemy has successfully defended against your guns attack.
The tale above describes a typical “break turn”. It is eminently easy to perform if you have your eyes and energy sorted, but nigh impossible if you cannot see the attack and yet less possible if you have no energy to perform the manouevre. In time you will learn by experience to time the break: if you break too soon, the enemy will have time to compute and adapt to your new heading; if you break too late, well, then you are likely soon dead and have no more worries. Also be aware that you need to gauge the amplitude of your manouevre: if you pull too hard you burn too much energy; if you pull too gently you may not generate enough rate out of his shot window. Know also that it is generally easier to defend against an enemy who comes in with a massive closure than against an enemy who comes in nice and slow – the bigger the difference in speed, the smaller the move you need to make.
Learn more about evasive techniques and combat manoeuvres in the ACM section.
Gunnery tips
If you are not a natural born killer you will likely find it hard to find the “killingest” opportunity, and spray your fire all over the sky. Good gunnery requires a cool and calculating mind, and a steady platform. Therefore you should avoid firing when wallowing near stall speed but seek to fire only when travelling at a fair pace. You need to breathe easily and keep a light grip on the stick, to avoid getting into a hamfisted and stressful state.
- The most important factor for good gunnery is to get close, as in real close, before opening up. Fire only when the enemy fills the gunsight! This again requires you to fly behind the enemy, and to manage your closure rate.
- The second most important factor is to fire “unloaded”, i.e. without any back pressure on the stick whatsoever. You will then be flying arrow-straight and delivering a concentrated burst of fire. This again requires you to be trimmed correctly, lest you find yourself wrestling the stick to remain level.
- The third most important factor is to NOT use the zoomed-in gunsight view when closing and firing. The zoomed-in view robs you of Situational Awareness and conspires to give you a faulty idea of the range and vectors involved in the shot. Use the zoomed-in only for steady long-range shots against non-manouevring targets, and for identification.
Learn gunnery by watching gun camera films submitted by the community in the official forum and at various video websites, and evaluate your own by downloading and operating gun camera software on your own. The three most useful programs are Growler Guncam, Fraps and Jguncam.
Good luck soldier!
