Aircraft Canons penetration values

[Wiedrock]

Since I love the Hs 129 I wondered how it performs in game. Testing the "Hs 129B" with it's 30mm MK103 - Loadout in GS and GA duties. Flying thousands of sorties and doing 0 kills/damage I suddenly claimed kills on some BA 20!!!
This was the first case where I've seen this "penetration" and "distance".

BA20.png (42.04 KiB) Viewed 632 times

So I wondered why would that be shown in this case with simultaneously scoring kills???
I took a look at the information of the BA 20, it has 6 and 4 armor. So 4mm top and 6mm sides.

armor.png (319.82 KiB) Viewed 632 times

Meanwhile the aircraft canons have penetration values of 1, 3 and 4.

Comparing this values, a PTRD could/can infamously penetrate the sides of a Panzer III, thats why the "Schürzen" were added, this values are shown as Penetration: 36 and Armor: 31! Therefore All those values represent metric "mm".

PTRD_36_vs_PzIII_31.png (392.56 KiB) Viewed 632 times

Now back to the air war. A 30mm MK103 could penetrate like this: APCR 42–52 mm (1.7–2.0 in) / 60° / 300 m (980 ft) or 75–95 mm (3.0–3.7 in) / 90° / 300 m (980 ft)
While in game the 30mm Cannon got a Pen-value of only 4, instead of 42-52.

MK103.png (72.86 KiB) Viewed 632 times

Therefore this values are wrong, that's why allthose guns are utterly usless versus any kind of AFV while histrorically they shred them to pieces (if they had fighter support/covering them!!!)

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In the following post I will share some T2-example with changed value of 40 Penetration, I guess that's hw it is supposed to work!

[Wiedrock]

Here the results for edited Values for the "30mm MK103" to 40 Penetration (as historical).

14 Missions on 7 Days with 231 Sorties killing ~30 elements+ vehicle + support seems okay.
In the 3rd Picture you see that there now is actually something shooting those tanks as before they were thrown stones at.

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2image.png (732.09 KiB) Viewed 629 times

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[Wiedrock]

That's the only issue I have encountered so far but for sure it's the same for other Aircraft guns. Not sure wether it's feet/meters conversion issue or just a "/10" division for thoe values (cm > mm).

[DarkHorse2]

Something like this was mentioned before...

Way back in 2012:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... p?t=216142

And again 10 years later in 2022:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... n#p4910549

10 years later, and nobody seems to know or understand how these Penetration values of these aircraft guns are supposed to work vs ground-based targets.

We have "tank-busting" aircraft mounting 30mm guns with Penetration values of 4 or 6. How are they supposed to pierce the armor of AFVs that commonly have ratings of 35+?

Would be really nice if we can get this addressed now.

[Denniss]

Aircraft gun penetration is supposed to be in use for A2A combat only, for A2G combat they are supposed to use anti-soft and anti-armor values. According to the penetration values given at least the anti-armor value is in use.
There may be something that limits their incentive to actually fire at targets but the ranges they are attacking with guns blazing seems way too high

Hmmm, a T-34 disrupted by a 7.92mm MG or 20mm gun is somewhat strange

[Wiedrock]

Aircraft gun penetration is supposed to be in use for A2A combat only

I've given a Hs 129B 100 armor (before 1). It was shot down by interceptors on it's way to the mission at same rate as before, same for FLAK attacks, like if nothing changed.
Same results for giving a MiG-3 6 armor, it still got shot down.

So I can only assume Armor in A2A and FLAK2AIR is not being "looked at" at all.

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for A2G combat they are supposed to use anti-soft and anti-armor values

They do. But you can not damage what you can not penetrate.

From a different topic: I've given a Ju 88A's 50kg bombs 10 Armor-penetration. All of the sudden I managed to damage/kill some russian light tanks in Groundattack missions with 200 uncontested levelbombers. Additional I've given the bombs the double amount of SOFT damage, and I started damaging/killing ground elements (rarely kills). But this is stuff for a future report I am working on, since I am wondering how it's supposed to be realistic, if I send 1000sorties with 28x50kg bombs over 7 days and the enemy loses ~50 manpower. Thats an total of 1000*28*50kg=1400metric tons worth of explosives, only killing this 50 poor russians (TBH, they died by too much vodka for sure! ).

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There may be something that limits their incentive to actually fire at targets but the ranges they are attacking with guns blazing seems way too high

How/when planes start to shoot and how accuracy and so on works is nothing I can change. The Mk103 has a range of 6000 (meters/feet/yards) and therefore the engine uses it as if it would be mounted to kill planes,....maybe reducting the range (using an "effective range") would be appropriate instead. I dont know how steep/long such a "canon-bird" actually ascended at the same target and when they started descending and so on. But the penetration values should match the historical ones and everything else should be "balanced" by accuracy and so on.

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Hmmm, a T-34 disrupted by a 7.92mm MG or 20mm gun is somewhat strange

I've never been in such a situation being shot at in a T-34.

[DarkHorse2]

Denniss,

You can have 50-60 Hs129s conduct 3 Ground strikes a day for a week (for a total of 22 Ground Strikes).

(55 AC x 22 GS) = for a total of 1210 sorties, against an armor rich target hex (tank division).

You may kill one or two tanks, total. That is a joke and might as well not fly at this rate.
(The Tank Division's break-down rate is many times more than this!)

This is nearly identical to what was reported in 2021. Nothing has changed and has never been fixed.

In my games I have also seen that the Hs 129B and Ju87G never really destroy a tank.

You guys really need to look at this or run some test use-cases yourself.

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You have to bump the weapon's Penetration Value up to around 40 before you start to see realistic loss rates.

Which would correspond with a previous conclusion.

It seems like the MK103 cannon penetration of 4 mm is about 10x too low compared to the values I found online

[Wiedrock]

but the ranges they are attacking with guns blazing seems way too high

Ground elements/devices have their range in meters, all plane values are in feet/yards/miles? .....non metric essecially, that's why they appear to be shooting from the moon.
In A2A the ranges are shown as "range 1", "range 2" and so on, so god knows which distance they start shooting at each other (be it 6000ft or 6000m) while A2G we get this big numbers (feet?meters?) because their guns have ~5000-6000(enter arbitrary unit) range. ...I am not sure about the whole accuracy thing but this may cause additional debuff for air-guns in A2G?!

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Gosh... 3 ft = 1yard wtf. have they ever heard of the decadic system?

[Denniss]

I believe everything is in US based imperial values like feet for alt and yards for firing distances, (short) tons for load costs and freight deliveries

[DarkHorse2]

Finally found a blurb on how Penetration is used (... from the WiTW Editor manual):

WiTW_EditorManual_Penetration_Definition.JPG (254.71 KiB) Viewed 557 times

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This actually makes perfect sense. Now, if only we could nail down exactly what 'x' range is?

A contest on who can guess the closest value?

I am guessing x = 1000m.

You know, having these values clearly defined would go a long way toward helping the community discover and report erroneous data values.... just saying....

[DarkHorse2]

Also have, what appears to be fairly valid data for the Mk 103 (30 mm) from (War Thunder).

Not every item is going to be applicable to WiTE2, but the "Armored Targets" row values look like they would be.

MK103_30mm_penetration.jpg (127.56 KiB) Viewed 547 times

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In contrast, WiTE2 uses a Penetration value of '4' for its '30mm Cannon Mk 103' for everything.

WiTE2_Mk103_30mm_Data.JPG (33.05 KiB) Viewed 547 times

[DarkHorse2]

Aircraft gun penetration is supposed to be in use for A2A combat only, for A2G combat they are supposed to use anti-soft and anti-armor values. According to the penetration values given at least the anti-armor value is in use.
There may be something that limits their incentive to actually fire at targets but the ranges they are attacking with guns blazing seems way too high

Denniss,

If that is truely the case, then increasing Penetration from '4' to '40' should have made no difference.

That was not the case here. Increasing it made a noticable difference, supporting the assertion that the Penetration value is indeed being used in Air-to-ground.

Hmmm, a T-34 disrupted by a 7.92mm MG or 20mm gun is somewhat strange

In this case, we are not talking about a kill... or even a T-34 getting damaged. It was just disrupted, or otherwise preoccupied, harassed or distracted. Not truly that bad and would not have required any real damage. I know I would be distracted if I suddenly started taking aerial fire.

On the contrary, what is truly strange are Luftwaffe tank-busters, highly specialized for anti-armor missions, not destroying anything turn after turn.

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Did come across the following regarding "Penetrations of T-34s and reasons for their losses", here: https://www.tankarchives.ca/2013/05/sov ... ality.html

As I don't read Russian, I am going to have to take the translator's word. Items of note:

Existing data on impacts allows us to conduct an analysis of the armour used on the T-34. Table #25 shows information on the type of impact, and the caliber responsible for the impacts, in percentages.

The first line is "safe impacts", or non-penetrating hits. 54.1% of hits do not penetrate the T-34, this is pretty good. The rest of the line breaks it down by caliber: 3.2% by 20 mm shells, 6.8% by 37 mm shells, 4.9% by 42 mm shells, 30.6% by 50 mm shells, 3.2% by 75 mm shells, 0.2% by 88 mm shells, 2% by 105 mm shells, and 3.2% from indeterminate sources.

As I understand it, the document evaluated T34 hits as follows:

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* 54.1% non-penetrating
* 3.2% penetrated by 20mm shells
* 6.8% penetrated by 37mm shells
* 4.9% penetrated by 42mm shells
* 30.6% penetrated by 50mm shells
* 3.2% penetrated by 75mm shells
* 0.2% penetrated by 88mm shells
* 2% penetrated by 105mm shells
* 3.2% penetrated by unknown

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really hope this all adds up to 100%, as I don't feel like checking...

If anything, it shows that the T-34 was not impervious to even 20mm shells.

[Denniss]

the penetration value in the editor manual is for ground-based guns vs ground targets, it should be very much diffeent in A2A and A2G. I believe in A2A combat the penetration value was set agains the target's armor value but this may have changed in WitE2 or WitW to use the anti-air rating instead.
Raising penetration should have had no effect on A2G combat but you'll never know what happens if its raised way above the commonly used values. At least it did not change penetration values as the combat excerpts clearly show a penetration of 75 given for this gun which matches its anti-armor value.

[Wiedrock]

At least it did not change penetration values as the combat excerpts clearly show a penetration of 75 given for this gun which matches its anti-armor value.

As can be seen here, the "pen" value indicates somewhat the "damage/pen value used" (whatever this is supposed to be called) after/with wich "arm" has been penetrated.

pak36vsT-38.png (362.94 KiB) Viewed 522 times

As for the other combat log, here the enagagement happened from different sides.
And in this case using different kinds of ammunition. (orange and green)
So in the older combat log the "75 pen" are the damage, after armor 6,18 ...and so on have been penetrated using the Penetration value of the gun.
So it used:
1.Pen: 40 (edited data/not shown in log)
to
2.penetrate "arm 18"
and
3.applied anti-armor-value of 75 which is shown as "pen 75"
....with vanilla pen value of 4 there would be no result at all (only disrutions) since 4 is 4mm which is smaller penetration than 99% of AFVs top-sides.

So it seems to be a different usage of PEN and Anti-Armor comparing G2G and A2G.
G2G:
1.Pen -> Armor
2.unknown chance to damage/destroy if Pen >/= Armor
A2G:
1.Pen -> Armor
2.apply Anti-Armor if Pen >/= Armor

Note: Panzerfaust having 200HEAT-Pen can destroy Tanks while having 0 Anti-Armor!

Panzerfaust.png (667.28 KiB) Viewed 496 times

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the penetration value in the editor manual is for ground-based guns vs ground targets, it should be very much diffeent in A2A and A2G. I believe in A2A combat the penetration value was set agains the target's armor value but this may have changed in WitE2 or WitW to use the anti-air rating instead.

As far as I know the whole air system was relooked at/reworked for WITE2 (I have not played the games before), maybe this adjustment caused this change to force air attacks (air cannon category) needing to penetrate armored targets, which would have been an obvious improve if this wasn't the case before.
I mean, why would you have "top armor values" if you would not check them for attacks. I've never seen any Artillery/Gun checking for "top" armor so far.

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Raising penetration should have had no effect on A2G combat but you'll never know what happens if its raised way above the commonly used values.

As in my first posts battle log, you see there is a check for armor values of that "BA 20" without editing any values. So air attacks check for their pen vs enemy armor.

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it should be very much diffeent in A2A

As my small tests with 100 armor Hs 129 and 6 armor MiG showed (I did not go in depth)

Retesting:
Doing this test 3 times, same results, while in vanilla you lose ~4planes to flak.
I gave the Ju 87B-R 5armor, started a GC, deleted all ADs, set an AD for [GA-UNIT-500kg bmbs-5xAGs with Jus87's], attacking Hex 177,161. None killed by FLAK therefore G2A seems to be using the "Anti-Air"-values of the Flak ...which from what I've found are max 4 in this area/Hex for effective caeilings of lower levels, so this seems to be working as u want it to, but also explains why FLAK is that strong since all planes have 1 or 2 armor and therefore are onceshots by literally every Flak if directly hit. But I'll leave it at that and create another topic for this possible issue. Maybe thats WAD and G2A is balanced by bad aiming of the FLAK's. This thread is uspposed to improve/correct the A2Garmor part.

Ju87_5armor.png (1.32 MiB) Viewed 522 times

This results indicate that A2A uses Durability exclusively, A2G uses pen&anti-arm and G2A uses Anti-air versus the Armor.