Is there a distance/timed detonation?
If the round misses but explodes close enough will it still cause damage?
Is there a distance/timed detonation?
If the round misses but explodes close enough will it still cause damage?
Some rounds have a self-destruct indicated by "m.Zerl.", some dont indicated by "o.Zerl."
About rounds causing destruction when exploding close enough: Close enough would have to be well below a meter from the aircraft at best. These are 20mm shells, not full blown 8.8cm flak rounds meaning the radius in which a fragmentation round causes damage is very limited. Also the self-destruct is not intended to cause damage when firing at the max. effective distance of the weapon, it is intended to neutralize rounds and keep them from potentially causing damage to friendly troops. Daylight fighter units were mostly using cannon rounds with self-destruct (where available) whereas close air support units (Bf110s, Hs129,...) typically used non-destructing rounds so as to be able to open fire from a longer distance.
20mm canon with HE rounds have been used to great effect on various platforms against soft targets like ground troops and soft skinned vehicles.
Over here the 151 was even mounted on the side door of Alouette helicopters for CAS to great effect.
Self destructing rounds detonating in open space though will have little to no effect on a structure like an airframe though, even if in close proximity.
If it's brown, shoot it down!
After having done some research, and testing in game, the 109 20mm cannon rounds are self destructing about 2 seconds after firing. Now considering that the muzzle velocity for the MG/FF rounds was between 558 to 700 meters per second, that means the rounds should effectively have a range of close to 1000 meters before they detonate in game. However, that range is most definitely not being achieved in the game. In game it looks like the MG/FF cannon round is detonating at under 500 meters. Also there is documentation regarding the historical ammunition that states that the self destruction fuse on 20mm rounds didn't destroy the shell until it was at approximately 2000 meters, or four seconds after firing. This can be clearly seen on many actual German gun camera footage, where German planes are clearly firing cannon rounds, but there is no 'tell tale' self destructing of the cannon shells after two seconds. In fact I've never seen any real gun camera footage that shows any cannon shells self destructing at only 2 seconds after firing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yMT0H8qe9k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OraWcmsSe6Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aqJwHdMDK0
Last edited by II/JG77 Hawk_12; Jan-08-2018 at 21:50.
Good thread. Hawk do you have this documentation or a link to it that defines this self destruct range ?
Not sure on the German mechanism but both the 30mm DEFA and ADEN (derived from German designs) HE Air to Air fused rounds had a spin decay self destruct system. once round RPM dropped below a certain value centrifugal fuse action allowed the round to self destruct.
Self destruction of German rounds is for the most part detailed in official documentation like L.Dv.4000/10.
Here are the blueprints. It is stated that self destruction is triggered after around 3 sec without impact.
Here is the ballistic table for the Minengeschoß m.Z. = with self destruction. After 3 seconds the shell has gone pretty much exactly 1000m.
This document talks about 750m before self destruction for the heavier and lower v0 MG FF Sprengranatpatrone. I also have the blueprints and ballistic tables but I am too lazy to upload.
Last edited by rel4y; Jan-15-2018 at 13:43.
Cool, this seems to have been corrected in the new patch 4.53! Thank you guys!
https://www.scribd.com/document/7756...n-L-dv-4000-10
I hope your German language skills are better than mine (no pun intended).
Last edited by rel4y; Feb-17-2018 at 06:55.
Is there any chance we could get an armour piercing tracer round for the 110 mk101 cannon in a future patch?
With such limited ammo it would help when attacking ground targets and looking at old documents it would definatly be historically accurate.
Last edited by Silent135; Feb-18-2018 at 07:55.
The current MK 101 ammo is a not what was used during BoB, but prototypes. This seems to be kind of a sensitive issue as it was discussed before but official stance was everything is fine. I posted a wall of text about it in the German forum part which can be found here: https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.c...l=1#post292130
As of now I also have a document from (not sure, I'm not home) May 1940 which contains a C-6 test pilot evaluating (ammo) performance of the MK 101. All the types which are listed there should be included. The high penetration tungsten core H round however was not in production at that point in case you are referring to this one.
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