Couple of hits is not unauthentic; I recall reading that the 30mm could take down a B-17 with 3-4 hits.
Oh gosh this takes me back 20 years...There was whole set of arguments about the settings for the effectiveness of the AI gunners on bombers and the hardness of airframes. One name that comes back to me was Tony Williams who used to contribute to the discussion boards on armament matters. (IRRC seeing him pop up recently on one of the WW2 forums in some lengthy discussion about tank armament.) Anyway Tony did an excellent piece of analysis, consistent with the approach taken by Alfred Price in Battle over Germany. This looks at the effectiveness of the ammunition,. rates of fire and the weight of the gun. His conclusion was that the US 6 x 0.50 calibre was good enough but not as efficient as the German or British preferred armament. His report is worth reading here. WORLD WAR 2 FIGHTER GUN EFFECTIVENESS You will note the references to combat flight sims - i.e. wargamers looking for an edge for their preferred mounts! He is an authority on ammunition and small arms as editor of Janes Ammunition and author of a strong of publications on these topics. I don't think we ever appreciated the input from someone with quite his eminence in his field. It isn't often that wargamers get that level of expert support. The Germans found that it took around far too many 20mm hits to take down a heavy bomber so they switched to 30mm guns. One massive omission in any combat flight simulators - as it is in any wargame, is that shooting on a two way range is far harder than when the target does not fire back. Even with a perfect simulation of the machines and flight and most realistic settings a gamer's shooting is about four or five times better than was achieved historically. This isn't just restricted to combat flight sims, Brigadier J P Hughes' "Firepower" looked at the same phenomena on Napoleonic battlefields. In a battle no one shoots anywhere near as well as they can on a range. The big effect of air gunners on bombers was to put the fighters off their aim and encourage them to fire too early to be effective. There is no way to model this in a simulator short of rigging up a player to wear some sort of suicide vest.
..Warbirds was good...I didn't get to play much, though.....I've got Wings Over Vietnam...had the Jane's PC games...but there wasn't much multiplayer game action....it's not as popular as the FPS games
I made some good friends through Warbirds. The Eurocon was and still is an excellent gathering hosted by the (Virtual) Grey Parrots 322 NL Sqn. Several veterans took part including a B24 gunner and a great Vietnam veteran who had flown the casevac mission from Ap Bac. There were actual israeli, British and Swedish fighter pilots. I was also was introduced to Finns and Flakpanzer Oil - a nasty initiation rite...
..so, is that Warbirds-multiplayer? there's a new Warbirds out, yes? ..I just got into the Forgotten Hope mod when it was not as populated--and I thought a bunch of those players were European--so, it was hard for me to get populated games because of the time zone difference
...the best--very colorful ..the US is more utilitarian ....but we can tell what's what-the video makes it seem like they are too much alike ..I don't use cash much anymore, though ......a lot of people don't
It is still there. Total Simulation Series They are still running the S3 squad select series The flight models were/are very good. Learn offline how to control,the aircraft starting with taxiing They also offer training - you sign up for a session and someone will teach you how to fly and fight. There are lots of documents about how to get the best from each aircraft type. The textbook is Shaw's Fighter tactics. You learn defensives and offensive manouvres. 1 v 1 and 1 v 2 I would recommend joining a squad. A lone player is just a target. A squad will take part in historic events and fly in a particular arena at a set time. So there are squads for every time zone. My experience was that there was always at least one arena that was reasonably well populated where you could fly with friends. The player bases was far more adult or rather grown up than Aces High, whose players seemed a lot more childish. The thing that sold me was taking part in one of the historic scenarios. It is a great way to get some insights into what happened in the WW2 air battles. You take off with your squad. Shake out and fly in formation- and it is a team skill to manouvre in finger fours. If it is a big event your flight will be positioned in respect of other friends. Ground control, gives you a vector to the contacts. Then you see some dots - ideally below and ahead. There is some sort of formation attack and then a massive furball. As Shaw points out you can't keep track of more than three other aircraft so its an occasional glimpse of a freind or foe. I had the pleasure of leading the "Wing" in a simulation of one of the Rhubarb missions across the channel. I could position the squadrons as low medium and high above a bomber squadron but once committed it was impossible to reform.
..I will certainly give it a go and look at it ....I tried the IL2 multiplay recently, but it took a lot just to learn the controls .....