Current modeling of Fifty Cal Damage in Il 2 BoX is Absurd
The title says it. Came back to the game after a long layoff, started putting in practice in the dogfighting arenas (mostly Berloga) to assess meta changes. Repeatedly I found myself saddling up and hosing down player-controled 109s and 190s with 6 or 8x .50s, lighting them up, until I would have to break off avoid collision, only to find that they are not hampered from flight in the slightest way (though usually leaking fluids) and actually quite often able to gun you on the overshoot.
It is important to note that for whatever reason AI seem more vulnerable, you get insta flamers and kills on them much more often than on player-controlled craft in multi.
Those 8 Browning AN/M2s are putting out at least 80 rounds a second. Robert S. Johnson, P-47 ace reported many if not most of his kills catching fire/exploding/pieces falling off from relatively short bursts, link to a description of some of his kills from his bio "Thunderbolt!" below. Yet in current Il-2 damage model you can quite possibly empty a heavy ammo load (425 per gun) repeatedly raking a maneuvering player-controlled fighter and not bringing it down. In-game behavior of multiple .50s against fighters is currently much like the problems the British had trying to bring down bombers with 8 x.303s during the BoB. Whereas the United States found 6 .50s satisfactory for anti-fighter work for the duration of the war. They could have upgraded to 20mm cannon without too much trouble if it had been found necessary.
https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/...
I fell in love with the BoX series when I started playing in 2015. I pre-ordered Battle of Bodenplatte to finally get to fly American Iron in this great series. The game is constantly changing, and it is likely that this too shall pass. In the meantime though, I think Aces High, Rise of Flight, and War Thunder sim (which is actually rather well done) will get the bulk of flying time.