Junkers Ju-52/3m

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo!
OK, no hurry.
So you seem to like the pick up truck too. That´s great - Have fun!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[Ivan]

Someone please fix the quote feature here. It works sometimes but not usually.

Hello Ivan,
I´m glad you like the Airport Pickup Truck. I should upload it in the library then!

Thanks for the ounces for the machine-gun bullets!
I looked up the weight of the 7.92 mm x 57 rounds and found 0.453 oz, but from
your comment I gather that I must have the gunpowder, the bronze cartridge and
the link. Those guns were on the fuselage sides. OK for the new 1.12 oz. rounds!

Then, in the dorsal position, there was a bigger one, a MG131 with 13mm rounds,
so that had a bit more punch... and at the front on top the cockpit there was
a big whopper: a 20 mm Rheinmetall Cannon! (possibly a MG151/20).

I have the rounds for the MG131 as 1.34 oz., and the 20 mm Cannon as 4.3 oz.
Maybe these are not correct either... I wonder if you could confirm the weights for
these two. I´d be very grateful!

Hello Aleatorylamp,

I actually haven't tried out the pickup truck. I was just remembering how popular Hubbabubba's Jeep was.

The problem with DP file values that you (and almost everyone else) have is that the weight is for the projectile only.
What I have in notes is the following:
MG 15 ----------7.92 x 57 -- 1.12 ounces
MG 131 --------13 x 64B --- 2.998 ounces
MG151/20 ----- 20 x 82 ---- 7.76 ounces

Note that the MG 15, MG 17, MG 81 7.92 mm ammunition was all the same.
In reality, the weight was somewhat dependent on the exact mix of ammunition because the rounds did not all weigh the same.
Armour Piercing, Incendiary, Tracer, Ball, etc.

- Ivan.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan,
Thanks! I´ll be fine with the new data!

It´s difficult to see what information is to be used from the different sources.
I had always wondered about the weight distribution of the different parts in
a round, plus the belt or the drum too (the link).

To get it 100% exact would be a bit nit-picking, I suppose! Calculate the weight
to put in a tracer every six rounds rounds or so, and decide what else was used
- armour piercing, incendiary, etc.

Then, the cartridges and the belts or drums! They don´t exactly get thrown out
of the plane, so their weight should really be in the .air file, not in the Dp files,
added to the question of what the cartridges weigh, which will depend on their
size for the different amounts of gunpowder used depending on the type of bullet.
Nit-picking...

It´s like the oil and the fuel for that weight calculation... I´d even thought of putting
the oil in as unusable fuel, but it does get burnt, so that will be no good. The best is
adding it to the fuel tank, even though that increases the range a bit... so one can´t
be 100% exact there either!

With the rounds, there is quite an appreciable weight difference to what I had before.
Just for the 1050 rounds each used by the two MG15 waist guns it´s 87 lbs!
Then, adding the correction for the other two bigger guns, the difference will be over
400 lb!, so the data you have kindly supplied is fantastic!

Thanks again.
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[smilo]

hello Stephan,
i just checked out the new dp file,
but, so far, only in freeflight.
all weapons seem to function properly.
the aft machine guns are tg2 enabled
and can be aimed in all directions.
the forward cannon is not tg2 enabled
and therefore only fires forward.
bombs seem to release properly
and can be seen in chase view.
if i had a complaint, it would be
the release point is too far aft.
but, i can live with it.

another minor detail i noticed
is the checklist Flight Plan is labeled
Unarmed Paratrooper Transport
and then lists,
Upto 10x110 lb bombs in DP files:1100 lb
3 MG, 1 Cannon+ammo: 185 lb
as stated above, a minor detail

i'm off to check out the pickup

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
Thanks a lot for your Dp file behaviour report!

I´ll check the bomb release point. Stupid of me - I´d thought it was
a bit too far back, but it never occurred to me that it could be regulated.
I´ll correct it and also correct the glitch in the Flight Plan text - both the
mistaken heading and the correct weights.

It´s good of you to check the TG2 funtioning of the guns.
interesting, that all the back ones are working properly. Very satisfying!

Technically, the front one should swivel too. I put in a swivel angle
of + and - 90 degrees sideways and 75 and 60 up and down.
Technically it should swivel backwards too, so I may put in 180.

However, if it stays put pointing forward, it might mean that the cannon
is not TG2 orientable, so maybe I should re-define it as a machine-gun too.

Is there a way of telling if a gun is TG2 enabled, or does it simply react to
the swivel angle (and no cannon)? Let´s see if I can get that going as well!

Have fun in the Pick-up truck!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[smilo]

checking if the guns function with tg2 is pretty straight forward.
move the mouse while firing the guns.
do the tracers follow the mouse?
if they do, they are tg2 enabled.
as i said previously, i didn't edit the dp files, hubba did.
so, i can't answer the swivel angle (and no cannon) questions.
i'm curious to hear what you find out.

finally, the bulkhead makes it impossible
to see aft tg2 function in freeflight.
so, obviously, i used hud mode to test,
as well as chase or spot view.
also, flying at night enhances mussel flash and tracers.

 

[Ivan]

Aircraft Disposable Loads

Hello Ivan,

Thanks! I´ll be fine with the new data!

It´s difficult to see what information is to be used from the different sources.
I had always wondered about the weight distribution of the different parts in
a round, plus the belt or the drum too (the link).

To get it 100% exact would be a bit nit-picking, I suppose! Calculate the weight
to put in a tracer every six rounds rounds or so, and decide what else was used
- armour piercing, incendiary, etc.

Then, the cartridges and the belts or drums! They don´t exactly get thrown out
of the plane, so their weight should really be in the .air file, not in the Dp files,
added to the question of what the cartridges weigh, which will depend on their
size for the different amounts of gunpowder used depending on the type of bullet.
Nit-picking...

It´s like the oil and the fuel for that weight calculation... I´d even thought of putting
the oil in as unusable fuel, but it does get burnt, so that will be no good. The best is
adding it to the fuel tank, even though that increases the range a bit... so one can´t
be 100% exact there either!

Hello Aleatorylamp,

The weights of ammunition are approximate with a typical mix of cartridge types as determined by the particular service.
If the Luftwaffe stated for their weight and balance information that 100 rounds of 7.92 mm Mauser weighed a certain amount, I presume it accounts for percentage tracer, armour piercing, incendiary, ball, etc.
It can't be entirely exact because different lots of ammunition may use different powder types and charges to get the same ballistics.
I know this is true of commercial ammunition manufacturing.
I have done quite a lot of reloading of my own ammunition, so DP file weights were very obviously wrong as they were for the 1% Tables I have seen. A .30 caliber / .303 / 7.92 mm bullet generally weighs between 150 and 200 grains and there are 7000 grains in 1 pound if you wish to do some calculations.
A typical 7.62 NATO round should weigh about 150 grains (actually 147 grains) for the bullet, about 160-180 grains for the cartridge case and about 45 grains of powder. It will vary a bit but that is pretty typical and gives an idea.

For American aircraft, America's Hundred Thousand by Francis Dean gives weight breakdowns of all major US fighter types of WW2.
What is interesting there is that .50 Cal differs a bit in weight depending on the time period.

Before I had that book, I simply rounded up a few .50 BMG rounds and weighed them to confirm that the numbers I found on the Internet were correct or at least plausible. I also bought some .50 BMG links of a style that looked like the kind from WW2 (Yes, the links vary a bit depending on weapon). Turned out the vendor only had 18 or 19 links, so I thought about it a bit and remembered that I had a few more in a drawer of an old desk at my Mom's house. The end result was that I had 20+ links of the correct style to weigh and average.

I have also come across links and ammunition for a 12.7 mm Soviet machine gun, but did not see the point of buying those just to weigh them. Visually the Soviet links are pretty similar to the German type and there is very little difference between the disintegrating and non disintegrating type except that the non-disintegrating are crimped together a touch tighter so they don't separate.

For fixed guns, the bullet flies out the front, the empty case and connecting link are both ejected out chutes under the aeroplane, so the whole round's weight is lost with each round fired.
With flexible guns, typically the spent cases and links would accumulate on the floor.
With turrets, the spent cases and links are also typically ejected.
I don't actually make a distinction. All of my DP files show the entire cartridge and link weight being discarded.
Ammunition Drums normally don't get thrown overboard when they are empty.
There might be a few cloth belts or non disintegrating link belts, but those would be VERY rare.

Regarding engine oil: I normally only add 1/2 to 2/3 of the weight for the aircraft's oil volume to the Zero Fuel Weight.
The weight of oil typically isn't very much for an engine, so 1/2 or 1/3 of that makes little to no difference from a performance standpoint.

- Ivan.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Ivan,
Thanks for all that information, also the bit on the oil!
It´s interesting that the ammo details are not what I thought, that they´d recycle
the cartridges and belts or links as they did do with the drums. I was afraid all the
spent stuff would endanger some parts of the airplane if thrown out, but then, they
must have calculated exactly how to do it to avoid ingestion or damage anywhere.
OK then, great stuff!

Hello Smilo,
OK, I´ll test it again the way you indicate, and see if I can get the cannon to swivel,
or alternately, use a swiveling MG there as well. The cannon was automatic anyway.
Probably, for practical purposes, it will be better as a machinegun, activated with
the same button.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
On my current machine the graphics are too fast to properly see the
gunflashes, even at night, so I rigged up the 800 Mhz P-III computer
I´d fixed to get the FS98 pick-up truck out, and installed CFS1 with TG2.
Now the flashes are visible in the daytime as well!

Update: I was testing the relationship between the view-angle and the mouse
pointer to point the guns, in Freeflight mode, to check their firing angle. All seemed
fine as far as machine-guns go.
Side and dorsal guns were OK before, as you had established too, and now the
front one, if defined as a gun, also seems to work correctly.

It´s interesting to fire downwards when the plane is on the ground - you can
see where it hits the ground, and of course where the bullets come from!

From all this, I suppose the cockpit, swiveling MG151/20 cannon is more a machine-cannon,
and must be implemented in CFS1 as a machinegun to work. It seems that CFS1 interprets a
cannon as a fixed, forward firing weapon, more for fighters because of their manoueverability.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[smilo]

i just finished testing in quick combat.
sorry to say, the gunship is a no go
to defend itself with tg2.
at least, using padlock mode,
which brackets targets in yellow
and follows them around your aircraft.
basically, the ju52 bulkhead blocks any aft view.

to see what i mean, go into quick combat,
select the ju52 gunship with 1 neutral rookie enemy.
as soon as the game starts, set the auto pilot.
then, press the ` key. (it's just above the Tab key)
you should instantly see the yellow brackets.
as the enemy passes and gets behind you,
all you will see is the bulkhead with moving brackets.
you can't shoot what you can't see...not good.

or, if you go into freeflight, virtual cockpit view
and look aft...that's what you will see
in QC padlock mode. minus the brackets.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
Just in case, here´s the newer Dp file.
I was going to attach it to my previous updated post,
(I was updating that one instead of writing a new one to
save thread space), but here it is on this post now.

I understand the problem you mentioned with Quick combat
mode padlocked chase view.

I wonder what we can do to make it work better.
Of course the newer Dp files won´t fix the viewing problem.
It just (I hope) turns the previously fixed forward cannon into a
swiveling machine-cannon.

It´s a pity one can´t alter the flier´s view point just for padlocked
combat chase view mode, because that would solve the problem!

Update: Maybe a good idea?
I just thought of elimininating the rear bulkhead from the interior view,
which is the view used by the padlock chase mode, by just SCASMing it out!
It wouldn´t affect the view of the model seen from outside.
Would you reckon that would be a good idea?

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,

I´m still not sure about the nose gun. The P-III at 800 Mhz also has
an accellerator card, and it isn´t as clear as I´d thought.
It could be that it isn´t firing, now that it´s defined as a swiveling MG.
I have to continue working on it.

Meanwhile, I might also try and see if eliminating the rear cockpit bulkhead
from the interior view is a good fix.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[smilo]

just a quick note as i'm heading out the door;
i believe, removing the bulkhead will solve the problem.
as for the dp, i'll check it out as soon as i can.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Quick Combat Padlocked Chase View.

Hello Smilo,
Well, I tried removing the virtual cockpit bulkhead, but it was no good.

You still see the visual model´s rear cockpit bulkhead that´s there to be
seen from outside, and it blocks the rear view. You can also see the bleeds
of the tail, rear gunner and antenna, which were blocked out before!

The only thing would be to remove the builkhead altogether, at the cost
of ruining the model.

I also tried moving the view point backwards behind the bulkhead, although
it eliminated the whole concept of having a decent virtual cockpit, but
the division between the dome structure of the roof and the square structure
of the fuselage below blocked the view either upwards or downwards,
depending on whether you define the view below or above the division.

Apart from this, the tail, wings and nose engine also interfere.

The only good thing from al this is that in effect, TG2 seems to work in all axes!

In an ideal CFS1 world, the padlocked chase view would change depending on the
enemy´s position, letting you see the enemy from the different gunstations.

Well then...leaving the model and cockpit bulkhead as it is and using HUD,
this seems only to only work when looking forwards, right?

Darn! There must be some way around all this!
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[smilo]

i'm sorry to hear about the bulkhead issues.
to clarify, i am using the lanc for comparison.
seeing the tail, wings, and engines is okay.
they give points of reference to the moving target.
that said, yes, hud view will work,
BUT, not in padlock mode,
which we've determined is a modified(?) VC.
the problems with using hud;
you have to manually track the target
by changing the view angles
while firing at the target.
did i mention, if there are multiple targets,
you also need to keep an eye on them?
in padlock mode, you can change targets
using the Tab key. easy peasy.

so, what difference does it make?
well, the gunship is useless in qc,
missions and campaigns, except, maybe, as a target.
sure, one could go out and drop bombs,
but, defense would be blindly flailing into space.
not my idea of a good time.

sorry for being so harsh.

 

[aleatorylamp]

Hello Smilo,
I was also going to question the utility for a player of having a badly
defended auxiliary bomber in CFS1, much worse than it was in reality.

Given the limitations we are facing, I wonder if it´s even worth while
uploading any of the armed versions if they would only be good for a
conversion to be used as an AI target.

The padlocked chase mode would work better in an un-SCASMed AF99
model (unmodified VC), no added virtual cockpit elements, and with the
badly offset view point, which at least would give more visibility!

In fact, the best thing for this model to be used in Padlocked Chase mode
is not having a model at all, just being in the air and firing away merrily at
any enemy in sight!

There is really little point, isn´t there?
Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[smilo]

hard to say, Stephan.

the thing is, a lot of time and effort
went into building the gunship.
i hate to see it thrown in the trash.

i'm curious what would happen
if the point of view is moved aft of the bulkhead?
it probably screws up the forward view, right?
how about, above the bulkhead?
i guess i'd know if i built af99 models.

 

[smilo]

"In fact, the best thing for this model to be used in Padlocked Chase mode
is not having a model at all, just being in the air and firing away merrily at
any enemy in sight!"

hmmm?
actually, no, not having a model at all,
wouldn't be the best thing.
if there was no model,
what would draw the enemy in to attack?
to catch the fish, one needs bait, right?

 

[aleatorylamp]

New POV WIP model

Hello Smilo,
Of course... it was only joking, but now, seriously:
I tried having the POV at the cockpit gunner´s position, and there are two
arguments in favour:
a) In padlocked chase mode you´re more a gunner than a pilot, so it´s the place to be.
b) You have a clear field of vision forwards, upwards, backwards and sideways.

... and one against:
c) You can´t look through your plane to see anything below, and normally they come
for you from below-behind.

...but it´s a more or less plausible proposition: It´s quite useful, and the model would
stay as it is, because the transparent cockpit can be seen from outside, and all the
Virtual Cockpit elements will stay, as they will have to be correctly visible when
looking downwards in VC view.
Well... I´ve just done it and IT DOES SEEM TO WORK!

...and without bleeds!

During the first trials yesterday, I´d had the POV moved backwards, trying to skip the
aft bulkhead, and that caused bleeds with forward elements below. However, just
staying ahead of the bulkhead, the correct position of the front gunner anyway,
causes absolutely no problems!

It obviously works for the armed transport with night-flier camo too, the one recovered
from the Norwegian Lake, although that model only has the cockpit machine-cannon
and the dorsal gun.

For the moment, here´s the 4-gun WIP "Gunship" model again, this time with the
new POV, together with and 2 Quick Combat Chase View Screenshots using the
other model.
Try it out and see if you like it that way!
...yet another Good Idea from "Smilo Aircraft Building Counsellor".

Update: Technically there´s just one problem: The Pilot is not visible in VC view...
and as you are not the pilot in this version, but the gunner, he should be visible,
not the co-pilot, who is really you, standing up and manning the cockpit gun.

Cheers,
Aleatorylamp

 

[Ivan]

Interesting Idea?

Hello Aleatorylamp, Smilo,

I get the impression that there is a bit of an issue with aerial gunnery....

It´s a pity one can´t alter the flier´s view point just for padlocked
combat chase view mode, because that would solve the problem!

....But you CAN!

I actually haven't read ALL of the posts since yesterday, but believe I understand the issue.

How about this as a solution:
Leave your AIR File POV between the Pilot's eyes as it should be.
Move the MODEL's Interior Cockpit View to behind the obnoxious Bulkhead.
In Quick Combat Padlock view, you will see from behind the bulkhead but when you go back to regular Virtual Cockpit, you will see from the Pilot's view.
Another possibility is to make the Bulkhead visible only from the front, so from the Gunner's view, it doesn't exist at all.

How about yet ANOTHER and even MORE complicated solution.
(As you say, Aleatorylamp, "Why make things simple when you can make them Complicated?")
Your Aeroplane does not have an actual Spoiler.
Use the Spoiler status to determine the viewpoint in relationship to Model.
In other words, if the Spoiler is Off, you get one set of views such as Pilot from normal, Top Gunner from interior....
But when the Spoiler is On, you get a Pilot from normal view and the Tail Gunner from interior.
I don't actually know what the gun positions look like on Tante Ju, but that should give a few options.

Yet another idea (much simpler) is to make the annoying Bulkhead a conditional display with the Spoiler so that when the Spoiler is on, the Bulkhead disappears. That actually would be a very simple thing to do.

This actually sounds interesting enough that perhaps I should try it on my B-25 Mitchell.....

- Ivan.