109 replies to this topic

[Hubert]

Hi Arjisme.

Not really a big difference, but the action of the gun is now visually correct. If your in an SE5a for example and you look up at your Lewis gun and the cocking handle is in the forwards position then you either forgot to charge it, its misfired or the gun is empty. But if you also look at underside of the magazine you can see if there are any cartridges in the mag or not.

Just really nice visual clues to the state of your Lewis gun mainly and a wonderful attention to detail by the team.

Best Regards Hub.

[arjisme]

Thanks for the explanation Hubert.

[hq_Jorri]

Nice info, Hubert, thanks!

[tooler]

So what was the rate of fire before 1.026? Was it set to some "average" value between the minimum and maximum rates on the stair-step charts in the original post? I'm wondering if some guns fire faster or slower now. I know it depends on RPM, but what is the relative performance compared to previous versions? Is it different depending on the plane?

[Spoon]

Just a friendly question…

Why does the Vickers with hazelton device only fire at 750rpm in 1.026?

"The introduction in 1917 of the Hazleton gear to the British Vickers enhanced the RoF to 850-900 rpm"
'Flying Guns World War 1: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1914-1932' by Emmanuel Gustin and Tony Williams


"A modification of the Vickers gun by Lt. Comdr. George Hazelton of the Royal Navy boosted the gun output up to 1,000 rounds per minute but the maximum rate of fire was officially set at 850 rounds per minute to ensure reliability and safety."
Chinn, GM., The Machine Gun, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., Vol I, 1951

Spoon

[Spoon]

From The Aerodrome

"In WW1, nations were turning out as much ammunition as they could. France for instance, was in 1918, producing 7,000,000 rounds of 8mm Lebel a day. Unfortunately, this ammo tended to be of low quality and all nations suffered from oversized or malformed cases and bullets as well as rounds which were lacking in charge or had degraded charges due to poor or excessive storage. Problems with the rounds charge had a big effect on the ROF of the maxim machine gun.

In the most simplistic terms, maxim machine guns cycle by using the recoil from a fired round to drive the working parts backwards against the pressure of the return spring, expelling the empty cartridge case on the way. The return spring then drives the working parts forwards picking up a live round on the way and chambering it. On all maxim’s, how fast this happens (and hence how fast is the rate of fire) can be altered by increase or decreasing the tension of the return spring. By increasing the tension of the return spring, the working parts are returned faster (higher ROF) but it takes more recoil to drive the working parts all the way back against the stiffer spring. While on all maxims it was possible to increase the return spring tension to a maximum of 700 rounds per minute, this achieved little as a lot of rounds lacked enough charge to generate the recoil to drive the working parts all the way back and hence caused a stoppage. Historically most maxims (irrespective of nation) were set for a ROF of about 430rpm as this seems to be the best compromise between ROF and lack of stoppages.

The Hazelton Muzzle Booster device, which was fitted to aerial Vickers from May 1917, redirected a portion of the wasted energy from firing a round and directed it back into cycling the weapon. In effect it greatly increased the recoil of every round. Together with stronger return springs, the Vickers could now fire at much higher rates of fire without increased stoppages. Rate of Fire up to 1000 rpm were obtainable but 850 rpm was used as the official standard by the RFC as it was the best compromise between ROF and reliability."

Spoon

[LukeFF]

Perhaps because the French used a lower rate of fire for their Vickers-equipped planes?

(Yes, yes, blame the French! )

[JG1_Pragr_J4]

*Note: Author uses a rate of fire for the Spandau of 450 rounds per minute in the explaination above. The Spandau had an adjustable rate of fire. We have set it at 650 rpm in ROF.

I think this is a bit missleading in sense of the post. This note in Jason's first post is below those pictures of how rate of fire denpends on rpm, but the note mark itself on these screens is made by the Vickers gun.

[Damocles]

It strikes me (No pun intended ) that having done an inordinate amount of work in researching and implementing synchronization into RoF, which I would be the first to say is absolutely fantastic it seems that the 777 team then picked a rather arbitrary rate of fire for the Spandaus. There's tons of info over at the "The Aerodrome", Dave Watts appears to be knowledgeable in this area and the diagram showing a rate of fire set at 422 is from one of his posts. Why Wad would go to a great deal of trouble to explain synchronization at a suggested rate of 450 if he didn't think this was typical (or more importantly the 777 team) is beyond me.

Setting the rate of fire at 650 appears to me to be a misinterpretation of how the system worked. My interpretation is that it wasn't a collection of parts that were set without regard to the other parts, but an interdependent machine that needed all the parts to work in concert with each other. You couldn't simply go "The machine-gun can fire at any rate we want between these two points, lets toss a coin and pick one" it had to relate to the other parts of the system, whether it was the synchronization gear itself or the typical engine RPM.

Dave Watts in a long post (link below) makes this observation; "As said the observed settings I've always seen is around 440 top r.o.f. on the guns on the planes.". I don't know his references but I have no reason to believe they are any less correct than anyone else's.

Here is an extract from "Flying Guns of WW 1" by A Williams and Dr E Gustin, it is the summary of the section on gun synchronization.

"Taking all this information together it becomes possible to understand the different national choices in regulating the gun RoF. With their in line six cylinder engines running at 1,400-1,500rpm, the Germans' Maxim would have had to have been capable of about 800 rpm to take full advantage of a firing impulse every other rotation. It could not do this, so it made sense to adjust it to fire approximately every third rotation and thereby enjoy the benefits of greater reliability of both gun and synchronizer gear and reduce gun heating problems; the Maxim was in fact normally set at around 450rpm. The introduction in 1917 of the Hazelton gear to the the British Vickers enhanced the RoF to 850-900rpm, which in combination with the fast-acting and more reliable CC gear would fire twice for every three rotations of a rotary engine, or every other rotation with the faster-running V-8 and V-12 engines"

My reading of this chapter was that RoF wasn't about how fast the gun could fire but how it worked in tandem with the other parts of the system, or am I interpreting it wrong ?

I would be surprised if the RoF team didn't have this book, but not only that but it seems to accord with other information over at "The Aerodrome", so why they picked 650, who knows, unless there is more to it than simply going for the most likely typical historical rate, as they say sometimes they have to compromise ?




-rate-fire-vickers-vs-spandau

[=FB=VikS]

Setting the rate of fire at 650 appears to me to be a misinterpretation of how the system worked.

Just to be clear how ROF sinchronizers work (as it seems some ppl thinks that gun just had 650rpm and randomly interrupts when prop passes).

In ROF:
- we have a gun, which capable to give 650rpm as maximum;
- we have an actuation gear, which gives impulses per rotation depending on actuation gear type;
- all of that is depends on each gun position (coordinates to camshaft) vs prop position;
- and all this works correspondingly to engine RPM`s.
And as a final - you have synchronized gun rpm.
So nobody set rpm as a number - as we get what comes as a mix of few parameters, its like FM - you cantjust "set" airspeed, as it depends on lots of aspects.

[Voidhunger]

Quote from theaerodrome:

A bit from one of Lt. Boelcke's letters, dated November 1st, 1915, which seems relevant here:

"What helped me greatly was a visit from one of Fokker's mechanics a few days ago; he fixed my machine-gun up with a patent novelty which enables me to fire from four hundred and fifty to six hundred shots a minute instead of the former four hundred."

[Voidhunger]

+ the new damage stuff they are working on for next update (Loft post), Just FANTASTIC

link please. Thanks

[Gadfly21]

Quote from theaerodrome:

A bit from one of Lt. Boelcke's letters, dated November 1st, 1915, which seems relevant here:

"What helped me greatly was a visit from one of Fokker's mechanics a few days ago; he fixed my machine-gun up with a patent novelty which enables me to fire from four hundred and fifty to six hundred shots a minute instead of the former four hundred."

In this case, 'patent novelty' probably means that this feature wasn't disclosed to anyone yet, and not necessarily the connotation of 'novelty' which indicates rarity.

But I am curious to see if this was widely implemented.

[boxerdog]

Hi all,
Bonjour à tous,

For French speaker, here is translation (pdf) of Jason’s thread about synchronizers.
Voici la traduction (pdf) en français de l’article de Jason sur la synchronisation des armes.

download, lien: http://www.mediafire...9ks721k983jr1cu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.mediafire...9ks721k983jr1cu

box

[MPcdn]

[quote="LukeFF
It can be aimed with the field mod gunsight.

My question is how can you look through the site. I have TIR and the sights are to low I have to almost slide out of my chair to see thru a site. Pg down does not work with TIR. Any suggestion?

[Panthercules]

It can be aimed with the field mod gunsight.

My question is how can you look through the site. I have TIR and the sights are to low I have to almost slide out of my chair to see thru a site. Pg down does not work with TIR. Any suggestion?

I don't have any problems aiming with the field mod gun sight with my TIR. I have found that most of the default camera-head positions seem to have you sitting up too high (IMO), so I've generally lowered most of my starting/default positions, which of course makes it easier to use the low-mounted sights. Generally, I move my head around to make my starting/default view look like I'm sitting with my eyes just below the top of the windscreen (for those planes that have them), on the theory that the windscreen isn't really doing much good if you're sitting above it instead of behind it, plus most of the photos I've seen seem to show the pilots sitting pretty low in their cockpits. Sometimes I have to lean up/forward to use some sights, and sometimes down/sideways to use others, but I've always been able to find some position that both seems normal/natural and allows me to use the available sights with my TIR.

[MPcdn]

So how do you lower you start location? Do you just get low then hit F10 or is there a easy way?

[Panthercules]

So how do you lower you start location? Do you just get low then hit F10 or is there a easy way?

That's pretty much it - I pause TIR, use the insert/home/delete/end/pgup/pgdn keys to position my head where I want it, then hit F10 to save it. It's not really that hard to do.

[EricForster]

I'm just wondering whether the 650 rpm for the Spandau might also be in consideration of its heavier (10-20%) and higher-velocity (nearly 20%) ammunition, or if this is considered in a separate calculation.

Cheers.

[MPcdn]

So how do you lower you start location? Do you just get low then hit F10 or is there a easy way?

That's pretty much it - I pause TIR, use the insert/home/delete/end/pgup/pgdn keys to position my head where I want it, then hit F10 to save it. It's not really that hard to do.

Did as you suggested and it worked great. Still think it is strange with one gun I sit normal and with two I set myself up as if I am only five foot tall or sitting on the floor of the plane. I think in real like the pilot would have a small piece of wood put under the sight to raise it rather thn have his seat lowered.

[rolikiraly]

I have a question about 'R' key:
For example: if i'm in my SE5a, and my Vickers stopped and needs to be recharged, and at the same time my Lewis has no rounds left in the magazine, i can't just recharge the Vickers and leave the Lewis because i have to wait for both, right?
I didn't even tried this yet, i just want to know if i should search for individual reload buttons in 'Controls' or if it's impossible.
Not complaining of course, and it's not a big deal, i just want to see clear.

[ZaltysZ]

I have a question about 'R' key:
For example: if i'm in my SE5a, and my Vickers stopped and needs to be recharged, and at the same time my Lewis has no rounds left in the magazine, i can't just recharge the Vickers and leave the Lewis because i have to wait for both, right?
I didn't even tried this yet, i just want to know if i should search for individual reload buttons in 'Controls' or if it's impossible.
Not complaining of course, and it's not a big deal, i just want to see clear.

No, it won't try to recharge what does not need or can't be recharged.

[hq_Jorri]

You can fire the vickers while the Lewis is reloading

[JG1_Lee_J10]

You can fire the vickers while the Lewis is reloading

Which should probably be fixed. You can't aim, fire the Vickers, and fly the plane all at the same time when reloading the Lewis. Pilot workload and all that. You would need a third arm at least to hold the stick, press the trigger, pull the Lewis down, remove the old drum, load the new drum, cock the Lewis and push it back up into position. I would also like to see (although the game engine might not allow this feature to be added) a "g" load limitation to the over-wing Lewis reload. The accounts of RAC pilots I've read usually mention having to remove themselves from the fray to change the drum, then re-enter combat.

[Charlie_14]

Well, you certainly can't aim the Vickers while the Lewis is reloading in the SE5a, you can't see squat but the butt and receiver of the Lewis if you're looking forward…Hmmmm, you know? Now that I think about it you might be able to use the iron sights, not the Aldis though…Have to check it out for curiosity's sake…

[1.JaVA_Biggles]

Reloading the twin vickers in multiplayer!

Is it only me or is it known that only the left machinegun reloads in version 1.26!
In a quick mission all works fine(both guns!) but it fails in multiplayer! It even fires visual only the left trigger!
I looked to all the keysettings, but can`t find a double key used!
HELP!
I like to use two guns in combat not one!

Hope someone knows how to solve this!

Cheers
LvA***Biggles

[1.JaVA_Biggles]

2 guns work in Quick mission
2 guns work in dogfightmap
2 guns fail in an Coop map!?! Perhaps you have to select something in the editor??

[Tom-Cundall]

Co-op is bugged for weapon-mods. The devs are aware.

[1.JaVA_Biggles]

Aha…………..so nothing wrong with my gameversion!
Thx for the info!

[CaptBlanc]

This information FINALLY answers all my synchro-gear questions! WOW! (That's why I love this sim!)
I also noticed that by monitoring my RPM (by ear) when I run a pursuit-curve on a target, my gunnery has just gotten waayy more leathal!

Interesting! Thanks, guys!

(You ever think about publishing a new fact-book on WWI craft? Youv'e done all the research!..I'd buy it!)

-C.B.