0.50s a bit too stong?

[JaMz]

From someone that has fired 50 cals, trust me you dont wanna be on the recieving end of 6 of them, 1 will take chunks out of masonary so imagine how a thin aircraft skin would suffer I literaly just added a note on my Steam review that FOR ONCE a sim has seemed to have them correct all be it from the small amount of knowledge I have on ww2 50 cal rounds.. 

 

Most sims, the 50 cals are more like a 303 round... They're pathectic, they shouldnt be just shredding and/or rely on numbers hit, they should be leaving gaping holes, which is what they do in game.

 

There's a reason the US opted for 50's instead of cannon rounds

Edited August 6 by JaMz

[JendaJND]

18 minutes ago, JaMz said:

From someone that has fired 50 cals, trust me you dont wanna be on the recieving end of 6 of them, 1 will take chunks out of masonary so imagine how a thin aircraft skin would suffer I literaly just added a note on my Steam review that FOR ONCE a sim has seemed to have them correct all be it from the small amount of knowledge I have on ww2 50 cal rounds.. 

 

Most sims, the 50 cals are more like a 303 round... They're pathectic, they shouldnt be just shredding and/or rely on numbers hit, they should be leaving gaping holes, which is what they do in game.

 

There's a reason the US opted for 50's instead of cannon rounds

Usaf went cannon route though, but only once the cannon could deliver same muzzle velocity and rpm or better than .50 cal. 

[Valis]

57 minutes ago, JendaJND said:

Also, if we want to use guncams. There is one, very clear one with perfectly visible hits. First fuselage hit and its on fire.

There's also this very famous one of the MiG losing its wing catastrophically...

 

...which explains why we see the exact same event in-game a LOT more frequently than it ever occurred in real life. Because it looks impressive.

The only gun-cam footage we'll ever see are the highlight reels. Undoubtedly there's miles of boring gun-cam film decaying in a vault somewhere showing MiGs getting hosed yet flying away - but because it isn't particularly 'Hollywood' or terribly flattering it'll likely never see daylight.

I do wonder, though, how much footage exists of 'excursions' into China. Obviously that would be political dynamite back then, but would footage like that still be sensitive today?

[LuftManu]

50 cals are and were formidable weapons.

I don't see anything really off with them. In GB you had really to hit him to actually make a thing and that was off from real accounts. Here, you are not only lighting him up but also damaging several systems. This lines up from what I've always read and it's what @JaMz said. 50 cals are fearsome and this sims represent them well 🙂

 

[JendaJND]

Maybe the structural failures are a bit too often with only few hits but fires? With their ROF and every bullet being incendiary? Yeah, no thats perfectly fine. I had tons of hits without fires also. 

[Mark_Krieger]

First of all, I agree that the best is to study reliable data and I don't have it. But I must admit I have the strong feeling that all planes (not only jets) catch fire too easy and not only with .50 cal. Just testing shooting B-29s with a F-51D, 3 or 4 rounds and an engine catches fire and the superfortress is down. Not anecdotically. Almost every time I tested. Perhaps the .50 cal is the problem, perhaps is some other part of the damage model that makes Al planes (even the superfortress) too weak? I don't know, but I really think it should be revised. If someone has access to reliable historical tests it would be fantastic. I think the problem is the risk of fire is too high, more than the power of the .50 that really perforated a lot and I think this is quite well simulated.

Edited August 17 by Mark_Krieger

[Sticks_n_Rudder]

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

 

I agree there are some perfectly visible hits. I do wonder how many hits might not be perfectly visible though?

At 126 rounds per second, and if we assume that the video is real time, that video shows firing something like 500 rounds (even with the pauses in fire)...

P.S. There is also considerable selection bias in which gun camera videos were preserved and which are shown as parts of documentaries etc. It is usually the ones which show dramatic effects such as a major fire. I'm sure there were lots of guncamera footage which showed 'blur' without obvious damage (even in cases where the aircraft attacked was shot down).

 

I think the test is: Try using them against a B-29.

 

it all depends on the type of round you use. The API rounds can destroy a fuel tank and the follow-up incendiaries can ignite. Als the high rate of fire throws a lot of rounds into a dense cone. This is compared to a car hitting the aircraft at 50 to 60 mph. Should 10 hits bring down a B29?? likely not but BOS had them nerfed so much it took way more rounds than the 20s to bring down a plane. When you are pitted against Migs with a 30 that can kill you with 1 hit, I think its a fair fight. 

[Valis]

Something to ponder.

You can pick up almost any book on the Korean air war and there will be a reference to effectiveness of the .50s. Whichever side you sit on, you cannot deny it was a point of contention; there were arguments for and against.

Compare now to IL-2 Korea - can anyone find, either here in the forums, Discord, Reddit, in-game chat, wherever....a single complaint about the effectiveness of the .50s?

In real life the .50s were an issue.

In IL-2 they are not.

That's telling.

[Avimimus]

On 8/6/2026 at 9:34 AM, LuftManu said:

50 cals are and were formidable weapons.

I don't see anything really off with them. In GB you had really to hit him to actually make a thing and that was off from real accounts. Here, you are not only lighting him up but also damaging several systems. This lines up from what I've always read and it's what @JaMz said. 50 cals are fearsome and this sims represent them well 🙂

That is one thing I've seen - there are a few comments from people who have fired a 0.50cal Browning in real life (usually in an army context)... and none of them have any doubts about how fearsome the damage would be to a lightly built plane (or vehicle).

It is still an interesting topic to discuss though - particularly how many hits and in what areas would be required. Obviously almost all aircraft could be taken out by a single hit in the right place - but there are also ways how an aircraft could survive a couple dozen hits.

 

On 8/6/2026 at 10:29 AM, Mark_Krieger said:

First of all, I agree that the best is to study reliable data and I don't have it. But I must admit I have the strong feeling that all planes (not only jets) catch fire too easy and not only with .50 cal. Just testing shooting B-29s with a F-51D, 3 or 4 rounds and an engine catches fire and the superfortress is down. Not anecdotically. Almost every time I tested. Perhaps the .50 cal is the problem, perhaps is some other part of the damage model that makes al planes (even the superfortress) too weak? I don't know, but I really think it should be revised. If someone has access to reliable historical tests it would be fantastic. I think the problem is the risk of fire is too high, more than the power of the .50 that really perforated a lot and I think this is quite well simulated.

Yes, I personally found this to be the most interesting test. It also tends to sever the control lines (in such a way that the B-29 is often lost due to going down out of control, rather than to other sources of damage like fire or catastrophic failure). So, I think it isn't just the fire, but also the damage to control rods.

It is also worth noting that the Korean era M23 round carried a lot more filling (for incendiary effect) than most WW2 0.50 calibre rounds did - so it is more comparable to rounds like the German 13mm that were designed to attack bombers and sacrificed other areas of performance to significantly improve their incendiary capabilities.

 

4 hours ago, Valis said:

Something to ponder.

You can pick up almost any book on the Korean air war and there will be a reference to effectiveness of the .50s. Whichever side you sit on, you cannot deny it was a point of contention; there were arguments for and against.

Compare now to IL-2 Korea - can anyone find, either here in the forums, Discord, Reddit, in-game chat, wherever....a single complaint about the effectiveness of the .50s?

In real life the .50s were an issue.

In IL-2 they are not.

That's telling.

Interesting surmise. I've some doubts though... it is possible for aircrews in combat to misjudge their effectiveness (e.g. whether they are even hitting the enemy) and air combat was pretty infrequent for a lot of U.N. pilots (as Mig's were significantly outnumbered). So, concerns about the firepower of the 0.50 cal and the resulting Gunval program could have taken place simply due to a belief in ineffectiveness (especially knowing that the enemy had 23mm and 37mm weapons!) rather than an actual experience of ineffectiveness.

There were also RAAF units and USN/Marine units equipped with 20mm cannons in the theatre, and considering that a lot of the work was ground attack, it might have been apparent that the 20mm compared favourably when attacking ground targets.

[lefuneste]

If we assume german  13mm is more or less equivalent to 0.50, why did the nazis put canons instead of 13mm on their 109 and 190, not speaking of the 262 ? I dont think the B29 is weaker than B17. If you put a B29 on fire with few 0.50 rounds, there is a issue. I think the chance of putting fire on a self sealing tank are too high at the moment. B29 and other planes are not like the japanese planes of WW2.

[JendaJND]

6 hours ago, Valis said:

Something to ponder.

You can pick up almost any book on the Korean air war and there will be a reference to effectiveness of the .50s. Whichever side you sit on, you cannot deny it was a point of contention; there were arguments for and against.

Compare now to IL-2 Korea - can anyone find, either here in the forums, Discord, Reddit, in-game chat, wherever....a single complaint about the effectiveness of the .50s?

In real life the .50s were an issue.

In IL-2 they are not.

That's telling.

And here is actual USAF recollection. 
the .50s are effective ingame where they are described here. I had 2 dead astern migs that i pumped with .50 cals, no fire and they survived and ran away. I ran into them after quite a while so they most likely were out of fuel in rear fuel cells. 
The second i ran into 15 flying from AF, they had the fuel and bam, fire. 
The second i can do deflection shots into center of fuselage, fires and actual damage. 
Critical structural damage? Only in case of mig doing very high G maneuver and me hitting outer part of wings with quite a bit of hits. 
And my engagement ranges? Well withing 1000 feet. 
.50s were real life issue... because they were shooting at usually 3 times the range we do ingame or even more. 
.50s were real life issue... because they werent simpilots with ability to connect hits like we do in sim. 
.50s were real life issue... because they were shooting at higher altitudes than we mostly do and API / I rounds had issues there. Not down low. 
.50s were real life issue... because they couldnt manage deflection shots we can, to hit the parts of migs we need. 
.50s were real life issue... because both sides experienced long flight times and often ran into each other with low fuel states... AKA no fuel in rear migs fuel tanks. 

Maybe next time look into what the actual problems of .50s were and the reason for cannons push... instead of narrating .50 cal bad, mig surviving hundreds of rounds. 


2 first migs dead astern, no kills resulted from these shots. One got pumped from basically point blank range. 
3rd mig? High delfection shot at mig showing full fuselage and angle which wouldnt be achievable in real life, fire as result and kill... 
Funny how they did EXACTLY what is described above.

And the results of gunval sabres in theatre mostly using half of their 20mms? Still 3000rpm total on 20mm cannons with higher muzzle velocity than .50 cals??? 
Not any more impressive than 6x .50cals and thats "9" destroyed out of 41 WITH american over-reporting of kills. 

Edited August 7 by JendaJND

[BlitzPig_EL]

May I ask, what is your convergence set to? 

[JendaJND]

1 minute ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

May I ask, what is your convergence set to? 

400, but that barely matters on nose mounted guns

[Husar]

https://youtu.be/ilDP5jvsDek?is=ewctkrn0gzGJI9Z6

[Gavrick]

I won't cite precise sources right now (the collection of materials is not at hand).
But I have looked at reports indicating that, to ignite a fuel tank, a single .50 caliber incendiary round was often enough, and two were almost a certainty.
That is without using an inert gas system; with it, the probability decreased.
But considering the rate of fire of the M3... that wouldn't help bombers much.

Also, note: in the game, it is taken into account that kerosene ignites somewhat less readily than gasoline, and also that a full tank is almost impossible to ignite with a non‑incendiary bullet.
If the tank is already punctured and there is a fuel leak, the probability of fire increases.
There is also a difference between incendiary and tracer bullets – tracers can also ignite a tank, although not as effectively as incendiary.

[JG14_Jagr]

The problem these talks run into is that people use anecdotal soties as truth and video as evidence.  .50 with API were very effective killing Mig15's over Korea.  The issue wasn't what happened if you had a good tracking shot on a Mig withing 500-1000 yards.  The issue was that good tracking shots in real life were not always possible and snap shots did not allow enough weight of fire on target in many cases to inflict fatal damage when a small number of rounds would impact.  It was thought that the heavier 20mm would be more lethal in those situations where only a few hits were possible and give better results at long range.  The trade of is volume of fire and ammo loadout.  The Jet age brought different dogfight circumstances that needed to be adjusted too.  Somewhere between 350 and 600 Migs were down by the UN over Korea.  All but roughly 10 were by .50 caliber armed aircraft.

[Mark_Krieger]

1 hour ago, Gavrick said:

I won't cite precise sources right now (the collection of materials is not at hand).
But I have looked at reports indicating that, to ignite a fuel tank, a single .50 caliber incendiary round was often enough, and two were almost a certainty.
That is without using an inert gas system; with it, the probability decreased.
But considering the rate of fire of the M3... that wouldn't help bombers much.

Also, note: in the game, it is taken into account that kerosene ignites somewhat less readily than gasoline, and also that a full tank is almost impossible to ignite with a non‑incendiary bullet.
If the tank is already punctured and there is a fuel leak, the probability of fire increases.
There is also a difference between incendiary and tracer bullets – tracers can also ignite a tank, although not as effectively as incendiary.

Very interesting information. Thank you again! Yes, the first I said is that I was talking just about my feeling and not about Mig 15s, but in general (I'm more interested in prop planes). I just see Yak 9s and La-11 catching fire very easily when I shot them with the F-51. But if data says that was the case, it's ok for me. Historical accuracy is what I look for.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

On 8/5/2026 at 11:59 AM, Moro said:

but aren´t they a bit too strong?

Nope! This is one of the few flight sims that git .50 right!

[Viking1]

On 8/6/2026 at 12:43 AM, YoYo said:

In my opinion, everything is fine. The 0.5-power weapon (Browning M2 kal. 0,50) was all about rate of fire and good concentration. I remember that, from WWII pilots' memoirs, American pilots often mentioned that even though it wasn't a cannon, it was capable of shooting off a wing or slicing through the fuselage. Again, a lot depended on the type of ammunition used, and you can load incendiary or armor-piercing ammunition.

Completely agree. And the difference between M2 and M3, which is like 50% greater weight of fire, is nicely represented also. Yah - get within 200 yards and the guns do great work. And I need to recheck my convergence when I swap planes or change mission type.

Edited August 9 by Viking1

[Moro]

On 8/7/2026 at 3:41 PM, Mark_Krieger said:

Very interesting information. Thank you again! Yes, the first I said is that I was talking just about my feeling and not about Mig 15s, but in general (I'm more interested in prop planes). I just see Yak 9s and La-11 catching fire very easily when I shot them with the F-51. But if data says that was the case, it's ok for me. Historical accuracy is what I look for.

Me too, and more specifically simulation instead of game. To simulate, to get a similar representation of what happened IRL. For the past days i kept watching the same results mainly from 0.50 guns but also from other ammunition in every PvP video on YT. Planes catching fire and/or getting critical structural damage after the very first hits, time after time.

Erase 2 Tupolevs in a single pass

1 single cannon hit on the left side ignites all left side and also right engine. 1 pass 3 B-29s dead

 

Except the first Yak almost all other kills after first shot many of them in fast snapshots

 

[Panzerlang]

I agree. After watching numerous videos it does seem that catastrophic damage and/or fires are caused by remarkably few hits.

[Viking1]

For some cases there shd be even less fires, the B29 had extinguishers on every engine. I wonder how common engine fires were on those big birds as a cause of demise.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

On 8/6/2026 at 2:24 AM, JendaJND said:

Usaf went cannon route though, but only once the cannon could deliver same muzzle velocity and rpm or better than .50 cal. 

They did waffle back and forth a bit during WWII..

It looks like they were initially concern about enemy bombers.. Think battle of Britain and all..

Hence the cannons on the early planes like the P38 and P39..

But as the war progressed in EU they enemy bomber problem was really not a problem.. And in the pacific, the Japan bombers were not that hard to kill with .50s.. And planes like the P51 and P47 were more of an escort roll, so, they were protecting thier bombers from other fighters..

In summary, .50s were more than enough to take down fighters of WWII and KOREA.. Thus no real motivation for cannons.. The NAVY did play with the idea a bit more than most, what with the fear of the kamikazes raids.. but as you noted, the early cannons muzzle velocity was not all that then.

[TotenDead]

09.08.2026 в 01:33, ACE-OF-ACES сказал:

Nope! This is one of the few flight sims that git .50 right!

There were many cases when MiGs returned home with dozens and hundreds of 50 cal holes though

[Talisman]

9 hours ago, TotenDead said:

There were many cases when MiGs returned home with dozens and hundreds of 50 cal holes though

I suspect that will happen in IL-2 Korea too.  

Now we wait for the screenshots. 👍

Happy landings,

Talisman