0.50s a bit too stong?

[Red_Dragon]

Personally, I’m concerned about the enormous difference between  mustang with M2 in Il2 GB and mustang with  M2 in Korea. This is definitely not normal

I'll say even more, it's ridiculous.

Edited August 17 by Red_Dragon

[Red_Dragon]

Also, the ease with which the M2 destroys the B-29 is just mind-boggling. Guys who praise the .50 cal... I get you, and you're right — the .50 cal is a powerful weapon, and it was unfairly weak in Il-2 Great Battles. But right now, you are trying to ignore some really strange things happening in Korea. Just my $.02

Edited August 17 by Red_Dragon

[LukeFF]

55 minutes ago, Red_Dragon said:

Personally, I’m concerned about the enormous difference between  mustang with M3 in Il2 GB and mustang with  M3 in Korea. This is definitely not normal

I'll say even more, it's ridiculous.

The Mustang in both games has the M2.

[Red_Dragon]

1 минуту назад, LukeFF сказал:

The Mustang in both games has the M2.

My bad, thanks for pointing it out! Yeah, meant the M2

[USSR]

I remember them being too weak. Now they are more powerful, especially with the P40, which is a beast now.  

[BlitzPig_EL]

A P40, in Korea????

[Red_Dragon]

No it was about IL 2 GB

[Mark_Krieger]

On 8/17/2026 at 6:50 PM, Red_Dragon said:

Personally, I’m concerned about the enormous difference between  mustang with M2 in Il2 GB and mustang with  M2 in Korea. This is definitely not normal

I'll say even more, it's ridiculous.

Gavrick said he had historical sources that explained the high probabilities of .50 incendiary ammo to ignite flames on target, so I believe this. It is true anyway that B-29s ignite fires quite easily with 23mm canons of the La-11 and the 23 and 37mm cannons of the Mig 15bis. I don't know the incendiary capabilities of that ammo, but I think that the fact that the B-29 in the game doesn't have fire extinguiser system simulated is a very important factor.

The B-29 carried two high-pressure CO₂ bottles, mounted on either side of the nose-wheel well. The flight engineer controlled the system from his station using a selector valve and individual release controls. The wartime crew manual gives a procedure in which, after shutting off the engine's fuel and other systems, the flight engineer would select the affected engine and pull the extinguisher control. If the fire persisted, the second extinguisher could be discharged. The B-29's system didn't necessarily extinguish every fire occurring anywhere on the engine. The contemporary crew manual specifically says that the engine/nacelle extinguisher was intended for fires in the accessory section and was not effective against fires actually inside the engine itself. That's an important distinction. A fire involving fuel or oil in the nacelle/accessory area could be attacked with CO₂, but a serious internal engine fire could be beyond what the system could reach.

The B-29 also carried three portable extinguishers for crew use: two CO2 and one carbon-tetrachloride extinguiser.

So probably it would be interesting to simulate some kind of system of probabilities to extinguish fire. I don't know if that's possible too in the simplified models B-29s.

Edited August 19 by Mark_Krieger

[Red_Dragon]

I see you point, but in this case why   P51's guns so weak against me109 and others  in GB? Difference is still too big in my opinion . Sorry but for me.. it seems  more about artificial game balance 

[Mark_Krieger]

37 minutes ago, Red_Dragon said:

I see you point, but in this case why   P51's guns so weak against me109 and others  in GB? Difference is still too big in my opinion . Sorry but for me.. it seems  more about artificial game balance 

In GB .50 was weak a long time ago, but they improved a lot and in fact you can achieve a lot of pilot kills with it's high penetrating factor. You can kill a lot of engines too. It's true that in GB there's no incendiary effect that makes .50 much more powerful in Korea, but it is a great ammo in GB too in my opinion.

[MajorMagee]

1 hour ago, Mark_Krieger said:

Gavrick said he had historical sources that explained the high probabilities of .50 incendiary ammo to ignite flames on target, so I believe this. It is true anyway that B-29s ignite fires quite easily with 23mm canons of the La-11 and the 23 and 37mm cannons of the Mig 15bis. I don't know the incendiary capabilities of that ammo, but I think that the fact that the B-29 in the game doesn't have fire extinguiser system simulated is a very important factor.

The B-29 carried two high-pressure CO₂ bottles, mounted on either side of the nose-wheel well. The flight engineer controlled the system from his station using a selector valve and individual release controls. The wartime crew manual gives a procedure in which, after shutting off the engine's fuel and other systems, the flight engineer would select the affected engine and pull the extinguisher control. If the fire persisted, the second extinguisher could be discharged. The B-29's system didn't necessarily extinguish every fire occurring anywhere on the engine. The contemporary crew manual specifically says that the engine/nacelle extinguisher was intended for fires in the accessory section and was not effective against fires actually inside the engine itself. That's an important distinction. A fire involving fuel or oil in the nacelle/accessory area could be attacked with CO₂, but a serious internal engine fire could be beyond what the system could reach.

The B-29 also carried three portable extinguishers for crew use: two CO2 and one carbon-tetrachloride extinguiser.

So probably it would be interesting to simulate some kind of system of probabilities to extinguish fire. I don't know if that's possible too in the simplified models B-29s.

The CO2 would actually make a fire in the magnesium crankcase worse because the fire was hot enough to dissociate the CO2 liberating more oxygen. In aircraft system design both the structure itself, and the extinguisher design if you choose to carry the weight penalty of having one, are intended to buy the crew enough time to take emergency measures, up to and including bailing out before the damage reaches catastrophic levels. For different aircraft this time limit varies but 5-15 min is typical.

[Slow_Horse]

Проблема заключается не столько в уроне в 0,50, сколько в том, что попасть в цель слишком легко. 

• • Угол стрельбы: 3/4 — 1%, 2/4 — 18%. Дальность: 300–400 м — 1%, 200–300 м — 10%. В игре это заметно отличается.

     

     
  •  

Edited August 19 by Slow_Horse

[Mark_Krieger]

9 minutes ago, MajorMagee said:

The CO2 would actually make a fire in the magnesium crankcase worse because the fire was hot enough to dissociate the CO2 liberating more oxygen. In aircraft system design both the structure itself, and the extinguisher design if you choose to carry the weight penalty of having one, are intended to buy the crew enough time to take emergency measures, up to and including bailing out before the damage reaches catastrophic levels. For different aircraft this time limit varies but 5-15 min is typical.

I copy-paste IA, so take it with a grain of salt, but at first sight it seems it has sense to me:

Yes — the underlying chemistry is real, but the way it is sometimes described is slightly misleading.

Burning magnesium can indeed react with CO₂:

2Mg+CO2→2MgO+C

and under some conditions:

Mg+CO2→MgO+CO

So a sufficiently hot magnesium fire can consume CO₂ as an oxidizer rather than being smothered by it. NIST specifically documents that magnesium reacts with CO₂ at elevated temperatures.

But "the CO₂ dissociates and releases oxygen" isn't quite the best description

It's better to think of it as magnesium reducing CO₂. Magnesium has an extremely strong affinity for oxygen. It effectively takes the oxygen from the CO₂, leaving carbon or carbon monoxide.

So the problem isn't simply:

CO₂ → CO + O₂ → fire gets more oxygen

Instead, the magnesium itself is chemically reducing the CO₂:

Mg + CO₂ → MgO + C/CO

This reaction can continue even in an atmosphere that contains essentially no free oxygen. Experiments have demonstrated magnesium continuing to burn in CO₂.

And that's why modern guidance explicitly says not to use CO₂ extinguishers on magnesium fires.

So why wouldn't an aircraft's CO₂ system be removed?

This is where your question gets particularly interesting.

If we're talking about an aircraft with a magnesium crankcase, the answer depends on what the aircraft's extinguisher was actually intended to extinguish.

A CO₂ system could still be very useful against the much more common aircraft-engine fire:

fuel/oil fire outside the magnesium components

For example:

1. Fuel line ruptures.
2. Fuel sprays onto a hot engine/accessory section.
3. The fuel catches fire.
4. CO₂ is discharged.
5. The CO₂ displaces air around the fuel/oil fire and the flame goes out.

That's a completely different situation from:

The magnesium crankcase itself is burning.

CO₂ can be excellent for the first and potentially useless—or actively undesirable—for the second.

There's actually historical experimental evidence that makes this distinction fascinating. A 1959 NBS investigation found that completely flooding a small magnesium fire with CO₂ could immediately eliminate the visible flame, even though the molten magnesium continued reacting chemically with the CO₂. The researchers estimated that the heat release from the CO₂ reaction was substantially lower than combustion in air.

So the situation isn't necessarily:

"CO₂ hits magnesium → bigger fire."

It's more nuanced:

CO₂ may suppress the visible flame by eliminating atmospheric oxygen, while the hot magnesium continues reacting with the CO₂ and producing heat.

Whether that is useful depends enormously on the quantity of magnesium, temperature, geometry, and how completely the compartment can be flooded.

And this is particularly relevant to the B-29

The B-29's engine extinguisher system was primarily intended to deal with engine/nacelle fires, rather than being a general-purpose extinguisher for a burning magnesium crankcase.

So I wouldn't conclude that the existence of a CO₂ system means the designers somehow overlooked magnesium combustion. The system could have been designed around the much more likely fuel and oil fires in the engine nacelle/accessory compartment.

[Mark_Krieger]

14 minutes ago, Slow_Horse said:

Проблема заключается не столько в уроне в 0,50, сколько в том, что попасть в цель слишком легко.

Yes, that has been said before and I think we cannot do anything about it. It's normal that virtual pilots like us have much more accuracy than real pilots. We don't die and learn, the level of stress when we fly is much lower, etc.

Edited August 19 by Mark_Krieger

[Slow_Horse]

39 минут назад, Mark_Krieger сказал:

Да, об этом уже говорили, и я думаю, мы ничего не можем с этим поделать. Это нормально, что виртуальные пилоты, такие как мы, гораздо точнее реальных пилотов. Мы не погибаем и не учимся на своих ошибках, уровень стресса во время полета намного ниже и так далее.

Right. It remains to verify the correctness of the influence of initial shooting parameters on projectile ballistics — sliding, recoil, angle of attack, vibration, etc. I don’t think that at the maximum effective firing range for weapons of that era — 300–400 meters  and target angular velocity of 15 - 20 degrees per second, the player’s skills have a significant impact on ballistics and shooting accuracy. On modern aircraft, computers are used for this)))

Edited August 19 by Slow_Horse

[Red_Dragon]

4 часа назад, Slow_Horse сказал:

Проблема заключается не столько в уроне в 0,50, сколько в том, что попасть в цель слишком легко. 

• • Угол стрельбы: 3/4 — 1%, 2/4 — 18%. Дальность: 300–400 м — 1%, 200–300 м — 10%. В игре это заметно отличается.

     

     
  •  

А может быть не так уж и сложно, учитывая что у мустанга это не просто одна или несколько трасс, а немного сходящийся конус , на 300 м.оочень неплохо покрывающий площадь цели, не знаю как это только моделируется сдесь, об этом почему-то не было ни слова

Edited August 19 by Red_Dragon

[Red_Dragon]

9 часов назад, Mark_Krieger сказал:

In GB .50 was weak a long time ago, but they improved a lot and in fact you can achieve a lot of pilot kills with it's high penetrating factor. You can kill a lot of engines too. It's true that in GB there's no incendiary effect that makes .50 much more powerful in Korea, but it is a great ammo in GB too in my opinion.

Did I miss something? Were there any real mentions in the updates? As far as I know, this is some kind of myth in the community about an allegedly improved 50‑caliber…Besides, I just tried the Mustang on Berloga. Definitely, the B‑29 is easier to shoot down in Korea than the Me‑109 in GB (I attacked the bot, so it didn’t really interfere with aiming). I think this is definitely wrong, even taking into account the lack of fire extinguishers on the B29.

[JendaJND]

10 hours ago, Red_Dragon said:

I see you point, but in this case why   P51's guns so weak against me109 and others  in GB? Difference is still too big in my opinion . Sorry but for me.. it seems  more about artificial game balance 

Because GB damage model and .50 cal modelling sucks. Thats why. Its that simple. If we had actual incendiary ammo in GB, 109s would be constantly on fire the second they got hit into fuel tanks. But not only GB has only AP ammo, but also DM in itself is heavily subpar to korea. 
LMAO, comparing 13 years old GB damage model with recently released game is next level mental gymnastics. 

[Mark_Krieger]

Not a myth at all. In patch 4.604 .50 spread, bullet trajectory and penetration was revised with data and updated. It was a clear improve of .50 cal behaviour.
https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/12826-game-updates/page/2/#comment-1125370

Edited Wednesday at 10:41 PM by Mark_Krieger

[JG14_Jagr]

On 8/17/2026 at 3:30 AM, TotenDead said:

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

Show me a single photo of a Mig 15 with hundreds of .50 holes in it that made it home.

[Justicier10-7]

On 8/17/2026 at 2:30 AM, TotenDead said:

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

I would find that very hard to believe even if you said there were many cases of IL-10s returning home with "hundreds" of 50cal holes. Stating as a matter of fact with no evidence seems to be hyperbole at best, and willful deception at worst.

I remember many debates on HMG/.50cal lethality on the Ubisoft forums starting with IL-2 Forgotten Battles, progressing through Pacific Fighters, then more again when IL-2 1946 released. The .50s always felt underpowered... for... decades. In Great Battles they were underpowered again, but gradually improved the more hard data was found and provided to the developers. Now, In Korea, it finally seems to be a level playing field... with neither side being significantly more destructive than the other in terms of outright weapon lethality.

The .50s are high-velocity, and lethal in volume of fire... ripping through wing spars and components, setting tanks on fire. The 23mm's are slow, and lethal with few HE shells. The 37mm is very slow, but very lethal with even a single well placed shell.

Speaking of the 37mm... I think it does too much damage! Downing a B-29 in one shell?! Pfft... it couldn't even take out Royce Williams' F9F Panther with a single shell!
Now, the previous, italicized sentence I should clarify is thinly-veiled sarcasm... I actually think the 37mm is fine right now... but see how easily an argument can be made... especially if there is a bias to RED side, or BLUE side? 🙂

[JG14_Jagr]

Here's some gun cam footage from Korea.  The beginning is strafing and bombing but then it goes into Sabre on Mig shots.  Take not of just how many shots are missing before the pilots gets a quick burst on the Mig and instantly there are obvious results.  

Its not if the .50's were not strong enough to be effective, it was given the limited time the pilot had to get guns on target at Jet speeds would it be enough to ensure a kill.  The Aces were the guns with excellent flying skills who could maintain tracking shots and get hits and kills with even short bursts.  The guys who were not exceptional pilots were more like me with the spray and pray method 🙂  The GUNVAL testing was to see if the lesser pilots could be more effective in a split second opportunity if the projectile they were shooting would do more damage with fewer rounds needed on target.  If the test showed anything, it proved that what mattered most was being a good enough pilot to put yourself in position to get hits in a high speed Jet environment.

[Viking1]

18 hours ago, Mark_Krieger said:

Gavrick said he had historical sources that explained the high probabilities of .50 incendiary ammo to ignite flames on target, so I believe this. It is true anyway that B-29s ignite fires quite easily with 23mm canons of the La-11 and the 23 and 37mm cannons of the Mig 15bis. I don't know the incendiary capabilities of that ammo, but I think that the fact that the B-29 in the game doesn't have fire extinguiser system simulated is a very important factor.

....

So probably it would be interesting to simulate some kind of system of probabilities to extinguish fire. I don't know if that's possible too in the simplified models B-29s.

Of course they dont have to simulate an entire system, just the probability per fire than an extinguisher or automatic system would be successful.

[Red_Dragon]

8 часов назад, JendaJND сказал:

Because GB damage model and .50 cal modelling sucks. Thats why. Its that simple. If we had actual incendiary ammo in GB, 109s would be constantly on fire the second they got hit into fuel tanks. But not only GB has only AP ammo, but also DM in itself is heavily subpar to korea. 
LMAO, comparing 13 years old GB damage model with recently released game is next level mental gymnastics. 

Not at all. Right after release p51's guns in GB worked the same way as they work  now in Korea. Then was the patch that killed these guns  

[Slow_Horse]

Real tests conducted by the Air Force Research Institute. The average number of hits required with 12.7 mm (0.50) bullets to destroy an aircraft. Red — front, black — rear.

23 и 37 мм.

Edited Thursday at 06:47 AM by Slow_Horse