Firepower numbers - a few thoughts

[cyrano01]

I am just starting to get used to the new firepower rules and started thinking (fatal error, don't do it again) about how these figures might have been arrived at. While, by and large, I am pretty much in agreement with what was implemented one or two oddities came to mind and I thought I would share them with the combined brains of the forum.

I invite you to consider the fighters below:

Hurricane II (assumed to be Hurricane IIc)

Firepower 0/+2, carried 4X20mm Hispano MkII Cannon

Mosquito MK VI

Firepower 1/+1 (with heavy cannon), armed as per the Hurricane IIc but adds 4x.303 LMG

FW190A (Wurger)

Firepower 1/+1 with heavy cannon, now this is a bit trickier as it could be an FW190A4, A5,A6, A7 or A8. The A4 having the MG-FF as its outer wing mounted cannon offers a bit less firepower than the A8. Moreover the latest models have 13mm cowling mounted machine guns as opposed to rifle callibre. Either way we are talking two cowling machine guns(7.92mm or 13mm), two wing root mounted MG151 20mm cannon - all of the aforementioned synchronised to fire through the propeller and 2x20mm wing mounted cannon, either MG151 or MG-FF with the latter offering rather less in the way of punch and ammo capacity.

J2M4 Raiden

Firepower 0/+2

4x20mm Wing Mounted Cannon (Two Type 99 Model 2 and Two Type 99 Model1) and 2X20mm Type 99 Model 1 firing obliquely upwards from the upper fuselage.

I had intended to dazzle you all with collected information regarding the relative merits of the various types of cannon but the following article does it more succinctly and convincingly than I could hope to.

Article on fighter armament firepower

So now to the nub of the issue (about time too I hear you cry ).

How exactly does the Hurricane II get 0/+2 when the Mosquito VI has +1/+1 given that the latter has exactly the same armament with the addition of 4x.303s? Now I know that the Mossie gets the heavy cannon bonus but I am struggling to follow the logic here. Surely those 4x20mm Hispanos are either enough to get +2 damage or they aren't? As for the number of bursts, well 0 for the Hurricane II is fair enough given the all cannon armament. For the Mosquito, well either the addition of the 4x.303s are enough to get to +1 bursts or they aren't, a tough call. My gut feeling is that if the Spitfire V gets +1 bursts for having 4X.303s in addition to the 2x20mm cannon then the Mossie should get +1 burst for 4X.303s in addition to 4X20mm cannon.

Overall I guess I am arguing for +1/+2 for the Mosquito but maybe no heavy canon bonus, although this might prove a bit alarming in terms of play-balance. Alternatively you might want to reduce the Hurricane II to 0/+1 with a heavy cannon bonus added but it seems a rough deal for the Hurricane II when compared with, for instance, the Me109F in terms of firepower.

'Ah, but what of the FW-190?' I hear you cry. 'What about that you anglocentric know all?'

Well, I am inclined to think that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander (or Wurger in this case). Broadly I believe that the FW190 should get the same firepower scores as the Mosquito VI. If the model represented is the A4 (and that is a big if) there might just be a case for knocking one off the damage bonus to allow for lesser firepower generated by the MG-FF(see the linked article above). Not sure that I would agree but you could make a case. If it is the A8 then it should be same as for the Mosquito in my view.

What I don't know is whether the DIF Firepower model attempts to take account of ammo capacity. If so you could argue that the Hurricane should suffer a bit of a penalty relative to the Mosquito although logic (i.e. my subjective opinion) suggests that this should be applied to the burst count rather than the damage bonus. FWIW The Hurricane carried, I believe, 90 rounds per gun, while the Mosquito would generally be carrying rather more. Can't put my hands on the figures right now althoug I have a vague memory (probably wrong) of 300 rounds per gun for the cannon.

As for the J2M4 Raiden, well if you just consider the wing mounted armament then it seems comparable to the Hurricane II (as indeed it is currently in the game) but the same arguments then apply relative to the Mosquito and FW190 as described above. The wasp in the game design jam pot is those 2x20mm oblique firing cannon. How do you model that...hanged if I know. Over to you chaps (and chapesses). :confused:

[Guest Mike]

I can answer some of the questions that came up during testing - the 190 and Mosquito get 1/+1 and 1 heavy cannon because "the computer can't handle 1/+2" - I don't know the details of exactly what that involves, but the issue was certainly discussed.

The heavy cannon rating is in compensation for the extra +1 damage they "should" get.

Only 2 J2M4's were built with the oblique 20mm cannon.

Other J2 sub-types had 2 cannon and 2 7.7mm mg's (J2M2, 152 produced until May 1944), 4 x 20mm (J2M3's - 2 of the cannon were Type 2's, 2 were type 1's of much less power, 20 were produced with all Type 2 cannon) which was the majority of the type. But it was going to be phased out because the heavier armement meant it no longer achieved the initial requirements!!

None of the other proposals (J2M5, J2M6) reached prototype stage - see http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_other/j2m.html

[bartbert]

Actually, it wasn't so much that the computer couldn't handle 1/+2. The Mosquito and the Fw-190 both started out with a 1/+2 rating and did not have a heavy cannon bonus. It just made them too powerful, so we scaled it back to a 1/+1 rating and gave them a heavy cannon rating of 1 to compensate.

[Guest Mike]

That's not what you told me!!

[bartbert]

I blame Dan.

[Guest Mike]

OK - I can live with that

However I forgot to say that this shows a limitation on hte model being used - I wrote a bit about it in this thread

[Sixxkiller]

Ok Dan time to fire Brian AGAIN! Sheesh he just gets damaged but never goes Down in Flames.

-Ray

[Zanadu]

When discussing the range of weapons, it should be noted that about 80% of fighters killed, were killed by an a/c they hadn't seen until it was shooting at them. Against a non-maneuvering fighter target, getting hits at 600m was quite possible if the shooting a/c was a stable enough platform. The RAF was certainly influenced by the fact that the Spitfire's controls were so sensative that the a/c wat too 'twitchy' for long shots. Also, a/c with wing guns were limited in maximum range by the fire dispersion beyond the haromization point.

[Guest Mike]

Yeah, but a/c with synchronised guns were often limited in rate of fire by propellor RPM!!

Swings and roundabouts......

In DiF players often get a kill on the 1st turn, and with damage bonuses it's relatively easy now to destroy an a/c in one move with 4 or 5 bursts, which I think adequately represents the concept of beign shot down by soeone you dont' see - even if the target does play evasion cards

[Dan Verssen]

I have found that some of the defensive/denial skills are now very handy, like -1 Bursts, -1 Attack card, -1 Performance, etc.