Originally, since the stats on these were BASICALLY .50 caliber, but with extremely light bullets, low muzzle velocity and a terrible rate of fire I assumed the basic wing gun was .50 caliber and would start scaling cannons and such with the newer update accordingly.
Last night though, as I was drifting off to sleep it hit me; wings that are not rescaled are 0.18 thick which equates to 3.456 inches (Give or take as the decimal on something 1 block in length/width is not necessarily going to mean 2 will be 3.2 feet.) Wing guns snuggle into the middle of the wing but when nudged up or down once, approximately 0.01 I think, the barrel pops out of the top or bottom of the edge of the wing. This means that the Wing Gun barrel diameter is 0.16. Crunching the numbers I discovered that our lil wing guns' barrels are actually 3.072 inches in diameter!! O.O; (For those who are metrically challenged this equates to 78.0288 mm.) Even assuming this diameter is the result of a cooling jacket and the barrel's external diameter, we can only account for perhaps an inch in diameter.
Thus you can safely assume that even the standard wing gun would be good enough to represent even a 30-37 mm cannon, save perhaps in length, weight and that all important statistical data on individual weapon types.
While for most this entry means nothing but for the record, if you want to scale the barrel diameter down a bit for your 0.303 British Mk.IIs or Browning .30 cal or even .50 cals, nobody should blame you. ^_^
Happy building!
D.A.
@DragonAerotech not exactly as realistic, but it would work if you shoot continuously at your target
@DragonAerotech I simply set the burst count in my guns to the realistic limit, and set the reload time to be the same as the gauge, and any cannons would be set to double the gauge, albeit setting it to the nearest whole number. for instance, 7.62mm, 7.7, 7.92 mm would equal 8 seconds before firing, 12.7 and 13mm would equal 13 seconds, 20mm cannon would equal 40 seconds, and 30mm would equal 60 seconds.
@TheRubyArmy1134 I know that, but this statement is mostly intended for those intent upon building things to scale. When I go on a frenzy of building stuff meant for a specific period, like the RP we're in, I change the gun stats to that of actual weapons. I've rescaled some guns on previous builds in that RP and it got me to thinking - hence this revelation. IF I'd known how out of scale these guns are for their given stat of .50 cal I could have fit four or maybe 5 20 mm cannons in the ventral position of my nightfighter, as opposed to three. The ONLY thing that bugs me in this game is the lack of ammunition, or rather, excessive abundance thereof. Most warplanes have an ammo count that can be exhausted within seconds. That is true today as well as during WW2.
As for the fragility of SimplePlanes aircraft in conjunction with gunfire that has long been a point of irritation. I've brought both ammo limits/weight and part durability up in the past as suggestions but thus far either its not possible with the game engine or the developers were uninterested.
@DragonAerotech One of the only ways to survive a bullet in SP is if 1) it hits a prop and only the prop falls off. 2) it hits a cockpit block. 3) if your plane is extremely beefy and large or 4) you get extremely lucky
@AndrewGarrison Woah, I'm honored to actually receive an upvote from THE Andrew Garrison!! XD
@Scottydoesthings @JakeTheDogg lol You must not be gun people. Basically the wing guns we have in the game are cartoonishly gigantic/enormous (gi-normous?) in terms of what size the bullet would be coming out of it based upon how thick the barrel is. You both know how they give wingspan, length, etc right? A single block is just over one and a half feet wide. A wing is about three and a half inches thick. The guns barrels are just a hair over 3 inches thick. Now picture in your' mind the barrels of guns you've seen, like an assault rifle, a pistol, or what have you. Now imagine that having a barrel that is 3 inches across. Is it still a rifle, pistol, etc.? No, its a cannon or a REALLY big shot gun, in either case shooting it would leave you crippled. lol
In the XML files it lists all sorts of information on the gun, including it's caliber; 50 caliber. (Remember .50 caliber is half an inch, right?) It comes down to a matter of scale. The standard wing gun is far more of a BFG than merely 50 caliber. I hope this brought this explanation down out of the technical range for you. lol
*reads
I didn't understand a single thing ;3
oh i don't have maywar @DragonAerotech
@MechWARRIOR57 Oh, so long as you have maneuverability sure that's an option. I think his name is MrMecha, he made an interesting creation the other day with a limited amount of fuel, a single engine but a lot of wing area. No landing gear but I took off from Bandit, started north and climbed, engine cut out and I turned her around and wound up landing at SOUTH in the grass next to the runway. XD I probably could have made it all the way to the desert island with what altitude I had by the time I was over the Wright Isles but I'm more familiar with that landscape and didn't know if I'd be high enough to make the plateau where most of the flat ground is there.
oh the way i do it is just keep the speed low and slowly touch down @DragonAerotech
@MechWARRIOR57 lol Tsubame has tricycle landing gear so losing the boom just aft of the wing and the horizontal stabilizer on that side prevented any hope of recovery. The other one, which is a tail dragger, I thought I might be able to glide to land with, owing to Adolf Galland's famous gliding account upon losing his Daimler-Benz DB.601 to the cannons of a Spitfire Mk.V and managing o just reach land before bellying his Bf-109E down onto a sandy beach in Northern France. However I lost over 1,000 Lb off of the front of my airframe which cast the center of balance back to that aircraft's center of lift which made gliding utterly impossible. I'd have to check the build again, now that I think on it I may have had a fuel tank in the fuselage in front of the cockpit which would mean the center of balance may have fallen behind the center of lift. On another flight sim I lost my elevators in a Ki-84 in a dog fight, rolled to one side and using my rudder and ailerons to stabilize my descent I managed to roll at the last second, onto my landing gear, on the runway. Sheer dumb luck and a crappy aerodynamic physics generator. lol
@PuhBuhGuh In this day and age some people take nerd or geek as a compliment, what a strange world we live in today. As for the math its not like it was calculus, physics or what have you. Sincerely speaking, I don't think this matter will change the community though, just an odd ball discovery as the result of random thoughts while trying to drift off to sleep.
ive landed many times without a tail landing gear etc @DragonAerotech
Damn, I would shout nerd but this is a very important and mind blowing discovery that will change this community forever. Congrats on the math tho XD
@Shmexysmpilot Yep, my Tsubame lost its entire rear right boom but I still "won," then I have a fugly gray and bluish gray contra-rotating prop build, I forget her name, single engine fighter though that lost its entire nose section up to just in front of the canopy and somehow survived. No gliding to safety for me, she fluttered to the water like an autumn leaf. lol
@DragonAerotech yeah, it's always been one for me except a few circumstances where the plane was totally crippled but "technically" still alive according to the game
@EvilTortoise lol I suppose so? I've only had a few planes survive battle damage, if you call it surviving. Yet the stats for the gun? Horrible...
Well, that explains why bombers get one shot.
XD @DragonAerotech
@MechWARRIOR57 I'm not a big fan of math for the sake of math either but it serves its purpose now and then. XD
i hate math. doing that would kill me!@DragonAerotech
@MechWARRIOR57 LOL Somehow I take THAT as a compliment. XD
wow my mind would explode if i did this math
@TheRicks2 I thank you for the applause but it is undeserved; I'm entirely TOO detail oriented. I would still be a bronze player if I actually tried to perfect every single build to my own satisfaction. lol!
I applaud you for your dedication!