Unjam the guns?

[Stratos 3,191]

Is possible to unjam the guns or once you have a jam you are done? IIRC they carry a small hammer to unjam the guns, but maybe I saw it in a movie :)

Thanks!

[gaw 5]

For whatever it's worth......flee the scene and wait......they'll eventually become "unstuck" and you can get back into the fray. Takes a while sometimes but the "unstuck" is wired into the gun jam choice I think. It's a nice touch and'll make you think twice before jamming the trigger......

[Stratos 3,191]

Suggest you read Tips & Cheats #36.

 

Where this?

[Olham 164]

In the "Sticky Threads" up at the top of this page - "OFF General Help topics"; first post, first link.

(It's UncleAl's trace of crumbs, full of good advice and info).

[von Baur 54]

Anything longer than a 15 shot burst, you're living dangerously. Suggest you read Tips & Cheats #36. As you'll soon learn this ain't Red Baron

 

OR

 

You can Turn off JAMS in Workshop

 

PS . . that was in Flyboys . .aaaah Hollywood

 

 

A: There were gun jams in Red Baron AFM. They would unjam a few seconds after you hit "U", not automatically.

 

B: I remember reading, many many years ago, that the SPAD had a wooden mallet in the cockpit to be used to whack the cocking levers if the guns jammed. Hollywood, and more particularly 'Flyboys', copied reality.

 

 

However the point about short bursts is very accurate. Stay below three seconds and not only will you pretty much eliminate any jams (never suffered one, myself), but you won't run out of ammo as fast.

[Olham 164]

Von Baur, are "gun jams" activated in your "workshop"? Cause 3 seconds is already quite long?

To be on the safe side, I wouldn't go over 2 secs.

[von Baur 54]

Gun jams are on, Olham. Normally I don't put more than 3-10 rounds into a burst, even if I'm attacking a relatively stable two-seater such as a BE2c or FE2. Three seconds would be an extreme case on an especially sturdy foe, such as a SPAD. And to be honest I may not have gone that long, I don't count, although I have had some bursts that felt very long at the time. I only threw out three as kind of a maximum.

 

Thanx for directing me to tip #36, al. It reinforced my (personal) lack of desire to read them all (started to back when there were only a handful of them and decided it was a waste of time, IMO). What I've found there mostly are the obvious, the inaccurate and advice on how to make OFF less immersive and interesting.

 

The Obvious:

"If you can't hit him, get closer before you Fire". Duh! Boelcke told von Richtofen, "I fly close to my man, I aim carefully, open fire and then he falls down." There was another german squadron commander (I'm sure someone here will know who, I can't recall off the top of my head) who told his pilots to close until they were afraid they would collide with the enemy and then fly closer before opening fire. And it wasn't just the Germans. Pilots of all sides knew that the best way to assure yourself of hitting your opponent in a vital area was to get uncomfortably close. One french pilot (Fonck, maybe?) reportedly one time came back with bits of his victim's head splattered on his airplane and goggles. Ask some of Vasco's Volunteers and they'll tell you that I practice that to an extreme. About the only time I'll take any kind of long shot at all is to try to shake up my target...that is, distract an enemy from attacking one of my squadmates or make a fleeing enemy jink, thus slowing him down and allowing me to overtake him more quickly. My preferred range is when I can see the enemy's head clearly, even to the point that I can identify the goggles strap.

 

The Inaccurate:

All that claptrap about the lack of sights, for one thing. Especially on the German machines. I fly with Track IR and so can't speak to the ingame gunsight view, but the only planes I've flown that don't allow you to line up front and rear sights are the Halberstadt and the DFW, and that's because the gun placement is outside the range of available head movement. And many Allied planes have front and rear sights, too, including the Sopwith Pup, and Tripe (haven't flown the Camel enough to remember), the SPAD XIII has the ring and bead, and I believe the N-17 has a front and rear sight on the fuselage-mounted gun. Also, the Fokker Dr1 was introduced in late summer of 1917, not 3/18. And the D-VII wasn't avaliable for front-line duty until late April or early May of 1918, so you can't say that was the plane you were talking about.

 

To be completely fair, some of the information is accurate and useful. You do stress the importance of firing from close range, although you don't define 'close' (if you use the labels try to get under 50 yards, 25-30 would be better...if you don't, a good rule of thumb is the old tried-and-true 'wait until the enemy fills your view'). You also mention 'meat or metal' and you even specify the front third of the fuselage, which is a good general rule. On the other hand, the original question asked was about gun jams, which is not mentioned at all in tip #36.

[Creaghorn 10]

in fact jams and stoppages should occure weigh more often than currently. not only too long fire caused jams, but cold temperatur, bent ammo, feeding jam. simply wrong handling. they were so unreliable that stoppages have been expected and weren't a surprise at all. they were as common and expected as a bodycheck in hockey. so jams should not only occure when shooting too long, but often without a reason. i think it's implemented already.

[Hasse Wind 46]

in fact jams and stoppages should occure weigh more often than currently. not only too long fire caused jams, but cold temperatur, bent ammo, feeding jam. simply wrong handling. they were so unreliable that stoppages have been expected and weren't a surprise at all. they were as common and expected as a bodycheck in hockey. so jams should not only occure when shooting too long, but often without a reason. i think it's implemented already.

 

This is absolutely true. One shouldn't forget that automatic weapons were very much in their infancy during WW1, and weren't as reliable as they are today. Ammunition and powder have also been greatly improved with new inventions. But in WW1, even the smokeless powder was a relatively new invention, dating only from the 1880's and 1890's.

[Olham 164]

Creaghorn: ...in fact jams and stoppages should occure weigh more often than currently.

Well, I can't complain - I have them VERY often. Almost once in each and every sortie.

[Guest British_eh]

Hi there,

 

I too thought that gun jams were very prevalent, and certainly as pointed out, there were many factors that could lead to such. From reading the author pilots such as McCudden, C. Lewis, and Yeates, it appears that it happened about once every thirty missions. This is difficult data to assimilate though as there were so many variances. Of note is the coincidence that when the Vickers on the Se5 used to jam, invariably the Lewis jammed too. It would appear that many pilots hand loaded their ordinance and also kept the trigger on no more than 2-3 seconds for a burst of 10 -15 shots. So, how does OFF compare? It does seem to be a timing thing, and so mostly good I think. Any bonus in that regard is fine as the one area that most benefits the OFF pilot is the absolute fantastic job the OFF mechanics do of keeping your crate in superb shape. I don't think she's stalled on me yet! Of course this problem killed about 75% (?) of the pilots that weren't shot down by any enemy or friendly fire.

 

Cheers,

 

British_eh

[Bletchley 8]

I think there is a difference between stoppages and jams (?) - as I understand it, a stoppage occurs when there is, e.g., a misfire and the cartridge isn't ejected from the breech (or the next one isn't fed in): this was a common occurence, and could be cleared simply by re-cocking the gun, to eject the old cartridge and feed in the next. Jams (or jambs) were less frequent but were more serious, as the cartridge was stuck in the breech or feed and sometimes couldn't be cleared in the air (even with vigorous pounding of the cocking handles, with gloved mitts or the mallet supplied). I think the old "hit U" of RB3D simulated the act of manually re-cocking the guns.

 

Bletchley

[Olham 164]

Good explanation - thanks, Bletchley.