Fw 190 D9 and the EZ 42 Gyro Gunsight DCS

I'm going to use DCS to show how late war EZ-42 was used, and how it potentially could have been used to shoot down allied bombers had it entered service just 9 months earlier.
This was a fascinating piece of WW2 technology, similar in many respects to the gyro gunsights fielded by Britain and the United States the EZ-42 is said to have been more accurate, which may have been true. However it's less user friendly, requiring the pilot to set in the aircraft altitude, which was difficult to do in a dynamic situation.
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[@rustyheckler8766]

4 bombers downed, extra war rations for you tonight.

[@Eric-kn4yn]

Schnàpps und wurst gemàcht ja

[@pandoranbias1622]

Really impressive technology for the era, fascinating pieces of tech that are not talked about often.

[@jeffcoulter7181]

Very good, as usual 😊

[@Ala13ManOWar]

Yes, it is, but Germans just copied it from the British predictive sight once captured a Spitfire equipped with it. The American K14 sight is a licensed version of it either, same as Packard Merlin engine. To each one its own.

[@nilsdietrich209]

Nice to get some more background info on some of the less talked about engineering. Thanks greg

[@Knuck_Knucks]

Out of sight! Dy-na-mite! Good show Greg. Those gyro sights boggle my mind. Crazy tech for the era.

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

It's amazing to me that they worked, but they certainly did.

[@misarthim6538]

You should have a look at mechanical naval fire control computers of that era. That's some insane tech right there.

[@Knuck_Knucks]

@@misarthim6538 Oh. I Bet!

[@biggieb8900]

Prop damage! That's what that is...I never knew. I think that's one area DCS's DM beats out IL2.

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

IL2 certainly has it's strong points, the strongest is probably the much greater selection of aircraft types, but DCS planes are really highly detailed.

[@rayschoch5882]

Glad to see you back. As usual, there's more to flying a WW 2 fighter than is immediately apparent to the casual viewer.

[@EdwardBasedLongshanks]

I don't own a PC yet. But my friend does. he has a flight simulation KZbin channel. I've tried virtual reality in DCS and it's like another dimension lol. He recommended you a coupIe of years ago and I really enjoy all your historical engineering videos. You have taught me so much over the past few months. Thank you!

[@PaulieMcCoy]

What particular HMD did you use, do you recall? I'm waiting for a HTC Vive to go on sale for the right price...

[@localbod]

Thanks for posting this. I hope you enjoyed some Schnapps at the debrief.

[@old_guard2431]

Toto, I have the feeling we’re not in WarThunder anymore.

[@IYeSICMF04]

When you turn on/off the gyro switch it switches power supply to gyroscope, but there is another way to cage gyro sight - just twist range grip to minimum distance, and it becomes fixed. p.s. Me and all my friends who like aviation watch you! It's nice that you fly DCS, maybe one day we'll meet on a server.

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

Thanks. I prefer to turn off the switch because I can still use the ranging feature, which I do. Right now I'm on Jury duty, which means I can be found on the Wolf Pack server some evenings.

[@BlueDevel]

Great setup with DCS. Show and Tell.

[@hoodoo2001]

One of the hilarious things I find about computer games with fighters attacking bombers in slow motion. When you speed up the motion to real time you suddenly appreciate the difficulty. Long range bursts and break away may not seem that satisfactory to a gamer but in reality you only had one life to give away.... bombers were generally brought down by team effort which is not something games have yet gotten right.

[@huwzebediahthomas9193]

Impressive. Nuts and bolts video at the sharp end. 👍

[@samsmith6791]

Always nice to get the notification from one of your videos!

[@PeteCourtier]

Nice video👍👍 I love the Dora. Amazing for a stop gap and looks fantastic👍

[@nickmitsialis]

Coming back to this vid after months; I just got thru reading the first volume of the JG300 unit history by Lorant and Goyat: I'm in late August/Early September and some FWs from II/JG300 (the 'sturmgruppe' element of JG300) had their planes fitted with the EZ42. One of the pilots recollected that using the Gyro sight he and his similarly equipped comrades could hang back as far as 800 meters from the 'Heavies', and still land fatal hits with their 20mm guns (not so fortunate with the 30mm Mk 108 cannons--so they simply left the 30s off) while far out of effective range of the defending bomber gunners. The only REAL problem was the escorts of course, who would come diving on them out of the blue.

[@wazza33racer]

The airfield at Carpiquet was a hotly contested location in WW2.

[@nicolatesla9429]

Great video, Greg! It's nice to see 'for real' how a Dora pilot would intercept Viermots. With all the adjusting of the gunsight they had to do.

[@British_Dragon-Simulations]

Another great video Greg! This is very useful information for us Virtual 'Dora' pilots. A quick tip to control the gyro more efficiently 'on the fly': If you have a two throttle HOTAS setup like the Thrustmaster Warthog or any of the newer brands etc, you can use the left throttle axis as the range finder and on the Warthog you can use the grey axis slider for altitude, and put the wingspan setting to whatever you desire. I rarely use the gyro mode for fighters if I think they are aware of my close incoming proximity, but it has been useful in my Boom 'N' Run tactics and of course at long range with big, slow moving bombers. It is the altitude setting that I need to change before almost all other gyro settings as I have forgotten in the past, many times on the multiplayer servers. MW-50 for twenty minutes straight? I will have to try that next time I'm out in her! I bet (approximately) half of my internal fuel would have been used up at that engine setting at twenty minutes non-stop. I always stuck to the maximum of ten minutes by the cockpit clock. It is also useful for me to use this power boost flying towards the enemy lines for getting rid of extra weight in the form of the liquid MW-50 mixture tank itself. I don't ever remember running out of MW-50. I always run out of fuel first. I wonder how the 'Dora' would fair against the British 'Mosquito' with two decent human pilots. And two humans in the Mosquito of course! As an extra pair of eyes and relaying important cockpit information. Just like it would have been at the time. I also wonder if the Dora would out turn the Mossie, in a light, clean state. If I had to guess: I would say the Dora has the edge. The higher speed alone would be a great advantage. According to the accounts of the Mosquito pilots I've heard, some say that the early air cooled, round engine 'FW 190's' could catch up to them at altitude. The 'A2' or 'A4' model maybe? Most definitely not the heavy high drag 'A8' version we get in DCS. And are we ever going to get the wing mounted cannons for the '109 K-4' in DCS? The slow firing 30mm cannon is very, very poor in deflection shots. I would much prefer the 20mm nose cannon, with more rounds and a higher rate of fire with better trajectory. The 'DCS' German planes we get, seem to be made for bomber interception and ground attack! I just use my 13mm engine cowel guns for shooting targets moving through my gun-sight in my '109 K-4.'

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

Thanks Dragon. Yes, if you monitor the temps you can run MW50 for 20 mins straight, but then you have to back off and let it cool down. Keep in mind you will run out of MW50 not long after 20mins.

[@BlackMasterRoshi]

now i'm starting to wish greg's mic setup was better or closer to his face with the background nosies to compare it to. very informative as usual though

[@BlackMasterRoshi]

@DiversityIsOurStrength just losing the room echo would be a good start

[@elgato9445]

Great stuff. Thank you, Greg!

[@peenice]

Carpi-qway lol. Awesome video, really looking forward to the next one

[@admiralqualityspretendingtofly]

I giggled a bit at that one too. At least the Yank is trying and didn't enunciate the T! LOL! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZTYYoyZgbKBeJo

[@daviswall3319]

So glad that we have you, Greg, and not the Luftwaffe during WWII !

[@SUPRAMIKE18]

You mentioning the I-16 got me picturing a VERY brave I-16 pilot trying to take on a Dora lol

[@cannonfodder4376]

A very good demonstration Greg.

[@ToreDL87]

Long range shots aside, the way I use the gyro sight is as a close approximation when pulling lead. I rake across until I start making hits > Now I know my mark, and I just intuitively approx how much more I have to dip the nose to accommodate for less shell/bullet drop, instead of fiddling any further with the range axis, which you don't have time for when making a 400mph+ firing pass anyway. Other times when making a deflection shot, the pipper starts dipping below the nose, at least I know I have to lead by a heckuva lot. That's better than not knowing how much I have to lead, so I cash in energy and keep the enemy's flight path aligned with the "line of rake" so to speak, until the pipper is below the nose, fire a burst until they're past my nose, essentially letting them fly through it. Which might not get them for good, but if I'm properly aligned they're more than likely to get hit, at least dealing enough damage to win the fight.

[@hossafat]

Great to see how this all works, thanks

[@altenburg55]

My grandfather said...in tight turns this excellent device flipt over and jammed. Otherwise excellent for longer distance shots.

[@richardbrown9035]

Fw190 Dora nite fighter scary planes /Fw190 yellow tail butcher bird my all time favourite bird.

[@admiralqualityspretendingtofly]

Wow! You're right, I didn't know about or use the altitude adjustment before! (Why is there no equivalent on the US lead-computing gunsight like in the Mustang? Is it automatic off an altimeter, maybe? Or are the .50 cal rounds fast enough that it doesn't matter much? Also, how does the same sight work for a plane like this that has both big fat cannon rounds and smaller, faster MG rounds? I'd expect a lot more "drop" from the cannons.) And you're correct to think they've been messing with damage modeling, particularly in the warbirds which they were using to prototype their new piecewise DM on. (Before it was apparently pretty much just a dice-roll which components got damaged. Now they have fairly detailed "hitboxes" for most systems.) As with so much in this sim, they hyped it like crazy, then seem to have forgotten all about it. They also promised it coming to all other aircraft but I haven't seen evidence of or hype about that yet. Are we sure that shake isn't propeller damage? (LOL! I typed that about 30 seconds before you pointed it out.) Thanks Greg, absolutely love that you've added DCS content. Even for your non-DCS using audience, it provides great illustration of a lot of these concepts. I've shouted it out to my Facebook DCS group of 11,000+ members. See you soon in the unfriendly skies!

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

Hi Admiral. I think the US gyro sight has a pressure sensor and did this correction automatically, but I don't know for sure. As for the vertical drop issue with the different ammo, that's taken care of with the gun mounts. The cannons have a slightly greater upward inclination. The vertical convergence is at 300 meters, and again at 500 meters as the shells drop. At no point between point blank and 500 meters are they more than 1.1 meters apart vertically. The factory chart for the plane only goes out to 550 meters, but it looks to me like at about 1000 meters they are going to be around two meters apart vertically. Considering overall accuracy at that range and the amount of ammo heading downrange, that's good enough to get some hits.

[@Inpreesme]

Thank you

[@arjunarabindranath]

Small thank you.

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

Thank you very much. I appreciate this.

[@julianmorrisco]

Wow. Somehow in my reading and video watching I’ve missed the altitude setting. As a result, the gyro sight has felt worse than useless, I always seem to shoot high when I use it so I’ve just been switching it off. Gonna give it another try as soon as I can. Thx Greg.

[@gregsutton2400]

Thanks

[@edwardpate6128]

Another awesome video! I am wondering how long the gyro took to spool up and stabilize and conversely when shut off it it caged itself to prevent some sort of damage during high G maneuvers.

[@fmorelatt0]

You also wanna shut the gyro off If you are planning on using the force to guide your shots.

[@davewellings6281]

The only opponent you should turn fight in a Dora is an Anton 😂

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

There are some exceptions to this, I'll show them in the next video, which I hope to get up today.

[@tomhutchins7495]

Interesting stuff, thanks. Would it be fair to say that the pros and cons of this gyro hold true for Allied and post-war models too?

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

Not to the same extent because the Allied units were a bit more user friendly.

[@kimjanek646]

One problem I see with hitting targets at long range is that the MG 151s 20mm ammunition has quite different ballistics depending on the shell type. Late in the war, Germany used three main types of 20mm ammunition: Mineshells, Incendiary-Tracer developed from the early High-Explosive-Incendiary-Tracer and API. The Mineshells are much lighter and therefore have the worst ballistics out of the three, followed by the API which comes closer to the Incendiary-Tracer. So API would fall a bit short compared to the Incendiary-Tracer while the Mineshells would probably not even hit the targets above 600m or even less. The US 20mm also had the problem with different ballistics so after the war they developed AP, Inc and HEI shells that had the same ballistics. This makes me wonder how the German Gyro Sight was set up, since you would either miss with the Mineshells or the other types of ammunition when firing at long range.

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

The Fw 190 Dora manual has an entire section on exactly this subject. It's in the Patreon section but the short version is that the guns were aligned with specific vertical convergence points, must like the horizontal convergence of a P-51's guns.

[@goakarayacri]

Hi greg!, amazing tutorial, On IL-2 , the Dora has the same gunsight, but you can only manipulate the wingspan and range of the target, its necessary to range the target at the same gun convergence for get efective shoots? , example: attacking b17s at 800 meters, and my gun convergence has to be set at 800 meters to hit. Thanks!

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

Thanks. The gun convergence isn't a big deal in the Dora. For example, in the manual for the plane it says that the default convergence is 600 meters. That means that even at 1200 meters the shells are still close enough together that both cannons are hitting the fuselage of a B-17 because its fuselage is wider than the spread of the cannon mounts in the Dora. Thus anywhere from 0-1200 meters, when shooting at a four engine heavy, it just doesn't matter much.

[@Jbroker404]

​@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I know that horizontal convergence doesn't matter in the Dora much, but what about vertical convergence?

[@admiralqualityspretendingtofly]

We don't have convergence control in DCS, it's hard-wired to some historically plausible value. (Which is fine by me. Not all pilots got planes specially customized for them.)

[@rationalconscience]

Thanks for the great video and explanation, Greg. I don't even play DCS, but once I do, I will be properly prepared thanks to you. "Activate Windows"

[@patrikstrandquist1875]

Very nice video. I wonder how much the altitude for the sight matters. I have never seen this adjustment on any other plane. Sure the air density is lower, but you still have the same gravity affecting the projectiles.

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

I think it's automatically factored in by a pressure sensor in the U.S. gyro sights, but I'm not 100 percent sure of that. It's a big factor at long range.

[@admiralqualityspretendingtofly]

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Might it also be less of a factor with smaller, faster MG rounds vs. big, slow cannon rounds? (And I already asked this above but, how does this sight deal with the different "drops" of the MG131 MGs vs. the MG151 cannons?)

[@cheez71]

I have noticed that German fighters of the period offset the gunsight to starboard while U.S. and British nations mounted theirs along the centerline of the aircraft. Was there a specific reason for the Germans doing so, and did it make much of a difference compared to Allied fighters?

[@HE-162]

I *think* that’s just the result of having ammo counters in German fighters, and the logical desire to keep the counters visible while the pilot is heads up. By placing them beside the sight, it keeps them in view when they might be needed most - looking through the site. Having the site slightly off centerline isn’t a big deal, but if they felt it was important to provide an ammo counter, putting it somewhere that would require the pilot to take their eyes off the action is sort of a big deal. Who knows if they were actually useful, or if I’m right, but that’s my guess - just another example of somewhat eccentric German design philosophy during the war.

[@kimjanek646]

Hey Greg. How would you rate the effectivness of the Gyro Gunsight in attacking bombers, vs attacking them without it? Germany was about develop more powerful fighter cannons for general and anti-bomber use, but how great was the impact of the Gyro vs. giving a fighter more powerfull weapons? It seems like the ability to score hits is like day and night when having a Gryo vs not having a Gryo.

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

The Luftwaffe's Gyro gunsight came in so late I don't think we have any real data to show how effective it could have been against bombers. By the time it arrived in mid to late 1944 the German fighters we totally overwhelmed by U.S. fighters. Had it been around in Sept, or Oct. of 1943 I think it would have been very effective against the big U.S. bombers.

[@b.griffin317]

"War emergency power for 20 minutes." Is the much longer time you can run maximum power in a German vs. American plane due to the low octane fuel the Germans had access to not stressing the engine as much?

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

The water:methanol provides a strong internal cooling effect, and the Dora has a large supply of it. Plus the Dora has a pretty good radiator to help keep the temps in check.

[@aaronseet2738]

Why were German gun sights aligned to the right?

[@SirWilliamKidney]

It is surprising to me, with all of the sophisticated early avionics on the aircraft, that the gunsight can't just tap into your altimeter and set your altitude automatically. Is there a reason this wasn't done?

[@biggieb8900]

I'm guessing the main reason is that the altimeter is analogue and mechanical in nature and isn't actually producing a signal with a value that can be 'tapped into.'

[@nightjarflying]

Nobody in WWII built an aircraft gyro gunsight that automatically adjusted for altitude - it's just another thing that can go wrong so why bother? Even on the super-sophisticated B29 bomber the air speed, barometric altitude & temperature was set by the navigator for all the gun positions - the individual turret computers can then make the particular corrections for ballistics, lead & parallax. No doubt the Germans copied Allied gunsights & time was pressing so adding another automatic feature causes a production delay & more complex maintenance training & thicker maintenance manuals. Increased complexity is expensive in maintenance man hours - better to keep critical features simple.

[@SirWilliamKidney]

@@biggieb8900 Sure, but it could turn a cam. It definitely would add complexity but my entire understanding of the 190's design philosophy was reducing pilot distraction in combat. I guess that's easy to say, as this was very late war.

[@biggieb8900]

@@SirWilliamKidney yeah and at this point they were assembling these planes in dark cramped tunnels with dust coming down on their heads from the carpet bombing above lol, and the dora was more costly and more time consuming at produce than a 262 apparently, so why continue adding more complexity at that point?

[@nightjarflying]

@@SirWilliamKidney German gunsight took nearly 300 man hours to produce. More production & maintenance man hours per feature. Has to stop somewhere. How about a speaking altimeter to save pilot effort?

[@Eric-kn4yn]

Greg so happy in shooting down the good guys WTF

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

Eric, this isn't the real war, it's an on online simulation.

[@Eric-kn4yn]

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Ich haber vergessen danke von australien.

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

No problem. If it's any consolation I'm flying the P-47 online today.

[@lewiswestfall2687]

Why isn't altitude set automatically?

[@nightjarflying]

Added complexity - easy to do manually

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

nighjarflying is exactly correct. I'm not saying it was the best solution, but I think it made sense to the Germans at the time they designed the sight.

[@Eric-kn4yn]

Switch of gyro if it becomes defective unstable

[@dallesamllhals9161]

...and if you don't know your enemy - back to OL' school?

[@sadwingsraging3044]

Taking the time for a nice long chase then getting settled in for some long range plinking at a flight of B-17 late war in Europe?🤔 Gold Leader: They're coming in! Three marks at 2-10! Gold Leader: It's no good, I can't maneuver! Gold Five: *Stay on target* Gold Leader: We're too close! Gold Five: *Stay on target* Gold Leader: _Loosen up!!!_ 💢 💥🔥🔥🔥 Gold Five: Gold Five to Red leader, lost Tiree, lost Dutch. Red Leader: I copy, Gold Leader. Gold Leader: They came,, from,,, behin 💢 💥🔥🔥🔥 Hokey mathematics and newfangled engineering are no match for a bit of Kentucky windage.😁

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

I'm glad someone understood that reference I made during the attack run.

[@sadwingsraging3044]

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles As an kid watching Darth Vader adjust his sights I never knew he was running EZ-42 gyroscopic in his TIE Advanced X1

[@slamacreepa]

nice, windows not being activated

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

I don't know what to tell you. The computer has been that way since new, and I have done everything windows has asked for including various updates that it forces upon me.

[@supersarge24]

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I believe you need to purchase an activation key and input the code. They can be bought for about $10-20 online. If the popup doesn't bother you, then don't bother.

[@admiralqualityspretendingtofly]

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Oh? Might it not be a legit license? (This is one of many reasons why I will never let anyone else build a machine for me.)

[@sugarnads]

Paved runways arent great in a battle damaged aeroplane. If you have to land wheels up the risk of fire is FAR greater. It was preferred to belly land on grass if at all possible. Source. Various accounts ranging from paul richeys accounts of 1sqdn RAF in france to squadron leader allens 'spitfire squadron' to mentions by d bader etc. Squadrons on grass fields scrambled much faster than those on concrete runway equipped fields just by the way.

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

Every Aircraft manual I have ever read that talks about this make it clear that if you have to belly land you will have less damage on a paved runway than on grass. Every one, without exception.

[@sugarnads]

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles 🤷 well that is interesting. The common thread was it wouldnt catch fire on grass. On conrete the fricti9n heat couod make it go bang

[@JohnSmith-oh9ux]

Activate your windows Greg

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

I tried.

[@admiralqualityspretendingtofly]

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles It's so annoying. It'll try to trick you into installing a bunch of new spyware. Just go through the interrogation and answer No to everything, it'll take.

[@wuaf_devas9678]

Coming from 6 o'clock vs B17 is something that should be avoided. It will get you burned most of the times. Try head on from 12 o'clock high or from directly above where bomber will offer the largest profile. Generally, you want to be moving in two axis in a curved aporoach when viewed from gunners position. When you line up bomber as a steady target, you are, also lined up for a gunner as a steady target. In IL2, on ace setting, B17 human gunners are replaced by terminators!!!

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

If you're outside their effective range it doesn't matter how good the gunners are. IL2 doesn't model the EZ-42 correctly, at least not the last time I flew it, which was over a year ago.

[@wuaf_devas9678]

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles True, but don't you need something bigger than 20mm to be effective at those distances (1km+)? Also, how do you set up the convergence? If memory serves, after bullets pass the convergence point, they disperse quite a lot and the accuracy becomes quite horrible. I fly IL-2 1946, very old game now. In that game, only K5 is modelled. Maybe I'm too old and obsolete. Waiting to see the white of eyes before opening fire. I achieved the best results from head on. All vulnerable parts like cockpit and engines are located forward with minimum in the way of armor and other obstructions. Also, if that means anything in simulations, energies are added because target and bullets are moving in opposite directions.

[@Eric-kn4yn]

EZ 42 in me262 the dots floated aimlessly around the screen technology wasnt perfected I locked it and used it as a reflector sight. Me 262 pilot primary source. Me262s with EZ42 had a unique series designation ??

[@valvlad3176]

The only way to take down B29 is an attack straight from above. Otherwise they kill you. Ask your Japanese pilot friends about that.

[@UkrainianPaulie]

M2 max effective range is 1,830 meters. 800 meters? Nope you'll end up a swastika marked under a gunners station.

[@milesn3173]

On a stationary area target from a stationary sandbagged tripod with proper observation... Flying vs. an also flying point target is a little different story.

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

Miles is correct, it's a lot different when trying to shoot at an airplane from another airplane. The effective range of B-17 gunners was about 400 meters. Even the very best gunsight and turret systems the US had could only hit at about 900 meters and only one plane in the European theater had those, the A-26 Invader.

[@sparkling925]

on paper it is, now do it while flying in a bomber trying to hit a plane, at that distance you probably could barely even see it

[@klofisch]

lol.... activate your Windows! :D

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

No, absolutely not.

[@hrench]

Greg I love your videos but I feel like releasing this on memorial Day where you're flying to German plane is not the right to do

[@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles]

I understand your point. Actually I uploaded this yesterday, but I want to upload another today since they go together.

[@michelhedley1805]

How American. Memorial Day is unknown to us who live outside the States.

[@grzegorzkrauze5039]

Great stuff. Thank you, Greg!

[@itowmyhome797]

Thank you