PHENIX's GUNSITES FOR WB3

Historical Gunsite Set

2006/03/05, reworked all sites, making them hi-res

While creating these gunsites, I was striving to achieve 3 things:

Make the sites as historical as possible.

Produce sites that are useful in the game.

Make the sites as dim as tolerable.

The first goal is for the immersion factor and there are several gunsites around that satisfy this need. There was not much information on the web giving actual pictures and instructional use for WWII fighter plane gunsites, but these websites helped a LOT: Paparomeo's sites for EAW(no longer exists), AH Rescue gunsites, Realsites for WB3(no longer exists), Aircraft Indicators, RA 360a, Aero's AH sights(no longer exists), and info obtained through the game IL2.

The second goal was harder to come by, but I created my sites to help in ranging while trying to match the actual historical size of the reticule. In real life several of these sites were configurable depending on the plane you were trying to shoot at. So I had to preset some of these sites. For example, the Spitfire sites are all ranged for 109 wingspans at a distance of 200 yards. I developed these mathematically by figuring out the angle the wingspan of an enemy plane would cover and then converting that to pixels shown on the screen. I was amazed at how close I got, which is a testament to the programmers. One problem I did have was that WB3 gunsites are smaller than in real life. I am guessing this was done for game play so you can see the gunsite, guages, and the sky all at the same time. For example, the N9 gunsite used by the USAAF spanned 100 mils, or almost 6 degrees across the pilots view. In WB3 most of the sites would not be able to fit the site on their reflector plates. So I compromised. :)

What made matters even harder is that gunsites in WB3 are done differently than previous versions. Gunsites are created from 64x64 (or other factor of 2) pixel images. That image is put on a surface in the 3d cockpit. What is tricky is the distance from the pilot's head to the site is different in different planes. So, the site covers more or less pixels, yet a con at 300 yards looks the same in all planes. To demonstrate this, fly the Me262 and the F4F-4 with the default sight. The 262's is tiny and the Wildcat's is large, yet the view is covering the same number of degrees. You will notice below that some of the planes use the same sight, but have a different download. This is because I had to tweak that gunsite for that plane due to different head to gunsite distances.

The third goal may be just a personal preference. You can miss a change of direction in a con because one of the lines in the sight was covering the con at the time it made its maneuver. So, all of these sites are dimmed down. Notice in the pictures below how you can see the silhouette of the con through the gunsite lines. You can also see your tracers better. The trade off is sometimes these sights are hard to see against the bright sky, but I wonder if that may be historical. :)

The sites below were optimized to be used on my system, but should work fine on most anyone's. I fly in 1024x768 and fight/attack with the degree of view at 75. These were the settings I used when tweaking the sights for ranging and visibility. Do take note for ranging that in Warbirds, d3 could be anywhere from 300-399 yards. 300 yards is the actual distance when d3 goes to d2 while closing on a con.

Download zipped file of your choice and unzip directly into your skins folder located in your current WarbirdsIII folder. You may also just extract only the ones you want. MAKE SURE TO BACK UP ANY SITES YOU MAY HAVE THERE ALREADY!

click here to download hi-red.zip
(hi-res red)

click here to download hi-orange.zip
(hi-res orange, screen shots below)

click here to download hi-white.zip
(hi-res off white)

click here to download dimsites.zip
(very dim red)

click here to download brights.zip
(brighter red)

click here to download orange.zip
(orange sites as opposed to red)

Here is a detailed list with notes on each gunsite in the zipped file.

Althouth the sights are pre-ranged for certain cons, it will do just fine on most cons as wingspans do not differ by too much (sans P38, Bf110, and buffs). Screen shots taken at 55 deg visability on 1024x768.

	Luftwaffe Revi 3D file location: skins/bf109e/	Bf109E-4 The circle is such that a Spitfire at 300 yards will fill it. The sight was displaced slightly to the left and bottom to compensate for an error in the cockpit art.
	Luftwaffe Revi C12-D file location: skins/bf109f1/ skins/bf109f/ skins/bf109g2e/ skins/bf109g/ skins/109gr6/ skins/fw1904/	Bf109F-1 / Bf109F-4 / Bf109G-6 / Bf109G-6/R6 Bf109G-2e / Fw 190-A4 The circle is such that a Spitfire at 300 yards will fill it. The dashes represent increments of 6 mils. The sight for Bf109G2e has been shifted to make up for a cockpit bug.
	Luftwaffe Revi 16B file location: skins/ju87d/ skins/ju87g/ skins/fw1908/ skins/fw190d/ skins/bf110c/ skins/bf110g/ skins/Ju88a/ skins/bf109k/ skins/me262/	Ju87D / Ju87G Fw190-A8 / Fw190-D9 / Bf110-G2 / Bf110-C4 / Ju88A-4 Bf109K-4 Me262A-1a The circle is such that a Spitfire at 300 yards will fill it. The dashes represent increments of 6 mils. A correction for a bug was made to the Stuka sites. The site for the Ju87d is pending further investigation.
	Japanese Type 98 file location: skins/zero21/ skins/j2m2/ skins/j2m3/	A6M2 / J2M2 / J2M3 The inner circle is set for F4f's and P40's at 300 yards, 200 yards for the outer circle.
	Japanese Type 3 Mark I file location: skins/zero/	A6M3 The inner circle is set for F4u's and F6f's at 300 yards and the outer for P38's at 300 yards.
	Japanese Type 4 file location: skins/zero52/	A6M5a The inner brighter circle is set for F4u's and F6f's at 300 yards, 200 yards for the outer circle. Dashes represent 6 mil increments.
	Japanese Type 100 file location: skins/ki43/ skins/ki44	Ki-43-II Ki-44-IIc Outer circle is set for F4f4's and P40's at 200 yards and 300 yards for the brighter inner circle.
	Japanese Type 3 file location: skins/ki61/ skins/ki611c/ skins/ki84/	Ki-61-Ib / Ki-61-Ic Ki-84-Ia The inner circle is set for F4u's and F6f's at 300 yards, 200 yards for the outer circle.
	USN Mark VIII (8) file location: skins/f4F4/ skins/fm2/ skins/f4u1/ skins/f6f5/ skins/f4u1a/ skins/f4u1d/	F4F-4 / FM-2 / F4U-1 F6F-5 F4U-1A F4U-1D This is close to how the actual site looked, but 50% in size. Historically, the large circle spanned 200 mils in the reflector. This one only spans 100 mils with 5 mil increments marked. Early war Zeroes will fill the inner circle at 300 yards. Note that for some of the planes the whole site would not fit, but was adjusted so the scale remained the same.
	USAAF N2/N3 file location: skins/a36/ skins/p40b/ skins/p40e/ skins/f4f3/	A36 P-40b / P40e F4F-3 The circle is set to match a 109's (Zero for F4f) wingspan at 200 yards.
	USAAF N3 w/ground reticule file location: skins/p39d/ skins/p39q/ skins/p400/	P-39D / P-39Q / P-400 The circle is set to match a 109's wingspan at 200 yards. The dashes represent increments of 5 mils.
	USAAF N9 file location: skins/p51b/ skins/p38f/ skins/p47c/	P-51B P-38F / P-47C The circle is set to match a 109's wings at 200 yards.
	USAAF N9 w/ground reticule file location: skins/p38/	P-38J The circle is set to match a 109's wings at 200 yards and the hashes are 5 mil increments.
	USAAF K14b w/ground reticule file location: skins/p38l/ skins/p47d/ skins/f4u4/	P-38L P-47D F4U-4 Distance between the diamonds is set for a 190 (zero for F4u) at 300 yards. The dashes represent increments of 5 mils.
	USAAF K14b / RAF GGS file location: skins/p51/ skins/spit14/	P-51D / Spitfire XIV Distance between the diamonds is set for a 190 at 300 yards.
	USAF A4 file location: skins/f86/	F86 Distance between the diamonds is set for a MiG-15 at 400 yards.
	RAF GM2 Mark II (III) file location: skins/hurri1/ skins/hurri2/ skins/spit1/	Hurricane I / Hurricane IIC Spitfire I A 109 will span the gap between the 2 horizontal lines at 300 yards and fill the circle at 200.
	RAF Type I Mark II file location: skins/spit5/ skins/spit5b1/ skins/spit9/ skins/seaf2/ skins/mosq6/ skins/nfii/	Spitfire Vb(I) / Spitfire Vb(II) / Spitfire IX / Seafire II Mosquito IV / Mosquito NFII A 109 will fill the circle at 200 yards. For the Mossies, It has been corrected to the right to compensate for a bug.
	Soviet Model PBP-1 file location: skins/la5f/ skins/la5fn/ skins/la72/ skins/la73/ skins/yak3/ skins/yak9d/	La5f / La5fn / La7 / La7-3 / Yak-3 Yak-9D A 109 will fill the inner circle at 300 yards and the outer at 200. The dashes inside the circle represent 4 mils each
	San Giorgio Tipo B file location: skins/mc202/ skins/mc2022/	C202 / C202-II A P40 will fill the gap between the 2 outer pippers at 300 yards. The circle marks the wingspan of the P40 at 200 yards.
	San Giorgio Tipo C file location: skins/mc205/	C205 A P40 will fill the circle at 300 yards. The hash marks span the wingspan of the P40 at 200 yards. It has been corrected to the left to compensate for a bug.
	USAAF N6a file location: skins/b17/ skins/b25c/ skins/b24d/ skins/b24j/	B-17G / B-25C / B-24D / B-24J This is similiar to what the real thing looked like. However, not much in ranging can be done because the site is different sizes in different gun positions.
	USN Mark IX(9) file location: skins/m16/ NOTE: At the moment this does not work in this folder, move to your textures folder to make it your default site and then it will appear in the M16.	M16 Outer circle spans 100 mils.