MG Ammo question-To Burn or Not to burn?

[Neo-Tanuki]

I have a question for anyone who's played the lighter fighters in Crimson Skies like the Valiant, Bloodhawk or Tempest, that only carry .30 and .40 caliber guns: Do you use magnesium ammo exclusively in games, or do you ever use other kinds of ammo?

I've seen a game where a Valiant with nothing but magnesium-round .30s did fearful damage to the other players and held his own. On the other hand, when I tried the same trick with a Tempest, it just didn't seem to work, maybe because the Tempest doesn't have the sheer number of little guns a Valiant has. I wondered if it might be more effective with AP rounds.

Also, there's a role-playing element I was mulling over--MG rounds are nasty and quite lethal. I could see a "chivalrous" fighter pilot not wanting to use them, or needing to avoid them if a scenario involved capturing an enemy aircraft. Then again, in such situations it might be simpler to take a plane with larger guns...

I was just curious if anyone's used AP or DD instead for the smaller fighters with any success?

[feggula]

It depends on your preference to be honest, I've had fun with all types of ammunition and had success - and failure - with all. I prefer a mix though of MG and other rounds, mainly DD. I like DD for the widowing that it can do along with (in my experience) the better internal damage. What I prefer then is to fire DD rounds first and then the MG rounds - if you get lucky you can kill aircraft in a couple of hits...

As for chivalrous - against pirates? Only if they're flying something that I want!

[Grant]

I use MG sometimes. They work better with multiple little guns (valiant) VS smaller numbers. On a plane with like 1 .70 and 2 .30's I *usually* load up the .70 AP and the .30's DD.

[Carthaginian]

These are my standard 'CAP' loadouts for the Confederate Air Corps:
1.) Valiant
[5,6,7,8 - DD (.30 cal); 3,4 MG (.30 cal)]
2.) Kestrel
[1,2,3 - AP (.60 cal); 6,7 - DD (.40 cal); 5,8 - MG (.30 cal)]
3.) Bandit
[5,8 - MG (.40 cal); 6,7 - AP (.60 cal)]
4.) Fury
[1 - AP (.70 cal); 6,7 - DD (.40 cal); 5,8 - MG (.30 cal)]
5.) Brigand
[1,2 - AP (.50 cal); 3,4 - DD (.50 cal); 7,8 - MG (.30 cal)]

Militia aircraft will fly with "whatever was in stock at the local supplier last Tuesday."

NOTE: all gun positions are corrected to ensure symmetrical placement on the record sheet, in the positions closest to where the aircraft drawings show them.

[Cyagen]

Ahhhh memories, the good old "spray and pray" technic.

The Valliant is one of the best plane for this.

For my part, when flying the Avenger my set up was 2 .60 AP, 4 .30 DD and 2 .30 MG. It is with this set up that I blew up GSBandit's Brigand in the last game.