CheeseTactics

[Zatoichi_Sanjuro]

Originally Posted by gbtstr

Unfortunately, even with the best/most effective tactics you are limited in the game because of the pro-Soviet bias in aircraft performance. They have the best turning aircraft, the fastest aircraft down low, and some of the most heavily armed and armored. The Americans get a broke-dick P-51, a P-47 with the top speed and maneuverability of a row-boat in reverse. The Brits get the Hurricane, which is nice unless you want to go anywhere fast, and some decent Spitfires - but, they can all be out turned by the Russkies.

Once again, the Ace of Aces final was fought between two Spitfire IX's. If the Russian fighters turning rate was such an advantage they would have been picked for the final. The fact is the turn advantage for the LA over the Spit is miniscule and neutralised by the Spits superior firepower.

[f1rebrand]

Originally Posted by ButcherBird

on strike i always fly a G-6 and just pretty much play defense. Its pretty fun to just practice shooting at bombers as the come in. Never had any bomber pilots get really upset with me

Most B17 pilots accept that if they're going to fly the most destructive plane, that can win a strike game singlehandedly, then they're naturally going to be a target for fighters. So it's up to that individual's skills on the the tail gun.

Sadly, a minority don't see it that way and prefer to throw their toys out of the pram.

[Robotic Pope]

Originally Posted by Zatoichi_Sanjuro

Once again, the Ace of Aces final was fought between two Spitfire IX's. If the Russian fighters turning rate was such an advantage they would have been picked for the final. The fact is the turn advantage for the LA over the Spit is miniscule and neutralised by the Spits superior firepower.

I don't know, My experience is that the La-5 and La-7 turn a lot tighter than the spitfires and the cannons on both are pretty deadly thanks to them being mounted so close to each other it needs very little convergence, so acuracy of long range shots is much better. When Im flying my Fw190 or Mustang the La.7 is the plane I have most fear of because of its instant power. If I boom and zoom an La.7 and miss (quite often because of its insane turning ability) quite often the La can turn 360 degrees to follow my zoom climb and still catch me and start shooting in less than 30 seconds. Once that happens I'm dead meat.

[CRANNY]

Originally Posted by Robotic Pope

I don't know, My experience is that the La-5 and La-7 turn a lot tighter than the spitfires and the cannons on both are pretty deadly thanks to them being mounted so close to each other it needs very little convergence, so acuracy of long range shots is much better. When Im flying my Fw190 or Mustang the La.7 is the plane I have most fear of because of its instant power. If I boom and zoom an La.7 and miss (quite often because of its insane turning ability) quite often the La can turn 360 degrees to follow my zoom climb and still catch me and start shooting in less than 30 seconds. Once that happens I'm dead meat.

You need a wingman.

[gbtstr]

Originally Posted by Robotic Pope

I don't know, My experience is that the La-5 and La-7 turn a lot tighter than the spitfires and the cannons on both are pretty deadly thanks to them being mounted so close to each other it needs very little convergence, so acuracy of long range shots is much better. When Im flying my Fw190 or Mustang the La.7 is the plane I have most fear of because of its instant power. If I boom and zoom an La.7 and miss (quite often because of its insane turning ability) quite often the La can turn 360 degrees to follow my zoom climb and still catch me and start shooting in less than 30 seconds. Once that happens I'm dead meat.

Exactly. There is undeniably some turn advantage, enough to be significant. And the placement of the cannon in the nose of the La's helps your aim by reducing the recoil and and convergence problems, like Pope said. The Spit may pack more guns so that on paper its firepower is superior, but how is it in practice?

I ran the numbers on 15 piston engined fighters in realistic, xbox (so no patched performance): Bf109F, Bf109G-6,G-10, Bf109K, Fw190A, Fw190D, La-5, La-7, Yak-3, P-51D, P-47, Spit II, IX, XVI, and Hurricane II.

The fact is, the La-7 has the best acceleration below 5,000' - where the bulk of dogfighting takes place. On its heels are the 109K, the 109G-10, La-5 and Yak-3. Once you hit 10,000' the two 109's are in front and followed by the La-7, Fw-190D, and La-5. So, even up to 10,000 (a very high altitude for multiplayer dogfights) unless you're in one of the 109s an La-7 will catch you. This is why Pope's Mustang gets run down from behind, even after executing a good BnZ attack on an La-7 bleeding speed in a high-g turn (the P-51D manages to out-accelerate only the Hurricane below 20,000').

So, already with a turn advantage, the La-7 gets to have a substantial advantage in putting knots back on the plane at the prime dogfighting altitudes.

As to why the two finalists in the contest chose to each take a Spitfire Mk IX, who knows? The Spit IX is a solid upper end of the pack fighter, so it is a good choice. Maybe they were both British. Maybe they decided they would see who the better pilot was by taking the same machine. Maybe they both flew the Spitfire so much that they knew it the best and decided not to change things up at the last minute in a competition. Just because two random dudes chose to fly it over the La-7 in a particular fight, doesn't mean the La-7 has no advantages over the Spitfire. There could be any number of explanations, and their endorsement of the Spitfire IX doesn't necessarily mean anything.

In a brief bit of anecdotal evidence for the La-5 as well, I was once nearly chased down by one while flying a Dora-9. I did as Pope did, got some altitude, rolled in on the giant team battle furball, tried to pick a target, fired but didn't kill anything, exited the fight and began my zoom. An La-5 that was last seen 90 degrees off my heading, below me, and pulling around towards 180 off of my heading, is now suddenly within 1km of me and tracers are whizzing by my cockpit. It took staying within a very narrow sweet spot in pitch attitude, laying on the WEP for the entire time, and a climb to at least over 15,000 (probably over 20,000 but I don't quite remember) for me to slowly open the distance. It was him finally losing interest that brought the engagement to an end. If it had continued, I'm not sure what would have happened. But, if I had tried to escape by rolling inverted, pulling it around in a dive and trying to zoom away again, I have little doubt that he would have closed the gap and probably shot me down.

If it had been an La-7, I probably would've had a long parachute ride down from about 10,000.

[Zatoichi_Sanjuro]

Originally Posted by gbtstr

As to why the two finalists in the contest chose to each take a Spitfire Mk IX, who knows? The Spit IX is a solid upper end of the pack fighter, so it is a good choice. Maybe they were both British. Maybe they decided they would see who the better pilot was by taking the same machine. Maybe they both flew the Spitfire so much that they knew it the best and decided not to change things up at the last minute in a competition. Just because two random dudes chose to fly it over the La-7 in a particular fight, doesn't mean the La-7 has no advantages over the Spitfire. There could be any number of explanations, and their endorsement of the Spitfire IX doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Edal favours the Spit but Mirgervin up till then flew the LA. In practice he decided the Spit had enough firepower advantages at head-on's over the LA to go with that instead. You're both comparing the LA with B'n'Z planes when B'n'Z is ostensibly weak in this game. You take a 190 into a 1v1 dogfight with a Spit or a LA in this game and you'll lose pretty much everytime. The 109K is the only B'n'Z prop plane that is decent to fly.

[Robotic Pope]

Originally Posted by Zatoichi_Sanjuro

Edal favours the Spit but Mirgervin up till then flew the LA. In practice he decided the Spit had enough firepower advantages at head-on's over the LA to go with that instead. You're both comparing the LA with B'n'Z planes when B'n'Z is ostensibly weak in this game. You take a 190 into a 1v1 dogfight with a Spit or a LA in this game and you'll lose pretty much everytime. The 109K is the only B'n'Z prop plane that is decent to fly.

I wasn't exactly comparing BnZ planes to the La's, I was saying that when I'm flying a Mustang of Fw190 planes which I prefer, I have MUCH more difficulty with the La's compared to the spitfires. I think also the La's can continue to easily turn to follow my climb even if i dealt it quite a bit of wing damage, where if I can hit a spits wing during my boom and if it doesn't immediately crash I can more often return and attack it again in a turning fight and get the kill.

[JOED70]

As for the rocket tatic, my feeling on them is allthough they can be anoying it still takes a large amount of skill combined with luck to get an air kill with them bombers being larger and slower only slighty easier but still hard to hit.The biggest problem seems to be the amount of lag they can generate if some is fireing rockets and guns I have seen lag spikes that slow the game down due to fact that the amount of smoke generated stresses the system due to haveing to render so many pixles with rocket smoke trail . I have had rockets used on me flying a fighter if that happens next match ill grab my trusty IL2M and introduce them to the tailguns of death . I love my tail gun
As for bombers in dogfight well you just have to change tatics to get them

Dont hang out on thier 6 attack from abreast from above or make head on runs . But I agree that for Dogfight bombers should be parked but alas as the host has no control over who can join or what type planes it is one of those game things we have to live with .

That brings us to the topic of bailing . I will bail most times in dogfights CTA and Strike once I am damaged enough feel that guy who pumped all those rounds into me deserves it. Team battle is different thing I will try and last as long as possible in those engagenments in order to allow my teammates to get advantage. If one or 2 bandits are busy trying to finnish me off they arn't killing my Sqn mates . But as thier is no real incentive built into the game to bail ie should get a star if you bail and survive as opposed to rideing it into the ground loseing crew and craft . Maybe a 30 sec time pently for a pilot kill
Instant respawn if you bail would be a soultion.

But as far as my biggest cheese for me is the Stacking of teams that happens over and over. Ie last nite in a strike realistic match Other guys are in Stuka and il10 go team B I pick A and grab Il2M with bombs rocket load out teamate has an A-20 so it looks to me like are pretty ballanced its 2 on 2 just as match starts my team-mate who is frequent player switchs from his A-20 to a fighter- no A2G weapons. Now my teammate flies off to north loiters around while the stuka makes bombing runs un -opposed while 1L10 herasses the hell out of me . Oh after i damage the hell out of Il10 My teammate comes fires one burst at guy he bails so teammate gets kill . Teamate then bails crashes repsawns gives up 2 easy kills to other team who are both over our targets didnt see what happend but assume based on the tatics I assume he just gave them up, each get a kill on him with in a min of his spawning . End result loss teamate gets 10 stars other 2 get 40 and 20 me 0. So I join next strike mission 2 guys from other team are thier so this time a grab my stuka . Now these 2 clowns pick team a and b17's and try and jam on a match .So I called them on the being the pussies that they are and took my bag of marbles and went home . Now I understand that often times people will setup a match unpurpose that is one sided to allow someone to get a plane unlock or achivement have no problem with that have been helped in that way many times and have helped others. Things is everyone in room is aweer of what is happening. That is not what this was. These actions are what can be the demise of online play for a game people try game if they are constantly being raped by A-holes. They quickly lose intrest and stop playing traffic on servers dies . puplishers see no growth - no intrest thus no reason to delevop sequel .

So my cheese of the week award goes to MAD-Coyote

[Gilly]

Originally Posted by f1rebrand

In the lobby for the next game he then began to slag me off in front of 16 players telling me that I should fly in Dogfight mode rather than Strike if I wanted to shoot planes down. Basically in his opinion Strike is for bombing only (Apparently in WW2 bombers never came under attack from

I messaged him "You should deal with it. When I fly bombers I expect to get shot down but that's part of the challenge." The response. "Cheap shot a**hole."

How boring would it be if we just flew to our targets without threat of fighter molestation. This really is kindergarten at times.

I can't imagine ace bomber jockeys like Gilly or Branko complaining too much (unless of course rockets are used).

where's the fun in that???? Gives me something to do whilst 'on route' and while waiting for bomb respawn! The more the merrier in my book!

[f1rebrand]

Originally Posted by Gilly

where's the fun in that???? Gives me something to do whilst 'on route' and while waiting for bomb respawn! The more the merrier in my book!

Haha, just as I thought. Cool as you like.