what Allied aircraft are the best in this game?

[MaxGunz]

It's better to not try and follow a target with the pipper. Establish the pattern and aim ahead. When the target is -time- enough away from the aim point that shots will arrive at the same time, let off a burst.

The steadiest aim is when the controls are held still. Notice how changing speed and/or trying to make small adjustments gets nose bob/weave that does not happen when you are flying smooth? I find that it's easier to line up shots when the target is moving relative to my pipper, I pick a spot ahead of the movement and whether my flight is straight or curved my pipper is not wobbling. And that usually gets me deflection hits (when I do hit) which don't have to travel through the length of the target and get stopped by tail wheel, etc, and seat armor to achieve cockpit, engine and wing root hits.

The worst way to attack AI is to try and get co-speed on his six at under 300 meters. By the time you've lined that up it's going or gone evasive. Come in fast from a rear quarter, shoot deflection and you surprise them.

The AI are dummies, especially about off-angles. You can play to their strengths or their weaknesses.

[Laurwin]

hehe, I didn't say prob with p-38 was against AI?

but true enough, what you're saying makes sense.

indeed, it might be better practice, to not use "following method" with establishing lead, especially with energy fighters bnz. Following method works ok with hard turners like spits though.

More usually though online, there wont be so easy shots initially. Bounced bandit starts hard break turn, divingg at the same time, sometimes alternating the angle, diving or climbing (he's looking at attacker fromside window.)
I would do that with a spitfire to avoid getting hit, if I see a fw190 approaching fast and turning into me, with an uncomfortable looking angle.

this kind of deflection shot is almost impossible to predict (with a p-38 at least!). But Indeed, he will have that much less E later on at his disposal.

I thought that for maximum accuracy, you should be in a sustained low-g turn, or otherwise low-g on the airframe when shooting.

I dunno why that is, maybe it is in the German aerial gunnery manual.

Does it have something to do with the G-forces affecting upon the gun barrels?
Like, during sustained turn there's constant G, then the bullets spend a short time inside the barrel when being fired, and then the barrels are pointing ever so slightly differently, when the bullets exit the barrel? After that the bullets obviously are ballistic and unaffected?

[JtD]

Years of playing this game have taught me the following:

If you spot an opponent, check if you have the energy advantage, meaning if you're higher or considerably faster. If you are, dive, attack, extend. Come back if suitable. If not, get out of there. Which means that while I'm fairly successful in shooting down enemy aircraft and don't get shot down a lot, I hardly ever fight. I just kill or run.

The P-38 is fairly fast for it's time, climbs fairly well and has a decent firepower concentrated in its nose. It's got plenty of ammo for the .50ies. It is however somewhat sluggish at high speed, which means it is easier for the opponent to evade an attack. It's just physics, and there's nothing I can do about it. I can, however, start firing from further out than I can for instance in a Spitfire. I can also maintain a higher speed for longer, which makes extension easier. And the good climb rate permits extension in shallow climbs, which usually is a bad idea for instance in contemporary P-47's.

All in all, it isn't some marvellous killer, it is a good combat aircraft, which because of higher speeds and better high speed retention is somewhat easier to stay alive in than a Spitfire. It is a worse dogfighter, so don't dogfight with it like you would in a Spitfire. I usually don't dogfight, which makes the P-38 as good as a Spitfire for me.

[gaunt1]

Just curious, what about the Seafire? In IL-2 compare, its performance is quite unimpressive.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

Just curious, what about the Seafire? In IL-2 compare, its performance is quite unimpressive.

The Seafire III comes in two versions: F.III and the LF.III

These are based around the Spitfire Vc with both engine choices.. the LF model having the low altitude cropped supercharger which offers excellent performance under 10,000 feet/3000 meters while the F version peaks around 18000 feet/5000ish meters. Against the Japanese fighters like the Zero... you have nearly all of the advantages. Against others you have to treat it like the best refined Spitfire V models around... great handling but it doesn't have the power to have the climb or speed that the Mark VIII or IX Spitfires have.

So a significant altitude advantage or forcing in the close fight is the best option.

[Laurwin]

There must ve something im doing wrong with tempy because im not having too good success with it.

Any online tips, operational/tqctical for tempest? I remember one mission where i was self appointed flighleadde ( 4ship). We went into normandy to reconnoitre and strike at vehicles, climb to 3km before crossing the wire. My teammates did excellent, one guy from us bagged 3 confirmed kills. That hero of the hour was none other than mightyjingle actually, our friendly floridan, who was this time in the harsh realm of full real server. So we dropped ordinance, but afyer tjat evertone kinda got separayed and we got pickwd off one by one

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Laurwin

There must ve something im doing wrong with tempy because im not having too good success with it.

Any online tips, operational/tqctical for tempest? I remember one mission where i was self appointed flighleadde ( 4ship). We went into normandy to reconnoitre and strike at vehicles, climb to 3km before crossing the wire. My teammates did excellent, one guy from us bagged 3 confirmed kills. That hero of the hour was none other than mightyjingle actually, our friendly floridan, who was this time in the harsh realm of full real server. So we dropped ordinance, but afyer tjat evertone kinda got separayed and we got pickwd off one by one

Tempest? What's not to like... its fast, climbs well, hits very hard, has a great roll rate, and great all around vision including an un-obstructive gunsight. It's not a turn and burn fighter so you can't chuck it around too much. Its a bit easier to handle than the Mustang on account of weight and wing loading and it has a ton of power (over 2000hp). My suggestion is to keep it in the medium altitude range and boom and zoom everything in sight. You can hold turns but keep them short and then zoom for a new position and shot.

Get good enough so that your first shot hits. With the Tempest the first shot is often the last shot... its a brutally destructive fighter. There are times where after a two second burst the 109 I'm shooting at has no wings and everything else is riddled with holes. Sometimes it takes a bit more with the FW190 or a various larger aircraft but a concentrated burst will destroy anythign.

[MaxGunz]

When you are moving fast there are better ways to change direction than through horizontal turns. In fact, every other way is more efficient.

Horizontal turns past 20 or 30 degrees are for angle fighters and mudhens.

A half loop is better than an extended horizontal turn. Zooming up and turning at your best turn speed is better. Turning on a tilted circle is better. Rolling while zoom climbing or steeply diving and pulling out on the new heading is better. You can regain lost speed by losing height once you have changed direction, you will have lost less energy than in a horizontal turn at high speed if you keep the G's you pull down so don't jerk the nose up and expect great results, that won't work.

A good lone-plane exercise is to start flying a wide horizontal circle a few times around to get your speed up and stable. Then make the circle tilt and let it go egg shape. Don't let it get slow at the top and see how fast you get along the bottom then tilt up some more. With practice and observation you can find out what slows you down and what lets you go the fastest. Keep an eye on slip (The Ball) until you don't need to, watch your trim or make it neutral and see what effect that has.
In time work some pure vertical into it and roll to change your exit heading, for high speed planes with lousy wingloading and good to great roll rates there is no quicker way to make radical heading changes.

Or you can turn your FW the same way you'd turn a Spit and complain how poorly FW's turn.

Add: if you maintain your energy then people who do not will think you're cheating. Some will even say so.

[Laurwin]

Half loop equates to immelman?

or would you do it more often, as a climb, followed by a stall-turn left or right, back into the original direction?

Fair enough, turning isn't too good, admitttedly though, you can still turn and cruise at fast speed around the trgt area with tempest.

Doing immelmans would probably be a blessing for a sudden attack from a focke wulf (low speed tempest, can't evade easily, maybe I need more low speed handling knowledge with some planes). I've also heard, keep tempest fast, once airborne.

Still, I'll keep advice in mind, and probably have more gunnery exercise with tempest.

It seems like you don't get to much gunnery with hispano cannons online. Spitfires for example. Mostly I try to ambush and bnz with them, they are def not an ac for spray and pray hehe.


To MaxGuns though. I can sort of visually picture the "energy egg"picture from wikipedia, showcasing rolling dives, climbs and turns. Let me ask you this though, does it really have tangible tactical value, or is it just a picture showcasing why some manouver works the way it does?

It seems that indeed you can "turn downwards" more easily with the help of earth gravity, maybe this helps if you ever get into vertical rolling scissors (indeed at the top of the energy egg, like a real egg, is more conical and pointy, as opposed to rounder and flatter like the bottom, therefore you get good turn rate and radius this way.)

then I would imagine, that you can use the sides of the energy egg to shorten the turn radius, at the expense of higher turn rate.(like high yoyo and low yoyo, both shorten turn radius, because of vertical element, but turn rateis not indeed at maximum values, except at the end of manouver you can maybe pull more Gs)

hehe, probably I don't do so good because I sometimes revert to old habits of turn fighting, instead of iron discipline E management. Then again oftentimes I'm flinyg alone on full real and get bounced once in a awhile on these big servers. *sniff* other people are playing on their own squadron teamspeak

[MaxGunz]

I wish I had ended the handle with an s instead of a z, back in 1998. Oh well.

Flying the egg is mostly for teaching though I have used it to reverse a fight or two when I had slower, better turning enemies behind me.

You can use an Immelman coming out if the top at stall but I don't recommend that in a combat area at all. If you're going fast enough to come out of a vertical half loop with speed enough to dodge shots then tilt the loop and do a wingover, which btw is what Immelman much more likely did in his Eindekker than the maneuver that got his name.

Practicing the egg will teach you when you have the speed to do what, for one thing. It ceases to be theory in a while and you can transition in and out with more ease and success.

If you have alt and not enough speed, the half loop can go down(wards).

Every turn with a vertical element even if done 30 degrees to horizontal has some gravity-avoiding elements to it simply because your path is not crossing gravity at 90 degrees. You still slow down if you're rising but that is a separate factor you can regain when you descend.

From a 45 degree to vertical zoom or dive the slick trick is to roll to point your canopy where you want to go and then pull out *with care to not stall which bleeds your E terribly* on the new heading.

I don't remember exactly but I think that Shaw covers these things in his book Fighter Combat.

If you don't have speed greater than best turn it is still good to drop in a shallow descent in the first half of a turn and regain height in the second half rather than flying a purely horizontal turn. You can turn a bit tighter +and+ come out faster using the down and up. It's a great way to catch up to an opponent sticking to turning on the flat because he knows you can't turn as well and a good way to begin to learn the turning yoyo tactic.

There's a whole bag of tricks that become apparent once you've practiced the egg enough times. Call it The Vertical, I can't recall seeing the AI use it but that's no surprise since it usually involves stringing maneuvers together to achieve an advantageous outcome.

When I fly energy, every pass I make where the target loses more than I do is a step towards my victory whether I fire a shot or even make a hit or not. The energy game is mostly about relative energy but it's also about not getting yourself below your best turn envelope no matter the temptation of an easy shot he presents. Once he loses speed or height you've already made your gain. That's something the AI hasn't a clue about.

I just flying, as long as you can keep decent trim and close to zero slip and fly with a light touch the AI having perfect trim and zero slip and excellent control won't be enough of an advantage to cover the AI's lack of tactical ability. They're also lousy at angle shots as long as you don't hold a straight or steady turn too long probably because they don't get the cycles to do so but maybe because of lack of code routines altogether.

It's like starting out in IL2 one of the first campaign frustrations is catching up to your flight. Then you learn to not just point your nose at them until you have your speed up and then you will have to slow down before you do catch them.
Slow and nose high just eats power and gets you nowhere. They don't have rockets, you have the bad habits drag chute is more on the mark. That's the lesson anyone should learn after a while and maybe with a few pointers like "get your nose down" and "build up speed before you shallow climb".

The Ai are not a terror to the better pilot players here. At least not until you're outnumbered badly in a LaGG 3 vs 109-F's and then only the really good ones think "challenge" instead of "sphincter check".