Thread about the 109

[Binnies]

Lately the 109 gun sight has been annoying me tremendously.
When you use the loosen traps function you zoom in on the gun sight and the crosshairs becomes smaller. Now I'm for more accurate when I do this but I'd rather avoid doing this because it reset the camera position and you lose a lot of situational awareness.

On the other hand we've got great situational awareness because of the increased FOV but the crosshairs are so damn big which makes it hard when trying to figure out when to fire.

Did the 109 sights really work like this?

[Blackdog_kt]

There's an adjustable brightness control under the gunsight, click on it with the mouse to manipulate it and it will make it easier to see the sight.

As for the rest, it takes a bit of time to get used to the new cockpits but after a while, i find it's much easier to shoot than it was with the previous IL2 series (more detailed graphics give me a better sense of speed, angles, closure rate and so on), to the point that i don't even center the view on the gunsight sometimes. I just roughly know where its center is by looking at the rest of it.

It's a matter of habit and some practice and will come naturally to you after clocking up a few sorties.

[Binnies]

Which one do you use the gauge the distance your target is at then? Normally I fire when the enemy aircrafs wings touch both side of the reticle(fighters only) which should but most aircraft at around 100 meters. But if the reticle is of then the distance could be very different from what is normally is.

I short, When targeting a fighter does it always fill the reticle at 100 meters?

And another question; What is vertical dog fighting?

[Blackdog_kt]

In regards to the gunsight, there's a unit of angle measurement called mil (just think of it as a very small sub-division of a degree) that is used to categorize them and it's all based on a very simple fact: the apparent size of a target is inversely proportional to it's range. In other words, if a plane with a wingspan of X meters appears to be Z mils, then the same plane at twice the distance (2X meters) will appear to be half the amount of mils (0.5Z mils).

The Revi gunsight used in the 109 is a 100 mils sight. That means that a target with a wingspan of 10 meters will have its wingtips "touching" the bars when it's 100 meters away from you (just like you said in your post).

According to Flea's checklists (see the sticky threads in the general section of the cliffs of Dover forum) the Spitfire and Hurricane have about 11-12 meters of wingspan, which puts them at around 110-120 meters when their wings fit between the horizontal gunsight bars.

For other distances you need to extrapolate. I think that each horizontal bar is the same length as the empty space between bars and also that the circle "cuts" each bar right in the middle. If this is true, then the following applies:

span fitting on top of one whole bar = span fitting between bars = a range of 110-120 meters

span fitting on top of half a bar = span being half the distance between bars = half the apparent size and thus double the distance (220-240 meters)

You will either need to judge this by eye, or kick a bit of rudder to momentarily skid your plane and align the gunsight bar with the target's wings to take a quick range reading.

For aircraft with different wingspans it needs further calculations, but in that case i just roughly approximate by assuming that a medium twin-engined bomber like the Blenheim should be about 1.5 times a fighter's size and a bigger one like the Wellington should be roughly twice the wingspan of a fighter.

For example, for a target 2x the wingspan of a fighter his apparent wingspan would be twice the space between bars when viewed from the "default" 110-120 meter range. Or inversely, the range would be twice the "default" range when he fills the space between bars ( = 220 to 240 meters).

If calculating this "on the fly" is driving you nuts, you might prefer to just memorize the list of ranges when "touching" the bars for known aircraft, or print it out on a small strip of paper and tape it to the side of your monitor/PC case/desk/etc.

Start by downloading Flea's excellent checklists from the sticky thread mentioned before. In there you'll find the range at which every allied aircraft in the sim fits between the Revi's bars.
From that point on you can extrapolate easily: if a certain aircraft type is at X meters when it touches the bars, then it's at 2x meters when it's half a bar long, 0.5X meters when it's twice the space between bars and so on.


It's pretty obvious that it's impossible to get a 100% accurate ranging in the heat of battle against a maneuvering target, except when attacking targets that pretty much fly straight and level (like bombers). In any case, fighters take less hits to go down so it pretty much evens out.

So, now that we know how to measure range to target, when do we shoot?
The answer is "at the range where the rounds of all your guns are harmonized to meet", in other words your convergence setting. I think the default one is 333 meters, however you can go into the loadout screen and modify this if you want to (loadouts are somewhat bugged, see the sticky FAQ thread in the general section for more details on how to successfully set them).

This means that you will either have to run some further calculations and get an approximate apparent size for most enemy aircraft at the range your guns converge at and fire when they are at that range, or inversely, you can set your convergence to a number that produces an easy to remember/calculate gunsight picture.
For the 100 mils Revi, that would mean mostly setting it in even, whole hundreds of meters (100,200,300) instead of in-between values (like 125,275 and so on).

In any case, you can start with an easy to use setting and as you gain experience you'll see it will be much easier to gauge distances without having to place the gunsight on the target but just by looking at the target, which means you can then start to use uneven numbers for convergence to suit your tactical needs better.

In other words, at some point you start developing a feel for all the parameters (relevant speed between you and the target, amount of deflection, the ballistic characteristics of your guns) and you can shoot and score hits from weird angles just by judging the amount of distance between the center of the gunsight in relation to these parameters.

For example, i use default convergence for the 109s cowl mounted machine guns so that they are accurate at long range. I use these to score some hits on enemy fighters and get them to turn and bleed off some speed, allowing me to close the distance quicker. I fire a few more bursts with the machine guns as i keep closing and sometimes this is all that's needed to cripple or shoot down the target.

If he survives i keep closing in on him and use my cannons, which i have harmonized to 100 meters for delivering the killing blows: their ballistics are not that good and their ammo supply is low, so it makes sense to use them at close range where it's more probable for the rounds to connect.

If i had them harmonized to the same distance as my machine guns and i was shooting from 100 meters away, my cannon rounds would be going both wide and high of the target (i would have to aim lower and at least one or both of each cannon rounds would still be passing harmlessly outside the target's wingspan), but setting them for close range gets rid of that problem.

[Binnies]

Thanks for the tips Blackdog.

Do you have any advice for fighting spitfire? A lot of times I tend to end up with them on my tail and me being unable to shake them.

[CH_RoadDogg]

Try shooting with no revi I was online last night and a wellingtons tail gunner hit and smashed my revi sight had to adjust aim just with the tracers after that talk about the detail that they modeled into these planes

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Binnies

Thanks for the tips Blackdog.

Do you have any advice for fighting spitfire? A lot of times I tend to end up with them on my tail and me being unable to shake them.

This is a long discussion and mostly has to do with air combat tactics.

This is just some generalized advice, if your aircraft can fly slower than the opponent you should exploit that by turning in horizontal turns (just roll to the side and pull the stick back a bit).

However, if you have the faster aircraft (which is the 109), your turning circle will be wider: you can't turn fast enough and if you slow down to turn you give up your speed advantage.

In this case you need to use the so called "out of plane" maneuvers. This means turning with a bit of vertical maneuver.

The most basic one is to use a sequence of high and low yo-yo maneuvers, alternating between the two. Instead of turning with the target you roll to the side but not completely and pull up on the stick. This means you are climbing and turning at the same time: you will get slower and be able to turn better, but by climbing you gain potential energy. Then, you roll a bit more so that you are diving and turning when you pull the stick back, to convert your altitude back into speed, and level off with the target. This allows you to make a turn while keeping some energy reserve and it's called a high yo-yo.


The low yo-yo is the same but opposite: you start with a diving turn, then level out by rolling and pulling.
The high one is useful for staying behind a slower target without having to reduce your throttle settings, the low one is useful for "cutting ahead" of a faster target and closing to guns range.

All this is very generic and simplified mind you, there are tons of books on air combat tactics, i'm just giving you a small sample here

My advice would be to do a search for a PDF book called "in pursuit", which deals with simulator flying and how to apply real world tactics to our game. It was very recently posted on this forum but i'm in a bit of a hurry and can't dig it up right now, look for a thread in the main page titled "a good read" or something like that and you'll find it.

[CaptainDoggles]

Originally Posted by Binnies

Thanks for the tips Blackdog.

Do you have any advice for fighting spitfire? A lot of times I tend to end up with them on my tail and me being unable to shake them.

You should never try to twist and turn with RAF fighters if you are flying the Bf 109. Its strength lies in its powerful armament (cannons) and good climb rate.

If you climb at 250 km/h, 2400 RPM and full throttle you can outclimb any spitfire or hurricane that tries to follow you.

Come in above the fight and dive down onto your opponent, then zoom back up. Wait a little bit until you get into good position and then repeat. I wrote a longer post about this on the simhq forums in this thread:

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.ph...g_the_109.html

[Binnies]

I actually did download in pursuit from this forum blackdog but I've yet to read it. I"ll be sure to read it soon. When doing high or low yoyos I should try and maintain speed right? Often when I do them my speeds seems to drop quite a bit (sometimes resulting in a stall even) because I tend to turn quite tight.

Thanks showing me your post on SimHQ Doggles. Very informative, but I do have some follow up questions.

Generally speaking what speed would be good for engaging other aircraft? Should you run when you get below a certain speed or something?

With the 109 you should avoid tight turns preferring wider turns right? So you keep your speed up.

[CaptainDoggles]

Originally Posted by Binnies

I actually did download in pursuit from this forum blackdog but I've yet to read it. I"ll be sure to read it soon. When doing high or low yoyos I should try and maintain speed right? Often when I do them my speeds seems to drop quite a bit (sometimes resulting in a stall even) because I tend to turn quite tight.

A high yo-yo is used to prevent yourself from overshooting. If you're going to overshoot you need to slow down, but simply cutting throttle isn't good from an energy perspective, so what you do is nose up to trade in airspeed for altitude. This slows you down, but allows you to cash in your saved-up altitude for speed at a later point.

A low yo-yo is the opposite; you use it to increase closure on a target. So you dive to gain speed and then end up slowing down at a later point (but closer to your target).

So no, you should not expect to maintain speed in a high or low yo-yo maneuver. If you're stalling at the top of a high yo-yo you're probably either letting yourself get too slow (stop climbing a little sooner) or pulling too tight on the stick (think "graceful"). Possibly both.

Generally speaking what speed would be good for engaging other aircraft? Should you run when you get below a certain speed or something?

When I'm over enemy territory looking for targets I tend to cruise in the 350-450 km/h range. It's about finding a balance. If you're too fast you'll overspeed if you try to dive on a bandit below you. If you're too slow you might get caught by a higher or co-altitude enemy that you didn't spot.

During combat I'm usually too preoccupied with keeping my eyes on the bandit to have more than a vague idea of how fast I'm going, really only looking at the airspeed indicator when I get slow, to make sure I'm at best climb speed or best turn speed.

Sadly there is no magic speed under which you should disengage and above which you are safe. Air combat is highly highly situational so there's no one-size-fits-all answer. Rather than disengaging when you get to a certain speed, think of it in terms of having or not having the advantage. Fight like a wuss: if you lose the advantage it's time to retreat. Only people eager to be shot down engage on even terms.

If you read that post of mine I linked to I talk a lot about doing sustained climbs; those are usually at 200-250 km/h IAS which is pretty slow. But when I'm performing those maneuvers and using that tactic my mental state is one of being on the attack, not on defense. I'm above my prey, patiently biding my time until conditions are right to strike.

With the 109 you should avoid tight turns preferring wider turns right? So you keep your speed up.

Sometimes a tight turn is called for if it'll get you the firing opportunity or get you out of somebody's sights, but generally speaking yes you should prefer wide, fast turns because the more G's you pull the more induced drag you develop, and therefore the more energy you burn.

What you don't want to do is get into a flat turning contest with the RAF fighters. The Spitfire and Hurricane both turn very well in the horizontal plane, so why play the other guy's game? Make him play yours and fight in the vertical.