Request tacticle help for USN planes

[horseback]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

I see how your statements could be percieved as racism, but I don't think they were.
But I fail to see how the averagely bigger, stronger pilot necessarily has an advantage over the smaller one. He MAY have, but if the construction of the cockpit is optimised for the smaller pilot he MAY even be at a disadvantage. We would have to put two or more test candidates into a Zero pit and see what stick force they could exert to be absolutely sure.
And even then I don't see the point - there are many other abilities that I'd like to see in a fighter pilot before considering physical ability, e.g. eyesight, advanced combat maneuvres, team tactics, marksmanship.
Just imagine that the all the rookie Japanese fighter pilots in 1943 would look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his best days - but still have the same lack of training - would they have done any better?
And then imagine they all had top notch eyesight and 5000h of training - they could have looked like Homer Simpson and still would have had an impact.
A certain level of physical fitness is needed though, a fat astmathic will never be a fine fighter pilot - no matter how keen his eyesight is.

And I'm glad IL2 does not model different countries pilots differently - that would just open a can of very slimy worms.
Could be interesting to randomly have different pilot models - as selectable difficulty option -and the AI would be affected, too.

That wasn't my complaint-American test pilots had the same issues in captured Zeros at those speeds and made it part of their reports; that's how Allied fighter pilots knew what to look for. I merely mentioned in passing that if it was harder to roll for a fit, healthy guy, it would be that much tougher on a guy 30% smaller who was at a frontline base in Rabaul or New Guinea and had been missing a few meals of late.

Fighter pilots in WWII were generally the cream of the crop in almost all nations; you had to be a near perfect specimen before you even entered training, and if you weren't bright enough to pass the the classes and capable of accepting military discipline, you were washed out before you ever got into a cockpit. That shouldgo without saying.

We are moving far afield from the original issue; the real-life fact that the Zero’s maneuverability dropped off at higher speeds due to increasingly high stick forces as speeds went further past 200 kts indicated. It dropped off so much that the phenomenon became quickly recognizable to experienced Allied pilots, who then were able to exploit that weakness by keeping their speed above 200kts/225mph. It was not a matter of ‘greater strength’ in Western pilots because Western pilots who tested captured Zeros all noted the same high stick forces and also could not achieve the kind of precise or tight maneuvers in it at the higher speeds that it demonstrated at speeds just a few knots slower. It was a matter of Allied designs having lighter ailerons at higher speeds, because Western design philosophy placed a higher premium on speed and firepower than on low speed turn and climb/acceleration.

If the AI pilots all have the ‘same’ strength AND the high stick forces were part of the A6M series’ FM, one could reasonably expect the Zeros’ high G maneuvering to drop off at higher speeds and their recovery from dives to be mainly in a straight line until their excess speed was burned off. But they don’t, just as AI gunners in some planes are much more accurate than AI gunners in other aircraft for reasons unknown. In an offline campaign, it is that much harder to use the tactics used successfully in real life when your AI wingman bugs off and the AI aircraft you are fighting don’t exhibit the sort of limitations that the aircraft that they are supposed to be modeled on had.

cheers

horseback

[MaxGunz]

I read about conditions at Guadalcanal for the Marine pilots there. Malaria being rife and you kept flying until you couldn't get in the plane. Not being able to get a night's sleep often due to air raids. And yes, missing the occasional meal as well as going up in planes with unfixed gigs that occasionally amounted to crash on or soon after takeoff with the lucky ones only having to turn back. It was very bad for the Marines from the start and well into it at Henderson Field.

But their stick roll forces were not so great at high speed.

I think that the difference came when tactics that took advantage of such margins were put into operation, same as with the AVG & the 14th Air Corps and that those tactics were in play before Guadalcanal was taken.

Those tactics allowed the US pilots to decline close-in dogfighting and win.

One thing about planes with great low speed turning ability is that it's not great at mid speed and loses out before things get really fast. I've taken advantage of that in many sims online and off just through tactics. Taking the faster, less turn easy plane and flying fast large half-vertical egg-shapes I've been able to hit the slow movers and be gone.
Any that did have speed up were generally not able to follow and get lead enough to shoot. They could fly inside my great circle but still losing lap after lap while almost all the time I held the initiative. When I'd get to the top well above them I could hold up there if it even looked like the sucker might get a shot timed and drop down behind him in seconds. When I was roaring along the bottom I had enough smash to alter course a good 10-15 degrees quickly without much slowing and be in a very different part of the sky than my path had been headed rather more quickly than my slower moving adversary could respond to. I could roll onto a new heading at any time and had the speed to make something real of it while my slower enemy had less of all that including the ability to turn at the speed he was forced to fly. His ability to use initiative was almost nil.

Of course if I hadn't been able to shoot deflection well, it wouldn't have meant so much. That's why I think there are so few good energy fighters. You have to get past needing to sit on someone's tail and pepper them from close in to energy fight.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

That's why I think there are so few good energy fighters. You have to get past needing to sit on someone's tail and pepper them from close in to energy fight.

All good stuff Max but I wanted to highlight that. Quote for truth!

Energy fighting doesn't involve that sitting on the tail tactic at all... and that's a mistake that a lot of pilots make. The aim is to shoot to kill in the first burst and if you miss then you start over again.

With a Wildcat or a Corsair you may not obliterate the Zero but you can aim for his wing, a rather large target on a Zero, and either cripple his ability to turn fight or de-wing them and score the kill. If aimed well at a good deflection angle... you can cripple or de-wing with a quick burst from the guns. All it takes.

And if you miss... then you re-position. It's not a rally race.

[MaxGunz]

Originally Posted by IceFire

All good stuff Max but I wanted to highlight that. Quote for truth!

Energy fighting doesn't involve that sitting on the tail tactic at all... and that's a mistake that a lot of pilots make. The aim is to shoot to kill in the first burst and if you miss then you start over again.

With a Wildcat or a Corsair you may not obliterate the Zero but you can aim for his wing, a rather large target on a Zero, and either cripple his ability to turn fight or de-wing them and score the kill. If aimed well at a good deflection angle... you can cripple or de-wing with a quick burst from the guns. All it takes.

And if you miss... then you re-position. It's not a rally race.

I see some problems with getting on the tail, closing in and shooting:

1) in IL2 structure = armor. Tail wheel assemblies can soak a lot of hits and that's not the only hard to destroy pieces depending on the plane.

2) to stay behind the target's six you have to be co-speed and co-alt. If you can maneuver quicker and harder at that speed/alt then you're at a disadvantage.

3) on someone's tail and closer than 200m, every jink they make displaces them wide from your sights.

I like to come in from one side. If they turn away then they become an easy shot, if they turn into me then I have a harder shot but nose and cockpit stand out, a longer burst generally gets some oblique hits on thin to no armor or IL-2 bullet sponge parts.

I learned the one-side approach from reading Hartmann, BTW. I think that he showed it is better to be a aerial hunter than an aerial fighter.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by horseback

If the AI pilots all have the ‘same’ strength AND the high stick forces were part of the A6M series’ FM, one could reasonably expect the Zeros’ high G maneuvering to drop off at higher speeds and their recovery from dives to be mainly in a straight line until their excess speed was burned off. But they don’t, just as AI gunners in some planes are much more accurate than AI gunners in other aircraft for reasons unknown. In an offline campaign, it is that much harder to use the tactics used successfully in real life when your AI wingman bugs off and the AI aircraft you are fighting don’t exhibit the sort of limitations that the aircraft that they are supposed to be modeled on had.

cheers

horseback

Haven't flown the A6M in a long time, but against it in P-39/40/F4F as long as the fight is fast, my roll rate exceeds or is close enough to theirs. Only when closing speed is high, that is A6M very slow, then I cannot follow -but its difficult to say if its better maneuverability or the big speed gap.