Ground attack tips, IL-2 Sturmovik?

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Laurwin

I have noticed though, that sometimes you can even kill panzerIIIs from behind with the 23mm cannons, on regular sturmoviks. I wonder if you can also kill panzerIV ?

What about side sector shots?

Yes Panzer4 AFVs can be killed with 23mmVYa, you need to make a steep approach and hit the motor deck. Needs a little practice, the pullout has to be late to get penetrating hits - with the risk of crashing becoming a real risk.(Sidenote:It is even possible to get Panzer 3s shot out with 20mm Hispanos, but all planes that carry them in a nice arrangement and with lots of ammo(Beau, Mossie) require some work to make a sucessful pullout)

[Laurwin]

Whats the best tactic for effective rocket attacks with IL2, against German tanks, lets say pzIV?

Realistic rocket spread, phew I have a hard time hitting anything, with 300m rocket convergence, 10sec delay.

And difficulty with rocket hitting, is with these formations of four tanks, mobile. My best results against four moving panzers, is when I use dive bombing with low alt bombs, bombing along the predicted path which the stupid ground AI drives the tanks over With 10sec delay, it's no problem getting 1-2 tank kills this way dive bombing with longer delays, but accurate low level bombing.

Flak 88mm I prefer to kill with either high angle dive bombs, about 60deg, low alt bombs. One drop is usually good enough to kill it.

With rockets, I can also kill flak 88mm, when I make high angle rocket attack, with two salvoes of rockets, usually converging nicely on top of the gun, within maybe 10m circle of the gun itself.

It's just that rocket attacks against mobile groups, or mobile single tanks seem a lot more difficult with these crazy rocket spreads

[TinyTim]

Drag'n'Bag the flak. Seriously, that's the most effective tactics by far. Flak usually starts firing at the closest plane - this one should not engage the flak and only drag its fire away while the rest of the wing neutralizes the distracted flak.

Of course trying to do this solo is like flying a single 109 vs 8 spits and asking for best tactics to win.

[Laurwin]

Originally Posted by TinyTim

Drag'n'Bag the flak. Seriously, that's the most effective tactics by far. Flak usually starts firing at the closest plane - this one should not engage the flak and only drag its fire away while the rest of the wing neutralizes the distracted flak.

Of course trying to do this solo is like flying a single 109 vs 8 spits and asking for best tactics to win.

AI is too cowardly to attack flak, or even to drag their attention flying through, to the target area.

I don't understand how sometimes you're supposed to attack these enemy bases. The AI is too cowardly, and most of the time they "glide bomb" with mathematical precision, from high altitude - far away, with their dive bombers or fighter bombers.

You order them to strafe these flak guns, so that the mission can be fulfilled (ground airplanes destroyed, vehicles destroyed etc...) but they refuse order and fly home! So, yes this happens in vanilla campaigns more or less.

But I suppose you could just go with the formation and get a few ground kills, better than nothing.

[TinyTim]

Maybe so, I'm so much more used to online flying, and there DnB-ing flak (assuming there's not to much of it) works pretty well. Basically whenever AAA shoots at someone, everyone but him should attack the AAA.

Whats the best tactic for effective rocket attacks with IL2, against German tanks, lets say pzIV?

Yes, rockets are hopelessly inaccurate in latest patches. Still, you can put them to good use in antitank role. Here's what I do - I set convergence at 100m, approach the tank from the side (in order to make the taget as big as possible), aim at the very top or even very slightly above the tank, come in as close as you dare and fire. Despite the rocket spread the tank is now such a big target that it's hard to miss this way. The bigger the target the easier to hit. Elefants for example you simply can't miss. Just keep in mind that BRS rockets descend a bit, so you have to aim high.

(Using the ROFS [fragmentation] rockets instead of BRS this way is very dangerous since you're very close to where they explode and you usually receive damage too!)