[caldrail]

I've glanced at some of the threads in this section. I'm not going to criticise as such, that wouldn't be positive, but I notice there's a definite theme of if the enemy is doing this then to counter it you should do that. I suppose in a perfect world there is tendency for certain things to work better than others, and in the enviroment of a computer game, the world we're engaging in aerial combat is necessarily limited in scope however accurate it may seem.

I remember a video of a tactical briefing from a modern expert on aerial combat, a jet fighter veteran, and he stressed that There is no fixed response to any given situation

So what do you do? Its all about reaction. First of all, your situational awareness needs to be practised enough so at all times you have a mental image of what is going on around you. Keep a good look ouit, register where things are, what is happening nearby. That helps you adopt a superior position in combat.

Unfortunately, no-one can be aware of everything, and even aces get jumped sometimes. So, you have a situation. An enemy plane on your six. Its no good thinking about what to do. Thinking is too slow. A capable combat pilot needs to react instinctively which requires practice (I'm sure the forum members get plenty of that!)

Your first job then is to avoid being in his line of fire, so an evasive manoever is called for. The trick here is to note where the enemy is coming from. Is he climbing or diving? That will affect how much energy his aeroplane has and whether he can keep up or slow down to stay behind you. Is he turning? If so, his ability to reverse direction might be less than yours. Is your aeroplane faster? Then exploit that advantage. Close the radiator, the cowl flaps, open the throttle, adjust the pitch, dive away and possibly zoom climb later - don't overdo it, there's a possibility of wrecking your chances later if the engine is too hot. There's an excellent example of this sort of thing in I Flew For The Fuhrer by Heinze Knocke, a luftwaffe veteran, who described his attempt to catch a british recconaisance aircraft over the north sea and nearly boiled his engine doing so.

Thats all very well, but if you're the guy being chased, what can you do? Again, its about reaction. His tracer will tell you you're about to be hit, and thats your last warning. Do something. Anything. Just get out of his line fire. Having done that, manoever. Chances are he's moving faster than you, and if you fly in curving path, you will cover less distance than he will, and since you're likely to be at a lower speed anyway, he may well zoom past you and that pusts you in a temporary position to fire at him. But you need to be quick. Again, Knocke relates a situation where he was jumped by a number of american escort fighters over Germany, and shot to pieces, but he took out the leading american plane which zomomed past him and with his aeroplane coming apart and catching fire, Knocke took aim and fired. They both parachuted and ended up chatting to each other on the ground.

Once the reactive phase is over get above him. Height controls the battle, and I've noticed that once you command altitude over your opponent and he's lost enough energy to zoom climb above you, the game AI will turn defensive and lose height. He will eventually go down to ground level, so once behind and above him, stay there. Fly as directly as you can ("Never fly straight and lvel for more than 30 seconds in the combat area" ) - you'll be in a superior position to take him out.

But this brings up another important point. Patience. Whilst we all want to shoot the enemy down, blasting at long distance is just wasting ammo. Close up on him if you can - its very frustrating if his aircraft is faster - and shoot much closer than you want to.

All lot of what I've written here is probably standard canon to you guys - fair enough - but there seems to be a lot of people asking these questions. So then. React - Outwit - Outmanoever. There is no fixed response to a situation, just a pilots ability to turn things around.

[Horton]

I try this- granted I've only been playing 1 week online- but I don't see how I can be in a great fighter such as a P-51 and fall prey to an Il-2 cause I go to break left or right and stall at 300kmh. It gets really annoying. So if someone's on my six, I cut my throttle and jerk up and start swinging my rudder left to right, let him pass me and hope I can get out of my stall in time to come in on him as he passes. Got a few that way, but usually I wind up going down in flames.

Basically, it is helpful if when you react your plane didn't start plummeting to earth like a brick, or you have to make such a wide turn to prevent stalling you have the target appeal of a fresh apple pie on the neighbor's porch when they're not lookin... :wink:

[caldrail]

Yes, I do know what you mean. The problem is that WW2 aeroplanes are none too forgiving in real life more often than not, and IL2 attempts to reproduce those characterisitics. Unfortunately, what I'm aware of as a genuine pilot of limited experience, is that the games force feedback effects just do not give the same impression as that 'seat of the pants' feel. Whilst I like IL2 a lot, in combat I always have stalls&spins turned off. Heresy! There is a reason. Although I prefer a realistic virtual experience all I do is spend ten minutes trying to keep the aircraft flying before I get shot down. Thats not realistic.

I'm reminded of a story of an event that occured toward the end of the war. Two pilots in an RAF tempest squadron got into a competitive dummy dogfight that ended up with both of them turning steeply between tree tops flat out, sweating hard and soiling their underpants. That said, if it was IL2 both would have shock stalled into the ground.

I also understand that reactive flying when you least expect it doesn't always put you in a good position regarding your flight regime, and at low energy states there's always the risk you lose the aeroplane completely. I once did something like that in a virtual SBD and got the most fantastic flat spin you've ever seen on a PC. Couldn't recover at all. Actually - that is realistic, such things did happen, but the sharp edge of IL2's flight model is a bit too severe to feel confident when getting into hi-G manoevers, so understandably its better to turn stalls&spins off and enjoy the game a bit more. Not that it matters, I still get shot down a lot, but at least I've had fun up until that point, and with the stick shaking in your hand you still fell as if you're pulling that aeroplane right on the ragged edge.

Its a valid point you made. Managing energy is a whole lot easier when you've actually got some to start with. Perhaps thats a valid tip?

[stansdds]

I fly strictly from within the confines of the cockpit, usually a Corsair (most often the old F4U-1, commonly referred to as "the bird cage" Corsair) against the Japanese. All realism settings turned on. If I am reacting to an attack, I am a dead man. During a flight I constantly scan the virtual skies for any little speck that might be the enemy. I try to use proper combat tactics of keeping my speed and altitude. I do not try to wrestle U.S. built fighters into steep climbs or tight turns as they were not designed for that type of flying. As often as possible, I maneuver to a position of altitude advantage and dive on my prey. Trying to match Axis fighters in a turning fight is a express ticket to my destruction. Honestly, with all the complaining I hear and all the writings by the real pilots of WW II, I'd say that Il2 isn't that far off from reality.

Now to really get myself flamed here, let me say that I don't have much of a gripe about the 50 caliber machine guns in Il2. The dispersion might be off, but I find that if I set my convergence to 300m and confine my shooting to 300m or less, I get consistent results. 300m is very close to the 1000 yards that the real U.S. pilots tended to prefer as their convergence distance. The 50 cal is a machine gun round, not a cannon round, it does not have magical exploding power, it puts lots of holes in things and might set flammables afire, but takes six rounds of 50 cal in on spot to equal one round of 20mm and that is realistic.

[Horton]

Ah, ye Caldrail, that's one of my guilty pleasures off line is turning off stalls and spins. Especially trying to fly a Finnish Fighter campaign, or something. I've finally got a control set, though, it would appear that I can use with almost any plane. The default settings are really lacking, but I was a new guy and figured that if that's what they start you with that's all you need. Now all I have to do is figure out how to use a dadgummed bombsite!!!

I guess what I don't understand, and I'm in NO WAY implying cheating, just skill, but is how someone in an inferior plane or a lighter plane can outturn me without stalling, or outdive me, respectively. For instance, I had a stroke of luck in a P-40. Pearl Harbor map, I took off with a 250lb bomb and flew to 3000m. Cruised over the Red airfield and saw a Spit just sitting there; I dove in, dropped my bomb, and missed as I half expected too from 1500m. So I hung out, let the guy take off, and swooped in, not too fast to give him half a chance (not too much mind you, he was a high-scorer so I knew in an even dogfight in a P-40 against a Spit I didn't have a chance). I botched my attack, overshot him but I guess hit the cockpit and as I frantically tried to recover it gave me the "enemy plane destroyed" message. Good news, I thought- then I circled to see and saw that he had already respawned and was on his way to get revenge. Uh oh! Using the impetus of my dive I started climbing and making my way to sea to hide in a large cloud bank, and saw him gaining on me; I was doing 290kmh and he must have been doing 300-350. So using the P-40's sole advantage, I nosed over into a dive from 2,000m headed for the deck. Somehow, he out dove the P-40 (at the start of the dive i'd estimate he was ~4km from my 6) in a spitfire and before I knew it tracers were racing over my nose and then my engine was aflame. Jumping out of my plane to bail out, I saw he was now ~.15km from my 6 and flying over me at an alarming rate of speed. I was doing 540 kmh at the time, so he must have been doing almost 600!

Anyways, probably belongs in the AAR section, but just a note on how reaction with used tactics of the time don't always work. My favored tactics at this moment are to wait high and dry until the enemy comes into view hot on the 6 of an allied player, then swoop in and break him off and try to get him before his wingman gets me!

[caldrail]

If you're jumped by an enemy - and how to get out of situations is one of the most asked questions - then reactive tactics is fundamental to your survival. There was at least one RAF pilot who deliberately spun his aeroplane simply to escape getting shot down. Thats interesting, because Knoke refers to the spitfire as being a respected opponent, an aircraft that turns 'infernally tight'.

Now that brings up the point you made about the AI ability. part of the problem with computer games is how much programming of the AI you can tolerate before frame rates start to suffer. Pixels have no imagination, they need a routine written for them to provide an artificial 'mind', and intevitably its very basic. I suspect that the AI pilots use their aeroplanes to the max very quickly, and that any virtual adjustments they're making to their aeroplane are instant and made as if the pilot was automatically aware of the condition of his aeroplane. I run into the same problem. The enemy always manages to outclimb me by hook or by crook, and its so frustrating to watch the distance between you increase as he gets far enough away for another pass. Sometimes I try to entice an opponent down to ground level to tempt him with a turning fight - the AI doesn't cope with that well because it can't zoom climb any more - but the risk there is that you're at ground level already and therefore with fewer options yourself.