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Air Combat Training
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Training Department
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First a few basic principles and some ideas on how to go about surviving online. Most people just start up, take off and fly straight towards the nearest enemy. As the IL2 world develops you will find more and more that this just leaves you as a smoking hole in the ground. The real answer is to fly IL2, or any other good quality sim, just as it was done by those brave men so many years ago. Fly every mission like it is the only life you have. Do some preparation, learn to fly offline, learn to navigate, look at the map and the placement of the fields, join online missions and watch other pilots from external view, read books like Robert Shaw's bible of ACM 'Air Combat, Tactics and Manouevering'. Most of all fly a lot. We at RAAF IL2 are always glad to help anyone who asks politely.
I will write articles on these topics just as soon as I can but in the mean time the best you will get (and it is way better than anything I could write anyway) is Fighter Training Academy. These boys did it for real so listen up hard Ladies
This is a regular scenario and a common problem in IL2 DFs, especially if I or my friends come in with 109G6 or FW190s. We will have departed a rear airfield and climbed up so high we get nose bleeds. These are marvellous BnZ ships and very hard to beat if flown well. But looking at it from the Yak1 or Yak3 pilots persepective: This is a defenesive scenario and doesn't bode well for the future of your children. What you are really trying to do is either sucker that fool into a mistake or if he ain't no fool then you are desperately clawing onto life while yelling 911 on the radio for help! There are some excellent articles on this very subject and I commend this one in particular. This is straight from the Horses Mouth, no disrespect intended Andy :) The article by 'WORR' is also valuable reading, actually all of the authors here are guns and you don't ever want to meet them H2H online
Andy Bush' wisdom on defensive Turn fighter v High E fighter
I am probably the last guy in the world to offer advice on ACM so I won't :) The very best thing you can do is read and fly a lot. My copy of Robert Shaws 'Fighter Combat, Tactics and Manoeuvring' is in constant use and I have been rereading it for years. In place of any words of wisdom here are a couple of track files and training missions I made. View and ignore 'em is your best bet, you'll make a better target that way. There is a gunnery trainer as well and I would urge you to make sure your A2A gunnery is 1st class as all the fancy tactics and flying in the world are useless if you can't hit a bull in the arse with a bag of wheat!
Zappers Training Missions
Yak3v109 Tactics for IL2v1.2
Unfortunately the AI is not perfect but the general principles of this kind of BFM can be seen here inasmuch as an Energy advantage must be retained at all times. You MUST, if you are to survive, fight with your head. Start the engagement with an assessment of the bandits aircraft type and E state and manoeuvre accordingly. Watch the other guys initial move and decide if he is going for a zoom for E retention and if you can outzoom him or if he has pulled for a turn fight. Lose sight lose the fight is a very true saying. SA is everything to a fighter pilot and Speed is Life. Put these two things together and you are way in front of your average IL2 jock.
1st is a gunnery practice for a pair of Yak9U against 4xJU52s and 4xJU87. It is meant only as an intercept and gunnery trainer. The next two are both flown from the Russian side but one is in a Yak3v109G6AS and the other in a Yak9Uv109G2 to demonstrate the different techniques reqiured when flying a 'turn' fighter against an 'energy' fighter. Bear in mind that these are terms are used in relation to Energy State only. If you are high in your Yak 3 against a low slow FW190 then he is easy meat if you conserve your E and use it to BnZ on him. Ironic isn't it.
In this track I am flying a Yak3 v Bf109 where we start co-altitude, head on at about 12km. IMHO most combats are won by the guy who makes the least mistakes and most 1v1s are won from the first turn anyway. I try and maintain or improve my E level regardless of what aircraft or situation I am in, ie stay at the same height or even climb a little if I have excess speed but NEVER GET SLOW, if you are defensive then stay under the bandit near the ground to take away his turning room and ability to dive on you, this forces him to fight in a flatter plane where his E advantage is not as useful to him. It also bleeds his E advantage.
I have recorded two tracks of a 109G6 E fighting (also called 'Boom n Zoom' or BnZ) against a Yak 3. In both the 109 achieves and holds an Energy advantage throughout the battle allowing it to dictate the fight and simply wait for the other guy to make an error.
In the G6 you would of course use an E (Energy) fight against this highly manoeuvrable opponent, do not be dragged into a low level turning fight with a Yak. An E fight is where you bet your current E state when entering the fight {and your ability to add energy to your airframe} against your opponent. Adding E is achieved in 2 ways: 1st the pure power and acceleration ability of your aircraft = BIG engine and clean airframe and 2nd the reduction of induced drag to an absolute minimum ie don't make unnecessary or large control inputs, be gentle, coax the aeroplane into the desired attitude. An E fight is a mathematicians fight. Right from the start of this track I am adding E to my airframe by climbing and using max available power and minimum drag. So at the start of this track you will see me do exactly that. WEP, Radiator closed and climb at the Best Rate of Climb speed, which in the 109 I believe to be about 270km/h. On sighting the bandit I choose a moment when I think at my best acceleration rate I will be doing close to my max manoeuvring speed at the end of a shallow dive, for me this is about 5500M lateral separation. I push over gently and unload the airframe (zero G) and accelerate as quickly as possible, aiming just below the bandit. At a range that will see me vertical exactly OVER the top of the bandit I start a GENTLE (min drag), pull-up to the vertical. Rolling gently to keep him in sight and continue the climb until you see you are pulling away (range is increasing) and you are at quite a low speed, for me about 80km/h is ideal for a stall turn or 120km/h for a pull over the top in a gentle loop. Because his first manoeuvre was to pull up directly under me I use a loop to give me some additional lateral separation.This is so I can get my aircraft closer to horizontal from my dive as I get to gun range. I can see that I will get a shot on the first pass if he pulls up and by being further away laterally I will see him in plan view (looking straight down through his canopy) when he is roughly vertical. This is one of my favourite ways to kill things, just as it was used in RL. Shooting from the 6 may appear easier as the target tends to stay in the sight picture but a fighter is pretty small from bum-on. I am a bad shot at the best of times so a plan view gives me the biggest target to aim at possible, this is also sure to get a lot of damage if you do manage to get a few rounds home. Sure enough he pulls up as I dive on his six and the rest is up to your gunnery, I am usually a lousy shot as you can see. After the pass I pull gently in a spiral climb to keep him in sight and reduce the deck angle to maintain about Best Rate of Climb speed until I am in a position to dive again. Fortunately he is already very frightened :) so I wait for the right moment and head down again, note I do not close eth throttle at any stage. Sure enough with sufficient patience, and a lack of that is what kills a lot of people, he makes a mistake and present me an easy kill. In an online game I would probably let this guy go rather than waste E going down after him again, it would depend on other immediate threats in the area. As always, if you fly like you would in RL then you will do well in IL2, it demands that sort of fidelity. No way I would follow this guy down in an online DF, let the rest of the online Hyenas chew his carcass and you will live to fight another day.