dogfighting skills

[Sniper450]

they suck!!! help...tips advice direction....i need help!

[HunterICX]

There are no realy skills in dogfighting, the only thing you have to do is use your aircraft's advantages well.

lets say a 109 is a B & Z (''Boom & Zoom'') aircraft, his biggest disadvantage is the ''loss of speed'' which happens when you start to turn fight, losing the speed in a 109 means the lose of your advantage in the fight.

so YOU never go in a full turn fight with something like a Spitfire.
what you do, have the advantage of higher altitude.
spot the enemy (IE Spitfire)
dive in a nice clean angle to catch him up his Six O'clock gaining a lot of speed, when close give it a full burst and break off back to higher altitude so a wingmen or other enemy aircraft cant have a shot at YOU.

Now if he happens to turn, you can go with him but DO NOT make a full turn just try to follow him with the gunsight and perhaps you will have to practice deflective shooting to shoot him out of the air while in a turn.

when the turn is too sharp and you start to lose a lot of speed break the attack and climb back to safety and spot him again and repeat the attack.

HunterICX

[Dowly]

If you fare well against the Ace AI, you most likely will still get your butt kicked online. AI does the same tricks over and over again, one of the most predictable AIs I've seen.

And keep the following quote in your mind: "Speed is life" :up:

And as Hunter already said, know your plane & know the enemy. There's no one tactic for all planes. Some are good in turn fights but have too slow climbrate for vertical fights, some (190 & P51 to name some) rely heavily on speed.

Just keep practising. ;)

[CCIP]

Yea, to put it simply - it basically comes down to energy management skills more than anything, and to manage your energy effectively you need to know your aircraft's individual quirks as much as possible. The best way to do that would be to pick one plane and learn it as well as you can before moving on to other ones. That way you learn what to look out for.

By comparison to energy management, gunnery in dogfighting is pretty easy - outside of learning deflection shooting, what to aim for, and how to not spray or shoot from useless distances, it's all mostly luck anyway :p

At one point I got pretty good at dogfighting in an F-16 (yes, even with guns only), but I'm equally useless with both a 109 and a Spitfire :D

[Sniper450]

is there someplace online that will tell me pluses and minuses of each plane. Who is good in a vertical fight an who is good at a turning fight..etc?

[Dowly]

is there someplace online that will tell me pluses and minuses of each plane. Who is good in a vertical fight an who is good at a turning fight..etc?

There's an .PDF file in your IL2 1946's folder called 'Aircraft Guide.pdf". It lists advantages & disadvantages for every flyable plane.

[Happy Times]

Some good advice here also.

http://www.virtualpilots.fi/hist/WW2History-CaptainWindsAirCombatTacticsLecture.html

[Dowly]

Dont forget this one (for the 109 pilots): ;)
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/articles/109myths/

[iambecomelife]

Dont forget this one (for the 109 pilots): ;)
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/articles/109myths/

I remember my '109 from my IL-2 days - she was a such a twitchy, neurotic little psycho. :rotfl: Her hobby? Piledriving me into the runway whenever I tried to take off (okay, maybe it was my fault!) At least armament & maneuverability were good. :smug:

[Dowly]

Dont forget this one (for the 109 pilots): ;)
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/articles/109myths/
I remember my '109 from my IL-2 days - she was a such a twitchy, neurotic little psycho. :rotfl: Her hobby? Piledriving me into the runway whenever I tried to take off (okay, maybe it was my fault!) At least armament & maneuverability were good. :smug:

If you think IL2's 109 is bad in take offs, try the Shockwave's 109E addon for FSX! If you dont add rudder, the fecka starts spinning around. :rotfl: