A Good Career Lessson

[fiddlinjim]

After getting shot down too many times and having to repeat my mission several times in order to keep my pilot alive I realized  that I was making a serious misjudgments

in the way I was flying the mission.   What finally dawned on me was that one best stay with his flight and not go off alone trying to get a kill.   When you leave the protection of the 

other fighters you are looking to end up on the ground.

[dburne]

 Bingo!

 

[Rottweiler]

In my FW 190 career my wingmen would always crash before taking off and I would be the only one left for the mission. I learned real quick some cheese strats against fighters and bombers. But my planes were usually riddled with holes when I came back to land.

 

This is why I do air starts now, was tired of having to play so careful.

[[APAF]VR_Spartan85]

Now as a flight you are suppose to stick with your wingman or leader, I would do that up to a point when my whole flight is going for one aircraft... shoulder shooting and crowding each other.. they don’t really hold back if you’re in pursuit.. actually they’ll shoot right through you...been chewed up many times by friendly, but they don’t get executed when we get back... the ai will never learn this way!?!

[seafireliv]

Yah. Sometimes I lose my wingmen, if that happens, I do everything to get back with them. If I can`t and if the mission is too far into enemy terrirtory, I head home. I don`t go into missions alone unless ordered to.

[GSP_Hund]

I've been flying a 190A5 campaign in Kuban and to be honest the AI flight lead & wingmen use stupid tactics that get them killed practically every flight:

 

1.  They fly @ 2k or below to the target and back, just asking to get jumped and overwhelmed only to be shotdown or invite every AAA gun to shoot at you.  I tend to climb to 3-4k and fly to the target and dive @ high speed, this profile lets me avoid most AAA enroute and over the target.  I do occasionally have enemy bandits climb and engage me, so then I dive and extend to escape, that's the luxury of having altitude from the beginning of the mission.  Also, when the bandits do zero in on me it allows my AI mates at lower altitude to proceed onto the target unmolested.

2.  They stay around the target area way too long, I drop my bomb and leave, one-pass-haul-ass strategy.  Sometimes if there are no enemy bandits around I might do one additional strafing pass but that's it, then head home at high speed and low level

3.  When they do stay around the target I see the flight lead flying around with the other wingmen in trail and attempt to strafe additional targets, but only the flight lead shoots and the others just follow him around

4.  AI uses dumb tactics when dogfighting, instead of high speed-extend-reattack which is the 190's bread and butter, I watch them turn and fight with the enemy AI which you all know how that ends up, DEAD AI.

 

On the plus side the enemy AI are good flyers with the exception that they don't use their aircraft's advantage(s) they have with their airframes, they tend to just do semi-tight steady rate turns that allow me on occasion in a 190 to pull lead and blow them away.  I understand that AI has different skill levels distributed within their flights but at times it just seems too easy, perhaps this is a more accurate representation of actual skill levels for most Red pilots during that era?!  The scary part is when 8-10 Reds descend down on our flight and makes things extremely difficult to survive, I mostly out run them and head home, no need try to fight those numbers.   Finally, I never take the U17 strike package and wing bombs, always a SC500 and light weight as possible as I've found the un-armored 190A5 much faster than a armored-boosted strike bird.   Anyway I am enjoying the SP campaigns and the varying degrees of difficulty between each mission.  My option settings are:  Realistic-In air-Moderate-Scattered and Realism on expert.

 

Ok I just flew a mission to attack enemy front line positions/troops, dropped my bomb and our flight was jumped by LA-5s (3), and since the odds were more in our favor I stayed and fought, results were 1x190A5 AI shot down and I destroyed 3xLA-5s.  So it can be done and survive, see results from image below . . .

 

 

Edited June 19, 2018 by II./JG77_Hund