Frustrating situation with the AI

[Glaurung21]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm new to IL2, I've played a bit of warthunder so I have at least some experience in combat flying, although getting used to cockpit view and using a joystick has been somewhat difficult. Right now I'm flying a lot of 1v1 quick missions to improve my aim and get a grip on the controls (I'm at the point where I'm no longer stalling every time I try to do a tight turn haha ).

 

What's been frustrating me with the AI so far is that, any time I get on the 6 of one of them, their automatic reaction seems to be to initiate a flat turn which they will maintain as long as I'm behind them. Now my aim is already pretty garbage, but when this happens in order to account for the lead the enemy plane will dip below the nose of my plane which means I'm basically shooting at something that I can't see, with no idea if my bullets are hitting (except for these elated moments when I bring down the nose of my plane and see the target smoking) or of what kind of adjustments I need to make.

 

I've had some very frustrating moments where I expend all of my ammo at a single target in this scenario without it going down or even taking any apparent damage, and I'm sure there's a better way of going about this but I don't know what it is. Any tips for how to deal with this kind of maneuver ? Thanks in advance for any help .

[Sketch]

I'm no expert dogfighter, but I can hold my own... (or maybe I can't?)

 

Anyway, there's two ways to handle the ever turning Ai pilots.

1. Get in a better turning plane and simply out rate their rate turns. Generally speaking one or two full circles will beat all levels of Ai pilots in a rate turn with a better rate turn-able plane.
2. A better solution is don't put the pipper on target all the time (a common mistake for newer players... Right up there with "Oh no, an enemy on my six... I must yank back on my stick!") Instead, push lead pursuit. You have to do this by forcing your plane to go downward, and as you come back up, you can tag them. The risk here is that you'll over shoot them, so don't miss! Here's a crappy drawing that I did in 5 minutes:

 

 

 

Enemy is yellow, and doing a horizontal rate turn. You push lead, by nosing downward, giving you energy over turn ability. You come back up as they complete their turn and then bang bang bang... enemy dead. It's basically the low yo yo maneuver. Here's the hi yo yo to give you an idea.... You're doing this in reverse (trading energy for height, instead of height for energy):

 

 

 

Here we go... I fixed the image. ?

 

Edited July 14, 2018 by [TWB]Sketch
Fixed the image haha

[Sketch]

Even better, a video! Sorry, I may or may not have had a few drinks. The idea is there though!

 

 

[Glaurung21]

Thanks a bunch for the long and thorough answer! Much appreciated.