Air-to-ground AI marksmanship and WWI

[Avimimus]

Air-to-Ground gunnery is substantially easier than Anti-Aircraft gunnery. There are two major reasons for this:

 

1) Ground targets don't move (or if they do - it is very slowly compared to aircraft)

 

2) Impacts against the ground make ranging easier. Instead of bullets flying past the area of the target, they get stopped at approximately the correct range. Tracers vanish and puffs of smoke show the position of impacts at the approximate distance of the target. So one can "walk" the gunfire over to the target much more easily. (In contrast, it is often hard to tell the exact moment a tracer flies through the air past a target.)

 

This has been known for years. In fact tests as early as 1912 have shown that it is easier to achieve accuracy firing at a ground target then firing at an air target.

 

This is obviously less of an issue for the WWII simulators. The main loser is the He-111H6 with its two forward firing 20mm Mg-FF guns being ineffective in their suppression and trainbusting roles.

 

However, for WWI aircraft the role of the gunner in strafing ground targets is a major part of their offensive capability!

 

In Rise of Flight I made a mod changing the front gunners of aircraft to have custom AI settings, and tweaking gunner AI overall to improve their effectiveness against ground targets. But in Flying Circus I suspect this should be addressed by the developers.