Tough bf110 mission

[flagdjmetcher]

I just had a career mission in BoM in the bf110 E-2.  It was an "Intercept ground attackers" mission.  I was #4 in a flight of four.  Difficulty mode was "easy".

 

We approached the target area at 500m.  When we got there, there were half a dozen IL-2's doing attack runs, and at least four MiG-3's flying escort.  Might have been more escorts, but  definitely had four at once in my sight picture at various times.

 

I had to retry this mission seven times, and even then arrived home shot up and barely landable without having done much to interrupt the ground attack. 

 

I tried a bunch of different approaches:

 

1. Sticking to my flight leader.  I chased MiGs off his tail a bunch of times.  Unfortunately he didn't return the favour.  I had a bit of success turning across the nose of other 110s and using them to scrape a MiG off my tail, but that was highly situational.  I certainly couldn't master the art (if there is one) of staying tight with my Rotte while also maneuvring defensively.

2. Going hard after the IL-2's.   Predictable outcome.  Bounced by the escort every time.

3. Going hard after the MiG's.   Pretty difficult with worse speed, climb and turn.  I would have to be much, much better at long-range deflection shooting to pull this off.  I did miraculously land some hits on the MiGs, but nothing that appeared to affect them at all.

4. Leaving my flight and going high before the target area, then attempting to BnZ.  This was better.  My high speed deflection shooting is so bad it was also completely ineffective, but that's just a skill issue.  However, eventually a MiG decided to climb up and get me, and that was me done.

 

So what to do?

First up, I think we never should have engaged from low level.  We should never even have approached the area from the level we did.

Second, I think we shouldn't have engaged at all.   We were clearly badly outmatched.  The escort fighters were just flying rings around us. OK, this is war, Germany expects every man etc, so maybe we could have done at most one or two BnZ passes starting from up high to see if we could break up the IL-2's and bag a couple.  But then we should have disengaged.

Third of course would be nice if my flightmates would watch my six.

 

But that's all AI behaviour beyond my control, and this isn't supposed to be an AI whinge thread.  I actually think the AI is bloody amazing even while being somewhat terrible at times.  I can't even imagine how hard it is to get something like that right.   More importantly, what personally could I have done better?

 

1. Turn around, go home and fail the mission (can you get shot for cowardice in career mode?)

2. Stick to my solo BnZ plan, but bug out after a couple of passes?

3. Just keep repeating the mission until I survive by luck?

4. Do <I don't know what> better?

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by flagdjmetcher

[Lusekofte]

When your deeply need cover from your buddy ai is weak. 
I find ai to operate Mig’s very professional, 

they can be a handful for anybody, and give you plenty of opportunity to train deflection shooting. It has great acceleration and is hard to dogfight for a 110. 
In missions like that I simply try to survive and  move on, ai is still not your best pal’s. 
If you get them interested in your mates you might get to shoot the attackers, but you loose your squad. Repeating the mission only make you fed up