Congratulations Herbert Schmitz

[Yardstick]

Kerch, Crimea, 2nd October 1943.  Today, Hauptman Herbert Schmitz (handsome chap) a Staffelkapitan with II./JG52 claimed his 1,000 kill, a LaaG 3 shot down over Taman on the Kuban peninsular.  

 

I finished a Moscow campaign a  few weeks ago with 850+ kills and challenged myself to get to 4 figures as I came towards the end of a separate Kuban career with a different pilot.  I started this one about 2.5 years ago and have been playing it on and off since, across various engine updates.  So posting this as a demonstration of single player persistence and stickability rather than any claim to my skills as a fighter pilot. 

 

 

BTW: I would not have been able to complete a single career campaign without a database editor (SQ Lite) to recover the multiple times the career file has been corrupted (probably 10 times for this career alone).  I can imagine this is a major frustration for many single players. 

 

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Yardstick
Formatting

[40plus]

I'll hold the Champaign until he gets 46 more air-kills

[Yardstick]

Knew someone would spot that ?

 

Thought he might have a chance with 6 days left but there are only 2 mission a day now, so might be a bridge too far. 

[40plus]

Yeh, i was being cheeky...Still an impressive performance

[Ram399]

Well this is somewhat uncanny:

Same theater in the same unit and position as well lol.
Except I'm only in June currently.

I will endeavor to reach the vaunted 1,069 kills by the career's end lol.
 

[LLv44_Kanttori]

Yardstick, are you flying with the most realistic (difficult) settings without icons and as an Iron man mode?  If so, then: 

[PatrickAWlson]

Even flying invulnerable with unlimited ammo this takes a certain amount of perseverance  

[jollyjack]

24 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

Even flying invulnerable with unlimited ammo this takes a certain amount of perseverance  

 

The above listing is quite admirable ... Now i just practiced  dogfight; chased a 109 f2 for about 20 minutes hanging on it's tail with an standard i16 (unlimited amno) pumping lead, Moscow map 4.008c. 

 

The darn thang started smoking and slowed down a little alright, but kept on flying. Something is wrong with the damage modelling LoL.

Must have been some UFO i chased. I gave up BTW ...

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by jollyjack

[vonGraf]

3 minutes ago, jollyjack said:

 

The above listing is quite admirable ... Now i just practiced  dogfight; chased a 109 f2 for about 20 minutes hanging on it's tail with an standard i16 (unlimited amno) pumping lead, Moscow map 4.008c. 

 

The darn thang started smoking and slowed down a little alright, but kept on flying. Something is wrong with the damage modelling LoL.

Must have been some UFO i chased. I gave up BTW.

 

 

I tried to shoot a P-40 with my Bf-110 recently and wasted all 4000 MG/360 MK rounds on it. No result, no smoke, nothing..

 

I really had a bad day in terms of aiming/flying. 

[Yardstick]

Full real, autopilot enabled but only used for long mission ingress, difficulty moderate (logic being that if I’m killing the enemy at that rate, then there ain’t going be many aces about), density high (not sure if  that makes any difference to the number of enemy aircraft), full take-off and landings.

 

Don't fly Ironman - but maybe died/captured approx 10 times over the career due to: flak, rear gunners, debris prop strikes and the odd shoot down.

 

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Yardstick
Edit

[oc2209]

Congratulations, Herbert!

 

I'm pretty certain I don't have the willpower to make it to 1,000. And I know your pain regarding career save errors.

 

Here's my longest and best career (note: I've only been playing the game since around May of this year):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I play with full mechanical/physical realism, aside from gun jams being off. I start in the air and frequently (but not always) end in the air; I can take-off and land the 109 blindfolded by now (including while damaged), so I consider it a waste of my time more than a challenge (no offense to people who do like that part of the game). I have no visual aids, no mods. Hard difficulty, sparse ground density.

 

I only choose sorties like intercepts and troop cover. Not escort, not ground attack, and only occasional free hunts.

 

In intercepts, I generally keep my wings clean and give my wingmen the extra guns (because they're awful shots and need them). I tackle the fighters while the AI goes after the bombers/Sturms. Hence my extreme kill bias in fighters. I found the 109-F4 could afford the bulk of wing guns better than the G6; I consider gun pods on the latter nearly suicidal, especially versus new Russian fighters in '43 compared to earlier models.

 

I also avoid taking on bombers because, on hard mode, AI gunners are insanely accurate. Just today I was hit in the belly of my plane (pilot was wounded) because I made the 'mistake' of turning at least 200 meters behind a Sturmovik with a gunner. He hit me at a 90 degree deflection. I thought I was below his firing arc, but evidently not. The funny thing was, I was chasing a fighter and not even trying to approach the Sturm. All my 'medium' plane kills are early model Sturms with no gunners.