Anyone else find IronMan mode much more engaging?

[I./JG52_Woutwocampe]

Its not an ironman career but if it goes well tonight it'll be 20 missions in a row in my Il2 41 career without dying/being captured. Only once I belly landed in a field, no bailouts.

[oc2209]

My Tempest career just ended abruptly and disappointingly. 11th sortie. I'd just scored my 29th victory, and was chasing a Fw-190 whose tail I'd damaged. I was turning after him, and one of my cretinous wingmen flew straight into me as I turned. I saw him coming at me less than a second before impact, tried to push the stick down, but to no avail.

 

The only way this mission would've gone differently, is if I'd downed the 190 instead of damaging him. Then the chase never would've occurred.

[Dutchvdm]

On 2/3/2021 at 9:47 PM, LukeFF said:

 

Yes, this is winter 1941, so it's just straight Hurricane IIBs without anything else. To be fair, my experience is probably not that far off from reality - Soviet pilots were not overly fond of the plane, and Axis pilots had no problems dealing with them. Plus, being armed with only .303s is like chucking hunks of gravel at the enemy and hoping one of those bits lights a spark in the engine and sets it on fire. ? So yeah, it's a tough matchup but one that's rewarding when you finally do get a kill.

 

(My career finally ended around mission 15 when a 20mm cannon round exploded in the cockpit and killed my pilot. I was fumbling for the bailout button on my controller but couldn't press it fast enough). ?

 

I was also baffled about how useless the 303 guns are against most planes. I believe it was already made clear during the Battle of Britain that the standard 8, 303 gun arrangement was not cutting it, but i didn't know it was this bad.

 

Gr M  

[oc2209]

13 minutes ago, I./ZG1_Dutchvdm said:

 

I was also baffled about how useless the 303 guns are against most planes. I believe it was already made clear during the Battle of Britain that the standard 8, 303 gun arrangement was not cutting it, but i didn't know it was this bad.

 

Gr M  

 

I've read accounts of Japanese pilots putting a few hundred .30/7.7mm rounds into Wildcats at close range, to no avail. I mention that in particular because I can imagine a Zero latching on to a lone Wildcat and just hovering behind it, firing away. I do the same in the Hurricane (so long as it has the better engine), but wing-gun convergence limitations essentially negate the advantages of point-blank fire. In a very rare instance, I can saw off an elevator or rudder at close range, if one wing's guns paste my target. Otherwise, you'll typically just shred the wings or under the tail, to no effect and great ammo waste.  

 

I wish we could try out the Spitfire Mk I/II's .303s, as they're spread along the length of the wing and thereby might have slightly more advantageous angles. I'm talking like inches of difference ultimately, but it might help when firing from behind. Mainly I'm thinking of bullets bypassing armor or other obstacles to hit the pilot or engine from extremely oblique angles. Unlikely, but possible.

 

In other news, I started yet another Iron Man career. I'm going to keep cycling through new planes until one sticks. I've so far tried the 109, Fw-190, and Tempest. One thing I will say about Iron Man: it's making me look at cockpit visibility much more seriously than I did before. My latest attempt is a Yak-9 Series 1 career. I must say, I like the rear view. Saved my ass in my first sortie. While the thick armor glass can be hard to see through in low light conditions, I still prefer it to giant blind spots that are common in most planes.

 

I was in the middle of a fight with 109G-2s and Fw-190A-5s, and didn't get hit once. Burned my G-endurance off a few times, but recovered it safely. I'm getting used to being near-missed or hit every sortie, so this was refreshing.

[oc2209]

If you ever want to end your Iron Man run, have dogfights near evening.

 

 

I doubt anyone will be able to find the enemy plane unless they enlarge the screenshot. Needless to say, between the poor visibility, and if I were using the suicidal armored headrest, I'd never see him coming.

 

I went back to a 109 career because my Yak-9 career sortie selection in the Kuban is horrible. They're mostly escorts, which I loathe (unless they're under 20 miles, which happens pretty often in Stalingrad).

[Mandoble]

On 2/3/2021 at 8:53 AM, oc2209 said:

I'm wondering if the AI is especially dangerous with Luftwaffe planes because 109/190 guns and flight characteristics are more suited to AI logic.

Not with all planes, but certainly yes with the A8. I think it is all a matter of armament, AI is generally incredibly bad aiming and even setting up for a dead six attack, but with the A8 this is overcompensated by its tremendous fire power, so, even if they fly as terribly bad as any other AI plane, they actually score kills.

[oc2209]

12 hours ago, Mandoble said:

Not with all planes, but certainly yes with the A8. I think it is all a matter of armament, AI is generally incredibly bad aiming and even setting up for a dead six attack, but with the A8 this is overcompensated by its tremendous fire power, so, even if they fly as terribly bad as any other AI plane, they actually score kills.

 

I just can't say with any certainty. The AI surprises me at times; it's not consistently bad.

 

A recent example: I was in kind of a shaky turn in a 109G-14 in the middle of a dogfight with Spitfires. There were plenty of targets all around besides me. I couldn't quite figure out why I wasn't turning; I thought maybe my wing was damaged. Well, since I wasn't keeping a tight turn, a Spitfire got on me and hit me pretty hard (causing a fuel leak, among other damage) in a very short amount of time. I was out if the fight, had to flee on the deck.

 

I've also been in a few Free Hunts lately where the enemy Spitfire AI scores kills against my flight within the first few seconds of the engagement. Not sure if these are good head on passes or what, but it's alarming.

 

In related news, I found a way to end my Iron Man career with honor:

 

 

My career in Bodenplatte was getting exhausting. I started in Stalingrad, skipped Kuban, and had about 15 sorties in Bodenplatte. The enemy AI was getting tougher (I don't know why, the difficulty setting hadn't changed), I wasn't getting the sorties I wanted anymore (ground attack plane intercepts, my bread and butter for kill farming), my flights were routinely being slaughtered (3-4 deaths per sortie), so...

 

Long story short, I was on my 50th sortie, chasing some Spitfires around. Had shot down one. Another was climbing straight up. I hit full throttle. He fell backwards with flaps out (a move the AI does way too often in my opinion). I was pissed off that I was going to overshoot him. I killed the Spitfire's pilot by slicing my wing directly into his cockpit, then bailed out, and was captured.

 

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have survived the career had I kept going. Being captured by the Western Allies is just about the best ending a German pilot in October '44 could hope for.

 

My final record, before the last sortie:

 

 

I regret not being able to chase diamonds, or fly the K-4, but I just couldn't go on. I think I'll try a Spitfire IM career next. With any luck, I can get the Vickie Cross in half the sorties.