Ironman career - how far have you gone?

[Gambit21]

I've always thought "Ironman" should be the option where you can be immortal, rather than the option where you can die.

"Iron Man' is tough, hard to kill, etc right? Oh well....that ship has sailed.

 

 

[Halon]

My best so far is Maxim Kalashnikov who has 20 missions under his belt and made 10 kills. He started on I-16's then the squadron was issued MiG-3s. He's a bit of a malingerer who has spent a lot of time in hospital chatting up nurses. He's still alive but I need to practice with the Mig again before I pick up the campaign again, otherwise I'm likely to get him killed pretty quickly.

[tattywelshie]

9 hours ago, Halon said:

My best so far is Maxim Kalashnikov who has 20 missions under his belt and made 10 kills. He started on I-16's then the squadron was issued MiG-3s. He's a bit of a malingerer who has spent a lot of time in hospital chatting up nurses. He's still alive but I need to practice with the Mig again before I pick up the campaign again, otherwise I'm likely to get him killed pretty quickly.

Love the name, he sounds like the sort of chap who would bag a few huns and then back out into town to do some casual womanising, I like him already!

[dbuile]

I used to play Warbirds in late 90's early 2000's; dropped out for nearly 20 years.  Got the itch again last year... a handful of quick missions to get acclimated, then started a 109 E7 Moscow career, low AI skill, low density.  Managed 150 kills in 139 missions before plowing into the back of a Sturmovik in a high speed pass gone wrong.  Just prior, I hadn't really played for a stretch of months, and boy, you really get rusty quick...

 

Next up, a JU 52 career.  Got shot in the face on the ground by the 4th or 5th mission.  Ya know, if someone's flying a Tante Ju, we're probably not looking for that kind of excitement...

[BladeMeister]

Ironman? No I am an old man. So thankful for turning labels on and off to spy those little sneaky bastards that I would never have seen otherwise! Ironman? We don't need no stinking Ironman!

 

S!Blade<><

[MAJ_Raptor]

17 Missions.   And of all the stupid things to end said career I forgot to put my Landing Gear down... Sigh

[Trooper117]

We've all done it at some stage in our sim flying...

[Lusekofte]

I complained a lot of the lack of complexity in DM 

But one of the cool things like a flat tire is very well modelled here and ended my coop career with 19 missions and 5 kills. 
best ever landing I ever did in a p 51

with flat tire and I skidded in the end sideways and a collapse on one of gears made my pilot die last week

I have to say, not all parameters for survivability is top notch 

[Lusekofte]

Yesterday I sat a new personal record ?

I managed to kill all my career pilots. 
7 of them. Otto Polikov got to greedy ]:

otto von Luse attempted to get over some trees for crash landing his JU 88 ]:

Lusekoskenkorva lawndarted his IL 2 :[
Luse Von Kofte lawndarted his HS 129

etc etc etc

All within 2 hours

two of them have been with me many years ?

[Sowercrowd]

I tried ironman mode on hard settings, but after 5 or 6 tries I gave up.

I think there are still too many career mission generation issues to survive much more than 20-30 missions.

For example, one of the most annoying recurring situations is watching your entire formation being shot down right over your runway.

Especially after long 'Free hunt' patrols with no enemy encounter. AI shows no defense reactions, there isn't even a proper radio alert... just sitting ducks... and you end up having to take on 3-5 Kozhedubs in your own dense ground fire.

That still happens far too often. There may have been updates but I don't recognize much has fixed in this regard.

Quite disappointing to be honest.

[Bando]

Iron man is meant to be hard and as real as possible.
The sim provides poor AI, so dying from friendly AI is a real possibility. It is realistic to assume that "blue to blue" engagements were there, but the shoulder shooting of friendly AI is what gets you killed fast. Furthermore; the enemy AI leaves a lot to desire. The way they fight and fly the different aircraft is pretty unrealistic. The behaviour in battle is unrealistic, the AI in the gunners positions of friendly and enemy aircraft are way off and so on.
So... Iron man is meant to be hard and as real as possible. They succeeded to make it hard, now they need to make it as real as possible.
Maybe they will overhaul the AI some day.

[Hotaru_Ito]

14 hours ago, Bando said:

The sim provides poor AI, so dying from friendly AI is a real possibility. It is realistic to assume that "blue to blue" engagements were there, but the shoulder shooting of friendly AI is what gets you killed fast.

 

It's worth remembering the "Dicta Boelcke:" Only one plane should attack each enemy at a time. The fact that the AI doesn't follow this rule makes it all the more important for us to do so.

 

If a wingman is chasing an enemy, I leave it to them. If I see tracers coming in from behind, I disengage (not least because they occasionally turn out to be ENEMY tracers). Flying this way, I almost never get hit or shot down by wingmen, and if I do it's at least partly my fault for breaking my own rules and letting myself fixate.

 

Which is not to say the AI doesn't need improvement. It's just something I've found helps with staying alive in career mode.

Edited November 10, 2022 by Hotaru_Ito

[2/JG26_rudidlo]

While flying most the attacker careers, enemy AAA is very precise and sooner or later it either got you or your engine.

Never got over 45 days.