Frustrating.

[Lusekofte]

There is a reason for development. G6 was there because in Germans mind they did not need further development. (I am talking about mindset before G6) They was going to Winn before that need was essential. G6 was stressing the 109 airframe to the max   What it gained by it evolution something was lost from initial design. I16 was due to Stalin longer in service than it should. He liked that plane, he disliked the designers and it was dangerous suggesting stuff for him. 
However, Soviet had a remarkable speed in building a factory and start producing stuff once a design was approved, I think only USA could beat them in that

[Dragon1-1]

Even with Stalin's support, an I-16 wouldn't be facing the G6 IRL, unless something had gone terribly wrong. They weren't in frontline service by the time G6 had come around. Ironically, one reason the I-180 (an evolved I-16 that could have kept pace with the 109) was that the Soviets were fascinated by the 109, with its liquid cooled engine, and tried to imitate it.

 

 

[oc2209]

9 hours ago, Irishratticus72 said:

Nope, he just extends, and no matter how hard I beat the old beast, she just won't go any faster. Neither will the I-16.

 

Okay, here's another example:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Your gunnery doesn't have to be perfect; mine certainly isn't. I twitch a lot with the I-16 because it's unstable and it scares me a little; reminds me of a gun with a lot of kick, in that I twitch in anticipation of the plane twitching.

 

Anyway, please humor me and set up the fight like so: 300m starting alt for both of you, head to head. Cut both fuel loads to around 50%. The key to getting the AI to act a certain way, is to move aggressively on it, which likely elicits different behaviors from it than if you were to be less aggressive.

 

After you merge the first time, and he (probably) leaves you in the dust, cut your throttle/boost (I always do this to not waste the precious timer, regardless of what plane I'm in) and turn away from him. Then lure him back as I did. You can see that by going vertical on him, I likely triggered the AI's 'enter turn mode' behavior. And the rest is self-evident.

 

Also, max throttle/boost before entering any vertical maneuvers. I mean, if it's easier not to fiddle with it, just leave it on max the whole fight. But in that case, you'd better get things done quickly.

[Irishratticus72]

47 minutes ago, oc2209 said:

 

Okay, here's another example:

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Your gunnery doesn't have to be perfect; mine certainly isn't. I twitch a lot with the I-16 because it's unstable and it scares me a little; reminds me of a gun with a lot of kick, in that I twitch in anticipation of the plane twitching.

 

Anyway, please humor me and set up the fight like so: 300m starting alt for both of you, head to head. Cut both fuel loads to around 50%. The key to getting the AI to act a certain way, is to move aggressively on it, which likely elicits different behaviors from it than if you were to be less aggressive.

 

After you merge the first time, and he (probably) leaves you in the dust, cut your throttle/boost (I always do this to not waste the precious timer, regardless of what plane I'm in) and turn away from him. Then lure him back as I did. You can see that by going vertical on him, I likely triggered the AI's 'enter turn mode' behavior. And the rest is self-evident.

 

Also, max throttle/boost before entering any vertical maneuvers. I mean, if it's easier not to fiddle with it, just leave it on max the whole fight. But in that case, you'd better get things done quickly.

I tend to go "Cole Trickle" every engagement.

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, Irishratticus72 said:

I tend to go "Cole Trickle" every engagement.

 

For a second I thought that was like a son of Dick Trickle I'd never heard of. Google set me straight.

 

But yeah, if you just chase the AI with little variation to your 'move set', it'll respond accordingly. The AI is simultaneously pretty dumb and pretty complex. I can relate.

 

If you give it a proper nudge at a specific time and place (i.e, pulling a very tight turn or loop that puts you in a position where it thinks you're more of a threat, or however it determines such things), then it will be more likely to make mistakes. I find that timing can be extremely critical when coaxing it into certain behaviors; the difference between entering a turn a few seconds sooner or later, etc.

 

It reminds me a bit of 'breaking' the logic of chess computers.

[Aleksander55]

I thought that the AI had been improved by the latest patch. As it hasn't, well, I'm sorry, but I have to say that you have to git gûd in the Donkey, it's pretty OP in terms of player vs AI.

 

AI vs AI it's already outclassed in Battle of Moscow especially by the 109Fs, not helped by bad dogfighting AI; flawed scripting, triggers, routines etc in pilot career; and horrible tactics they use in missions like intercept bombers/attackers.

 

Player vs player I also expect it to be completely helpless against LW fighters flown by pilots who know what they should do.

 

Player vs AI it's pretty OP. 109 G6s? They are nothing. G-14s and K-4s are a better challenge but only in how long they can keep away, not the end result.

 

Of course, if you're using only the 4 Shkas then I can see how a G6 keeps extending away from you after a few hits. They are very weak, unless you're extremely lucky with pilot kils or engine fires you'll get at most 2 kils and maybe damage a 3rd with them.

 

Besides the 20mms Shvaks I also use padlock as I don't have track-Ir or freetrack. I know it could be considered a 'cheat' that makes things much easier so take it into consideration of my negative opinion about the AI.

 

It's very easy to make the AI give up their energy advantadge over you, as PB0_Roll wrote, have them dive on you. The AI in IL-2 Great Battles is nowhere near as able to '360-no-scope-bot' hit you like they were in IL-2 1946. Even the novice AI in 46 was much more lethal in this aspect than the ACE AI in GB. Just dodge at the right time, watch them compress and take a long time to recover. There you go, you'll be a good 1500 to 2000 meters above them.

 

15/20% of flaps is enough to mitigate snaps. If you don't use techno-chat count to 5 to extend and to 7 to retract.

 

Althought it's a pretty good turn fighter it's not as OP against AI as if you were flying a Spitfire, Hurricane or Yak, sometimes you can't simply 'overpower turn' inside an AI 109 with it, sometimes they can keep ahead of you thanks to better power/aerodinamics, especially if you are on a heavier fuel situation than they are (they seem to be able to detect it), so you need to have a little bit of energy/positioning advantadge. Not much is needed, just enough so that when you turn the boost it will have no chance to outrate you.

 

Althought some times you can't 'brute force' outturn a 109 keep in mind that the I-16 rolls as fast as a FW 190, turns at least as good as the best turning 109, and look at the size of it's rudder compared to the plane, it's wearing clown shoes compared to ballerina slippers of the german planes. So in total maneuverability vectors you far outclass them. Learn to use that roll rate together with strong turns and you'll fly circles around the AI making them overshoot you easily all the time, or making them waste all their ammo. It also has pretty good power to weight ratio up to 3000 meters so you can even use the vertical up to that point.

 

Don't over manuever it, maybe you're turning too tight thinking it's the same as a Spit or Yak, it's not. Maybe you're air-braking yourself into a stall. Don't let the speed drop much below ~270km/h until you start getting more confident in extracting crazier maneuvers from the Ishak.

 

You have 5 minutes of boost, that's an eternity. As long as you have it you shouldn't fear any other fighter in a maneuvering dogfight up to 3000 meters. With experience you'll make it last longer.

 

If you're heavier on fuel they may try to spiral climb away from you. Disengage, let them come back, have them dive on you, etc.

 

If they are extending in a straight line, climb. Remember you have a pretty good power to weigh ratio.

 

Practice, practice, practice until you stop spinning/recognize easily when you're getting close to it/can catch or recover easily from it.

 

Get good with it. I encourage you to keep on it. It's very rewarding and fun when you learn to extract maneuverability and performance from it. It's just the sweet spot, not as overpowered in terms of player vs AI as the Spit or Yak, you have to work a bit harder for it which makes kills more rewarding.

[76SQN-Minimayhemtemp]

Probably a bit late here but to provide my thoughts after doing an I-16 career;  when starting to engage a 109 in an I-16 I'll keep speed up and get as low as possible until we start to get into a turn fight and then deploy flaps.  Find this drastically increases turn speed.  Providing you're also not at tree-top level if the enemy starts to tail away you can retract flaps, set boost and chase.  You won't catch them up of course but it'll mean that the gap between you and them when they begin to turn again (or in the AI's case more than likely go straight up and prop hang) you have a couple of seconds to get a burst off.

[Aleksander55]

There's no need to drag AI 109s to ground level to beat them. I assure you if you get good in an I-16 you'll easily beat them up to 4000 meters.

 

 

Duel quick mission, I16 with 77% fuel, one-piece canopy, Shvaks vs 109G6 Late with MW50 and Erla Haube 60% fuel, Ace; at 3000 meters, front to front 3kms away.

 

3 times 109s, not at the same time, one after the other, takes me about 2 minutes per plane.

 

I don't use icons, the replay puts them there by default and I decided to leave them on for better view of distances and closures. I do use padlock and tecno-chat however.

 

 

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Hl2Jb-oeABie4fA3_935stDsPkg3Qq5S

 

Like the video above, 3 times each, except 81% fuel for me and 60% for them to encourage them to make energy maneuvers.

 

I16SHKASvs109G6LATEMW50 and I16SHVAKSvs109G6LATEMW50 - easy prey with Shvaks, a bit more time with Shkas.

 

I16SHKASvs109K4 and I16SHVAKSvs109K4 - the G14s and K4s usually take longer to kill as they brute power away from situations where older models are done for.

 

I16SHVAKSvs190D9 and I16SHKASvs190D9 - the Doras in this sim are weaker than the 109 G14s and K4s. Roughly equivalent to the G6s.

 

I16SHKASvsSPITMK5 and I16SHVAKSvsSPITMK5 - as I expected, this is one hell of a fight. This thing is a monster, like a 109F that turns like a Yak. The 1st time I tried the second one got me in the wing and I was out of the fight. Notice that I give up trying to turn with them many times. Don't lose your patience, don't lose your concentration, don't try the impossible. Disengage, reset and setup the trap again until you get the one turn where you're able to hang with them for a few more seconds enough to damage them. The Merlin sounds *so* good, so freaking scary.

 

All these atempts are easily done the first time, routine, I don't need to practice to get these results (with the exception of the Spitfire).

 

I noticed that all airplanes are much harder to kill themselves by compression into the ground, at least Ace level. In fact it didn't happen even once in this test batch while before the latest patch it was pretty common, something like 5 to 10%. Well done 1C.

 

Bonus:

 

I16vs2XME109E7 and I16vs2XME109F4 - 2 at the same time. The 109E7 continues to be very weak, 2 minutes to get them both.

 

I16vsME262-part1 and I16vsME262-Part2 - The 262 AI got an improvement as well. It was very easy to make it trap itself into an accelerated stall, it doesn't do this anymore and knows to keep it's distance and energy with wide sweeping turns. Took me 20 minutes to get 3 of them. Well done again 1C.

Edited December 1, 2022 by Aleksander55

[IckyATLAS]

The nickname RATA comes from the"rat" and was given by the nationalists during the spanish civil war where the I-16 saw first the heat of battle in hand of the republicans.

There have been many variants and the last one that I know the I-16 Type 28/30 was after all a very respectable fighter. It had an M63 engine (derived from the Wright Cyclone) with a rated at 1200 Hp.  The RATA was one of the lightest fighters of the war. Max speed at sea level was 520 km/hr. It had an armament of two ShVAK 20mm cannons and two ShKAS 7,2 mm machineguns. In a way you had a large engine with four guns.

This latest version was still very light (mass was half the BF109) very maneuverable and admitted it could not compete in speed with the BF109 late versions that could go over 600 km/hr. However, it remained a very respectable and dangerous opponent if the BF109 pilot was a newbie (very often late in the war) and the RATA pilot was an experienced one.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Try that without padlock.  You would have been dead on the first engagement.

[Aleksander55]

10 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

Try that without padlock.  You would have been dead on the first engagement.

 

I play at 1920x1080, like many people I'm completely blind when looking down at the ground, but against the sky I can locate fighters up to 10 kms, fighter formations up to 15kms, maybe more, and bomber formations up to 20kms, maybe more.

 

At any rate I just bought the pieces to build a free track hat, just you wait.?