Fee Gunner Help!

[Majpalmer]

I tried the gunner's position in an Fee. I can switch back and forth from the pilot to the gunner. But how do I get the gunner to man the MG that's facing back over the top wing? I can see the gun. I know they fire at me all the time. But how do I get there?

 

Thanks.

[PaulTheSalty]

Try Change Firing Position key map

[Stonehouse]

 

16 minutes ago, Majpalmer said:

I tried the gunner's position in an Fee. I can switch back and forth from the pilot to the gunner. But how do I get the gunner to man the MG that's facing back over the top wing? I can see the gun. I know they fire at me all the time. But how do I get there?

 

Thanks.

Not sure you can. The Fe2b is a weird one. The aircraft definition has two turrets defined both with a bot but the info.txt file for the aircraft only has 1 occupiable slot. 

Not sure if it is still a thing but at one point there was a bug reported that if you killed the gunner a new one would spawn due to there being 2 turrets each with a bot (and its own life points) in the same physical space. I might be able to mod in a second occupiable position but I don't know how it would look in game. Probably it would seem like both guns are manned at the same time (which is not right) if you had humans in them - bit like a crew of 3 instead of 2.

 

See below, you occupy the position of BotGunner_FE2b_RAF17.txt and the rear facing gun is bot BotGunner_FE2b_M_RAF17.txt.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2024 by Stonehouse

[PaulTheSalty]

Without a doubt you can man and fire the rear gun. I'm not looking at the game now, but it is the same key binding that allows you to switch between the ventral gun on the underside of the Gotha and the more common dorsal gun on top of the aircraft when stationed as the rear gunner. There are several aircraft that use this in gamer feature. I believe it is also found on HP and HE111.

[Stonehouse]

Afraid not in this case. You can only switch to stations that have been defined in info.txt for the aircraft plus the pilot position. To be absolutely sure I have just checked in game, and you can only switch between the nose gunner and the pilot slot in the Fe2B. This is the same for all aircraft in game ie can switch only to defined stations.

 

When I added the 2nd pilot position to the C47, Li2, Ju88C6, Ju52, A20B and Mosquito as part of the AI Gunnery mod I had to add additional station definitions to the appropriate info.txt file so you could occupy that position. As I said I believe I could mod the Fe2B so that the rear gun was an occupiable station but I'm not sure how it would look in game. Especially as it would allow 3 humans to crew the aircraft in MP.

Edited March 9, 2024 by Stonehouse

[Majpalmer]

That sucks!

 

Thanks. 

[PaulTheSalty]

Stonehouse, you can fire the rear gun on the FE as the gunner. I have done it. I just opened my game right now and did it again.

 

Starting as the pilot, press the "Switch to 1st firing point" key. Now you're the gunner.

Press the "Change firing position" key. Now you are on the rear facing gun that fires over the top wing.

Press the "Nestle to the gunsight" key to see better.

Edited March 9, 2024 by PaulTheSalty

[Majpalmer]

Paul,

 

Many thanks! I got it to work! 

 

Gunner first, then nestle, then cycle thru different positions until you're over the wing. 

[=IRFC=Gascan]

I'm not sure what was meant by the "gotha's ventral gunner," since the Gotha rear gunner fires through the famous Gotha Tunnel on the Gotha G.V, eliminating the ventral gun of the older Gotha G.IV. Was this in reference to the Handley Page's ventral gunner, which is separate from the rear gunner?

The HP is actually a good example of the controls you want for this. It has a pilot, a forward gunner/bombardier, a rear gunner, and a ventral gunner (historically the rear and ventral gunner were normally a single person, but in game they are two separate people). The rear gunner normally has two possible gun positions: left and right. There is a key to Switch to the Next Free Combat Post (Lctrl + C) that allows you to move between pilot, front gunner, rear gunner, and ventral gunner, then back to pilot. When you are in the rear gunner position, there is a key to Change Firing Position (Lsht + C) that will swap the gun from left to right. On the FE2b, you use Next Free Combat Post to hop into the gunner seat, then Change Firing Position to cycle between left, forward, right, and rear. You can also set keys to Switch to 1st Firing Position, 2nd Firing Position, etc. Every time you change firing position, the gun goes through the animation of moving, and you can't change to the next position until the animation is done. This means that in order to swap from firing on the right side to firing on the left side, you need to go through the rear position, and wait through two animation cycles. By directly switching from one post to the other you can go directly from the left side to the right side without passing through the rear position and only using a single animation cycle.

[Stonehouse]

6 hours ago, PaulTheSalty said:

Stonehouse, you can fire the rear gun on the FE as the gunner. I have done it. I just opened my game right now and did it again.

 

Starting as the pilot, press the "Switch to 1st firing point" key. Now you're the gunner.

Press the "Change firing position" key. Now you are on the rear facing gun that fires over the top wing.

Press the "Nestle to the gunsight" key to see better.

Ok I hadn't realised that there was a difference between firing points and positions. It would seem firing points = defined stations. Firing positions are apparently variants of the point?

 

Happy to be corrected and learn something new. I'll have to try to find out where positions are defined. Maybe in the aircraft def.

 

Thanks.

Edited March 10, 2024 by Stonehouse

[Sayan]

Good afternoon, gentlemen`s.
After a long break, I decided to fly airplanes of the First World War again.
I bought the Flying Circus-1 and started setting it up, but I couldn’t find the setting to raise Lewis, which is installed on the upper wing SE5 etc.
Thanks in advance.

[LukeFF]

4 hours ago, Sayan said:

I bought the Flying Circus-1 and started setting it up, but I couldn’t find the setting to raise Lewis, which is installed on the upper wing SE5 etc.

 

It's the "switch firing position" command.

[PatrickAWlson]

On 3/9/2024 at 7:42 PM, Stonehouse said:

Ok I hadn't realised that there was a difference between firing points and positions. It would seem firing points = defined stations. Firing positions are apparently variants of the point?

 

Happy to be corrected and learn something new. I'll have to try to find out where positions are defined. Maybe in the aircraft def.

 

Thanks.

 

That makes sense as there are several  aircraft where more than one gun is crewed by a single crewman (I think the He-111 is that way too).  If they did not distinguish between crew positions and gun positions you would have a Fee simultaneously firing both of its guns, which would be a neat trick.  I can see the heroic gunner, standing in the tub, arms stretched wide as he handles both MGs  

[Aapje]

[Alfred_Tupper]

Are there any top tips on how to get the gunner to do his job? He seems to have had too much coffee at breakfast, and seems too keen to jump into the rear facing position even when I am lined up on an enemy plane for him to shoot with the front gun.

[=IRFC=Gascan]

I sometimes hop into the gunner seat myself and fly with one hand while gunning with the other hand. Its a lot easier in the Fee (and the front gunner for the Gotha and Handley Page) since you're normally facing forward, but its possible with any plane that has a gunner. I have definitely won dogfights with the DH-4 by flying from the back seat with the gunner facing forward and firing over the top wing. Much better visibility than the pilot, and I can get gun on target without pulling as much lead as I would need for the regular guns.

[ATAG_Ezzie]

Hi Alfred,

 

The only way to get the gunner to do his job is for you to do it for him, like Gascan said.  Takes practice but it should become easy eventually and depending on what aircraft u fly you can figure out an approach that works for you.  I flew the Bristol for several years doing my own gunning (after many years doing likewise online in the 110 in Cliffs of Dover) and it was good fun and satisfying when it worked.

 

The hard thing to figure out - for me at least - was when to go into the gunner's seat during a dogfight.  Go too early and you are giving up some of the Bristol's good fwd firing gun fighter performance especially when fast with energy.  Go too late and you are a slow, low energy sitting duck if the enemy has gotten too close.  Finding the sweet spot is hard - at least for me it was.  

 

You are very vulnerable sitting in the rear seat so may die a lot especially if you have left it too late...

 

Ezzie

Edited January 4 by ATAG_Ezzie

[Alfred_Tupper]

Cheers chaps - I couldn't find anything with the AI controls to improve his behaviour; I even put him on decaff and made sure he didn't eat sweets before we flew.

 

So I guess the next step is to fight as my own gunner. If you two chaps don't know of any other answer, then there is no other answer!

[ATAG_Ezzie]

Good luck Alfred - hope it goes well and you have fun.

 

A few things that worked for me that you might find useful

 

a. Assign gunner controls to buttons on your hotas (if you have one) so you can very quickly move between pilot and gunner stations

b. record your sorties and look at your fall of shot to see how good your aiming is - adjust accordingly

c. open fire at around 500 m and fire in short bursts initially - by doing (b) you will get an idea of how much lead/elevation you need at that range

d. watch some of the ww2 USAAF and RAF instructional videos on gunnery - surprisingly useful esp re where to place your gun sight relative to the enemy aircraft depending on where the enemy aircraft is relative to your tail and velocity vector

e. Be persistent/patient and realise it takes time, skill and some luck to become good at it.  But when you do get the hang of it you will be able to use the rear gun effectively and it adds another tool to your armoury and you will surprise some players (if you play online) who assume you are using the bot rear gunner and offer you nice easy shots at your rear six.

 

I think i read somewhere that the top Bristol ace of WW1 had 32 kills (a Canadian i think) but note sure how many of these were due to his rear gunner.  So the Bristol - as one example - can be very competitive if the rear gunner is competent.

 

Good luck

 

Ezzie