Attacking aircraft that have rear gunners

[KodiakJac]

I no longer attack aircraft with rear gunners.  And I know there were some Aces as rear gunners during WWII, but if rear gunners were as accurate in real life during WWI and WWII as they are in IL-2 Great Battles there would have been no need for escort fighters.

 

I know, Wah Wah Wah! 😢

 

But I'm serious.  Done.

 

Edited January 11 by KodiakJac
Clarify Topic Title

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

I did pose the question sometime ago if there was any chance that there could be missions or even a campaign dedicated to air gunners ?

[AEthelraedUnraed]

6 hours ago, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

I did pose the question sometime ago if there was any chance that there could be missions or even a campaign dedicated to air gunners ?

That was my first thought as well upon reading the title

 

But gathering that it means "attacking [aircraft with rear gunners]" rather than "[attacking aircraft] with rear gunners", I found rear gunners quite possible to deal with as long as their AI is set to "low." You'll still get hammered if you attack from dead six, but I don't think there's much wrong with that. Keep your speed up and only manoeuvre into position at the last possible moment, and generally you should be fine.

[kraut1]

10 hours ago, KodiakJac said:

I no longer attack aircraft with rear gunners.  And I know there were some Aces as rear gunners during WWII, but if rear gunners were as accurate in real life during WWI and WWII as they are in IL-2 Great Battles there would have been no need for escort fighters.

 

I know, Wah Wah Wah! 😢

 

But I'm serious.  Done.

I fly in general missions with realistic settings but with comparable low AI settings.

For my Kurland Mod and the FW190-A8 missions the enemy attack planes have mostly low / normal AI levels.

At the ailevel = low gunners are not dangerous enough, to boring.

Because of that I am using a modified AI bot gunner file:

turretcontrollerai.txt

with modified:

 

My modifications are only an example and you don't have to like them.

But for me they are working and everyone can change them individually as required.

And in this file there are much more parameters to influence the gunners' behaviour.

The gunners are still dangerous, especially when attacking from 6 o'clock.

But they are absolutely no snipers:

 

Example attack / gunner return fire at 02:20

 

Edited January 10 by kraut1

[Sandmarken]

I remember that before the AI gunner was nerfed years ago, there was a video of a PE-2 that lost a wing and was spinning. The gunner sniped a Bf 109 pilot with a single bullet while spinning. 😅😅

 

I will try to find it again, shoud be in the forum somewhere! 

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Perhaps the most dangerous aircraft to attack from behind would have to be the Me 410 !  

[KodiakJac]

18 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

But gathering that it means "attacking [aircraft with rear gunners]" rather than "[attacking aircraft] with rear gunners"

 

lol...I can see the confusion!  I meant the former.  I just modified the topic title for better clarity 🙂

 

"I found rear gunners quite possible to deal with as long as their AI is set to low."

 

I will try that.  I never have.  I thought I read a while back that all AI rear gunners were set to "Ace" level without regard to the AI pilot's skill level, so I never bothered to try lowering their AI ratings.

 

Edited January 11 by KodiakJac

[AEthelraedUnraed]

5 hours ago, KodiakJac said:

I will try that.  I never have.  I thought I read a while back that all AI rear gunners were set to "Ace" level without regard to the AI pilot's skill level, so I never bothered to try lowering their AI ratings.

I think you've misunderstood that: the *player* aircraft has any rear gunners set to "Ace" level. Gunners of AI aircraft use the ratings of the pilot.

 

I just set all bombers to low; there's not really much reason to have highly skilled AI bombers anyhow since bombers don't really manoeuvre much.

[Avimimus]

On 1/10/2025 at 2:45 AM, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

I did pose the question sometime ago if there was any chance that there could be missions or even a campaign dedicated to air gunners ?

 

I asked Oleg Maddox this (back before release) - and he said essentially that it is possible to switch to the gunner position for the entire flight, but most players will want more control over what their aircraft does.

 

On 1/10/2025 at 1:17 AM, KodiakJac said:

I no longer attack aircraft with rear gunners.  And I know there were some Aces as rear gunners during WWII, but if rear gunners were as accurate in real life during WWI and WWII as they are in IL-2 Great Battles there would have been no need for escort fighters.

 

I know, Wah Wah Wah! 😢

 

But I'm serious.  Done.

 

FWIW - Most bomber can be safely attacked by side-slipping and firing a burst at an angle of about 20 degrees. There are 'holes' in the AI algorithm that one can find and reliably exploit. Excess accuracy in one area is matched by excess inaccuracy in another... the gunners are a bit overly predictable. You just need to find the way.

 

22 hours ago, kraut1 said:

 

Because of that I am using a modified AI bot gunner file:

turretcontrollerai.txt

with modified:

 

My modifications are only an example and you don't have to like them.

 

 

Back in the Rise of Flight days I created a gunner mod that achieved accuracy/inaccuracy differently than how it is normally done (using more error in velocity estimation, and less error in spatial estimation). At one point I'd almost converted the mod to Great Battles, but I didn't want to interfere with the other gunner AI mod.

 

  

On 1/10/2025 at 9:40 AM, AEthelraedUnraed said:

That was my first thought as well upon reading the title

 

 

Btw. I can't help but suspect that the Defiants would've been quite effective if they'd each been assigned an escorting Spitfire or Hurricane. At least some preliminary tests in Cliffs of Dover seem to suggest that the original doctrine they were designed around might have been viable (i.e. an entire group of Defiants in close formation flying underneath a squadron of enemy bombers and... well... pretending they were Dreadnoughts at Jutland).

[MaxPower]

I always found it pretty safe to attack bombers from the top (in single player).  If you get high above them with them slightly in front of you, you can roll over and then dive.  I usually aim to have my gunsights pass through the wing root between the engine and the fuselage when I'm fairly close.  A side benefit of this attack is that it's impossible to linger behind the target even if you wanted to, so it's hostile to bad habits.  I rarely get hit that way- and if the aircraft has a cannon armament it usually means one bomber down per pass.  On the down-side, it can take some time to re-attack because you have to set up again.  But, if you carry a lot of energy you can usually break contact and then zoom close to where you started.  This of course will work best in an aircraft that has a much higher top speed than the aircraft you're attacking, and the aircraft you're flying doesn't have a propeller you can easily overspeed.

[JG4_Moltke1871]

I am good with the gunners now for several reasons:

There was a time they was too good, as a attacking fighter pilot it was impossible just stay a millisecond in the six of a bomber 😅

Now it’s a dangerous place but not that deadly then far in the past. But I am forced better attack from the front or side. 
There was also a time the gunners were too weak, in that time I can parking my fighter plane behind a bomber formation with minimum risk. It was boring, no challenge and also not feels realistic.
So now flying in a bomber formations rear is a very dangerous place and this is what it should be. 
 

When I fly Bomber: I am happy my gunners are able again to hit at all 😅

There was a time I had online too many airkills in a bomber. Then there was a time the gunners simply where useless weight on board and offer simply no protection. Now they have better skills again, they are again able to drive away an attacker and careless pilots will die when they looking too deep into the barrel.

In single player I also have a passable defense again. But I also have to act and don’t fly straight without worry’s. I have to change the formation from V formation to column to haven maximum safety, otherwise sooner or later a fighter will slip through and set my engine on fire. I have to evade and also take care the gunner not fire with maximum distance all the time or he will waste all his ammo.

 

If you read battle reports it quickly becomes clear that rear gunners were dangerous ⚠️

I think it's so difficult to find the right mix for many things. So I read in the patch notes that the altitude AAA has been increased. For me, it always felt too weak, but recently I was shot down by it for the first time…. Better I had planned my flight differently and not directly over positions with concentrated AAA positions 😅😅😅

It's a shame about this career, but I should have planned the flight differently.

 

Likewise, you have to make sure that you attack the bomber from a blind spot 😉

 

 

Edited January 13 by JG4_Moltke1871

[[CPT]Crunch]

They were dangerous only in numbers with covering fields of fire consisting of many overlapping guns.  One bomber or one rear gunner was in reality chopped meat against any well armed fighter.  If any bomber fell out of the bomber lanes over Germany it was normally hands off and left for the greenest rookies of the luftwaffe fighter force to get some gunnery training in on it, that's how much of a threat a single bomber and it's gunners were considered.

 

A single ship should be easy to quickly dispatch, any thing else is horse carp.

[PatrickAWlson]

On 1/11/2025 at 5:24 AM, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I think you've misunderstood that: the *player* aircraft has any rear gunners set to "Ace" level. Gunners of AI aircraft use the ratings of the pilot.

 

I just set all bombers to low; there's not really much reason to have highly skilled AI bombers anyhow since bombers don't really manoeuvre much.

 

I do the same in PWCG but I still find the gunners in the WWI kites to be too good.  The are never surprised.  The acquire you very quickly and the speed with which they traverse the MG is pretty remarkable.  The are also happy to fire at impossible angles like pointing straight up or straight down, with the stock either at their head or at their feet. 

 

Then there is the Fee where the rear gunner can angle his rear gun down (pretty sure that was not possible) and then hit you while firing through his tail section.  He can also turn the front gun 90 degrees left or right and fire and hit without aiming.  All of this is easily seen by flying a mission with and against a Fee.

 

Short version: firing arcs need work.  They are far to liberal.  Gunners should be allowed to fire only to the extent that they can shoulder the weapon.  Anything else is unaimed fire or even impossible angles.

 

Gunner reaction time needs to be reduced a bit.  On a ring mount it took some effort to swing the gun.  

 

I get the idea that flying straight into a gunner's 6:00 is a bad idea, but when you get nailed with a 90 degree deflection shot from a gun that is not on a ring mount it's a bit much.

[Aapje]

6 hours ago, [CPT]Crunch said:

They were dangerous only in numbers with covering fields of fire consisting of many overlapping guns.

 

This is basically the same as gunfire on the ground. Fire from multiple directions is far more lethal than from one direction. It's much harder to hide from or evade fire from different directions.

 

This principle was discovered a long time ago in European warfare, where defensive works were built in a way so an attacker would always receive fire from multiple directions.

[Stonehouse]

For what it's worth and your interest, some 8th AF research below on different turret positions accuracy that I used for creating a base line version of the AI Gunnery mod. I then tweaked things to account for lack of defensive formations and cohesive behaviour by bombers, need for human piloted bombers to have some hope of survival, some playability aspects.

 

Note 600 yards is about 550m and these tests were performed on the ground. So, I believe the results would be worse in an airborne bomber firing at an airborne target, with at least the target maneuvering.

 

Currently in stock gunners don't respect burst limits and overheating and ammo limits and fire too often and bursts which are too long. In the initial part of the fight, they also fire at too long a range (according to the comments in the file 3x normal range if they have more than 150 rounds available). They are also allowed to continue firing in stock up until 5Gs. I believe all these are to offset the lack of defensive formations and numbers of bombers and proper behaviour by bombers in game. 

  

 

To give you an idea of how the burst lengths should be, this is from the M2 technical manual (TM 9-25 24 May 1945 superseding TM 9-225 15 Dec 1943). Note that the M2 has a theoretical rate of fire of 850 rpm or about 14 rounds per sec. So a 10 round burst is about 0.7 secs in length.

 

 

Currently in stock the AI definition for turret gunners is 1 definition for all gunners irrespective of the type of gun and specific firing limits in respect to overheating and ammo availability. To do otherwise would mean a lot more AI definitions as you would likely need close to one per turret due to each turret having a specific weapon and ammo amount. Each AI definition would need a table similar to the above along with perhaps logic for stoppages and clearing. Plus I would expect the type of mount would impact the AI. For instance a powered mount would likely be less effected by G load and recoil whereas a simple manual mount would be more effected by G load and probably recoil.

 

As far as avoiding getting hit after a lot of time spent working on the AI Gunnery mod and the error calc used by the turret gunners the largest error in their aim is generated by having a large vector difference to the bomber, so large speed difference and difference in heading at the time the gunner fires. Attacking co-altitude directly from astern the bomber obviously reduces the latter to zero and if you are close to the same speed as the bomber as well then a lot of the parameters in the error calc drop to zero or near zero leading to them having much higher accuracy.

Edited January 15 by Stonehouse

[FeuerFliegen]

My issue with AI gunners, is that the planes are not equal.  Not even taking into consideration the guns or turret mechanisms themselves, certain planes have more accurate turrets than others.

 

If I am flying German and see an enemy A-20, I will attack it almost as if it was a C-47; those gunners are such trash that they're not even worth considering.

 

Pe-2 gunners are much better.  I recall 7 years ago or so, the Pe-2 rear gunner was so deadly accurate that it was stupid; they would one shot pilot snipe you nearly every time you approached.  I'll never forget one day, well aware of this highly skilled gunner, I dove from high on a Pe-2 in a Bf109 F-4, and I was doing over 720kph.  As soon as I was about to fire, instant pilot kill.

 

Here's one great video, comparing the Pe-2 to He111 gunners.  The Yak literally has to park it's plane at the low 6 of an He111 for 35km / 9 minutes, and even then, it was only due to engine damage, and the pilot bailed out.

 

 

[I./JG68_Sperber]

I can agree with that 100%! As soon as I start shooting below the PE with the 109, the Ki hits 100%!

[Ram399]

On 1/10/2025 at 10:11 AM, Sandmarken said:

I remember that before the AI gunner was nerfed years ago, there was a video of a PE-2 that lost a wing and was spinning. The gunner sniped a Bf 109 pilot with a single bullet while spinning. 😅😅

I remember that video as well, putting a formation of AI Pe-2s on the ace level was like flying into a wall of death for any German fighter.

[Sandmarken]

20 minutes ago, Ram399 said:

I remember that video as well, putting a formation of AI Pe-2s on the ace level was like flying into a wall of death for any German fighter.

Yes the video was exactly like that! I never found it, i did look 😅