The year of living dangerously – flying the FW-190 on Combat Box

[ATAG_Ezzie]

G'day virtual flyers

 

In case useful for other novice / average virtual combat flyers here’s a summary of my experiences flying the FW-190 on Combat box for about a year.  My previous experience on Combat Box was primarily flying the Mossie (~ 6 months) and before that flying Brisfits and DH-4s on Flugpark and many years flying twins on COD.  If I had to put myself in a box then I’m a twin engine heavy fighter type pilot and fly these aircraft as if I was night fighting.

 

1. Flying the FW-190.  A big thanks to Requiem for his great tutorials to help getting me started with the FW-190. The Fw-190 is a very easy aircraft to learn to fly basically. Not a lot of stuff to fiddle with and very easy to trim for level flight.  Engine management is easy and visibility is pretty good especially in the Dora’s bubble cockpit.
2. Fighting in the FW-190. Not so easy and took me a while to work out an approach that kept me alive and yet still effective.  I cant turn fight to save my virtual life and that’s OK cos neither does the Fw-190 in the hands of someone with my skill level (average at best).  So very early on I leant to not turn fight with anything and as i got more experienced the times I was shot down/died was when I broke this rule and did one too many turns while trying to hit a tgt
3. Turns out the Dora isn’t the fastest non-jet in late WW2. I had always ignorantly assumed – without ever investigating – that the Dora was an uber fast fighter and was faster than all late WW2 other piston fighters. Turns out I was sadly mistaken and the Dora isn’t the fastest, not by a long shot.  So running away in a Dora or Anton doesn’t work so well against 150 Octane Mustangs, Tempests etc.
4. Its possible to do OK with no wingman but it is a limiting style of play.  I’m not anti-social and have done the group flying thing in COD which was a lot of fun.  But after a day of work talking to people I often like to get in my own little bubble when flying online.  And it is possible to do this OK on Combat Box if you use/understand  the game play mechanics. In essence if you CAP/defend a target the game will usually – but not on all maps – give you an alert when an enemy aircraft approaches the target.  So when you get this alert it’s the time to really check your 6 and assume  - worst case - there’s an enemy hunting you.  Its kinda like having a GCI with radar coverage of the tgt area proving you with alerts. So this helps keep you safe but also cues in you in that are enemies nearby and you can then start looking for them.  But it means you are essentially just camping over the targets which purists will say is a very limiting way for fly online. It is but it does let you have fun/survive while you get more experience with your aircraft and virtual combat in general.
5. Situational Awareness is the biggest factor for me and can be very hard.  Spotting enemies before they spot you is a key to success in my experience.  See them early enough and ID them and you can either proceed to attack them if you are set up well (they have not seen you and you have energy advantage) or run away and hope they didn’t see you.  See/ID them too late and it usually ends in tears especially if they are faster/have more E.  After having flown WW1 fighters for several years – where the combat is much slower/closer – this took me a long time to adjust to again on a WW2 server and even after a year I still struggle with it.
6. Get out of their gun range as quick as you can if doing a one pass attack.  Even if you have the energy/speed advantage and have bounced someone make sure you get out of gun range as quickly as possible if you miss.  There’s some ace fliers who – if I miss the bounce – will turn to beat my pass and very quickly reverse on me and get an accurate burst at me out to quite a long range. The 50cal especially seems to be very accurate out to beyond 500m and quite a few times I was damaged/PK’d by these bursts.  So I learnt to get away as fast as possible by staying low – any BNZ type climb usually give them a nice view of your aircraft above the trees/against the skies in the first few seconds after your missed bounce.
7. Always assume there’s a #2 and he/she has seen you and is on your tail.  I learnt the hard way – many times – that there’s often an unseen #2 (and #3, #4) – diving to get on my tail as I dived on what I thought was a lone target.  I’d usually do a quick check before committing but its really easy to miss wingmen lurking below you or way higher than you.  So l learnt to always assume they are there and run for a period of time all the while checking my 6 very closely.  A couple of times I get a big fright to see someone patiently following me after several minutes of running when I thought I was safe, or when checking the recording of my attacks after the sortie.
8. Clouds are my friend.  A lot of pilots don’t seem to like maps with low cloud bases but for me they are great as I can run and hide in them from uber fast Mustangs etc.  So if I miss my bounce and fail to kill/severely damage a Mustang – as one example – the race is on to reach the cloud base before the Mustang runs me down.  As mentioned earlier I learnt to not climb too steeply for the clouds as this gave the Mustang (etc) the chance to hit me while I’m still in range of their guns.  But I need to get there before they chase me and get back within their gun range.  Good fun sometimes when I get to safety just as they run me down but it still ended in tears for me sometimes.
9. Develop a ‘business model’ and stick to it. I’m not a freestyle type of turn and burn fighter pilot as I don’t have the skill set to do that. But I was able to find away a way to fly the Fw190 reasonably successfully that was fun (for me). The times I died were usually when I didn’t follow my own rules or I came across some of the uber aces on the server who swatted me down like the average flyer that I am.  But overall after a year I reached a point where I could usually survive and still shoot down some enemy aircraft while doing so.

 

So after a year I reached my streak goal in a month target and am now flying Allied aircraft to see how my business model goes flying Allied aircraft.  I’m curious to see what differences – if any – the different capabilities will have and I’m hoping to wean myself off CAPing tgts and being more offensive like I used to do in COD in the 110 in the early war years maps.

 

So hopefully the above may be of use to other average pilots who are trying to figure out an approach that lets them have fun/survive, noting there are plenty of other ways to fly and have fun and this is by no means the only way – or even the best way -  to do so.

 

Ezzie

[ATAG_Deacon]

Nice write up Ezzie! ~S~ sir

[ATAG_Ezzie]

Thanks Deacon