I’m slightly venting on this so I apologize about that. I’ve been doing fine in War thunder so far. Not good, not bad, just average. I’m getting a bit annoyed though because I unlocked the Bearcat (first 4.0), had a few amazing matches with it, got off, and it’s now been 3 days with a total of I think it was 12 kills.
I’m trying to play BnZ, but I’ve been having better luck dogfighting with the Americans than BnZ. My current lineup is the Bearcat, P-63a-5, P-39n-0, F4U-4, and F4U-1A which I’m going to replace with a helldiver when I research it. I’ve been told all 5 are BnZ planes, but I’m getting overtaken by damn near every enemy. I had a FW 130 pull a 180 after I strafed him and catch up to my F4U-4 going 700+ km/h IAS. I had a F4U also catch me when I was in the same plane after I died on him. He ended up having to climb a kilometer and a half and about a minute later made up almost 2 kilometers of distance.
I get I’m not going to be even halfway decent with as little experience as I have. But I shouldn’t be suffering this much against other new players. What am I doing wrong with BnZ? I’ve been side climbing, dropping when I have about 1-3 km altitude advantage (a little high I know), hitting a couple shots, leveling out with a very, very small climb, and then it’s about a 50/50 on whether my target pulls a 180 and kills me.
Am I doing this completely wrong? Is my bad Internet screwing me up this much? This is just annoying the hell out of me.
Internet is telling you wrong things. Take anything on Reddit with a HEAVY grain of salt.
P-39N-0 and P-63A-5 are the Cobras which are not strictly BnZ and much better for a new player like yourself. They are light and nimble, not so much like a Spitfire or Zero, but you will be able to energy fight in them.
In fact P-39N is borderline broken and actually one of the most powerful beginner aircraft, it’s only at the rating it’s at because people struggle with its weird cannon and newbies won’t do well in any aircraft except pure turn fighters.
You just need to be careful of low speeds in the P-63, because around 200kmh the prop efficiency falls off so you struggle in terms of getting energy back. P-63A-10 is better than the A-5 though.
Also sounds like you might be playing Arcade, which is where physics goes out of the window. You won’t really be able to learn anything there because it’s a headless chicken mode.
It’s important to note that Air Arcade and Air Realistic have very different dynamics and physics. A number of strategies advised for use in american fighters likely fail to deliver in Air Arcade’s increase acceleration and faster turn rates.
I am assuming you’re playing air arcade since you’ve mentioned a line-up, and what you described as “enemy does a 180 and catches up” seems very much a consequence of the increased vehicle performance.
I’ve no idea how well my flight experience translates to air arcade, but one thing that helped me with BnZing is NOT committing for your first pass.
Your first pass you dive down, you pressure the opponent into turning and then level out while still maintaining a significant altitude advantage and you extend out. You change your direction by pitching up at a 45 degree bank angle to minimize energy loss by increasing your turn performance and trading it for more altitude and you make another pass without committing. You pressure them to turn/dive away and pull away again. You only commit for the kill once they’re very slow and cannot turn away from your dive.
I’ve recently had the life bullied out of me by a P-51C in my Ki-43-III otsu using the ARB physics model (in sim, but same physics work in ARB) that did exactly as I described.
Give this approach a try, maybe it works in air arcade, maybe it doesn’t.
I do play arcade. Partly cause my leading isn’t very good, but mostly cause I can grind 5 planes rather than 1. I haven’t learned a lot about energy fighting so I need to research that. All I really know are altitude and speed are good lol. The p39 is my only plane I have 1.0 k/d. I rarely drop below 200km. I’m usually above at least 300 unless I’m climbing.
In that case, learn the rolling scissors, it will throw a lot of people off guard when you don’t just turn in a circle with them. It’s probably one of the most effective ways to fight in air arcade.
This playlist showcases all the basic principles/techniques to flying in an efficient manner. These aren’t the be-all-end-all of using your plane. These are not “Will win you the fight always.”
These are simply your punches and kicks and jabs and slips. Basic little things you can use to improve your flying. Sakura’s mention of the scissors is a good one.
Another good one that helped me a lot were the pitchback/lag displacement rolls. These allow you to maintain your speed and altitude against an evading target you’re about to overshoot while staying behind them by staying vertical.
I didn’t realize there was that big of a difference between arcade and realistic. I really only stick with arcade cause I can grind multiple planes. Most of my opponents are oblivious so pressuring them doesn’t usually happen until I shoot at them but I’ll try it. Something I thought too, at my level, it’s mostly a moshpit of planes under 1000 meters. Any advice for dealing with that?
Okay thank you! I’ll definitely research all this. I have been watching some of Defyn’s videos. A lot of his stuff though I understand the principles behind them, but I haven’t quite figured out how to do them
Unfortunately, that’s a persistent constant issue in both arcade and ARB at all levels. Even with my jets, things seem to devolve into a mosphit of madness. Even in sim you sometimes end up in mosphits!
The biggest thing for this (in ARB, due to no respawns) would be Defyn’s target prioritization video. Learning to pick your fights, and pick ones that make your subsequent fights easier.
I strongly recommend watching this channel in general to see how he flies and approaches situations.
If grinding is the main reason you picked arcade over arb:
In ARB, you’ll get far more rewards for the amount of time invested. While you’ll only fly a single plane, that single plane alone can easily get ~2000 RP per game with just 1-2 kills or a.i targets destroyed or some groundpounding.
Ohhh okay thank you! Honestly RB seems like it’d be a lot more fun just cause there’s no respawns. Less of a chaotic flustercluck. It’s been screwing me up because I’ll have to settle for a not so great target cause I always get 12v12+ matches and the highest someone has gone in one of my matches is 3 km