Any tips for Air Battles?

The Academy - Players helping Players
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Hello, does anyone have any tips for air battles? I mostly play arcade because in realistic I often go like 3-5 games before getting a single kill but any tips will help. I used to be ok at air battles but for some reason I’ve recently been doing terribly and only get 1-2 kills per game after dying 5 or 6 times (sometimes more) for arcade. I’m trying to grind sweden air because the other trees are way too large and the Gripen seems like a cool top tier aircraft, but after what seem like forever I’m still only at 4.0. I usually get around 300-500 rp per match (the odd time I’ll get 1000) which is super painful.

Most say that sweden has fairly good aircraft so I must be doing something wrong. I just don’t know what. I try not to rush into the middle but rather side climb to gain some altitude and boom and zoom people but this literally never works. Also everytime that I try to shoot a bomber they destroy me with their turret gunners before I can kill them. Most I get is like a critical hit and then boom, I’m dead. When I try being the bomber the opposite happens and my turret gunners are useless and I’m dead within 5 seconds. Please help.

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Air arcade makes advice difficult, as planes behave very differently than you would expect with the “arcade boost.” BRs and matchmaker is also very different.

However, rule of thumb:

Watch Defyn’s tutorials on youtube. That guy is certifiably good, and his tutorials teach the basics well enough. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLmqHixdtpCOvLas_HftSzPgSmeSN_u2I

On boom and zooming - common mistakes:

  1. you attempt with too much speed causing your controls to lock up, preventing aiming. There’s too much energy, and you may want to try at a shallower angle.
  2. you overcommit. With markers, it’s very easy to spot when someone is coming for you and especially with AB’s boost, easily dive or turn away from the attack. With RB/Sim mechanics, the way to deal with an aware target is to slowly bleed them of energy
    I’ve been massacred by a P-51C in my Ki-43 in RB physics by the guy diving on me, forcing me to dodge and pulling away before he even came down to my altitude and reset. He repeated this multiple times, exploiting his superior speed and altitude to make me impotent to finally clean me up.
    I’ve also countered a bf109 BnZing me by turning away from his pass and immediately diving/running away. Rather than chase, he reset like the P-51C as he should. Unfortunately on the second pass, I managed to minimize altitude difference, turned under him and he got greedy and started turning with me, which made for an easy overshoot.
    You can hopefully learn from these two examples on what to, and not to do
  3. Using the vertical dimension can let you prevent overshoots against critical “MUST DIE ASAP” targets in a boom, and even in a protracted dogfight. These vertical maneuvers are the pitchback, sliceback and lag displacement roll (playlist explaining all 3: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnyigzFtHeNr9zTkpxyD0ksFD3CwLa2UE - I recommend watching the playlist as a whole as it shows you the basic fundamentals of how to maneuver in combat. BFM is NOT the be-all-end-all. It’s the jabs, punches and kicks of dogfighting, basic tools you practice until second nature and apply and modify as needed.)
  4. Try to go for distracted targets, this minimizes the help markers give.

For bombers with turret gunners, if you’re using mouse aim controls - setting convergence to 800 should let you snipe them well out of their effective ranges for most. If that fails, coming in from the side or the front tends to minimize their coverage as they mostly got gunners on rear/bottom/top in that order.

Regarding sniping,
I recommend starting up a custom match with settings for your BR and nations you want on the enemy team and doing some gunnery practice there against easy targets.

I also recommend ignoring the AB lead indicator, as it does not provide proper real time information and will lead you astray.

Also finally keep your head on a swivel. Always be looking behind you even while preparing to shoot at someone as that’s when people are most likely to go for you as well - they’ll expect you to tunnel vision and be an easy target. To make this easier, it’s quite prudent to learn to fly using WASD keys (and perhaps reducing input sensitivity there) while holding down C and scanning.

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Thank you so much! I will definetly be checking those out. Also how to win a head on?

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You don’t want to go into head-ons.

Usually, if I have a head-on imminent, I try and use excess energy well before being in gun range to fly and climb above the opponent to force them to turn with and after me.

If that’s not possible, spray some bullets to force the opponent to dodge and dive away so they cannot follow while using whatever maneuver I can to get on their tail (usually some variation of the pitchback).

However, this is probably something I cannot really advise on as sim ec doesn’t translate very well in this scenario to even RB, much less AB.

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AHA!

Finallty, something I can truly comment on.

First up, sweden 4.0 is just… bad. I recommend dropping down to 3.7 with the T18B, T18B (57), and the J26, as they are far better then the heavily overtiered J22-B. Use them to grind out the 5.3 lineup, specifically the Bf. 109s, as they are very good.

While these can be helpful, I personally recommend watching both Aeololiapae and WarThunder Pilot - the first for headons, and the second for general AAB tips.

This, however, is particularly important. Be very careful with target selection - generally go for the last aircraft in a line/dogfight, or aircraft on the fringes of the battle. Bombers are always decent targets as well, but be careful of their guns.

Ehhh, somewhat. Its still useful, just remember to aim a bit in front of it, and ignore it at specific times. (I.e headons, etc.)

100%

Not quite true, actually. Once you get good at headons by monkeyrolling they can be pretty reliable ways of getting kills.

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Thanks!

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I try my best.

The remarks of @RunaDacino should help you a lot.

My additional feedback:

#1:

You simply play the wrong mode.

Air AB has significant advantages regarding gaining crew XP - but Air RB generates way more RP. I show you an example later, but if you use the search function you will find countless threads dealing with this topic.

What most people realize too late is that the majority of RP gains in Air RB result from staying alive and doing something useful whilst playing.

I played just for fun 5 matches in my B-18 B (with a talisman) - gaining 39.000 RP in total within a range of 5.000 - 15.000 RP per match - without dying and a few bombs dropped and a few guys killed. Even considering that i gained roughly 16k RP from the new research bonus, the RP income without a talisman would have been ~ 11.000-12.000 RP…

#2:

This is definitively not true for domestic prop fighter aircraft - the best prop fighter in the Swedish TT is from Finland: the Pyoerremski.

The Saab props are basically slower 190s (J-22s) or actually extremely overtiered (J/A 21s) - a result of the usually higher skill level of non-Big 3 pilots and insanely powerful Akan 13.2 mm cannons.

The B-18B is an outstanding bomber - more later. The T-18Bs are actually postwar strike aircraft but as Sweden is the darling of Gaijin they have a bomber spawn and murder enemy bombers…

The J26 David premium benfits from the low skill floor from US pilots and could be easily 4.3 instead of 3.7 in Air RB.

#3:

I saw you have the B-18B - correct flown a pain to kill and steady income source. I received 4 talismans from gaijin and one of them was for it. The 2 x 600 kg M 50 bombs are able to kill 2 bases on most newer maps which generates around 870 point mission score and ~ 700 rp.

The best match of my 5 attempts:

Gaijin Entertainment - Single Sign On

The game was quite nice - it shows the combination of luck (strafing two enemies and getting a gunner kill on a Pe-8), the dogfight capabilities of the plane vs a Bf 109 F-4 with a massive energy advantage (he had zero chance in a turnfight), my potato aim (partly excuse by using a HOTAS) and finally the rather high durability of the airframe in addition to the very good flight performance.

So it might be worth your time.

#4:

As i use a HOTAS i do not perform any head-ons due to the lack of accuracy vs mouse aim pilots - i fly either planes able to play energy or well turning aircraft.

But i fully agree with @RunaDacino that a head-on is actually a noob move as any skilled pilot knows how to dodge and you risk a lucky hit. The only exception: You are forced to take is as you are too low and/or too slow to dodge and out-turn / out-energy your opponent.

I guess i have max 20 head-on kills out of my 14k player kills on this account…

Hope this helps a bit. Have a good one!

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Few corrections here.

AAB can be viable for RP gain if you get 10+ kills, due to skill bonus, though its still not as good as ARB. Its not necessarily the wrong mode to play - if you do good in it, and do bad in RB, you should play AB.

Also, while overtiered as utter hell, the J21s are surprisingly viable due to the 13.2s being 20mms with the MV of a 12.7. The J22-A is good, the J22-B very much not so.

And your final point is wrong, 'least in AB. Headons are fine if you know how to do them, you just need to know how do them.

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I expected such a response :-)

You actually contradict yourself with “you just need to know how to do them” - so if you meet an equally skilled pilot he knows that too and subsequently how to dodge.

It boils down that you get kills vs noobs in head-ons whilst they are useless vs experienced players but bears always a risk.

No rules without exceptions:

  1. You fly a plane able to dodge and pull in last second like 190s at high speed.
  2. Your armament outranges your enemy significantly and you can dodge after you fired and before his bullets can be a threat. Best example: 20 mm ShVaks vs MG 151/20 in long range head-ons at high speed . If both fire at the same time from long range 2,5 km with high closing speed the ShVaks better ballistics allow more precise shots whilst the mine shells explode in front of you as the time fuze of 3 seconds is wrongly implemented as distance travelled.

I see 2 times the word “if” - i respond accordingly:

  1. If my aunt would have a beard she would be my uncle… A little bit outdated these days but nails it.

  2. If the OP would be able to perform like you suggest this threat would not exist.

Your opinion might be related to Air AB and the fantasy parameters for flight models and engine settings - but all of your listed planes are utterly crap in Air RB as they lack flight performance. All you have to do is to stay away from their front to avoid their spraying attempts.

Both planes (the J-22s and the J/A 21s) solely benefit from the head-on habbit of most players due to their lack of alternatives. The planes are not able to create favorable conditions by own flight performance - or if caught in a disadvantageous position.

A short reminder: The J 21 a was introduced in Air RB with a BR of 3.0 and sits now at 4.3 - exactly due to this head-on nonsense. Even admitting that the plane turns quite nice - the very slow rip and top speed, the mediocre climb and the essential need for MEC usage (which increases their disadvantage) makes them extremely dependent on mistakes by their enemies whilst being ez prey for any half-most decent player.

Have a good one!

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Depending on if the bomber has a bottom turret, I would suggest going beneath them and raking the underbelly with bullets. If it does have a bottom turret, go in from the top/side, and just try to move around a lot, while shooting your guns. Let me know what the bomber is, and I can give more specific techniques! :-)

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Interestingly I do the best in headons with 109s, despite their semi-low velocity cannons, and I find ShVaks to be fairly poor weapons due to their low damage. Main thing with AB headons is they occur twice - the opening salvo at ~1.2km, and then the close-in turn at ~400-500m. (Basically you turn away then back in, its quite effective.)

Ironically in AB they are fairly poor at headons due to their twin-tail, and are best in a pseudo-bnz role, cutting through each segment of the furball. That means that most of my kills have actually come from the rear or side aspect, even though they turn… wierdly.

Given what they have said its pretty clear they do worse in RB, so I think this is more of the TTAA learning curve hitting them hard. Imo they should just get through it and continue with AB - its a very different experience to RB, and arguably more fun. Again its fully up to them though.

Can agree overall that the J21s are overtiered, even in AB. While they can at least fight well, their mediocre energy retention and climb rate makes them not very viable beyond that one specific role. Facing P-80s in them is rough.

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Sorry for the late response. Your advice is very helpful, thanks!

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