Hey All,
I’m finally starting to get a bit frustrated with Yak 9, 9Us with NS-45, my SPAA isn’t cutting so I’ve decided to take to the skies with abysmal results. When it’s not Yak 9s they’re being backed by Yak 3s and the occasional dogfighting IL-2.
Generally speaking I understand that as a class of fighters yaks are superbly agile, great turn fighters and can retain energy fairly well. I’ve spent enough time with them to know that they rip in a dive and many planes out run them, but I don’t know how to leverage the weaknesses of a yak quickly enough to score the kill before getting third partied.
Naturally I’ve had the most success with Japanese planes, however this feels cheap and it’s not really teaching me anything.
Would appreciate any advice regarding tactics, aircraft or even links to existing guides.
Thank you in advance.
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The tactics are pretty simple. Seeing the enemy is a big thing in ground RB. Lots of enemy CAS don’t pay attention and are normally focused on getting revenge on whomever destroyed them. You’ll see lots of players who will refuse to return to rearm even when damaged and just keep flying around until they crash.
When entering the battle, try to see what’s going, and where enemy aircraft are. Are their aircraft already over the battle? Do you have friendlies? How many are coming from their air spawn? What types are they? Fighters or bombers? Did the bomber already drop and is heading back to base?
If a bomber is heading back to base, don’t chase them. You’ll get a chance to pick them up when they returned. To many newer players will chase them and either get hit or knocked down by enemy airfield AAA.
Climb when you spawn in, as the odd player may be low from their gun/bomb/rocket run and heading at speed to your air spawn. With height you should be able to keep the distance from them if they zoom climb you (only if you’ve kept your speed up).
Once you have your view, figure out who the threats are. IL-2s can turn well but if they are low on the deck, don’t dive down if their are enemy fighters in the area. Start picking your targets. Lots of players will be pulling up in climbs after their run and looking for ground targets. Those you can pick off without losing altitude. Also are their SPAA active? Note their tracer (if they have it) and their location.
For low bombers or IL-2, just do a quick pass (boom and zoom). You don’t want to get into a protracted turn fight, burning up all of your energy/speed with multiple enemies around. Try and avoid flying low over the enemy ground spawn, as someone might of spawned in a SPAA.
You don’t always have to destroy a plane. Blast a wing off or critical hit their engine and their on fire, finish them if needed, but experience will teach you that some won’t make it back to land so no need to continue wasting ammo and energy on a plane going down.
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Duly noted, I think I’m opening myself up for failure by giving up good positioning too early. I’m climbing and getting into position, but then I give it all up trying to intercept attackers and fighter bombers before they can hit my teammates. I end up out of position with too much speed on a slower target and end up overshooting or compressing.
If I wasn’t rushing for the intercept and instead waited for better opportunities to shoot down the fighters I think I’d be doing consistently better.
Generally speaking I have the most success waiting at altitude and then attacking CAS following their attack run when they’re vulnerable and climbing away from the battlefield to avoid ground fire.
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Hearing and seeing the enemy, identifying the plane/helicopter type and good aim are also a big factor. Just relax, pick your targets and don’t worry about teammates as you’ll never completely stop all attackers. Use your planes best attributes against your enemy. The more you play, the more experience you gain. Don’t be afraid to just wait if the odds are not in your favor. Keep looking towards the enemy air spawn, to note if there are additional threats. If you see 4 planes over the battle and 2 more just spawned and you’re the only one from your team in the air, then you’ll have to decide whether it’s worth engaging.
Now just realize if you move up in BR, climbing high can become dangerous when radar SPAA and missiles are available. To defeat radar guided SPAAs, never fly straight for long periods. Always changing altitude slightly, or directions to throw off their aim points.
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Damn it! Even this newbie knows the YaK-9 is goofed up! OK, a tip would be to grind the US tree. It’s the only other tree that also has enough bias to beat the Russians. I suggest using SPAAs like the M19A1/M42. The 40mm bofors can one tap YaKs (and IL-2s) but you need good aim. Don’t worry even bad players like me can get 3 air kills if there are enough YaKs to go around. There is nothing that survives the 45mm gun, but I guess playing US will teach you good things like aiming and ETC. I suggest grinding every nation plane/tanks to 2.0 since then you will kinda know a bit of everything. Gluck!
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Mate don’t feel bad. My M4A1 76 W dies to Bt-7s and its just life. Play really slowly. in GRB just slowly go around everything and camp between the Enemy spawn and the nearest zone. They will mindlessly go straight and you can start picking them off.
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