I’ve grinded out most of the props so far by playing GRB with attackers. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten an A2A guns kill. I have a KD of like 0/150 with the I-225 (Late Soviet props is another nightmare for me but whatever) and I have no idea how to aim. is there an indicator at all, like a trick to aim? I can land an HE shell on a tank’s MG over a hill with the KV-2 but I will miss, overshoot, and die to a stalled out aircraft in the air. How do you get better at ARB without pulling your hair out
Try air arcade first it helps to get used to air combat
Use test flight to practice first.
Or use AB to get an idea of where to lead. And when in RB, lead more.
I don’t think there’s an easy way to explain that.
Blunt advice is just, you’re not aiming where he is, you’re aiming where he’s going to be by the time your rounds get there (and that’s different for every plane who’s guns are different muzzle velocity). It’s just something you get a feel for overtime.
I think a good place to learn aiming might be US fighters in AB (There is lead indicators in AB). They typically have a high number of MG’s - with a dump trucks worth of ammunition (and tracers in that ammunition). So more forgiving to missing. It’s just something you pick up through muscle memory. Eventually you won’t really consciously think where to aim, it will become as natural as throwing a ball to hit a moving friend.
Maybe check out custom battles too. There’s no rewards or cost for playing there, its just like a for fun / chill / practice mode.
This, plus try playing one plane with the same ammo belts. Different weapons and different ammunition belts within the same aircraft can have different muzzle velocities. So there can be deviations with the same calibre. (50 m/s makes a difference)
Start with boom and zoom and get behind someone. This also avoids energy traps. Fire a longer salvo that clearly would overshoot them, but lead the salvo so that the enemy plane flies through this salvo to archiv a kill or at least a hit.
With time you learn to lead your shots at different speeds and can estimate how much to lead infront of the plane to possibly hit it.
If they have spotted you and are flying around wildly to avoid you, stay on their six and wait for an opportunity to fire a volley that you can be reasonably sure of hitting. Don’t panic shoot.
If your tracer vanishes behind the plane, you overshoot. If you can see the tracers at all time, you are not leading enough.
Some planes have their guns mounted in the nose, some in the wings. This will make things more diffucult to adjust too. Start with planes that have nose mounted weapons.
I also recommend a plane with better turn abilities. Mastering the German BF109 or FW190 is more difficult than the Yak or Spitfire.
PS: I also grind my planes in GRB, since there is no marker and it is easier to ambush enemy planes.
Short answer you need experience. As others said try AB or training grounds to get the hangs of it.
Gunnery can be tricky as there are different gun positions on the plane wings/nose/both, different rounds per minute firing speeds and different round muzzle velocities which is very important for high aspect deflection shots.
Thats why I would advise you first to learn basic dogfight maneuvers to know how to exploit pilot errors and get on someones six. Then switch focus on gunnery.
Try Watching this war thunder video, it help me alot
Another advice is to hold your fire until the shot is easier. Not as viable in ARB furballs, but when you need to make your shot count and it’s just an 1 versus 1 battle - aim behind the enemy plane while in a turnfight (“Lag pursuit”), not in front of them and occasionally tap down-elevator to fly straight (“Turn Circle Extension”). This makes you slide right onto their tail if done right, making it less aiming perpendicular and having to predict both their angular momentum, linear speed and your ammo’s speed and drop and simplify it down to only having to deal with ammo drop
Timing the “fly straight” bit is a bit hard to explain outside of cockpit view, because in the cockpit you’d do it when they’re in a particular spot for your canopy frames. In a very generalized sense, I’d compare it to doing a transfer burn in KSP when setting up a rendezvous.
Video from cockpit view:
Another approach is to do things that slow your enemy down. Luring them into flying vertically for you without them being able to hit you until they stop mid-air and fall out of the sky is a pretty reliable tactic in german planes.
If you cannot afford to use a 1vs1 tactic like this - quite probable doing this will get you killed early in a match - there’s no shame in “cheese.” Let your enemies fly into your shots. Aim in front of them and give them a 2-3 second burst. This is more viable with american fifty cal planes with high RoF and high ammo over something like Bf109’s single mg151. Still, it can give you an edge that damages enemy maneuverability.
Another approach, until you develop intuition, is to plane your sights right on top of the enemy and smoothly build more lead while doing a 2-3 second burst. I found this quite effective with japanese 20mm nose cannons and the cannonstang’s hispanos - it’s enough for just 1-2 volleys to hit to cripple the enemy.
Eventually you build intuition to directly hit a target at a high aspect high speed deflection without having to either make the enemy fly into your stream of fire or walking your shots onto them. Unfortunately, this intuition seems quite singular for each plane you fly (or at least, each gun due to different velocities - I can do it in reliably Ki-61-I Hei but not Mustang Mk Ia). Building this intuition at lower BRs is easier as the average plane is slower - landing hits on a zero barely trudging along at 350-400 km/h is far easier than landing hits on a mig-15 zooming around at 700 km/h.
For practicing it - I think just trying and trying in live ARB matches is more than sufficient. However, if you do want a low-risk, low stress environment this is what I advise for ASB:
Spoiler
Hello!
Stona on forums brought my attention to a little feature on Warthunder I didn’t even know existed. The mission editor. This weekend I tried it out and…
- You can pick what plane your enemies fly (somewhat constrained by mission type) to dictate the difficulty of landing your shots (big fat plane vs tiny annoying mosquitoes… although mosquitoes are kind of fat)
- When you have allies alive, the enemies fly in a fairly erratic but still somewhat plausible ways, giving you challenging deflection shots for practice.
- When your allies died, the enemy enters a passive cartwheel circling pattern, letting you choose between high-aspect deflection shots or trying to saddle up on their six.
- You can set the ratio of buddies/enemies to manipulate which of the earlier outcome will come to pass sooner.
- While friends are alive and enemies are “Veteran”; they’ll try to shoot you and get on your six giving you a very basic chance at practicing overshoots. Not the best use case, but it exists.
… This is perfect for being able to practice gunnery in new planes or to learn the basics before going into a live match as a newbie!
Why is this better than test flight?
You can set the amount of targets that spawn AND what plane they spawn in. As described, they also fly erratically to give more challenging shots. No more hunting chaikas in late-war spitfires.
Why is this better than custom battles?
Custom battles seem to devolve into enemies all spamming IL-2 or similar strike craft which are significantly easier to hit and the tail-gunners introduce unwanted variables when you’re completely new to a plane and are just trying to figure out the gunsight in the firstplace.
Furthermore, allies/enemies groundpounding don’t cause the battle to end prematurely.
That sounds great. How do I use this feature?
- Pick the plane you wish to practice gunnery and approaches in.
- Right click, select “Test Flight.”
- Bottom left corner, click “Mission Editor.”
- Map choice dictates what nation your enemies can fly. This is fairly self-evident and also follows blue/red splits.
- There, choose frontline: Pick “Friendlies around Hostile/Hostiles around friendlies” if you want to practice ground-strike or hunting CAS as they’re doing bomb runs. Otherwise, pick as you desire (hostile sector has AAA fire but it’s inconsequential).
- For practicing fighter-on-fighter action, pick “Head to Head combat” to cut out the fat. Friendlies around hostile to defend from enemy assault variants/bomber intercept mission types, hostiles around friendlies for being on offensive
- Pick high FRIENDLY average skill level to force enemy fighters to do evasive flying (they seem to ignore the player but react to your allies).
- Custom difficulty (sim but with markers) can be helpful to put red markers on enemy fighters to spot the more easily and unlimited ammo is a good idea if you’re completely new to the plane
Caveats
- A.I damage models seem funky. I’ve tore off a wing of a Bf109F4 in a spitfire while testing and the Bf109 just kept flying straight while barely losing altitude.
- You seem limited to pacific theatre as USA/Japan. Britain is limited to western front and the mediterrean. Germany seems to have the most diverse enemy/front selection. Soviets get eastern front khalkyn ghol vs japanese. Italy gets mediterrean.
- Sometimes the AAA hits you, can’t predict how or why.
- It’s a good idea to pick a slower target plane because they fly pretty damn fast in the cartwheel formation and while that’s neat for learning long-range shooting - it’s something to keep in mind (Zero chasing P-51-D30 not recommended).
- I havn’t checked how it works or if it at all works for jets above the F8 Crusaders. Even at crusaders, it is janky as hell and your aircraft carriers look a bit old. Hope your jet can take off without catapults (you can choose airspawn): Imgur: The magic of the Internet
How did you not realize this existed for so long?`
I thought “Mission Editor” required additional software to be downloaded and would be heavy on system resources. Nope. It’s just a few menu settings.
If you’re in props, start practicing aiming at 300 meters.
When someone is turning, try placing the opponent between your reticle and your plane. Adjust aim according to where tracers go.
The way your and the opponent’s planes turn in the air also affects how you need to aim. Consider the turn circles that are possible for both.
There’s a lot of variables that can change how much you need to lead, so you’ll need to figure out how you need to adapt.
you can get a lot of practice in with the mission editor, its for planes you have crewed and lets u dogfight whatever you want, though the ai is so bad that its more like target practice.
press test flight and then in the bottom left of the options there is an option to change it to mission editor.