I’m an older guy. Played IL2 since 2008 and so I kept that bug. But peering at the monitor finding dots my eyes are getting tired . One of my friend’s kids introduced me to War Thunder and I thought a simpler control scheme and name tags would be a good runabout.
I’ve started off Japan and then work it to the US next. I’m at the Ki-44-II. After playing the Ki-44. I am somewhat surmizing the A6M would be good to reach the A7M going off the knowledge I know in my head of aircraft. But I don’t wanna neglect bombers, though I read you guys say they’re worthless. What direction part of the tree should I focus on. What’re some standouts? I’ve just been taking my knowledge I had from online play on IL2 and just being a bit more aggressive with it and I think the knowledge translates well. At least basic bfm seems to translate well.
I had tastes of other countries as when I visit my friend’s place. His kid lets me play his account to try the other vehicles. Some of the aircraft really disappointed me, but my behind can complain about that later.
This question depends on your goals whilst playing the game - so where is your end goal, are you playing just for fun or do you want to become trapped in the game…
Same here. Have in mind that you are surrounded mainly by toddlers/kids without any clue what they are doing and every player trained in FR aerial combat is far superior regarding situational awareness and decision making.
I still own the first Il-2 CD and would guess that after a few hundred / thousand matches you will get bored as hell as sooner or later you realize that max 5-10% of your opponents are experienced enough to be a challenge - and their ability to compete with you is mainly a matter of the BR of their aircraft and the numbers game called TDM.
If you hate dot spotting the whole day (which is broken in many ways) and still want to have a challenge i recommend to increase your difficulty level right from the start and play with a Hotas in Air RB.
This kills a large chunk of your experience advantage and gives you way more satisfaction whilst playing and getting a kill. The Air RB setup with mouse aim is basically flying with autopilot - and kills the flight experience.
That is true as a general rule - but there are at least at prop BRs still a few bombers worth to play - either because they suck as bombers but have excellent performance (like the P1Y1) and high survival rates, can be used as base bomber with excellent dogfight capabilities (like the B7A2) or simply because they excel with outstanding flight performance paired with ultra dangerous defensive armament (G8N1).
The only other prop bomber i can really recommend is the Swedish B-18B - insane performance at higher alt, i outrun anything Japanese above 8 km, since September last year i lost 2 aircraft in 120 battles…
They have pretty much no impact on the battle, are not fun to play, and die to a single .50cal way too often.
Untill they do something about them they are not worth playing. And I can say this after playing and spading many of them. They are just NOT FUN in the slightest. Excepting those the other commenter mentioned but these are rare. Most of them are lumbering RP pinatas for fighters.
Bombers in lower tier Ground RB matches (aka dots in the sky) are not bad, and you can survive a lot longer because you don’t have the Air RB handholding (markers), so it can be more difficult to see you.
But generally bombers currently are not great, and even the Dev’s are working on improving their survivability.
Nuclear Escalation or Thunder (with markers), seems to at least provide those who want to ground pound some reason to fly, and I preferred it to the Air RB deathmatch format. Unforunatley it’s limited to the higher tiers currently (8.7 above).
I don’t play the Kikka in Air RB, but in Ground RB, it’s actually pretty effective once you unlock the second cannon.
I mostly just wanna play props. I saw how jets were and it wasn’t like DCS or falcon 4.0 so I didn’t bother. I might get into jets when I saw one feller play it in arcade. I like Ace Combat, and that looked fun. My eyes aren’t good but I still got good reactions.
I realized this a good bit when my friend’s kid let me play the razorback P-47s. Really upset me because my dad loved that plane. He flew it in '44. I expected it to be heavy, but the thing was a slog of an aircraft for what it had to fight. I compared it to the Ki-44 I flew and you basically did just about everything better than the P-47 besides keepin speed. It really was a sad experience to see. The last D variant is good though.
I don’t get how they balance aircraft in this game.
I’ll do that once I get more confident in the controls of the game.
Than you can later (as soon as you get familiar with the controls) switch to your Hotas - it will kill your accuracy in head-ons, but gives you in a lot of planes the edge in a dogfight as the instructor limits the AoAs - search for the thread “instructor limits”.
Even as you should have no money issues - your research progress increases significantly with premium aircraft - and via warbonds you can get often quite good performing premium aircraft for free. The “free” French Yak-3 should help you later in the French tree - same as the Bf 109 T-2. If you have no time - use a test flight and if you like them: buy them. To be fair: the JP Bf 109 is a money printer due to high income modifiers and the better choice.
Good Lord! That is impressive that you still perform well👍If you meet fmt3 (a bomber legend with 140,000 battles) - he must be around 80 now…
I have to modify this:
Not even close to “same here” 😎
In order to have real fun with P-47s you came a bit too late - gaijin nerfed P-47s a while ago - usually referred to as “flap nerf”. That means before this nerf you were able to beat stuff like La-7s even in a slight energy disadvantage as you could use combat flaps up to ~500 km/h and the Hotas (without instructor) allowed you to outturn them.
I had real fun with the Chinese F-47 N doing exactly this. Now you need a rather large energy advantage to do the same and executing / befitting from energy traps became way harder.
In any case - the P-47s require that you use Manual Engine Controls (MEC) - latest in full uptiers to 5.7 / 6.0 you need every performance improvement you can get as you meet really challenging aircraft. I recommend 2 very good yt vids (Defyn and Adam abot MEC) and a MEC guide in this forum.
Based on success (=SL & RP gains) on average. It looks like that gaijin sets up certain ranges for aircraft and roles and increases the BR when the planes become “too successful” or decreases the BR when they underperform.
By balancing on average stats gaijin acts like a portfolio manager trying to keep the income of their players as low as possible. Usualyl the rule is “the less skill required to use them, the more likely is a BR increase”.
Outta luck for the D-22. The Ki-44 at 3.7 is utterly oppressive at the battle rating it sits at. It’s performance is very close to the F8F-1. U.S. props have nothing going for them at that BR against the Ki-44. they can Just keep forcing US props lower and lower to the deck and then when they can’t run away any further just end them… @Real_K_Soze is right you missed the gravy boat for the P-47.
The D-28 was absolutely savage for it’s time. The only real “Fun” US props left are stuff like the P-39N, F4U-1a Maybe the P-38L and then then you just end up at the late tier props. like the F4U-4B, P-51H and F8F-1b
I have to disagree here - from a holistic perspective you mention 3 severely undertiered aircraft first - and then 3 postwar / never saw ww2 combat aircraft which all have one thing in common: They are also undertiered. Imho the fun should not be limited to undertiered aircraft - fun is subjective, yes, but fun can be also related to how a plane flies.
From my pov fun whilst flying US props is also mostly a matter of team compositions / nation pairing - and flying US aircraft has the benefit of being generally the better aircraft at the same BR than their opponents. The US tree has a lot of very powerful aircraft which have just the disadvantage that they don’t fit into the low alt “turn and burn” meta.
My favorite US planes (flying for US) are the FR-1 and the P-59A - both have distinctive advantages - but suffer from being thrown quite often into often full US teams leaving you hopelessly outnumbered.
1 vs 7 after 7 minutes - 2 crashed, 1 vs 5 (one afk on airfield)
Blind hunt order blocked with own 5 minute order
2 bases killed with 2 sea-mine (large detour)
Strafing kill of Brigand, got chased and “out-flew” Yak-9K,
Strafing kill of B-18B with Yak at my six, 1 vs 2 just to separate them
After La-FN flew away - energy trap and out-turning Yak-9K
After Yak-9 kill - center map and out-turning La-5FN
23 minutes fun - despite US team got stomped
This thing is untouchable below 6 km - 100% of my deaths are skill issues - 70% overspeeding/pancaking during strafing runs , 25% bomber return fire, 5% wrong positioning.
This plane shines late game when you are able to create undisturbed 1 vs 1s - and can outplay your speed and turn advantage at the same time.
I disagree here too - flying the Chinese P-51 C-10, the US 3.7 P-47 and the Thunderbolt Mk I i don’t assess the Ki-44s as oppressive - just as serious (and ultra annoying) opponents which are actually quite slow above 6 km. In the worst case they neutralize you - but at least you can prevent them from murdering your team. Just throttle back from time to time (like on Pacific maps) to let them burn through their fuel - after 20-22 minutes most of them are out of fuel.
The US and UK 3.3 Hellcats are able to out-run and out-turn a Kill 44 -II - in case you manage to get unspotted above 6 km and use a Hotas without instructor and keep the fight in the horizontal - you turn better than a Yak-3s as long as you stay below 550 km/h.
It’s because there’s no real aircraft until you get to the late prop tiers where you can effectively fight on “equal” footing with the enemy. Every fight is almost an uphill climb and being at a constant disadvantage is not “fun” So the only “fun” aircraft are where you can really take advantage of the U.S. planes being fast mantra seriously or you get an airspawn. I mean, even the new guy here is honestly disappointed by U.S. props. which kinda goes to show how badly they’ve been shafted in-game.
Most people don’t find it fun to spend 20 minutes just waiting a guy out. If he or anyone else wants to do that, you might as well play Sim.
6k is already a pretty high altitude most players aren’t gonna reach in most matches, at 4900m. it’s around 8-10kmh slower than a Bf-109 F-4 while still being able to turn extremely well in a dive. Even if you have a faster aircraft. the Ki-44 can just put constant pressure on you all the time and banking on a fuel load to save you —from a gameplay perspective would force a hard no out of most players.
Imho you mix up equal footing with being far superior.
Everybody is aware of low skill boys using low skill planes like A6Ms, Spitfires or Yaks to clap other low skill players in high speed or energy fighters which are way too inexperienced to use speed vs turnfighters. And it takes simply way too much effort for the average long term player to get used to the rather slow play style when flying fast planes.
The uphill battle is true - but this is a mix of untrained players making wrong decisions and other players using Air RB as grinding mode. In other words: If you try to use your US aircraft as intended you get outnumbered quite fast as most of your US team mates are tankers spading stuff with max payload and perform ground pounding / base bombing.
Even the plain P-51 D-30 is a great aircraft - i played 30 matches on NA server when the US kids were sleeping - 70% WR and 35:3 kills is evidence enough that even a player with a potato aim like me can use the potential of the plane.
In other words: Success with US planes depends more on external circumstances like MM, nation setup or map layout - and they suffer the most from the time restriction of 25 minutes years ago as you can’t outplay your conceptual advantages.
Whilst the new guy is imho a highly experienced player - US planes in their current form still shine in classic axis vs allies matches like US vs JP or US vs GER/IT.
On Pacifc maps not a single JP plane can catch a proper flown US prop - and i would say i have at leat 1,500 - 2,000 battles there (flying for both sides). Same as US vs GER/US - as long as you can determine when and in which positions fights can happen you are fine.
And as i said earlier: The planes are not bad - the wt setup based on player preferences created a low alt “bar fight” game play in which US planes are in a systemic disadvantage as they are usually made for speed and high alt.
That gaijin favors somehow USSR planes and the wt setup (g-forces, absence of G-LOC or “adjusted” FMs) are just increasing this disadvantage.
I agree with “most people” - but the main issue here is the ability of being patient and able to exchange short term action with long term strategy.
Even your cited P-47 D-22 is able to crate a 6 km gap to a Ki-44 and go for a high speed head-on. With 800 m convergence u can use 3,400 API-t rounds from 2 km and your high speed allows you to dodge.
Correct - but this is a wt meta problem - and the ability of players to determine where and when fights happen. So if your D-28/D-30 is totally outperformed in full uptiers below 6 km - you have to get above ithis alt or you are toast. That’s the only way to not get stomped by Yak-3Us.
Besides that: I scored recently my highest kill ever - at 11,800 m. And i was actually diving from 13,400 m and killed an I-225 with a Ki-94 II.
As a summary:
I agree with your criticism of the wt meta which favors low skill turn-fighting at lower altitudes - which renders US planes often as non-decisive. But expecting that gaijin changes their general approach is imho too much.
It’s because U.S. props will be binary on “Being trash” or “outright stomping.”
For instance. If you shoved the P-38G down to the ground. It would be another crappy U.S. prop plane that can’t use the advantages that U.S. props are supposed to use against their enemies as effectively.
If you had a U.S. prop plane that could actually be “Decent” at the climb instead of always being on the lower end then that’s equal footing. When you have it where you’re needing to play defensive against most of your enemies. It’s not a fun time.
At lower tiers, you are right that it’s just “Skill issue.” but when you get to around 3.7 where you can see the Bf-109 F-4. The vehicles just become struggle busses. It’s hard to use your speed when someone can just keep diving down over and over and over and you don’t have the match timer to beat them since they climb back up to alt so quickly. Your enemy is usually going to be above you and if he deigns you as a threat. You have to run away.
I agree. The planes aren’t bad. But the game’s setup is completely antithetical to how you’re supposed to play U.S. props. There are times where the interceptor spawn for the P-38G is lower than usual, around 1km. And even with a 1km headstart, you will still end up Coaltitude with Bf-109s and Yaks.
For instance. A ki-44-II 5km away is still within range for you to be touched unless you turn away. But since he arrives at alt so quick. He can quickly convert that back to energy and just shallow dive to chase after you. It’s okay if you turn cold at 5km. But if you’re any closer it becomes scary since he can just go 700kmh in a dive and then turn that straight back into energy. Forcing you lower.
The only times I notice JP aircraft in pacific maps losing are when they tunnel vision. They all do the right thing by climbing, But then they all dive bomb for the same player. German players have this problem too.
If they all keep their altitude—which sometimes they do—it’s literally a nightmare battle for U.S. teams to win because they just take turns pecking away at U.S. planes in a dive. Even worse when you get like 2-3 people in B7A2s
A 6km gap would take almost 4-5 minutes to create, turning around would quickly bleed your speed and then you’re just trading head-ons which are practically 50/50 at that point. Meaning that if you were in a match where it was just you and one guy left you only get 2 chances or so unless your team got demolished REALLY early.
We agree to agree with the exception being nuances. Frankly, I honestly believe if gaijin made more matches have air spawns this would honestly fix a lot of the issues. I notice this when players are able to get altitude, the U.S. planes get a chance to shine and they become actually threatening because they are going to be roughly similar altitude as their enemies as they don’t get such a head start from climbing from low altitude.
This seems way too binary for my taste - even admitting that well balanced props are very rare - especially US props have a clear tendency to be better performing vs direct opponents at the same BR.
A lot of “challenges” are created by the MM and the time when you play on which server. The MM influence is rather easy to identify - just analyse the in-game performance of US planes in the US trees - and compare them to their c+p versions in other nations; the later perform way better.
Using your P-38 G example: Imho the P-38 G is just because of being a Rank II aircraft at the BR of 3.3. I meet from time to time very experienced players using their main strengths - and there is basically nothing able to fight it at its own BR. You are either way faster or you climb better at higher altitudes.
Getting caught by a Ki-44 II seems for me a matter of messed up initial positioning as a result of not optimal climb speeds and/or wrong climb path during the climb phase. And trying to get away with a dive is actually the worst option you can choose as the low rip speed of the P-38s and the inferior climb at lower alt are their main weak points.
I do agree that especially the Rank II Yak-1B at 3.0 (imho a Rank III plane with a BR of 3.7) is severely undertiered and the 109 F-2 at BR 3.3 performs quite nice - but as long as they are at Rank II you face either (quite often) absolute sweatlords (mainly Yak-1Bs) or just average players using them.
Yes.
But even in case you manage to get a higher energy state by “ninja climbing”: From my perspective your main threat in US planes comes from US planes flown by other nations.
That’s why you have to focus on battles vs JP on enemy JP P-51 Cs as they can neutralize you (in the best case) or push you lower into the turnfighter crowd.
Same as when i fly the FR-1 - whilst i am able to outdive and outspeed basically all opponents even in full uptiers a plain Chinese P-51 C or P-47 D-30 can keep up for a ultra long period and can catch me in a prolonged dive - the other two are the I-225 (very high rip speed) and the Fw 190 Dora, the 4.0 and 4.7 VB 10s have a similar rip speed like the FR-1.
This view looks comprehensible - but is from my pov just partially true.
There is a main threshold at BR 5.0 (J2M2s) and 5.3 (Ki-84s and previously A7M2s, now at 5.7). Below that it is depending on the map rather easy to win - on some maps just by staying alive. All you need is experience and the ability to “read” a lobby and to predict the outcome.
Example:
I used the loot box boosters to spade some planes - one of them was the 4.7 F8F-1. In my 2nd or 3rd match in a stock plane i ran into a full uptier to 5.7 on Iwo Jima. Just by looking at my team it was clear that my team will get stomped, but i saw 2 Wyverns (one of them very experienced) which made it clear that these 2 guys will ensure an undisputed ticket win - all i had to do was to stay alive. So i decided to trade 25 minutes for a 0 point ticket win for the US /UK team. After 8 -10 minutes i played 1 vs 6 and extended to the map border (to avoid red square) and used two 5 minute orders to block blind hunt / avenger orders.As the most dangerous opponent (Ki-84) crashed and i was confident that i can outrun the 3 remaining enemies i decided to say hello on the landing strip at A point, found no targets and won by tickets with 0 mission score and 5,000 SL as reward for the survival of a blind hunt order.
I do agree that JP or Thai Helldivers are a threat for your inexperienced enemies - but US teams outright ignore my advice “sideclimb” and “don’t run low into B7A2s”. I would even argue that US WRs saw a massive buff since the the Thai SB2C-4 was implemented - a lot o tankers used them unable to realize that they cant catch anything which is not willing to turnfight. I hate the FM of the Helldiver and my B7A2 is unable to catch a correct flown P-51 C-10 or a P-38 G - simply bc they are way faster, have a higher rip speed and a better LER.
JP teams often win the team fight but struggle vs 2 even remotely coordinated US props can stomp JP teams:
Example
Rat planes / pure turnfighters (=they have to wait for mistakes made by the enemies in order to score) create the side effect that their players climb due to the sheer necessity to create an energy advantage they need to dive on enemies. That means also that you don’t have to outclimb them - you can still fight planes on slightly lower alt without giving an A6M3 giving the chance to get remotely into gun range.
This looks way too simplistic - the maneuvers to turn without a significant speed loss are there (like a stall climb followed by a split-s) - the 6 km gap ensures that you regain your initial speed (which allowed you to outrun the guy) before you are in gun range.
And you miss imho the main point - flying into a wall of several hundred 12,7 mm API-T enforces your enemy to dodge - if he commits he is toast and if you dodge after your first volley you won’t get hit. Your goal is to saturate the predicted or visible dodging path of him - and your kills come mainly from these 2nd attempts.
Imho you are not entirely wrong with your 50:50 chance in a low speed head-on (= 550 kmph TAS or lower) - but even as a Hotas user (=pathetic accuracy compared to mouse aim) i use this tactic only, but very successfully, vs JP planes.
That means that these are the only enemies which allows me to turn, regain speed and stabilize the the plane long enough for a very precise long range (initial) barrage. So even admitting that just 0.6-0.7% of my roughly 25k air kills are a result of head-ons - basically all of them were scored vs JP paper plane flying US or UK P-47s.
Besides that: The P-47s are ultra agile at very large speeds (allow you to dodge) and need on average just 2-3 hits to kill an enemy (mostly “B” kills) and are tough planes. I scored all of the 25 stealth belt kills (except the last) in various P-47s - 2-3 hits for a fighter, max 4 for a bomber like B-25s. The sole exceptions were a Pucara which needed 5 hits and my last kill in the CHN P-38L vs an US P-47 D-28: I needed 8 hits to down him - whilst he found time to shredder a Yak-3P on a collision course 😂
I fully agree to this - i noticed the same effects. The “air spawn for all” eliminates some troubles - especially for P-47s.
Hi, so I don’t really know the structure of the Japanese tree (I’m an USA and URSS main) but I know it is VERY big… Grinding it will be sooo long, but hey, you’re choice. Basically when someone starts to grind it’s because they wanna reach the top tier jets and focuses on the column that takes to it. As you can see the tree is divided horizontally by ranks and every rank requires researching a certain number of aircrafts
(I think 5, don’t remember rn) to unlock the next one, so researching only the two or tree planes in the column to get that single jet won’t work. Now my advice would be to choose a plane or a jet that you really like/want (in the Japanese tech tree I highly recommend the su30) and starting to research that column plus another one that costs a really small amount of rp (research points). Since the Japan tech tree is kind of a mix of every top tier jet you probably want and like a lot of jets (sorry if I’m wrong) so do the same process for 1 plane with others. Hope I helped you, cya!
Ps: I didn’t read other replies to this post cuz when I saw it I couldn’t send a reply, so I pasted the message now and I hope I won’t be repetitive
I’ll agree it’s a hyperbolic, but it’s an issue of taking your advantages and applying it into the match.
The Ki-44 is a huge threat and it climbs almost as well as the F8F-1. The only difference is that he won’t be 2km above you with an insane alt advantage when you meet him for the first time in a P-38 because you have an airspawn.
This isn’t a problem if the guy is below you, but if you’re coalt or lower than the dude, then it just becomes a huge pain in the butt and I don’t wanna just do constant head-ons and fly for 5-6 minutes for separation in a match with only around 19-20 minutes of actual fighting time. But that’s the thing. He has more margin of error for mistakes. You don’t. A single hit makes you draggy as possible or possibly kills you. And you have to play very safe. A Ki-44 just has to get you where you can’t escape. Every little hit is a massive blow to your performance and you’re essentially fighting a porcupine at that point where you can’t really approach the threat well.
I just wish I had more success with head-ons, since for me it leans 20:80 where I’ll do straight jack nothing. You’ll have people realize “Oh wait. I just need to clip him and he just has hit me somewhere good.” And I’ll have it where someone will quickly snap up and instantly rip my wing meanwhile. I’ve had instances where my .50s literally phase through someone and do nothing. Just to give context. This is what it looks like when I get hits with my head-ons.
I don’t believe in the ‘high speed turn’ thing anymore as I’ve had Ki-44s, Fw-190s, La-5s, A6Ms (This one really sucks when the spotting mechanics fail and an A6M happened to just teleport onto you.) and the like keep up with me. It’ll work against a Bf-109, but anybody else, I don’t trust it. I frankly don’t trust this game’s FMs at all. I’m glad you have success in it.
Regarding 0.50 cals in general - you rember this quote:
I have the rather questionable pleasure to adjust this statement - the most impressive exception from my rule of thumb (2-3 hits for a fighter) was completely crushed by a Yak-3 today on the Spain map - i needed 13 (!!!) hits with API-T from the FR-1 to blow him up. The strafing kill of a P-38L required 2 and the take-off kill of a 109 G-2 needed 3 hits for a kill.
Besides that: “Classic” US team performance in a full uptier / 4.3 - 5.3 match - i played 1 vs 7 after 9 minutes…4 of them crashed later, i strafed 2 on the small airfield and the Yak-3 was the last enemy alive…
As i can’t publish screenshots via xbox - you might want to create one after the first eleven hits.
it really sucks too with US team comp because even if everyone climbed. It’s a real uphill battle to achieve anything since you’re constantly on the defensive.
Same view on things. Thanks a lot for the screen shot!
Yeah - you saw me playing like a rat in this match as i expected such a match development. The outcome of those matches is usually pre-determined by the MM like in this battle - just by looking at the loading screen.
So if i expect a crushing defeat i load some sea mines, wait until i am in a good position to kill a base and i have to focus on US aircraft - as these are the only planes able to catch me (plus I-225s and Fw 190 D-9s). The FR-1 outruns all other usual suspects below 5 km (La-7 pilots get frequently mad😂) and the rip speed of USSR boys is similar to mine.
I still like the challenge to play US as such matches require experience and brain power to get something done.
The replay misses the info that i used a 5 minute order after my lastfriendly died in order to avoid a blind hunt order against me - and that i timed my arrival at the enemy airfield when the ground pounding P-38 would be there - worked perfect 😎, the Bf 109 was just a bonus.
That’s also the reason why i flew away from the Yak-9P as i was sure he has not spotted me and could not catch me later. So getting locked in a 1 vs 1 whilst 3 other enemies might pounce on you is plain stupid - therefore i retreated.
Clapping a Yak-3 works as shown the replay - enforcing a merger when they are very fast limits their options and the FR-1 turns well enough to stay behind them. But to be fair: I checked the player earlier in the match (and saw he was a rookie) and just the fact that the Yak-9P crashed (on purpose?) even allowed me the 1 vs 1 and the subsequent victory. I don’t fight two Yaks at the same time…
As a final remark: Ever considered buying the the P-51 D-10 premium? Imho an extremely well performing aircraft - if flown to its strengths. Turns great, engine power similar to D-30 and very fast…i met recently a decent mouse aim pilot flying it and had serious issues…
