I’ve having problems with yak-3s (playing P-51D-5 and Bf-109 G-6) and I’ve tried a lot of things and so far only boom and zooming but my P-51 worked with them but the problem is they almost always are either above me or they just pitch up and clip my wing off.
So I want to know. What is the weakness of this specimen of a russian doohickey and what to do when its above, below you or level and about to merge?
althitude at about 20kft engines die because no turbo yaks also have low dive speed of 400mph before exploding
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One thing I found reliable fighting Yak-3 in Bf109F4 and Spitfire F Mk IX is fighting them with one circle/scissors.
I don’t know if the same approach works in ARB but in ASB -
Notice yak on tail, hard turn into them and trying to put my nose into a lag pursuit each time we pass each other.
I think the main issue doing this in RB would be the fact that doing this gives the yak some early very difficult snapshots that in third person and mouse aim would likely hit (and F4 being far more maneuverable with stick controls)
Take the three planes you mentioned into test flight.
Record the sustained speed (TAS) of each plane in a straight line, shallow climb (10 m/s) and steep climb (20 m/s).
Do so for low (1 km), mid (4 km), and high alt (7 km).
Then create a strategy around the results.
Yak-3, yak-3u and even the jet variants are pretty untouchable in the right hands, they are very fast and climb well and despite that, still turn very well, especially the 3u and the early jets.
The yak-3u is very OP, considering its the best turning prop at those tiers, only losing to the zeros and A7M but those are easy to avoid with the yak speed and climb advantage, every other prop is easy lunch.
The biggest downsides are the low ammo count /armament and how easily it rips its wings even in a shallow dive, because you pick up speed very fast and compress considerably, even with 0% throttle because they have very little drag.
All in all they are undertired, considering that high altitude performance isn’t very relevant in the current meta. Keep in mind that although the yak-3 isn’t optimized for altitude, it will climb very fast.
Even if you have altitude advantage over the yak 3 in let’s say, a bf106, all the yak3 needs to do is to keep its speed in a shallow climb, and it will have an easy time avoiding BnZ strafes, and after each pass the bf106 will lose its energy/position advantage.
Imho your 2 aircraft are not really suited to fight Yak-3s - mainly because the Yaks in general are undertiered like hell - so even the earlier Yak 1s are imho at least 2 BR steps too low and the Yak-3s benefit from:
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Historically seen poor and very low damage output of their 20 mm ShVaks somehow justified lower BRs in the past. But gaijin managed to introduce Real Shatter 2.0 & 3.0 which reversed this mitigating factor and the BR of Yaks were ofc not increased after RS was implemented.
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Gaijins habit to determine BRs on burst mass & available ammo. So whilst in theory they have just 120 rounds of 20 mm ammo you see them quite often with 5 or more kills without rearming.
In this replay (replay link) you see a very decent pilot (he scored 7 kills + 1 assist upfront) with ammo left trying to energy trap me (13:20 - 15:20) whilst i gave him upfront the illusion that he would chase me. -
Gaijin’s habit to determine BRs on plain average player results. Imho the average USSR player is on par with the average US player - both nations suffer from highly motivated but equally inexperienced players which drags their BRs lower than they should be. But as the wt meta is favoring turn fights at at low to medium alt and USSR planes excel there, they have the advantage; and 1 or 2 hits with their 20 mm kills usually any enemy fighter.
So imho your example Yak-3 fulfills the criteria of overpowered:
Regarding this:
Imho both of your mentioned aircraft are rather easy prey for any competent Yak-3 pilot if you are below or at co-alt. I mean i remember that DEFYN reversed a way too fast Yak-3 diving on him whilst fly the 3.3 Sakeen but this looks not easy to reproduce.
If i would use the 109 G-6 i would try to drag the fight above 6 km as the VK 105 engines loses massive power at this alt and this kills a major strength of them: Superior energy retention. So with a mix of vertical and horizontal maneuvers you should be get him slow enough that he can’t dodge or dive out as their rip speed is far lower than yours.
With your D-5 the same procedure (dragging them high) whilst enforcing high speed fights, u have a quite impressive instantaneous turn in the D-5 at very high speed. But u need to reset the fight after 1 or max 2 turns, otherwise u get clapped.
So going to higher alt and making them very slow (109) or keeping the speed very high (P-51) would be a start.
As final advices:
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Most Yak-3 players be have like the average XP-50 pilot - they rush in up to 5.5 km, look for easy targets and go too early too low - so avoiding center positions (=sideclimbing and staying out of marker range of ~10 km) and being patient until they go low is essential.
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Whilst setting up a fight with Yak-3s (4.0/4.3) i recommend to check the player card upfront of any engagement - as the fellow player above stated correctly: They are a menace if flown by a decent pilot.
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If you meet a decent pilot: You are not forced to fight at terms you don’t like, sometimes it is better just to keep them occupied (so in order to avoid that they murder your team) without risking your plane.
As an example of a rather decent pilot using the full strengths regarding high top speed vs better turning JP aircraft watch this replay (replay link):
- We both messed up our first engagements and i spotted him after ~ 10 minutes - with 2 km altitude advantage.
- He went for easy kill (oblivious 190, 10:16) and spotted me. My sheer presence saved the Wyvern 1 km below him (10:35) as he knew i would kill him if he goes low for that kill.
- He spent then the next 3 minutes trying to encourage me to dive on him whilst he extended horizontally in order to reduce my energy advantage whilst i kept my 2 km altitude advantage.
- The problem is that my rip speed is actually slower than his and i lose the main part of my advantage during the dive, whilst he just can run away and get the upper hand as he is way faster.
- He increased his distance from 2.5 km to ~ 5 km and assumed that this distance is safe enough to dive on the ground pounding Wyvern, get the kill and get away due to his superior top speed.
- As this was extremely predictable i positioned myself so that i would be able to get in gun range.
- He decided to attack the Wyvern at 15:08, killed him at 15:40 and i managed to be 2.5 km on top of him.
- I was in gun range at 16:02 and killed him 16:18 from 0,7 km behind him…
- Firing window was small, 15 - 20 seconds more and he would have been out of gun range.
Have a good one!