Im not a new player on war thunder, 3 years have passed since I played for the first time this game
Even If I am an aviation guy, I grinded ground the most.
In Air battles, I reached recently the tier 3 vehicles in the german tech tree (I didn’t had time for thunder in the last year 🙏😭). Sometime I have the feeling that Air is suffering but I remember that I should get better at dogfighting (I played since I was a kid il-2 games, so I am good at flying, but war thunder is different)
In conclusion, I need tips ☝️
Like tips specific to the IAR-93?
No, I just put that image because I had IT in my gallery.
To be more specific, I want tips for the bf 109 line
Ahh okay. Well, you’re in luck, I really love the 109. Specifically, the F’s, I think they’re probably peak 109’s.
BnZ is a really good tactic with 109’s and Amercian aircraft.
They can also turn decently at mid to low speeds with proper flaps usage, but remember the flaps are slow to deploy and retract.
Using ASWD and free look is also a very handy skill to have in a dogfight. If you learn how to fly using these keys, then you can look around and dogfight at the same time. Also recommend using Q and E for rudders as they help with rolling and pitching/ throwing the nose around
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Are we talking about jets (korean war, early vietnam war) or propeller aircraft?
Also RB or Arcade physics?
Which plane in particular?
I can give you two universal pieces of advice:
- Watch this playlist by Defyn. It eaches you general RB skills: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLmqHixdtpCOvLas_HftSzPgSmeSN_u2I
- Watch this playlist by "“Air combat tutorial library.” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnyigzFtHeNr9zTkpxyD0ksFD3CwLa2UE These techniques are the punches, kicks and jabs and throws of air combat. Very basic, solved problem-answer techniques you want to have as a gut-reaction when you recognize a situation. These will not win you fights. These will not make you dominate. These will just give you good base foundations to iterate on creatively.
I mostly play Air Sim EC (RB physics) in propeller aircraft these days. I consider myself an average player - able to win 1-on-1 fights with some regularity even starting from a disadvantage, but lose against multiple foes more often than not.
I normally fly the F4U-4, Ki-43, A6M3, P-51 “cannon” mustang.
This is a collection of lessons I’ve learned I found helpful.
- SIM only: Vertical targetting is king for helping you land high deflection shots. Vertical targetting at 400 meter convergence makes it so that you can put the target into your plane’s sights and fire your guns and more often than not land your shots without having to compensate.
- Find the gun convergence that works best for you. In sim, 400 meters seems about perfect. In RB, 800 metres works as aiming at longer range is easier, however VT at 800 metres might be too much to deal with.
- Maintain situational awareness AT ALL TIMES. Especially when you are making an attack run - this is when you are the most vulnerable and the juiciest target. Look behind you whenever you get the chance. Look above you whenever you get the chance. Don’t leave yourself an easy target!
- Mouse aim: Learn to use WASD to control your plane while looking around. It might be ideal to reduce roll/pitch sensitivities so that using WASD doesn’t cause full deflection at a light tap. This can help you engage in defensive maneuvers while maintaing visual with the guy on your tail. In sim, you can achieve similar results by pulling your mouse joystick back before pressing C, this makes your plane constantly pitch up which is more or less what you’re doing in every maneuver and helps avoid too much AoA from using WS. AD is fine to use still.
- A big mistake I kept doing: I kept aiming in front of the enemy all the time. This meant that in two-circle fights, we ended up yo-yoing without getting a clear shot. When engaging in a turn fight where you are chasing your opponent’s tail and they are chasing your tail in turn, do not aim in front of them all the time. You want to vary where you point your nose. As a rule of thumb I found pretty useful in the ki-43 and f4u-4 is to aim the nose behind the enemy plane until they end up almost crossing the upper canopy frame where you release pull and fly straight for 1 second or less before pulling lead (aim in front of them). Repeat this dance of aim behind, release, aim in front as often as needed and you’ll slot right onto their tail with an easy shot.
- Use your vertical dimension/out of plane maneuvers. Turning in a flat circle is easy, but not always the best solution. Pulling out of the plane and turning after flying inverted can significantly improve your turn performance due to how gravity and lift interact - this is how you can get behind a bf109 in a p-51 despite the bf109 turning better on paper. Yo-yos, pitchback, sliceback, lag displacement roll all exploit this.
- Speed is king. Learn the speed your plane has the best turning performance at, including how it changes with flaps and vertical angles and abuse it to get an edge. Since altitude is banked speed, keep enough of an altitude advantage to be able to maintain this speed as you maneuver. You can end up losing nearly a kilometer of altitude in a protracted dogfight to maintain your speed.
- Altitude is life. Having altitude gives you the ability to perform a split S or a defensive spiral when ambushed to create distance from your enemy to try and dictate a more favourable engagement. I’ve survived some ridiculous things by just diving away as soon as I saw a plane behind me or even after a few bullets landed.
Images of planes I've returned to base safely with purely thanks to having altitude to dive and run away with. Altitude also meant otherwise deadly spins could be reacted to and survived
- Learn your flaps. This is especially crucial for the F4U-4 and Bf109s equally.
- Learn to read and asses your opponent’s energy and react accordingly. Trying to pull a guy into a vertical energy trap while they got 200 km/h on you is not going to work out. Likewise knowing how far you can push your plane to punish an enemy misreading yours will win you fights.
- When boom and zooming, there’s such a thing as too much speed. It’s not yet ripping your wings, but it makes your controls lock up really bad and makes aiming basically impossible.
- Do not over-commit to boom & zooms. I had a duel with a smart P-51C player in my Ki-43. I don’t know how much more altitude they had, but essentially. They dove on me and shot. I dodged and they missed. Before their altitude met mine, they were already level and speeding away and climbing back to advantage. I couldn’t retaliate, but I sure wasted a lot of energy and altitude dodging their shot. Then, before I recovered they came back and repeated, never over-doing it. Never staying long enough for me to get my guns on them. They repeated this until I was a sitting duck and shot me out of the sky without any chance at counter-play behind diving and running away. Be the P-51C. Don’t be the Bf109 that dove my F4U-4 and started rolling with me in a scissor and losing it.
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