buy and fly it.
I keep reading everywhere that the biggest most significant weakness of the Xp50 is its pilots, rookies, etc. That’s total bullshit, I’m seeing a lot of XP-50s in almost every battle these days and they’re all piloted by level 100 players. I’m now flying a Japanese Ki-44-II (3.7 BR) and XP50s in the hands of these experienced pilots are my pain. Yesterday I lost a rolling scissors dogfight against an XP50 or in another game was shocked by their energy retention. I am constantly shocked at what the XP50 can do. I started running from them normally. I hate to say it. I am afraid of them, no matter how much I climb (and Ki-44 is a very good climber), they always appear at least a kilometer above me. I’d expect that if I headon with them and successfully avoid and turn behind them, even using flaps, and he spins as well, that I’ll win in the Ki-44 turnfight, but no, no, I won’t out turn the XP50. And it’s not enough to say “skill issue” here, I’m level 90 and I use the keyboard and free view and I’m not a rookie. XP50 in the hands of 100 level pilots is really a bane.
I checked more than 10 replays of you, 1 out of 4 XP50 players were level 100.
Player’s level says nothing about skill in AirRB. There are lots of players reaching their level by playing tanks.
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First of all: Player level is just an indicator how long somebody has played wt - it says nothing about actual pilot skills.
Second - my recommendation to play around the weaknesses of the airframe (low rip speed and high compression at high speeds) described here are still valid.
- Imho your plane choice Ki-44 is not bad to fight XP-50s, but you have to keep your fights fast (=at high speeds) and use your far superior roll rate.
- Having an altitude disadvantage vs an XP-50 means nothing - they have to come down to kill you. So it is way more important to keep a horizontal distance of ~ 2 km and your speed very high as your enemy has to increase his speed in order to catch you and get in gun range, the faster they get, the harder it becomes to get guns on target.
- Trying to outclimb an XP-50 might work if you do this outside the spotting range but have in mind that the Ki-44 is quite slow and loses a lot of engine power above 6-7 kilometers alt.
- Last but not least - a slow or medium speed turnfight in a Ki-44 at higher altitudes is a recipe for disaster - the XP-50 turns much better than a Ki-44.
Valid for all fights: The key is always to deny the enemy to play their aircraft to their strengths whilst using your own advantages. As soon as you accept to fight not on your terms you have to prepare for the worst.
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Please watch this replay and tell me if I played it well, if I have a good handle on the Ki-44, or if I’m a noob and just got lucky. At the end of the battle 1v2 duel (my Ki-44 vs P-51+La-5).
https://warthunder.com/en/tournament/replay/247280547341893141
I’m no genius, but in my opinion:
The P51 should be dead with the first attack you done. his flight path was clear and he was slow. Easy kill.
If you have problems with compression/ ripping in a dive, you can use MEC as airbrake on the Ki.
I adjust coolers and prop pitch at 100% at the start, fly without MEC, and in a fast dive I throttle down and switch to MEC, so the prop pitch stays at 100%.
Biggest problem is your flap using. Why raising flaps by going straight up? You only wasting energy.
If I use flaps, i raise them only on top of my loop for nose-diving.
You came into the fight with 660kph. By turning too tight, doing this energy wasting rolling thing and using flaps you end on top of your loop at 240kph. Without these things you can hold more energy, distance, alt over your enemies. So both enemies would stall and you had maybe 400kph ish on top of them.
If this P51 had better aim, you were dead after the second loop.
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Bait them down to your team.
Thank you very much! really. This is worth gold to me. I’ll take it to heart.
I think I know that I overuse flaps, and it’s a vice that I learned from war thunder youtubers, even from DEFYN for example. In his video about flaps he urged us all to restrain because of the loss of energy, but if you look at his videos, he uses them all the time and in the video with the BF 109 F-4, which I have seen a million times, he uses them exactly at the moment when he is pulling up.
Yes at speeds from 550km upwards I have a problem with the Ki-44 to getting the target into the sight due to rudder compression, and I think that’s what happened to me at the beginning of this fight, too much speed. I know that Ki-44 without throttle loses speed very quickly and I use it very often when diving, just for the sake of keeping the speed below 600km due to total rudder compression, but in this case I neglected it.
but as for the P-51’s aiming, yes, it was close, but I was really watching closely where his guns were pointing and trying to avoid them, and I believed I succeeded :)
Bf 109 F-4 needs 6sec to raise flaps to 20%. Ki 44 II hei needs 3sec to raise them to 33%. That’s the reason he uses them earlier.
Yeah, bingo, you are right, i forgot this. I take it back.
so, you’re saying to use the flaps only at the top of the loop or during horizontal turn?
In a horizontal turn there are very rare situation I use flaps.
Most of the time I use them only to produce extra lift in low speed fights.
But there are some planes you can use them all day long, e.g. the Ta 152 H-1. With flaps you can outturn a P-51H-5-NA without get energy trapped.
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I remember one dogfight , I had a BF 109 F-2 in a dogfight with a P-38 and we ended up on the deck in a horizontal turn. The P-38 has good flaps, I’m sure he had them extended, and so did I, and because of that I gradually got him in my sights. But I guess what you’re going to tell me is that I should never have been in that situation with the 109. There was no one else around, we were the last ones in the game, I knew I was going out turn him so I went for it. But it took a while, a few turns.
Edit: With the 109s I learned to use the flaps a lot at the end of the vertical spiral when creating an energy trap, and I actually do the same with the Ki-44.
You seem like someone who is a very good pilot with the knowledge, so I am grateful for your advice. Thank you.
As an XP-50 driver myself, I can tell you to be in turn fighting vehicle and know how to turn-fight.
I play sim though so I’m not one of the ones beating up on you.
Easier said than done.
XP-50 as an airstart, superior speed (pushing 700km/hr at BR 4.0 !!!) and great climb rate for it’s BR.
It’s ridiculous how often they down bombers well short of the target base.
If you’re in a bomber just turn away and aim well with your guns - keep the XP-50 behind you. Keep your speed as fast as possible.
It only takes a few hits to an engine to disable it. The pilot is also easily killed.
Just turn? Seriously?
The XP-50 is moving waaaaay faster than the bomber, and it’s often coming from above. They climb THAT fast.
The only bombers that have a chance at your suggestion are the freaks like the AR-2 or the B34. Good luck to most of the british bombers in that BR range, or the rest of the russians like the YER-2.
And there are a lot of bombers that have weak tail or ventral gun coverage.
I’m not suggesting you’re not in trouble if you’re in a low bomber being dove on by XP-50s. And it’s not “just turn” to easily avoid death… it’s “just turn” because that’s your only hope. Good luck.
You also mentioned too sharp, too tight turn. I use a wasd in dogfight, but “a” button…that’s the maximum pull up, I use the mouse for the free look which I consider essential, knowing what the enemy is doing, I can’t imagine in practice how to turn more gently. So…how?
Pretty much it.
You know you don’t have to fly straight towards the red side of the map when you spawn in a bomber right?
Moreover, due to how spotting works, you will have ample time to put yourself in position to fly away from an opponent at the merge. The problem is that a majority of the player base decides trading their plane for a base is ‘grinding’ and have no problem doing so, then complaining about how bad bomber gameplay is.
Don’t get me wrong the design of ARB in its current state is incredibly dated, stale and lacks an ounce of creativity or engaging gameplay, but not being able to, or refusing to position yourself to shoot at a plane you saw coming from 8 km away doesn’t seem very reasonable.
And yes, the XP-50 is broken for its BR and an example of P2W. If Gaijin really balances the game by SL earnings on a macro, per flyout average basis, there is no way it earns the same as other 4.0 aircraft. Ditto the Wyvern.