The question is, in the real world, would there be any automatic aerial weapon that had accuracy beyond 400 meters?
Yeah I know the difference, I used to play a lot of AB as well back in the day.
Ironically the A6M flight models are pretty borked in AB unless they changed it since I last played. They absolutely refuse to roll at all in that mode, but literally turn like UFOs.
It would make more sense talking about climbing performance since its mega buffed for all planes. Last time I played AB after years in RB I remember it caught me out with just how much energy people had to point 90 degrees up and get to you.
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So which of the A6M2 Mod 11 & P-47D-22 Re (both are 3.7) has the better SL climb rate?
It’s not rigged as such but is most definitely skewed where it can (e.g. the selected Map, Mode, Side & team composition & number) to have an impact. It’s job after all is to do it’s best to enforce a global 50% win rate for all players (so econ. measures function properly so players experience the intended rate of meta-progression).
It’s not, but the time spent climbing doesn’t amount to much either if you can’t make it pay off in some way, which is why few people stick to higher altitudes.
Sure, but there really aren’t that many that are optimized for low-mid altitude flight regime outside the P-400 / P-39 / P-63, due to the way escort fighters evolved, to focus on range and high altitude performance.
They would rip before they are able to begin to close the distance in level flight, the problem there is that maneuvering near top speed takes care to not loose too much to be vulnerable. also never consider a second pass and or overcommit to a lead pursuit to set up a guns pass unless they are obviously low energy.
The problem with energy fighters is that unless the turn fighter makes a mistake there often isn’t a way to recover and so are much harder to conceptualize for the average player, and a lot more of an understanding of relative performance is required to do well.
Do you understand why they exist? repair costs are used to slow meta-progression (and serve as a disincentive for overly wasteful tactics, the same reason why non-default belts & ordnance cost SL).
Obviously yes, otherwise it would be at that BR, since there are enough pilots that don’t know what htey are doing.
Once you account for the impact of Player skill and the intent of the BR system. Yes, it will find a way to the appropriate BR.
Do I need another nation to know what not to do in an Energy fighter? or know how the Zero stacks up.
Depends, there are a few systems that feed radar computed range to the gyro-sight to properly set the sight for the time of flight to assist constant G gun passes
Yes, Because you don’t know how they actually perform or what they do to compare. When I want to know how to counter a plane I’m having trouble with, I generally try to go and fly it to see how it actually compares.
You literally haven’t flown any of the planes I added to that screenshot comparison, how do you know how any of them compare to each other when the only 5.7 aircraft you’ve flown in RB is the AD-2?
The whole point of the argument is that player skill SHOULDNT be part of the balancing weight, or shouldn’t have nearly as much weight as it does.
that is the whole argument. Because the A6M5 is not at the appropriate BR. Its appropriate BR is 5.0.
It works in the opposite way too, Hence why we have the 4.7 F8F-1, the 2.7 P-39s, and the hilariously under tiered 2.3 Bf109 E-3.
When you look at the number of games played, It makes more sense.
The Bearcat has literally 10x the games played in March 2026.
Even the Tech tree base A6M5 only has 47k games played in March. And despite it still managing to survive at 5.0, it has lower stats despite the only difference between it and the Ko being 50rds of 20mm ammo and a small improvement to its wing rip speed in a dive.
Why does this matter? This post explains why:
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Because I understand how planes work? and can either watch replays or videos or look at plane and player stats to come to an understanding of how they might work.
RB isn’t that different to AAB, you still get 3rd person, and have to manipulate the instructor. and it’s not like the tactics suddenly stop working, or the average player improves measurably.
Sure, but the system as it currently is only takes SL & RP gain into account, and that is what impacts BR. Because valued actions such as a kill generate SL & RP and the intent is to manage the rate at which they are accrued by the average player as to optimize meta-progression rates.
If you want a balanced game custom lobbies are probably your only bet.
All it does is prove that the “Law of Large Numbers” is in fact a thing, and in effect, how ground breaking.
G.55 Serie 1 when it comes to pure performance is more like Bf 109 F4 competitor, with better turn and high speed handling but way worse speed. It could make sense to sit at 4.7 due to 3 guns vs 1 and not overheating like F4 and G2, but that’s it.
G6 is actually waaay better performance wise.
I mean, I G.55 S1 is G.55 S0 at higher BR. 4 MGs and 1 20mm cannon absolutely demolish enemy planes anyway, and there’s very little advantage in having 3x20mm + 2xMG instead.
There’s nothing G.55 S1/S0 can do better than 4.3 Spitfire Mk IX.
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I won’t as your point is part lie, and mostly an absolute non-issue as 1000+m snipes are nowhere near common enough to really be concerned about.
Meanwhile MG151/20 in a tailchase simply can’t reach a target from 800m away, lol.
Probably they can with AP 😄
With stealth belt, with air belt I wouldn’t even try to shoot.
I’ll give you that Japanese 20mm HEF shell suffers some damage drop, as Ta-152H wingroot goes black a bit less often at 2000m than at 0m, but there’s no substantial difference.
I’m quite surprised that somehow explosive content dropped from 16g to 12g, but I guess it’s just another one of “low explosive is no explosive” Gaijin messups.
Crew skills are also a major issue.
In my Aced Crew Bf 109 Fs, I can pull 11.3G initial turns using my elevator trim and remain fully in control of my aircraft as I transition to a 6G turn (which I can theoretically sustain indefinitely as long as I have energy as my pilot’s peak sustained G is 6.3G).
With 109 F-1.
With 109 F-4.
It’s ridiculous.
Here’s me demonstrating the “I can hold 6G without consequence”.
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Humor is the only rational reason that isn’t ignorance. ;)
But it’s not false, and I’ve played it and found out that it was powerful at 5.3. It doesn’t turn or roll quite as good as a zero, but it is significantly faster and climbs better too.
At least in SB I found its speed to be… less than enjoyable tbf coming from P-51C, G.55 and F4U-4 and Bf 109 F-4.
My standard habit of “let’s go downhill and keep the fight at 550-600 km/h” made it stiffen really, really bad.
I’ll fly a 109 F-4 any day over the A7M2.
They also faced at least twice as many fighters as they had IRL.
By all means, make the A6M5s compress above 480kph if you ALSO move them to 3.3, right where the Hellcat is. Even right now, fighting a Zero is trivial if you know what you’re doing… especially at 5.7.
Oh what am I saying, not even 480kph+ compression will save them. This Yak-3U decided to do… that, while I was going no more than 350kph. “Realistic” or not,
It’s also not gonna save this Mk24 as I was going well below 480kph.
You can see that the “faster and better climbing enemies” are rarely, if ever, actually doing that. They could have used their speed and stayed in a comfortable, advantageous position the whole game and there would be NOTHING I could do against them. But they didn’t, and I’m still printing aces.
The reason to climb is to not allow aircraft such as this to dive on you for free, and eliminate your speed advantage.
no the DCA was at 8.7 because it was affectively a gepard with better gun placement for anti tank use, and 4 times the APDS. now with the APDS removed it can be moved back down to 8.3, where it would then be placed in an 8.7 lineup because france doesnt really have a 8.3 lineup in the first place… yay~
Im not suprised, feeling the performance of it. I dont think having a few extra MG 151s are worth being 1.0 higher lol.
Speaking of MG151s its the first time Ive really used them a significant amount in a while (Ive been going through and playing all the ~4.0-5.0 italians, C205s etc last week or so). And you are right about the shell drop.
Wtf did they do to them? They drop like rocks after like 200m. You have to lead so far ahead now. The ballistics are flat out weird.
Mineshells still do mineshell things when they hit at least, but they feel awful to use now.
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Its so rediculous that the only way literally any 5.7 plane should be dying to an A6M5 is because the player quite literally LET the Zero pilot kill them. And yet, despite that, they still do.
A Yak3U in any normal situation should be completely untouchable for an A6M5. Let alone a Mk24 Spit lmfao.
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Use stealth so at least they are OK within 450m.
The ballistics are bad because they were kinda bad IRL and because other guns get pure fantasy ballistics due to lack of or unreliable data (Soviet ballistic data for Shvak is very sketchy and I don’t trust it, I can elaborate if needed) - and if no reliable data, Gaijin goes for best scenario possible… So reliable/accurate data = bad, LOL.
Of course if Germans designed guns for WT, they would reduce HE charge to like 8g and make 105g shells with way better ballistics, but IRL basically if gun did OK within 500m, it was plenty enough for almost all cases.
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In that case Id just buff the MG151 back to what it was to be honest.
Id rather they all were equally unrealistic than one type was realistic with the rest being fantasy.
Heck I never used to think “damn the MG151 is way more powerful than every other cannon” before the nerf.
The only issue is that its high-speed performance is worse