"I didn't believe it at first, neither did my wing man. This 109 got on our asses and started firing. I took a few hits, my wing man took a few as well, but that 109 must've been flown by some tin horn; he didn't hit us more than a dozen times before he ran outa ammo!"
Warbirds P-47D pilot just after a raid on a German flak site
How to begin
Learning to shoot in Aces High or Warbirds is just like learning to shoot in real life. You have to relax, concentrate, and keep a sharp eye on your target. So, before you can shoot up enemy aircraft you must first shoot up some hangars. That's right, hangars. They are large, easy to find, and they can improve your gunnery drastically. Before your first fight, practice your accuracy on the hangars. Fire at one of the corner posts, aim for the center-line of the roof or any other small target.
The purpose of this is to get comfortable firing at small targets. After you've gained a sharp eye firing at hangars, start in on the flak emplacements. 50 caliber and 20mm sites are the hardest to hit with guns, so it's best to start by shooting up the 88 sites. Gradually work your way down to firing at 50 caliber AAA emplacements until you can hit them from a respectable distance. Now you're ready to fire on a moving target.
From here on out it depends on the type of aircraft you plan on flying. If you choose something like a P-47 or a P-51 you'll have a lot of ammo to expend on aircraft. So you can afford to miss on a regular basis, and have an average gunnery rate around 9%. Other aircraft are not this forgiving. If you're going to be flying Japanese or German aircraft you'll have to pick your shots carefully. You don't have the ammo to waste.
By far the most challenging aircraft to fly is the Bf-109. Early war 109s [E models] have a lot of ammo available for their 7.92mm machine guns, but very little ammo available for their 20mm cannons. So you have to be careful and get up close to make
a kill. This is not personal opinion, nor is it law, but it is the only way to score multiple kills without running out of ammunition. This is THE rule when it comes to flying and killing in the 109. If you ever want a real challenge fly the 109-K4 and use the cannon as long as you can. You've only got 60 rounds, so pick your shots carefully.
Energy fighters always have a lot of ammo, travel fast, and are fairly accurate shooters. The reason for this is very simple; they weigh more than most aircraft. If you want to build a turning fighter you sacrifice everything to make it turn quick. Energy fighters can weigh as much as you want, because they're not built for maneuverability. P-47s, Fw-190s, P-38s and F4U Corsairs are
the best in this field. By flying one you'll have the weight of firepower on your side, you can out-run most other aircraft, but you can't really turn that well. Energy fighters have a lot of ammo so, again, you can burn more of it without really being concerned about running out at a bad time.
Now the hard part, shooting down an enemy plane.
Your first kill
This depends, again, on which aircraft you've chosen to fly. I'm biased towards German aircraft, but I'll give you examples of each major fighter below. It basically boils down to you getting your guns on target, pulling the trigger, and watching
the hits on his plane. If you missed try again, if you hit him he's either damaged or dead.
Bf-109 G6: Get in behind your target, and hold your fire. You want to wait
until he gets close enough to hit easily. If he starts to maneuver hard pull up and try to pull a high yo-yo on him. As soon as the range indicator reads '3' open fire with your machine guns, when it reads '2' open up with both your machine guns and cannon. He'll die and you'll have plenty of ammo left over for the next kill. Never open fire from long range on any enemy aircraft or you'll loose too much ammo. That is, unless you were trying to kill that tree and not the enemy.
P-47D: Ok, you've spotted a 109 at 1,200 yards and 12 o'clock high. Gently pull up into a shallow climb to meet him. Around 600 yards open fire with just 4 machine guns, not all 8. Once you spot hits on him from your 4 guns,
add the rest in to kill him quickly. You've got a lot of ammo available to burn, and if you use a long convergance setting you won't have any troubles playing sniper.
Fw-190 A8: This is almost the same as the 109, only with a twist. Instead of waiting until 300 yards to shoot, you open up around 500 yards. Don't use your cannons until 300 yards or so, or you'll waste too much ammo. Once you've got him dead to rights, kill him. Quad 20mm cannons are just plain EVIL against any aircraft.
F4U-4: Start above your target with lots of airspeed. Once you think you've got him, roll inverted and drop down on top of him. At 600 yards open up with everything you've got, and he'll die from the hail of lead quickly. Just
like the P-47, you've got more than enough ammo to deal with anyone, so you can burn a little more than most pilots would like and still be safe.
A6M3: Getting in behind your enemy at 800 yards or so is easy, but closing to within 400 yards to kill him can be hard. You have to wait until around that range before you can shoot with any chance of hitting him. Once there, fire everything you've got and aim for the upper section of his tail; you might get lucky and hit the pilot. If not, aim for his wings. Blowing them off results in an easy kill.
Picking your shots
In Warbirds there was a major change in what happens to a specific aircraft part when it gets hit. This results in more pilot kills, more wings and tail sections blown off and more parts flying through the air than enemy aircraft. You have to choose your shots now, if you don't you'll end up firing into his tail until you run out of ammo. With no results either. Aces High has always been like this, without the Iron Tail problem Warbirds has. I've seen aircraft catch fire, blow up in mid-air, and do some really funny things when they get nailed.
I fire from just about every possible angle, which allows me to see some interesting things when it comes to aircraft damage. I've watched P-51Ds try hammerhead stalls; they just hang there for a few seconds and that's when I fire at their cockpits or belly. If you're playing Warbirds offline you've got an advantage. The radio text bar lights up with a very extensive damage report: no pilot armor, engine damaged, left aileron gone, left fuel tank leak, center fuel tank leak, rudder gone, elevator gone, horizontal stabilizer gone. Aces High doesn't have this, so just figure when you see smoke and flames, he's dead.
Although I fire from every angle I can, there's a few angles which I find perticularly devistating. A 5 or 7 o'clock shot down on the enemy plane, or when they're turning, usually results in a fuel leak, a missing aileron, and missing pilot armor. Every once in a while I'll get their engine or kill the pilot along with a smattering of damage across the entire aircraft. Another favorite angle for me is the top shot. I pull a high yo-yo and dive straight down on an enemy plane, wait until 400 yards, then light the sucker up. More often than not either the pilot or the engine dies, but sometimes I'll get damaged engines or fuel leaks.
A fuel leak is a bit more dangerous then it used to be. If you get a fuel leak now it drains your tank, but in this release you can have 3 tanks leaking at the same time and all within a few seconds of each other. BIG trouble for you and every other pilot. The next most dangerous thing is a stabilizer that gets blown off. You loose all control over the aircraft, and you either bail or die. I prefer to fight another day but some like to auger in; it lets them get into the air just that much quicker.
Dead 6 shots are the only no-no these days, since they rarely net much of a result for the large expenditure of ammo required to do any real harm. This is the Iron Tail problem. If you get lucky you might shoot his elevator off, but that's the extent of it. The up and under attack works just fine, but you have to know it before you can actually pull it off. Click Here to read about the up and under. Now if you really want to get the enemy plane with minimal effort here's what to do.
Close to just under 600 yards, flying a bit lower as not to be seen. Once you pass 400 yards dive just a bit, then pull up so you can fire at his engine or wing. At the very least you'll get a leaking fuel tank or jammed flaps, at the most you'll not only damage his engine but you'll also rip him up. All that's remaining now is to come around and finish the job, provided you didn't kill the poor guy on the first pass. Again Aces High doesn't require a large number of hits to kill like Warbirds does. In Warbirds, the gunnery was fudged (purposely changed) for playability reasons. This results in a lot more ammo being expended per kill than Aces High.
I did a test back when I still played Warbirds, and the results combined with the Admin's attitude made me quit. An Fw-190 A8 required over 3,000 rounds of .30 caliber ammo to kill. With that much ammo in Aces High you could probably kill three or four aircraft with a little left over. 20mm cannons had the same problem; 140 strikes required per kill of a P-38L. With 120 rounds of 20mm ammo in Aces High I've killed five aircraft before my guns ran dry. Tells ya something huh.
The pocket
The pocket is an old term, meaning to get in behind an enemy. Pilots usually want to "Drop into the pocket" and kill fast, less they pick up an unfriendly aircraft on their 6. For you, getting in the pocket can be hard or easy. You have to set it up, wait for the right time, then drop in fast. If you're quick on the guns, you can easily kill most any plane and pull off to set up
another kill. The key lies in your timing. If you're smart you can find the right time, the right angle, to get in and kill from up close.
Being dumb about it can get you killed; pull in too fast and he's now on your ass. Pull in too late, and you're out of position for a shot. The worst thing that can happen is when you pull in too soon, and too fast, causing the enemy to get an easy shot at you. Like I said, timing is the key. So wait until you can see an enemy plane at the right angle, altitude and speed. Once
you've got him wait for him to get a little past you, then haul it around in a hard low yo-yo. Before you know it, he's right there in a perfect position for you to make a low 6-shot.
Shot types
There's all kinds of shooting involved in bringing down an enemy aircraft. During WW2 American bomber gunners were tested on clay pidgeons using shotguns for their ability to hit a moving target. Weird it may seem, but this can actually improve
your shooting in real combat. But we aren't talking about actual dogfights with real aircraft; this is shooting on the computer. What type of shots to practice on entirely depends on the aircraft you choose to fly. Early war aircraft usually had .30 caliber machine guns, not to mention a LOAD of ammo to burn. So although the bullet may not be a one-shot killer it gives you plenty of time on tracking shots.
Here's a tid-bit I'll bet you didn't know. Almost everyone will open fire on a target, see their shot isn't hitting, and move the gun as they shoot. Not quite spraying and praying but it's close. Your average Tin Horn learns to shoot this way because it makes the most sense. And if you sit to think about it, you'll find some logic behind it too. Say you're sitting behind a machine gun watching a road. You open up on a truck, but you see the tracers going a little wide, so you naturally swing the gun to compensate for this. Whack! You're hitting the truck now.
Everyone does this in every air combat sim because all the target has to do is hold still for 3 seconds for your shot to connect. One minor problem; it eats your ammo supply up like Uncle Bob does with popcorn. Not much of a problem you say? It can be. For every 20mm cannon round an aircraft can carry, you can load up two .50 caliber rounds. Doesn't seem like much? Ok, try this on for size; for every 20mm cannon round loaded, you can cram five .30 caliber shells in the same space. Now you've got a choice: do you carry more ammo for less powerful guns, or less ammo for more powerful guns?
This, my friend, purely depends on your shooting ability. Most US aircraft, and some British too, have enough ammo to get into trouble and maybe get out with two or three kills. Now with every rule there are exceptions. A single P-47D-30 can carry 3,400 rounds of .50 caliber amunition, but it's about as maneuverable as a brick. A complete opposite is the Yak-9U which carries only three guns; two .50 cals (340 rounds total) and a single 20mm cannon (120 rounds). Now this thing can really get down and boogie if you know what you're doing, it's a speed demon at most altitudes to boot. But again the ammo problem; 340 rounds for two guns!! In a P-47 you can shoot all day and still have enough ammo to raise hell tomorrow. You can barely sneeze at someone while in the Yak, let alone try for a long tracking shot.
As they say, the show must go on. I've noted below some basic types of shots and what they are, along with personal notes and opinions. Read on, you'll learn something.
Tracking shot: Almost exactly what you think it is. You open fire and track your guns
over onto the target while firing in order to score hits and down the bugger. Most people use tracking shots without realizing it, since that's how they learned to shoot. ONLY do this in aircraft which have plenty of ammunition; try it in some aircraft, and you'll run out long before the fight ends.
Snap shot: Ever gone skeet shooting? No? Not a problem. A snap shot is when you see a target, he's in range, and you fire off a quick blast. This usually happens when a guy pops up right in front of you as you're doing something else, so you fire off a snap shot at the guy in hopes of downing him. It doesn't use much ammo, which is a big plus, but it requires a lot of practice to get right. You might get lucky and connect, which should cause some damage. Now if you're driving an Fw-190, with quad 20mm cannons, you just might kill the guy.
Top shot: Shooting straight down at the top of an enemy plane. With the angles involved, you usually end up killing the pilot or blowing huge chunks from his plane. A large problem with top shots is putting enough lead into the target to kill him quickly. He's moving at 300+ mph and you're diving straight down on top of him, so he'll only be there for a second at most. Granted this will work against fighters, you'll have a lot more success trying it on bombers. They're larger, move
slower, and a good burst into a wing can send one crashing to Earth.
Slashing attack: A wonderful way to blow a bomber down from your piece of sky. Unlike the dead-6 attack (it isn't called dead-6 for nothing) you can really inflict some damage by setting this up right. He's flying straight ahead, and he won't turn, so you fly at him from either 2 or 10 o'clock. Aim for the wing root with everything you've got and hose him off. Best case his wing will fall off and send him plunging down. Worst case you'll blow out both engines on that wing, cause a fuel leak, and maybe start a fire.
Those are the four basic types of shots. Naturally you can nit-pick and probably come up with two dozen more, but this is enough for now. So what kind of shot are you? If you're fairly good you can really be a mid-air murderer in anything with enough amunition. Now if you're new to all this, find an aircraft that has a LOT of ammo. It doesn't matter if that massive load is .30 caliber, you're learning how to shoot at enemy aircraft. The average new guy sprays and prays when anything even gets close to being within guns range. He sprays the air with lead and prays for a few strikes. Not the best thing for learning how to shoot.
Try things out on the drones offline. Shoot from just about any angle you can think of using tracking shots to get the basic method down. A Spitfire Mk V is actually a nice place to start because it has four .30 cal machine
guns, and two 20mm cannons. Don't go using the cannons just yet; they take a bit more practice to figure out. Once you have tracking shots down, try for a few snap shots just to get a feel for them. It's really amazing how fast they happen. You can try blowing a drone to bits using .30 cal snap shots, but I doubt you'll kill the computer-driven idiot. For that, you use artillery.
Aerial artillery: cannons
Welcome to the Major League of aircraft-mounted weaponry. Smaller bullets don't necessarily cause little damage; the four .30 caliber Brownings in a Spitfire will chew anything up. Given enough time, of course. Maybe eight .50 cals sounds like the ultimate in destruction. They sure can be, since their collective firing rate nears that of a mini-gun (6,400 rounds/min for the P-47D if you're wondering). Nope, they aren't the biggest bang out there either. What is? I'll give you a hint: it starts with 20mm and
gets bigger. Damn you guessed! That's right, a cannon. You don't spray cannon shells all over the sky and expect every plane within range to fall. It doesn't happen that way.
If you can see a target, and have some cannons at your disposal, odds are you can kill it. A few .50 cal rounds might cause some damage as they bust up parts, but a grenade-like explosion inside an aircraft is FAR worse. Now you're thinking the biggest gun out there is a 20mm cannon, right? I thought so. Well I hate to burst your bubble, you are wrong. The absolute biggest bang in the sky comes from the NS-37 cannon someone shoved up the nose of the Yak-9T. Right below that are the Terror Twins, the pair of VYa-23 cannons in the Il-2 type 3. Under those? The generic 20mm cannons found on many aircraft you can fly around the sky. There is one other cannon, and I'll get to it in a minute.
A 20mm cannon is a nice compromise between punch and weight. You have some explosive in those shells, and each round hits like a ton of bricks. Which means with a few well-placed shots you can easily cause unreal damage to most any target that has wings. There is a price you pay for loading cannons on any aircraft; ammo load. As I noted above, there isn't much room inside an aircraft for many cannon shells. With machine guns you'll always have a lot more ammunition available, but not necessarily more destruction.
Back during the Joint Fighter Conference a bunch of brass figured out that a single 20mm cannon has the same damage potential as two .50 caliber guns. Unfortunately they also found out all those cannon shells weigh too much to match a .50 cal in ammo load. So you end up with a smaller clip, but more damage if you hit the target. Believe it or not the standard US gun load for a combat fighter when the war started was a single .50 cal and a single .30 cal machine gun. I know, I was floored by that when I first
read it too.
Probably the most destructive gun ever placed in a fighter was the Bk-50 cannon experimentally fitted to an Me-262. This was a 50mm cannon! What about the largest production gun? That honor badge is owned by two aircraft. The Yak-9T with a 37mm cannon in he nose, and the P-39 Airacobra. Provided you hit anything with that big, slow bullet you would kill it. Fighters struck by a single 37mm cannon round would just explode into a big beautiful fireball. And if you had the urge, you could nail tanks with it too.
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