New pilot, definitely not an ace...

[ExitiumMachina 0]

Alright, here I go. I can do basic maneuvers in flight, I can even evade other fighter planes...what I cannot for the life of me do is shoot them down. I've read into it and still cannot really understand it, I know about the cross path of the machine guns and what that has to do with the convergence.

 

Now here is what I have for convergence: 300, which according to what I have read as soon as I hit .30 or so in distance to an enemy plane my guns should shred that plane to bits. However, in practice I have found it extremely difficult to do consistently...not to say I can't do it, I just can't do it often (1 out of 10 perhaps).

 

I've seen diagrams over at ubi's forums and have seen videos of how it works, and it seems to work really well with those pilots. It does not however work very well with me. Any tips or advice as to what I am doing wrong here?

[JediMaster 451]

Your best bet is to just keep getting closer. Some aces in the wars waited until they were right on top of the enemy to conserve ammo.

I've found if I don't have nose mounted guns I only may be able to hit with left or right guns, but not both...trying to center the target results in "bracketed" fire around the enemy that does little. Mostly, though, it's practice in learning how far the tracers are from you and how much lead you need to pull (assuming here you're not in a oerfect 6 shot since that rarely happens!) to hit.

I've got my convergence at 400m I think, which is my max effective range for aiming. Closer than that I am more likely to hit, but again only with left or right guns, not both.

[ExitiumMachina 0]

Your best bet is to just keep getting closer. Some aces in the wars waited until they were right on top of the enemy to conserve ammo.

I've found if I don't have nose mounted guns I only may be able to hit with left or right guns, but not both...trying to center the target results in "bracketed" fire around the enemy that does little. Mostly, though, it's practice in learning how far the tracers are from you and how much lead you need to pull (assuming here you're not in a oerfect 6 shot since that rarely happens!) to hit.

I've got my convergence at 400m I think, which is my max effective range for aiming. Closer than that I am more likely to hit, but again only with left or right guns, not both.

 

 

I've found this method to only work in certain planes, mainly the Mig's. I'm going to tweak around my convergence and test different distances and see if any of them come out on top...so far though I'm liking the Mig as it has a pretty good takedown and agility.

[JediMaster 451]

Biggest issue with the Russian planes is usually small ammo load. You get maybe 10 seconds of continuous firing max and you're out, while the cannons seem to last 1/3 that. Every plane has less cannon than MG ammo unless the plane is cannon only, but the Russian ones seem very stingy with it.

[griphos 0]

Hope no one minds if I jump in with some thoughts after the thread has been lying here a month or so. I've flown with both 400 and 300 as convergence distance, and find I hit a bit better with it at 400. But whatever distance you set means that at a farther OR CLOSER distance, your bullets will fly wide or scatter a bit. That means that you can get too close. Of course, when you are close, more of your bullets may still hit since the target is relatively larger, and they have more force. But shooting at the convergence distance is best, or at see the whites of the eyeballs distance, where pretty much every bullet finds something to ding.

 

At any rate, I wonder if your issue might be g's. I think the biggest issue that throws off aim is pulling g's. You can slip or slide with the rudder to play your shots along the enemy plane without throwing off your aim much (especially good for bombers), but pulling ANY elevator will cause your bullets to fall under your point of aim by an amount relative to the force of your pull. This took me the longest to figure out and understand. Your bullet travels a path that is straight (relatively) relative to where your nose was pointed when you pulled the trigger. At the speeds of our planes, if we are pulling any elevator, that path is significantly BELOW where the nose of our plane is even a fraction of a second after pulling the trigger. If you watch other planes shooting, or trying to shoot, while pulling any g's, you will see their tracers streaming hopelessly below the path they are flying and way far off from the enemy plane, and they were probably leading a good bit.

 

I knew about lead, and had a pretty good idea how much lead to pull for the deflection angle of the plane I was shooting at (the sight picture of the enemy), but there's ALSO lead you have to allow if you're flying with any pitch input at all. Rolling also throws off the relation of bullet path and target sight (not as much). This is what makes hitting a plane while both of you are banking and yanking in a turn extremely difficult. You have to lead so much you're no longer able to see him. You can get off a good snap shot leading an enemy plane that is cutting across your path if you are flying straight, but trying to hit the same plane on the same path if you're pulling on the elevator is pretty much a waste of bullets.

 

You may know all of this already, but I wonder whether you are flying without any elevator or aileron input while firing. Rudder is okay, but much aileron, and especially elevator, is going to throw you off.

 

Of course, most enemy planes don't do us the favor of flying a path that allows us to line up on them and fly nice and straight while blowing them to bits. But at the moment of firing, try to get into position to neutralize your controls for that second or two of burst. Resist the urge to fire while turning hard, even if they are close. Stick on them and wait for the good firing solution of proper distance, low deflection, and neutral or close to neutral controls.

 

If this was all too elementary really, I hope you'll forgive me for being so long-winded, but your question suggested you might not have come to terms with this aspect of gunnery yet.

[Hairog 0]

I find that when I'm having trouble hitting anything I go back to the basics and don't over think it. It almost always comes down to my not squeezing the trigger. I jerk the shot and miss.

 

Which brings to mind how incredibly hard it must have been and still is, to actually hit a plane with a bullet in real life. We in our virtual world without the stresses and strains of maneuver or being cramped in a small cockpit for hours in the freezing cold with your life really on the line, can"t even come close to what it must have been like.

 

Someone should hold a tournament of virtual pilots where the contestants have to "fly" while crammed in the back of a Ford Fiesta going 80 mph around an The Road America Race Course in the middle of winter with the windows open after drinking at least 6 cups of coffee per hour with no potty breaks.

 

And then there is the fact that we get to practice hundreds of times while in real life a pilot would actually find him/herself getting perhaps a dozen chances to get it right before the real thing happens.

 

Read about the first few fights that Saburo Sakai flew. He made some really silly mistakes but lived to fight another day.