Lt. James Cater

The Hunter... A dream to fly around in, a nightmare to fight in. My main comp is messed up at the moment but i plan on trying the Hunter in combat again soon. If anyone really wants a challenge they should give the Hunter a whirl.

Coming in from a higher altitude and pulling up earlier will make more better results and a longer life. Factors one must take into account are those such as target, terrain, defenses, ordnance and aircraft. Personally, my lowest favored dive bombing altitude is 12,000 feet. 16,000 is perfect. You want to be able to build up speed in the dive so as to not only ensure a flatter trajectory for the bomb after release, but to also be able to get off the target and back to altitude as fast as possible. In heavily defended areas the release point should at an altitude than will prevent you from going lower than 3,500-4,000ft. This to give you some leeway in case you get target fixation and delay your pullup (IE keep you from slamming into the ground) and to avoid the worst of AAA. In a number of areas, the lower you go, the sooner you will go.

Thank you MigBuster for getting things back on track. A-10A ThunderboltII-As far as i'm concerned, flying this plane is pretty much the safest thing you can do. Don't get in over your head you should be able to have a long and succesful career. Pros-Can carry a staggering amount and variety of ordnance, HUD, incredible turn ratio, very survivable, superior endurance. Cons-Slow, limited at higher altitudes. Hawker Hunter FGA.9 You really want a challenge? Flying the Hunter is the hands down toughest assignment around. To stay alive in this plane will take all the skill and luck you can muster. Pros-Smooth handling, very stable at low altitudes, heavy gun loadout. Cons-Slow, no afterburners, no radar, limited gun ammo, poor endurance. That seems to be it for me. Those are all the aircraft that i've flown into battle long enough to venture an opinion on. I sure hope it helps someone!

I forgot to add....post your impressions too!

Just some notes i made some time ago,I had this in my comp thought it would be of use to FNGs SPEED IS LIFE-All things considered, it is usually better to be moving as fast as possible in a high threat area. Not only will it allow you to minimize your time of exposure to the enemy but also helps with manuvering to avoid certain threats such as SAMs and Migs. LOW AND SLOW=DEAD- From Thanh Hoa up, you are almost guaranteed to be shot down virtually anywhere if your airspeed drops below 300 knots at altitudes lower than 2500ft. The sheer number of light AAA that is around certain areas is amazing. You might get lucky on occasion but it's not recommended that you spend a prolonged period of time down below at slow speeds if you want to survive. Keep this thought in mind....IN THE WEEDS,HIGH SPEED! KNOW SAM-Remember every place a SAM was fired at you from and make sure to mark it on some kind of map. For me at least, it is the #1 thing that comes to mind while planning ingress and egress routes. From the center of Hanoi for example, there are no fewer than 10 SAM sites within shooting distance of you. IGNORE THE GIVEN WAYPOINTS-It doesn't matter what type of aircraft you are flying and the mission you are on. If you think you are going to survive up to Packs 5 and 6 using the stock waypoints you'd better think again. The waypoints given to certain targets can best be described as suicidal. THUD RIDGE-This one is pretty much for the Air Force guys flying out of Thailand. It can be used as a navigational aid for others, but it really is a BIG, BIG plus for F-105 jocks in particular. If you have to go Downtown, swing north of Yen Bai and use the ridge. It can allow you to get to your pitch up point in relative safety. MIGS,SHMIGS-In this sim i've flown Thuds perhaps 65% of the time. On only four occasions have i had a Mig within say, 3 miles. The first time I had the advantage and shot the Mig down (my wingman also getting a kill) the second and third times i had it on my six and simply opened up the throttle and outran it.The forth occasion was a bit more tricky but still a controllable situation. A MIG-21 came out of nowhere at about 8 o'clock low while my wingman and i were bombing a AAA site. After the ordnance was on it's way, i used the advantage of the high speed in the dive to pull up sharply in the direction of our getaway route whilest also slamming the burners all the way. This happened to be be just the right thing at the moment to do to break into the MIG. Since there were no SAMs active in the area we were able to level off at 8000ft and head for the hills. In the few seconds it took for the 21 to convert on us we had the speed and distance advantage on it and said bye bye. While doing tours in F-4s and F-8s i scored well. Well enough to disregard Migs as anything but a nuisance while in a Thud and a trophy while in a Phantom. Migs are murder on AI aircraft though, but really shouldn't be taken that seriously if you've done proper planning on your routes and are aware of your current situation and state. For example, at over 500 knots you won't have to worry about a Mig-17 either catching you from behind or converting onto you pretty much no matter what angle it's coming from. AVOIDING SAMS-This is a pretty tough subject and the options available really depend on various factors such as aircraft, altitude,speed,weight,external loads, etc, etc. Where you are at the moment of a warning also is very important. The simplest thing you can do is to drop your nose and head down to the weeds. However, doing it over places such as Hanoi or Haiphong might not be a good idea unless you are really desperate due to the the staggering amount of AAA over those locations. Manuvering to dodge SAMs will be the most likely thing you will do. How it is done depends on some of the factors i listed above. If you fly F-105s, F-4Es or A-7s, the RHAW is a godsend. If not, good luck! ECM PODS- Sometimes good, sometimes not! While they really do effectively reduce the ability of a Fansong to lock on to your aircraft one, should still be on your toes. The first time a SAM blows one of your flight out of the sky even though the pods are active will really get the heart going. One great thing about ECM is it really cuts down the range they fire at you. ALWAYS BE AWARE OF YOUR LOCATION-In a dire situation, knowing which way to turn can be a lifesaver. If for example, you are trying to head for safety while in an intensely defended area, going out on the wrong heading for even mere seconds could cost you dearly. Think ahead! While ingressing, over the target, while on the bomb run, and when egressing plan out in what direction will you be turning to avoid the worst case scenario. If you spend a lot of time up in pack 6(IE. Thud drivers) it's also helpful to know which way to go for the nearest safe place to bail out of a dying bird. ARMS SWITCHES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU THINK-This is such an unsexy subject that it is NEVER mentioned at all. Between the weapons selection and the firing delay is a whole lot of variables that can really mean the difference between destroying a target or merely damaging it or missing completly. Another thing is being able to pull out of a bomb run sooner to avoid AAA os SAMS without throwing your ordnance all over an area. Depending on where you are at, every split second counts. STUPIDITY KILLS-In one campaign while flying a Crusader, me and my wingman did a rather dull escort mission near Vihn. On the way back to the boat i noticed that we were heading right over an area that has quite a concentration of AAA for one of the lower Packs. Well, we got over them and all of a sudden i thought "Let's liven things up a bit". So i picked out a ground target to strafe (23mm gun), split S'ed into a gun run and was promptly shot down, Idiot me even upped the ante by not making the strafing run in a safe direction, IE. towards a safe bailout spot just in case. Fools are an endangered species in a combat zone. KNOW THE PROS AND CONS OF AIRCRAFT-Very, very important! In the history of combat aviation every plane ever designed has had it's strong and weak points. Do everything possible to learn what can and can't be done by not only your plane, but enemy planes as well. See above where i mentioned outrunning MIGs? On one of those occasions i was at 15000 ft and had a MIG-17 at 6 high about a mile and a half back. Since i was outbound from the target, opening it up was the obvious solution. If it was a 21 i would have been in deep trouble and so would have had to do something else. Any Thud driver who thinks that the right call would be to whip it around and dogfight is not long for this world. PROTECT YOUR PEOPLE-Casulties happen, that's one of the unavoidable circumstances of war. Suffering needless casulties is another thing. As far as i'm concerned, while planning a mission you should pay more attention to the welfare of your fellow pilots than yourself. Factors such as routes and loadouts should be taken into account to help you keep your squadronmates alive. If you are hitting targets every time out but suffering losses, there is something seriously wrong with how you are doing things. I'll add some more soon

The only good MIG is a shot down one. At least until the next YAP becomes available. I've really been wanting to see what it' like on the other side.

Luftwaffe Ace of aces Erich Hartmann noted in his biography that the "Fangs out, hair on fire" type of fighter pilot didn't survive long. I've been in plenty of dogfights flying F4s, F8s, and most notably in an F-100. In a few i've also lost my wingman. Given a choice i'd rather have the wingman back than a kill. You can always find another fight, but you can't replace fellow pilots in these sims. I really wish we could. You can't avoid casualties in a war, but you can avoid stupid ones. Given a choice, i always manuvered to place my flight into an advantageous position whilest keeping the enemy as unaware as possible. If things got hairy i would put the nose down and head for the weeds in the direction that would take me to safety. MIGs are great at turning but can be outrun in a dive with ease.

When Yankee Air Pirates is available again you'll be able to do lots of intercepts from the North Vietnamese perspective.

Ok, my last post before a have to catch some Zzzs. will include more tommorrow. Icarus. The map is here in WOI/WOE/WOV/Project1 General Discussion. IIRC i posted it either mid or late August. I was just looking at it a few hours ago. Enjoy! Cater out!

It's really a quite crude, simple thing. I flew two very high altitude recce missions in a F-4D while noting the locations of every SAM launch. Then i took a screenshot of a map i had stored away and marked the locations of said sites. It was a pretty sobering experience. I posted it as a JPEG in a thread titled "SAM Map" back in late August. One thing i did was take a copy in a flash drive and had it made into a large photo at a department store i worked at. It was probaly the thing that helped me the most in this sim.

It depends on what aircraft you are flying, what role you are performing, where you are at and where the friendlies are located. The only MIG i ever bagged in an F-105 was one of two that shot down an F-8 escort and had some A-4s ready for the kill. One of them was already seriously damaged. Since i had been monitering their approach to the target by radar i knew that they weren't far away. For the first 10 seconds or so after me and my wingman dropped on the target we were actually headed home. Then i realized that the help calls were going on a bit too long and the Crusaders were probaly done for. We turned back and actually overflew them on a near reciprical course. It was just a matter of split essing down behind the Migs and gunning them down. I've never had losses to MIGs in any Thud squadron i flew in. In every case either the routes or the escorts kept them away. Aircraft hit by SAMs or AAA were another matter. The best course of action is either get back over the Red river or the sea as fast as possible. Sometimes you just know that there's nothing you can do about it and so have to get it out of your mind as fast as possible before you become a statistic also. As far as flying CAP? It depends. Some other squadron might be getting hit by MIGs somewhere way off and you just might have to ignore them. Like i mentioned above, from the middle of Hanoi there are 10 SAM sites within shooting range. If i'm perhaps say, 40- 50 miles away it is going to be a wrong move to turn back since not only will the MIGs have shot down whatever fellow American was there, i'm going to have multiple SAMs fired at me as soon as i get with 20 miles as well as intense AAA that gets worse the closer i get to Hanoi. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet. I don't know if you downloaded my SAM map i posted back in August. If you didn't i highly advise that you do, you'll never fly certain routes again. Linger too long in some places and you are done. No doubt about it.

STAY OUT OF CLOUDS NORTH OF VIHN-During the monsoon season you can pretty much be assured of doing a lot of bad weather flying. IFR is bad enough while leading a flight of heavily laden aircraft, but do it past Vihn and it's sending your people in front of a firing squad. If you are in an aircraft without RHAW chances are good you'll never get a hint that a SAM has launched and is guiding on you. If you are heading to packs 5 or 6 NEVER stay in the clouds within 20 miles of a SAM site. Be very wary above the cloud deck also and never skim the tops, stay at least 5-10000ft above them. You pretty much won't get a launch warning but should get a heads up on inbound SAMs. TIMING COUNTS-One of the most important things that is never brought up for discussion. Of great importance to strike pilots. Vary your speed, altitude and/or route at times to enable your package to come into the mission area as close to simultaneously possible with other inbound strikes, thus preventing the enemy from concentrating on your flight(s) specifically. Arrive too early and face a fully loaded enemy. Arrive too late and you'll have to deal with defenses that are ready, alert, and trigger happy. Sometimes it can work out that the defenses are concentrating on another flight and you can get in and out without being shot at. Rare situation but it does happen. OVER CERTAIN TARGETS, ONE PASS HAUL ASS!-Fly north enough times and you'll know what targets they are. Set your ordnance to fire on a single pass and get out of there as fast as you can.If you miss, come back another day and try again Multiple passes means multiple chances for the enemy to shoot you down. Try to be a hero and you'll be dead sooner or later. Even worse is having your wingman get nailed because you stayed in the area a second too long.

Trying to turn with a MIG is usually nice way to die. If your speed bleeds off too much it will come around and bite you. Remember this...If you are engaging hard turning MIGs, your AIM-9s are almost guaranteed to miss. From my experience, unless the MIG was dead ahead and more or less straight and level it was a wasted shot. Once i closed inside of a mile i switched to guns. If the Mig breaks, go vertical and yo-yo back into either a guns tracking or lag pursuit position. If you can make the MIG come after you in the vertical you'll have a decided advantage since it will be bleeding speed to the point that either a wingman has a shot at an easy target or you can bring your nose over to regain energy easily quicker than the MIG. If you are dealing with MIG-17s try to lure them up to higher altitudes. The F-8 has superior performance higher up than a 17. The F-8 has rather limited ammo so gun fire has to be in very short bursts. About 1-2 seconds is all you want.

We all have our favorite planes. But are they the best for you? When i first got WOV it was pretty much for being able to fly the Thud. In it i flew endless missions up north, going after the same targets time and again. It was time for a change and so i did a few other campaigns in other aircraft. I had a nice time flying F-100s out of Da Nang. Even if they were sometimes mind numbingly dull escorts in which i engaged Migs on s single occasions (no kill) So what i did was to carry a CBU or two whenever i did escort or even if i was tasked with a relativly nearby strike. After the primary mission we would go looking for something worthwhile to drop the clusters on. Managed to rack up a damn nice A2G score on the side. Not only that, my unit suffered no losses through 53 missions until i accidently deleted the campaign. So after a long time without comp access i got back into battle, this time in WOE. At first i started in an F-105 again just to get the feeling back, then i switched to a Hunter. Man was that Hunter a stinky plane! So i figured i'd give a Hun a shot again. Three Mig 17s downed on the first sortie and it was love at first flight! Never before or since have i went on a run like the one on the HUN. Virtually every single sortie was leading to kills, with lots of multiple occasions. On ground support misssions it didn't let me down either. It was just...RIGHT! When all was said and done i racked up 57 aerial victories and 10 on the ground--24 MIG-17s,5 MIG-19s, 22 Mig-21s and 6 IL-28s (damn iron Beagles) 9 tanks and a mobile 57mm AAA vehicle. The rest of the squadron scored well also, even if attrition wore us down. I went through three F-100s. Lost the first to an IL-28 gunner, the other two due collisions with my targets! The last put me in a POW camp and so my war was over. In another week or so i'm going to try again. Having flown so much with a number of different aircraft, i just can't imagine doing anything similar in anything other than a HUN.

The craziest? Probaly repeatedly flying Thuds to Pack 6 while knowing that my odds for survival were slim to none in the long run. Better yet, flying an F-100 up there! Nothing says C-R-A-Z-Y like a Hun around Hanoi/Haiphong.

I'm of a different mind. One of the most important things that gets overlooked is the timing between you and your wingman. When everything clicks, all the ordnance will be on the way within 2-3 seconds of each other and so will reduce the exposure time over a target.

Hey everyone. I've been searching around for a WW2 tank sim for a while and it's come down to these two. I've seen some of the stuff on Youtube but does anyone here have experience with them? what do you think will be better for single play. Thanks all.

Unfortunatly i cant do online combat since i'm on a wireless rig. Do you know if the bots have any kind of patch to improve their performance? I've been leaning toward RO from what i've seen.

It would be nice for Shrikes in WOV also. In some area i've been as high as 30000ft in order to get the range without venturing close to some nasty defensive zones.

Come to think of it, the original question has been answered and many other things have been explored as well. IMO i don't think anything else can come about from this thread other than a possible flame war. Perhaps a MOD should lock it?

Someone has to ask the stupidly obvious questions so i guess i'll be the first. Are you sure you are firing the missles within their optimum envelope? It's not all lock and fire sometimes. I can't count how many times i've been right on a target and the missle wasn't even close even though i fired under what i thought was a proper or reasonable setup for a kill.

What you posted is the typical NV GCI tactic. It worked more often than not. The point in question is about a MIG21 catching a Thud that's at full throttle in the weeds. From everything i've researched about the two aircraft i don't think it's possible. If the 105 is say around, 5-18000 ft at typical ingress and egress speeds a 21 should be able to catch one with no problem if it gets the right info from GCI and the US pilots aren't on the ball. The difficulty begins when the Thud pilots go right down to the deck at full burner. Thrust is relative to height. F4 pilots learned to deal with 21s by tactics which at times involved dragging MIGS down from altitude to where the Phantom had the power advantage and making the MIG do high g turns so it's energy would bleed off. The J-79s had a much greater thrust at lower altitudes than the Tumansky on the 21. Given crews knew what they were doing, they could more than hold their own with a MIG 21. Now look at the Thud, very streamlined for an aircraft of it's size. Designed for low level operations. Rock steady at high speeds just off the treetops. Powered by an engine thats rated at close to 25000lbs thrust. Let the Lead Sled get a dive from altitude to right above (under 100ft) the ground while at full bore and only a sheer miracle on the enemies part will result in an air to air kill for a MIG. The historical fact is that F-105s were lost to MIGs. But also consider that not only was AAA responsible for the majority of losses, Thuds scored enough kills to be considered respectible even though it wasn't even remotely designed for the A2A role.

Concerning the F-105 vs MIG21 i think you might have to think again. Look at it from this perspective...what were the aircraft designed to do and could each do the others job? Of course not. The big difference historically being that Thuds had a lot of Mig kills while MIG 21s weren't exactly useful at hauling heavy loads of ordnance. The F-105 wasn't "allegedly" the "fastest runner on the deck". It WAS the fastest, common knowledge at the time. You can read accounts of Thunderchief pilots going as low as 30 ft while supersonic. Like i posted above, good luck catching me down there. In this sim i've been at times 700+kts at 50ft while egressing. Please explain how a MIG21 is going to get on my six and shoot me down?

In other places on the web there is a bunch of info concerning SR-71s/MIG25s. Needless to say, the usual conclusion is that a Foxbat would have to fly an almost perfect intercept to get a Blackbird.

Damn that sucks! I was just a week or so away from getting YAP. I so hope 2 comes out soon and 1 becomes available again.