okay now pls hear me out,
yes it was just straight up ridiculous shredding an IL-2 and making it crash with just one single burst of a MG34, I’m not saying things should go back to the way of the closed beta, BUT there are right now ZERO things ground forces can effectively do against planes.
Sure the Flak buff was great and stuff, however building AA positions just so to “hunt” for enemy planes is still not effective at all, because it keeps us from playing the objective, it is still better for the team to just ignore enemy planes. Just spread and place spawn points far enough away from each other and ignore the fact that you’ll get squad wiped from time to time. Yea… way to go…
I just think this is really bad gameplay, everything needs to have a risk and reward.
I believe it would benefit the gameplay and flow of the game, if enemy planes and bombers could be attacked from infantry weapons, either that OR something needs to change fundamentally about aircraft gameplay.
I just want to mention that I once gave an oncoming plane a direct burst from a mounted MG42 and I’m quite certain I took it down. Also, more amazingly, I can’t remember what type of plane it is (probably biplane) but in the Moscow Campaign I shot my bolt-action at a plane, it went down, and I got the kill.
Planes are funny, I saw a diagram showing ‘survivability bias’ that showed that damaged planes can handle a lot of different damage to different parts of the plane but still manage to fly it to safety after getting hit, but certain places tend to not be seen harmed by damaged planes that return, thus suggesting that some parts of the plane are more difficult to survive damage to than others.
This image shows ‘hypothetical data’ so might not actually be 100% accurate, but you get the idea. Manage to hit the right thing and cause enough damage, a plane can be grounded quite quickly, but if you hit everything BUT those important parts and/or you don’t quite manage enough damage to the important parts, a plane can have its guts hanging out but still get home.
Fascinating story; a German fighter pilot spotted a US bomber that was severely damaged, more damaged than any plane he’d ever witnessed that could still fly. He brought his plane beside the bomber, close enough for the two pilots to see one another, and pointed to the US pilot and then pointed down to the ground; “Land the plane!” The US pilot refused. The German brought his plane back to finish the bomber off, but instead followed the bomber to the coastline to protect it from German AA batteries and let the US plane attempt to go safely to England, not knowing if it truly made it or if it crashed into the English channel. He couldn’t share the story with others, for he may have gotten in trouble with his Nazi commanders, perhaps even killed? I don’t know.
The American bomber pilot, over the years, told the story many times but began to question if it even truly happened so began doing research. Turns out that the two were both in North America, both on the west coast, and thus lived not far from each other. They ended up fast friends, two pilots who were at war with one another, and in which one had a clear and easy opportunity to kill the other, but spared the stranger’s life. The stranger became his friend in later life in his retirement years. Beautiful…
I actually have been experimenting with a new technique with engineer AA guns. I feel like I ought not mention it, but it’s simple enough and I think the logic is basic and sound enough that others would figure it out eventually anyhow.
You get two AA guns, and they turn rather slow. So… set one pointing one way, and the other nearby pointing the other way. Yes you might end up with both getting blown up at once, which is unfortunate, but if you have other engineers in the squad safely tucked away somewhere around 25m+ away, just stick up the two AA guns and use that engineer who now doesn’t have much resources left to man the guns. When you find the direction that enemy planes tend to come from, keep a gun pointed in that direction, and the other gun in the opposite direction. Follow the plane and hit it, ideally head-on, that’s sometimes enough all on its own to take a plane down if it’s done right. Regardless, as it goes by (or overhead, in which case, God help your engineer), switch guns and then direct the second one to get on-target as quickly as possible.
I find this to be much faster than wheeling the AA gun around to try and hit a plane in its ass, and for me has resulted in much more success in taking down planes from the ground. In fact, in my last match, I took down no less than three from the ground all one my own with my engineer squad. Pretty keen strategy in my opinion, the Americans might have something to their adage of “If you find you don’t have enough gun to get the job done, use more gun!”
… this better not start a trend that’ll come to bite me in the ass, no pun intended (though I do like the pun) while flying around later on…
That’s a lot of work. It’s easier to jump in a fighter, chase that bomber down, and kill them. Kill them in the turn though as you’ll get the critical areas easier with wasting less ammo.
Fantastic vid, that German fellow is familiar I think, I may have watched some of his vids before. He’s a big-time plane nerd, and I don’t necessarily mean that to be offensive because I think it would be fair to regard me as a big-time smallarms nerd. I’m obsessed and can’t get enough of 'em, and he seems to be the same way but for aircraft. I find it pleasant to see someone with a major passion. The New Testament says that everyone is blessed with at least one talent from God, though others are blessed with many, but all can develop more talents and abilities in life. Seems like, for whatever reason, I’m inclined towards smallarms and he’s inclined towards planes. People with specific passions, obsessions even, I find to be rather interesting. Only recently, actually probably thanks to Enlisted, I’ve lately been getting interested in aircraft. Though also there’s the film Fury which has increased my interest in tanks along with Enlisted, and Rising Storm II: Vietnam was the game that first got me interested in any aircrafts, specifically helicopters, since it taught me some basics on how a chopper functioned. I really had no real understanding of how they worked.
Yeah, but my squads tend to live pretty long, in some cases I’ve even managed to have a single squad survive through the entire match or at least have one remaining individual by the end of it. I do enjoy piloting though, and I also tend to get excited when a dogfight begins to develop. Those can be quite fun, though a recent one comes to mind that I basically won purely from luck it seems. Realized I was diving more than I thought, NARROWLY managed to pull up and save the craft, but the person who was right on my ass and chewing me up hard ended up not so lucky. Very last-minute before I noticed I was almost going to crash, and I had no idea of it, so it wasn’t skill whatsoever. Just lucky, possibly coupled with the other pilot’s lack of skill though of course I know nothing about that pilot so can’t say it with any amount of confidence; they might actually be far more skilled and knowledgeable than me but made a mistake or oversight in that one moment.
So, like hunting animals, it’s easiest to access the vital areas from the SIDE of the plane than the front or back? I hadn’t considered that, but I do find it much easier to score hits when shooting them from dead-on or from directly behind.
This is a pretty decent game to get started with sim flying as the skill floor for a lot of players is so low. There’s some really good players flying; however, there’s a lot of new players with bad controls too.
The Forced cockpit view is nice and allows much more mistakes to be made; although, rear visibility is a pain and I’ve been having a tough time sliding to check my rear with the keyboard/mouse control scheme. If I had a nickel for everyone that’s slide behind me undetected with such close spawns and difficult visual identifiers. Where’s my wing man??!?
Air combat is a pretty deep rabbit hole to go down and I’ve always been fascinated by Air combat; although, I also am drawn to all things military.
I realize shooting a plane right from behind is the least effective way of taking it down, however that does not mean it should be able to absorb 100 20mm rounds… like wtf
Yeah the plane damage models are naff. Sometimes they get absolutely shredded in an instant. Other times you can waste all your ammo and get nothing but hit markers but they can still fly off to reload and come back to do a run or even get you while you go back to reload. Other times you can barely have any damage at all or no damage and suddenly start losing altitude or are unable to steer.
