Dodging hits in air combat as a fighter

Most players use hardly any effective evasive manoeuvres during air combat. They simply tolerate that they'll be shot down soon.

I knew a clan leader of a really, really good ground attack-focused clan whom I couldn't convince that flying horizontal circles is no good evasive manoeuvre - particularly while I was diving on his pursuer.

So a few days ago it happened that someone was on my tail for six minutes 50 seconds, 4 minutes 40 seconds of which he was within range, shooting - and not killing me. My total damage to his 20 mm gun, two 15 mm guns and two 7.92 mm guns after almost five minutes was one main landing gear leg shot off, the oil cooler hit and light damage on my left wing.

I love it when they accuse you of cheating. Being accused of using a survival bot is a first for me, though!

Initially I tried to defeat him with scissors, but (I'm still not great at it) the near misses became uncomfortable and I decided to build up speed in a dive again. After about two minutes of being shot at I came to the conclusion that he's really bad at aiming, and just kept dodging his shots while flying towards blue fighters. It was really safer than aerobatics would have been. Such poor shots often choose to ram you if you try fancy tricks.

Some general observations on dodging shots from behind, as a fighter:

- the tracers allow you to identify some planes. You can tell whether the guns are wing-mounted (and tracers crossing), for example. You may also notice whether you're in front of or closer than his gun convergence range.

- you can hear whether he's got a big calibre gun (37-45 mm)

- if the tracers miss you left, turn to left. If they miss right, turn to right. Your correction will be the opposite of his correction of aim this way.

- if you want to try fancy aerobatics, do so while he's reloading. You may notice this when the tracers from 20 mm shells stop 

- know the planes. A Spitfire Ia spraying lots of 7.7 mm bullets at 500 m distance is not much of a threat if you have an armoured pilot's seat. In such a case you should probably try to be really fast with little dodging to avoid him closing into effective range.

- fly towards safety if possible (either in front of and below the blue fighter spawn point or at your defended airfield at less than 2,000 m altitude, preferably even lower)

- you may find a mountain to disappear behind, which allows you to do a turn or other manoeuvre of usually high risk while being impossible to hit

- to fly evasive manoeuvres usually means to have mroe drag and thus be slower than your pursuer. That's why you'll have difficulties getting away even from slower fighters when you need to dodge much

- avoid showing a large silhouette, such as a Spitfire's wing

- be unpredictable

- avoid becoming very slow

- pick up speed while he's reloading cannons

- you may attract blue fighter pilot's attention (and thus possibly some help) by shooting with tracers (assuming you got tracer ammo, which you usually should get rid of ASAP if possible except in some American planes)
- the worse their aim is, the greater the risk that you'll evade INTO a shot that would have missed you

Wedding

Mute it

... or use push-to-talk.

I have the let shift key as push-to-talk key. It doesn't mess up the chat window when used and is close to WASD, to be used by the small finger that's not needed on WASD.



The worst offenders I've ever met in War Thunder were British people, by the way. One was literally watching TV, loudly eating dinner and playing WT at the same time. This dosage of disrespect for squadmates was enough for the blacklist.

The Mk 108

Mk 108 - that designation stems from "Maschinenkanone 108". The figrue has no special meaning. All items developed for the German aviation ministry received a numerical code, and few figures were re-used. Mk meant Maschinenkanone, MG meant Maschinengewehr and otherwise the letters in front of the figures were usually telling about the company or lead designer (similar as with the Japanese navy: A6M = naval fighter, sixth, Mitsubishi).

Most of the sounds in these videos are fake, for gunc ameras had no audio recording. Only a handful of dedicated recordings for propaganda and training purposes may have had audio recording, but I doubt it.

Concerning the Mk 108 in War Thunder:

Its shell is very, very slow and low density. You need to lead aim much farther forward of the target than with 13 or 20 mm guns, and this is important to know since all Mk 108 users but the Me 262 series have mixed armament.

The lead target indicator in AB mode will always be for the biggest calibre that's ready to fire. In a mixed 30 mm + 13 mm armament, it will be for 30 mm. In mixed 30 mm and 20 mm armament it will be for 30 mm, period. The other guns need less lead in deflection shooting, which means that with mixed armaments you better do not aim far forward (such as at the pilot of aB-17) with the Mk 108, but instead a little less forward than you otherwise would. This gives your other guns a better chance to hit at least the tail. This matters the most against the short fighters, obviously.

Even better, hold back your 30 mm fire until at about 500 m, and then one long burst for the kill, break.

You won't need the 30 mm gun pos on the Bf 109 G-6/-10/-14 to kill if you can aim well. They're awfully heavy anyway. It sure is delightful to see just about every target disintegrate in a huge explosion after but a short burst, but a single gun really is much better for survival.

Remember that a low muzzle velocity weapon such as the Mk 108 requires that you aim rather high at long ranges, such as in head-on engagements (which you really should avoid if possible) or generally at ranges 600-1,200 m. I don't think more than 800 m is practical with Mk 108 even in AB.

NACA Report No. 868

A report from NACA (predecessor of NASA) on flying characteristics of several WW2 fighrter planes. I once sent this to Gaijin because the Spitfire's roll rate was (and still is) appalingly and ahistorically poor (except the XVI version).

Naca Report 868