Book: Kawasaki Ki-45 "Toryu"

A book about this classic aircraft.

 
In WT the Ki-45ko is no doubt the best for air combat, but it has the horrible weakness of nothing in front of the pilot (no armour plate, no armour glass, no engine - nothing!) makes it a poor choice against everything able to return fire.

The Ki-45 tei version in WT is a strange, yet important plane. It has two 250 kg bombs and quick reload for those. This is very useful for the Japanese, since they lack proper light bombers. Ki-49 and G4M attract immediately lethal attention, whereas Ki-45 is a quite quick plane (I was once chased in my P-38 by a Ki-45 and it did not fall back!). Its 37 mm gun creates quite a marksmanship challenge and its 20 mm Schräge Musik weapon is almost never useful. The few successes with the 20 mm against unsuspecting bombers are hilarious, though.

The other Ki-45 versions are not worthwhile in WT unless you insist on upgrading all planes to the maximum due to some kind of collector's zeal.

Website: Secret Projects forum

Secret Projects Forum is a great forum for the discussion of historical aircraft, tank, space, missile and ship programs. I think it's the best address for information about quite obscure versions, prototypes and types in general. You'll find obscure aircraft types of unknown-to-you developers in there. Check it out whenever you want to learn about the historical example of some unknown aircraft or tank you spot on WT!

Book: Fighter Combat Tactics and Maneuvering

A classic popular book about air combat tactics in general.

 

There are many copies uploaded on Scribd: link 

 

LastDingo: Winning matches in eras I-IV

Unlike the previously presented players, LastDingo isn't a specialized low level player exploiting the special conditions of era I only. LastDingo played eras I-IV, stopping short of the long grind for jets. A few hundred tank battles were included, but the obvious display of stupidity and cowardice in tank battles was a turn-off.

His obsession was the maximization of the victories/battles ratio, yielding a top 100 rating in this category after months of playing. LastDingo flew about half of the matches in squads, including hundreds with INIT2WINIT and hundreds with TFD players. The most extreme results were during the winter 2014/2015 with "last month" victories/battle at about 95%. His record was a 118 match victory streak with American BR 3.0 and 3.3 planes in late 2014.

LastDingo won 2,944 matches out of 3,675 (80.1%).

B-25J, a fantastic and versatile bomber

Aircraft types favoured by LastDingo:

A-20G: A fantastic light bomber

B-25J-1/-20: Very good bombers all-round, albeit with unpleasantly small bombload

B7A2: Fantastic escort fighter, also killing pillboxes from high altitude. Best B7A2 tactic is to dive on climbing red fighters.

 

Beaufighter VIc: Most satisfying firepower.

Bf 109G-10: A bomber destroyer with 3 30 mm guns. Capable of stopping heavy bomber rushes almost on his own. Capable of chasing G8Ns at high altitude - two G8N kills above 8 km altitude were scored. The downside of the 109 is that apparently everyone attacks it, expecting an easy kill.

Boston/Havoc: Weaker than even an A-20G, but together with DB-7 and maybe the TBF the only really worthwhile British propeller bombers.

Do 217E-2/-4: First really powerful bombers, a squad of which can turn the base & airfield bombing tactic into a winning tactic.

F6F-3: Very good fighter-bomber, with good turnfighter qualities.

Fw190A-8: Most satisfying firepower.

Fw190D-9: No love for it until a domination match with 19 kills in it - bloodlust!

Il-4: A fantastic Russian bomber for high altitudes. Can kill pillboxes and bases from above 7 km with near-immunity, then dive and kill tanks with its three heavy bombs.

 

Ki-43-II: Ridiculously good low level fighter. Can kill many armoured cars with ease.

P-38G-1: First really good bomber destroyer in the American line, albeit with a tendency to die in flames.

P-47D-25/-28: Most powerful fighter-bombers, capable of destroying eight destroyers with a single load of bombs and rockets. Even the new AD-1 Skyraider isn't really better.

Pe-2 (early ones): Effective Russian light bombers, good tank/pillbox/destroyer killers.

Yak-9K: Almost the same as Yak-9T, but with 45 mm gun.

Yak-9T: Very good Soviet fighter with much-feared 37 mm. AP ammunition enables this gun to kill medium tanks. The hate against all Yak-9 (because of their one-shot-kill guns) is so strong that they appear to receive extra attention by red fighters.

The best mix was a BR 3.0 setup with P-38, B-25, A-20G, both P-47 and the F6F. It was powerful in ground strike due to 2 good bombers and 3 best fighter-bombers and powerful in air combat with 4 good fighters and 2 tough bombers with many fixed machineguns. This mix yielded approx. 80% victory rate flying solo.

A summary of LastDingo's principles:

determination to win (many THINK they want to win, but actually they do what they feel like at the moment instead of what's needed for a win!)

avoid undue attention (climb high and to the sides, avoid field of view, keep distance, avoid initial or respawn fighter waves)

never trust the blue randoms

choose good plane lineup, including BR considerations (2 bombers or 1 bomber + 1-2 fighter bombers, preferably 1 bomber interceptor like Bf109G-10/F4U-1c/ 4 cannon Brits/Yak-9, all else: fighters for domination map air duels)

focus on objectives and keeping the others from accomplishing them (kill bombers, defeat airfield capture efforts)

choose ONE path to victory (in ground strike: airfield kill OR bases/tanks/pillboxes kill)

readiness to adapt to the situation (let off from airfield to kill tanks if need be)

keep an eye on ticket counts

prioritisation of important aircraft (bombers with more bomb load, ignoring fighters)

do not engage an aircraft that's already being chased unless it really needs to die ASAP

partially fly in squads with TS3

stay at key airfield and low during domination battles if ground forces are irrelevant on the map or at the moment

some skill at aiming guns

some skill at aiming bombs (one 500 lbs/250 kg per moving tank, 3-4 tank kills in one pass)

speed capture of airfields (instructor off)

surprise/dive capture of airfields (pretending to not land, then suddenly land)

knowing the own aircraft

knowing the hostile aircraft

knowing the maps

knowing typical random player behaviour

look at 'n' list to identify new red bombers and unusually successful red players

chat communication to motivate at least a few players to do the right thing

stealth ammunition for fixed guns except in tier I

basic evasive manoeuvres

basic offensive manoeuvres

look at 'm' map to plan ground forces destruction

assignment of vectors for bomber destroyers (left high or right high), threats (individual bombers) and ground targets (left or right) in teamspeak

engaging 'suitable' targets (big gun fighters prefer large target planes, agile bombers bomb troops flying low)

some high altitude bombing with first climbing to altitude during sideways climb instead of impatiently flying straight towards the reds

playing at eras I-IV to have fun in the full diversity

stop playing for hours after a defeat streak of four

share tactics, tricks and target info with squad mates

drop bomber's bombs for quicker climbing

announce incoming bombers to team to improve bomber interception

LastDingo was the founder of a quasi-secret quasi-invite-only chat channel into which the top 100 players of the leaderboard in victories/battles were invited. About 50 players joined it, and the channel was successful in getting top players to know each other. It's largely defunct now because it disappeared due to a bug (or feature?) of the seemingly still buggy WT chat system.

Statistics of LastDingo:

sorted by sorties

sorted by air kills

sorted by ground kills

tank battles, sorted by sorties

Book: Fighter Combat Study, No.1 - The Curtiss P-40C Tomahawk vs. the Mitsubishi A6M2 Model 21 Zero-Sen

This is an old (1970's) study comparing the P-40 and A6M2. 

Long story short: The differences were much, much smaller than in WT AB, RB or SB modes. Even the low speed turn ability difference was rather subtle. We should keep in mind that experienced, talented pilots who know the limits of their fighter well can usually outmanoeuvre a slightly more agile fighter flown by a rookie pilot. German Bf109E expert pilots actually believed that the Spitfire was slightly less manoeuvrable in turnfights than a Bf109E, since this was their experience against most Spitfire opponents!

alternative links to the study (just in case one goes dead):

link 1

link 2

link 3

Book: F6F-5 vs J2M3

This is an old (1989) book doing a comparison and computer-supported analysis of the F6F-5 and the J2M3.

www.scribd.com/doc/252875888/F6F-5-vs-J2M3#fullscreen=1

Long story short; the F6F-5 was burdened with carrier gear and fuel capacity for greater range and despite its advantage in fuel quality the J2M3 ended up having a margin of superiority in most situations. According to the analysis.

In WT the J2M3 has a much higher battle rating, and it's well-deserved. Even the J2M2 is a much better fighter - much more capable of boom 'n zoom tactics. The F6F is in WT nevertheless a very capable fighter at its battle rating. Avoid diving fighters, avoid numerical inferiority, avoid head-on attacks by well-armed fighters and avoid turnfights with Ki-43, A6M or Spitfires and you'll do fine in it. It's also one of the very best fighter-bombers with two 1,000 lbs bombs and six 127 mm rockets. That's enough to kill five destroyers in AB!

(I'm not sure how well Scribd and Scribd embedded works for the readers. They changed their business model and may now require a sub for viewing.)

"Air_Force_of_One": Winning matches in low tier planes

"Air_Force_of_One" attempted to maximize the victories/battles ratio and reach the top, being No.1 in the Leaderboard for that category. The attempt was successful, albeit he dropped to No.5 later on. Exclusively Soviet planes were flown, mostly to exploit the power of the BB-1/Su-2 family of attackers on low level "Ground Strike - light vehicles" maps.

Schwanzus Longus flew three missions in a squad of two (one of these three was lost), all others solo. No crews were aced. No gold was purchased. He flew at about patch 1.48, at BR 1.0-2.3.

"Air Force of One" is mocking the old U.S.Army's slogan "Army of One".

"Air_Force_of_One" won 196 of 207 battles (94.7%).

The conclusion was that this is very close to what an individual can achieve flying solo. Red teams with three good players with 15+ ground kills each could not be overcome without a 2nd good player in the blue team.

A BB-1 attacker in action

The BB-1/Su-2 family combines a good light machinegun armament with quick-reloading light bombs. Six 100 kg bombs was the preferred load because the twelve 50 kg bombs load degrades the flying characteristics of the plane too much. The Su-2 TSS-1 is actually the weakest of the bunch since is has a mere two forward-firing fixed light machineguns and thus takes longer and spends more % of its rounds for an armoured car kill.

The MiG 3-15 was a fantastic high speed fighter at BR 1.7, the 20 mm cannon-armed LaGG 3-11 and Yak-1 were powerful on a domination map. The LaGG series has some irritating handling issue when yanked around with mouse aim, though.

The (gifted) premium plane "Zhukovsky's I-153-M62" is a fantastic dogfighter at low altitude on a domination map. The I-16 type 5 was a disappointment - it seemed to excel at nothing but rolling.

The tactics weren't much different from those described by Schwanzus Longus, but the techniques differed. The better guns allowed for much more effective air combat kills particularly on the Krymsk map, with less effort on guarding the runway. The six 100 kg bombs of a Su-2 or BB-1 allowed for more ground troops kills per minute, and their defensive gunner alerted of trailing red fighters. Dodging the bullets of pursuing red fighters became the standard survival technique, while tight 360° turns or high speed were no promising option for these attackers. The MiG-3-15 and to a lesser degree the LaGG 3-11 and Yak-1 were able to outrun many reds, but the latter ones were used in air combat (on Krymsk) exclusively.

The bomb-throwing technique was simple; mark target to see the range, zoom in, aim at about 20-50 m ahead of the target vehicle in its path. Some light vehicles attempt to dodge attacks, but this hardly ever works against 100 kg bombs. Bombs were almost never expended on artillery or AAA of any kind: Only the slightly tougher armoured cars were bombed. Sometimes one bomb was left and would be dropped at the end of a pass in order to reload six new bombs earlier. The 100 kg bombs were always set for instant detonation on impact.

Overall Air_Force_of_One was a very special pilot who tested the limits of what's possible for a solo player. A new War Thunder player might come to the conclusion that about 25% of the blue teams are too stupid to be saved by a single player, Air_Force_of_One showed that the limiting problem is rather that about 3-5% of the red teams are too stacked with the usually very few good players (three of them, whereas average is less than one) to be defeated by a solo player supported by an average (inept) team only.

Statistics of Air_Force_of_One: