I'm flying the third mission in Hat in the Ring where I have to shoot down a two-seater. It seems like I can be right on his a$$ and emptying all kinds of fire into his plane but it doesn't even seem to make him flinch. I now realize that this is not IL-2. What is different about RoF?

20mm cannons springs to mind.

Anyway the worst thing you can do with a 2 seater is sit behind it and pop away. The observer loves it when you do that. He twisles his moustache and then fills your engine full of lead.

Attack from the sides, front or below. Aim for the engine, or pilot (meat or the metal). Shooting the fusulage will mean most of your bullets will pass right through. The wing roots are another good (and big) target.

There's probably more things different but some of them are:

1. Fewer guns. You've only got two (or maybe just one in some cases) and that means fewer bullets hitting.
2. Less stable gun platforms. These things tend to bounce all by themselves, let alone under the hijinks imparted by a pilot trying to get away.
3. Slower aircraft. In IL-2 both aircraft are moving substantially faster and that means more lead is necessary to hit them. One of the best tools available is the Aiming Aid that you can turn on and off in ROF. It shows you where to aim and in most cases you'll find that you need much less lead than you think.
4. Fabric vs Metal. Fabric airframes can take a lot of holes punched in them before they have significant damage.
5. As the previous poster mentioned, different guns. In WW1 you had only rifle caliber machine guns and they weren't as advanced as WW2 guns. And, of course, you had 50 cal HMGs and cannon in WW2 as well.

It all boils down to the usual, practice ... without seeming immodest I'd recommend you download and try my Drones mission. You can find it under the New Missions and Mission Building section of this forum, it's called "Drones ... Droning On and On" and will allow you lots of practice against lots of non maneuvering opponents.

WH_JoeBob

If it's Hat in the Ring, I'm assuming you're flying a NE 28? I have alot of time in that bird and if it is, I hate to say it but you haven't figured out the aiming and shooting yet. I use "real" settings to include ammo and I've shot down 6 recon birds in one mission-but there is a technique involved.

I ALWAYS approach these birds from below and "creep" up on them until I'm just a few feet below. When I'm lined up I apply alittle aft stick and just before I climb to the level of the aircraft I begin firing. I don't begin firing until I see nothing but enemy plane on my monitor. My initial target is the gunner, not the airplane. I also ALWAYS attack the lead plane first because if you attack the tail-end aircraft, all of the aircraft in front of you will light you up!

When you pop up to fire, don't spend more than acouple of seconds until you get good at putting your first rounds into the gunner as after a count of about "one thousand one, one thousand two"-if you haven't knocked him out of the picture, he'll knock YOU out! It's really pretty simple-you pop up and shoot and then you drop back below. Keep doing this until you've eliminated the gunner and then you can concentrate on the pilot/engine. I have a 24 inch monitor but I'm assuming that with the scaling in the game, it all looks the same and I don't begin firing until I basically see nothing but my target-in fact, I've made more than a few deadstick landings because I took out my own prop on the tailfeathers of my target!!!

I shoot down more than my fair share of fighters, but by getting really close to the recons, you can really up your stats. I'm currently running a 46% hit ratio and alot of that's because I get really close to the recons before I begin firing-heck, I get just about as close to the fighters before I start shooting!

The NE 28 is a great bird to go after the recons in because it's alot faster than they are and it's easy to catch up to the birds from below and THAT'S the big secret-stay below, get close, pop up and fire!!!

Doesn't the A.I. always detect you within a certain range, no matter what angle you come from? In my (limited) experience, this seems to be true.

Thanks guys, I will use these tips. I was sure that my bullets were being wasted.

No, the AI does not detect you if you stay below them.

Letterman, first of all, Welcome to this great combat flight simulator. Glad to see you taking a break from subs.
All good information, above. But I'd have to add one more thing. Make sure you're sitting correctly in the cockpit. The Neogb team gave us some great options on views. You can move around that little cockpit , quite a bit, if you know the right buttons.
Make sure that your rounds are going where the gunsight is pointed to. Just fire some bullets ahead of you, into thin air. Maybe you are too far to the left or right of the sight. Pretty basic, I know. But, maybe you just haven't noticed, and they're not.
Just a thought. Glad you're enjoying this.

Thanks Pooch! Yes, the view in the cockpit can be quite "dynamic." As a result, I arranged for a gunsight view by adjusting one of the presets and saving it. Now I just hit one of my HOTAS buttons and it goes to a perfectly sighted gunsight view until I release it.

I, too, have a rather concerning gunnery problem. I can hit the enemy airplanes reasonably well, but I can never seem to hit the vital components. In other simulators this isn't a problem because of the much greater destructive power of the weaponry (and often deficiencies of the damage modelling). Hit the wing? The explosive cannon rounds blow it right off. But in Rise of Flight, I tend to swiss-cheese them without causing them any serious problems. [smile ]