A few days ago when we flew a mission online, (Me, Jel and LoLo)
I was reminded of the futility of being in a hurry....
Offline, most of us engage the enemy immediately and start shooting
stuff down, with the AI not being that quick to respond.
I was escorting B-24's with P-51's while 'Hector' flew 110's and Lolo
flew 109e's.
Like a true off-liner, I spotted Hector behind and below me, came around
and dropped down behind him. I slowed to keep up with his evasion (He already
knew I was there) and just as I began to spray him with my 50's I started
hearing pings on my plane. I got every 'damage' message you could get.
"Ailerons damaged" "rudder damaged" "engine damaged" etc. Then my wing popped off
and my wingman was hollering "Bail-out!"
"Ah!" I thought. 'So Lolo stayed to protect Hector instead of going after the bombers.'
When I re-spawned, I was determined to whack Lolo! lol!
I scanned the skies and spotted him to the side and below me. But this time, I remembered
to stay high and fast....for the next 20 minutes I boom and zoomed him....either having to
change my course because he was facing me, (Will NOT do head-ons with 50's against cannon!)
or having to do some serious deflection shooting because of the angle he kept on me.
Finally, I was 'almost' behind him on a boom, sprayed and prayed at him, then tried to zoom
climb away......but when I got about 1500 feet away from him he spritzed me with a couple
cannon shots that whacked my engine!
All I saw after that was a message on the chat: "S!" "Lucky shot!" Indeed...........
Meanwhile, Hector went after the 24's unabated. I think he got them all except 2.
So when flying P-51's against 'human' pilots (GOOD human pilots!) you must stay high and fast
and take your time! You cant just dive in and start turn-fighting. You have to boom and zoom and
have great deflection shooting.
A good offline practice for this is to do a sweep, either alone or just one wingman, against 'light'
enemy....preferably 109's..usually 4....you will find this to be very hard!
(At least for me anyway!)
AO