Gentles all,
Recently bought RoF and am loving it, but have a question about shooting down 2 seaters.
I am playing mostly quick missions to learn game controls, flight models, etc, and recently set up skirmish of 3 sopwith pups (me) versus 3 Roland CIII's. To make a long story short...I can't seem to down more than 1 of the 2 seaters until I get shot up. I have no problem 3 pup's versus 5 albatross DII's, or any other early war match-up, but the two seaters are a tough nut to crack.

Any suggestions?

Best regards,
F9F Panther
aka: Jack Nastyface

Greetings, Panther,

Glad you are enjoying RoF. Concerning your issue with the two seaters, I will give you my opinion. When fighting anything with a rear firing machine gun your tactics invariably have to adapt from what you would do against a forward firing aircraft such as a scout. It seems obvious, but early on I ran into a similar difficulty as you seem to be having. I had a tendency to try to take a good shooting position behind the target and bring it down, but I almost always ended up with a dying engine or worse. The best tactic I have found is to execute a steep, fast dive, while firing as I pass. I use the energy gained in the dive to come back up for another pass from underneath the target. I countinue this tactic until I am able to bring them down. You will have to use trial and error to figure out the best place to target on the enemy aircraft...some have vulnerable wings, others I target the engine and pilot...it just depends. I have achieved much more success using this tactic and can often manage to bring down several 2 seaters and receive little damage myself. I suppose the biggest trick is to make yourself a hard target to hit, and to exploit the limitations of the enemy gunner's field of fire. Hope you find this helpful.

VMIalpha,
Thanks for the notes - I'll try some zoom-n-boom stuff very soon. Admittedly, perhaps the parameters I have been setting in Quick Mission builder (3 Sopwith pups versus 3 Roland CIIs, same altitude, head on, with 1 km of separation) didn't leave much (read: any) room for gaining altitude and then doing a diving attack.

An easier matchup might be switching sides and taking an Albatros D.ii (or D.iii) against a Sopwith Strutter. Then you have much more of a speed advantage - the pup is actually slower than the Roland c.ii, according to this really useful chart.

Fighting 2 seaters that are just as fast as you is really really hard.

With slower plane (that is more maneuverable) I either gain the advantage in altitude and make a slower dive from behind to hose the fuselage (hopefully killing the gunner and knocking out the fuel tank/radiator), and contrary to short bursts, I shoot long bursts (RoF actually makes guns jam on short bursts rather than long ones).
Alternatively I sneak up from below and steal enough pot shots that I can take out the tank/radiator.

Either way, when I get the target leaking, there is no hope for it, I simply leave it alone to land/crash instead of facing a ferocious rear gunner
If I get the gunner on said pass/pot shot, I try to finish it off sooner, but not if there are enemy fighters around.