Originally posted by stantond
Greetings fellow frustrated pilots,
I believe, based on film data and flight hours, the profile of the planes changes depending on whether you are shooting at them from the front or the back. It would have been nice to know this sort of thing a few years ago and would have saved me a lot of frustration. Even today I feel I am still struggling with the gunnery system in AH.
A couple of gunnery points I noticed are:
Dead six shots are a waste of ammunition if the nme knows you are there. If they are oblivious to you, you can kill them. Hits from a bomber gunner (while you are pointed towards the bomber) are very likely to kill or damage your plane. Dive away and you are safe (never been killed diving away).
I hear various statements that six shots are cake and it takes two to HO, but that has not been my experience. I have to suspect (I am cynical) the people who claim HO are uncommon and hard are the ones who exploit this "game feature". I now make the HO'er pull negative g's which solves the HO problem.
Malta,
your assumption is correct on having a bigger target area HO or from the 12 oclock position, vs the 6 oclock, you have even better target area if you are able to fire using a crossing shot or deflection shot vs the HO or 6 shot. the deflection , crossing or even belly shots gives you the biggest target area because you have more plane surface in your crosshair
The Head On or front quarter shot is prob about 10 times easier to hit then trying to get hits from a dead 6 position or near 6 position. In return this makes it to where many of your encounters will not try for anything else, they know how easy it is and do not bother trying for any other shot. Really amusing if you ask me
try not to force shots, do not fire with steady streams of ammo, but use SHORT BURST, if you are off target realign and fire a short burst again, this will save your ammo and help you learn or recognize "The Kill Picture" meaning where and what shape of the plane is in your sights when you are connecting, once you can get this vision stamped in your head then you should see a big improvement in your gunnery.
as for Neg G dive, this is some what good, but be ware some flyers will push neg Gs too, harder than you even to the point of RED out and still hold the Trigger down firing away, and rake the topside of your canopy, so throw in another mve along with the Neg G dive, turn and twist/roll a little so it is harder for them to track you when redout.