How have people improved their Fighter Gunnery

[Yarbles]

Anyone got ideas that worked for them

[lagger86]

I picked up a used aimbot at a garage sale, but it didn't seem to work. I couldn't figure out how to plug it into my computer.

[thrila]

I believe you may get several different answers to this question- convergence alone tends to end up with tens of answers.

My own advice is to:

Stick to planes that have a similar armament, it generally takes me several days to get my gunnery back to a decent standard if i change from allied 20mm to german 20mm for instance.

When i've not flown for a week or two i'll head offline and shoot some drones from various angles for 30 mins or so if feel my gunnery has all but dissapeared.

A tip that worked really well for me was to force myself to lead twice as far infront of the con than what i thought i needed.  Also when forcing an overshoot I try to line up the con using the forward/side view so as the con flies by my forward view he's alreayd lined up and only required minor aim changes.

I'll chuck some films up if you want

[Anaxogoras]

Do you have rudder pedals?  I found that good stick scaling in the y axis helps with nose bounce issues.  Maybe a short description of why you think you miss good shot opportunities?

[A8TOOL]

Spend time in the DA over the lake.

Stick settings must be set right. If you have nose bounce, do a search and find those posts.

Set your converge in closer if you have any of them out past 350

Play offline. Spend 1/2 hour or so killing drones

Find a trainer in the TA

[Obie303]

Yarbles, you've been around for a while so you have a pretty good grasp of the fundamentals.   My suggestion is to bring your convergence in.  I have most of mine set between 150 and 300 max.  The planes that I do most of my turning in (spits & hurris), I've got set around 150-250 depending on the type of ammo.  The BnZ planes (pony & niki) I have set at 300. 

I'm not a great shot. But on average, my hit % is around 10.  It drops considerably when I concentrate on deflection shots.  With deflection shots, you have to have a good "picture sight" of where the target is going to be.  Start shooting and let them fly into the shot.  It wastes ammo so I tend to hold my shot till I'm guaranteed hits.

That's the other key, Discipline.  Wait for the shot.  When the target is up close and fills the gunsights, you're guaranteed to bring them down.  It conserves ammo and the less likelyhood of letting the enemy get away and you end up with an assist. 

There is another thread that Fugitive started a couple of weeks ago.  Some great advice in there too.  Hope this helps.
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,248850.0.html

Obie

[Spatula]

For me, turning tracers off helped.

Hit% can be a bit misleading too. Hit% is just that, its not always an indicator of how effective your gunnery is, just how efficiently you are using your ammunition supplies. What really counts is getting the kill when it matters - eg do you get the feeling you let too many people 'off the hook' by only wounding rather than killing etc?

Dont fall into the trap of comparing your Hit% vs others and assume it means a direct comparison of effectiveness, its only efficiency. Having said that, efficiency is definitely a worthy goal in itself, so don't ignore it either. The more efficient you are, the less ammo you will waste per engagement, and potentially the more kills per sortie you could rack up.

To more effective, get in close and fire concentrated bursts on target. I prefer to fire longer bursts and to get the ammo out there than trying to conserve ammo and get better hit%. YMMV.

[Ack-Ack]

Turning off tracers is probably the single best thing you can do to improve your gunnery skills.  People tend to get into the really bad habit of using their tracers to aim and after awhile it gets to be a hard bad habit to break.  By turning off the tracers, you are forcing yourself to learn how to aim and lead the target using the gunsight and not the tracers.  Keep in mind though, it does take about a week or so to get used to the lack of tracers but once you're over that hurdle, you will start to see an improvement in your gunnery. 

This is not to say that there are other helpful tips that can help as well, such as setting convergence and firing at close ranges, etc.


ack-ack

[2bighorn]

Anyone got ideas that worked for them

As with most things in life, you get better with practice, so practice a lot.

- Set convergence to (depending on ballistics) 200-300 yards max.
- Shoot from close ranges only, that will not only help with aiming, but your SA and ACM will get better as well, since you have to maneuver in order to come that close and stay there until you kill the bandit.
- Make yourself familiar with ballistics and how gravity influences rounds. For example, if you're banked 90 degrees to the right, bullets won't converge in center of your gunsight, but above and to the right of it. Or if you fly inverted, you have to place your gunsight bellow the bandit, etc.
- Have tracers ON
- Fire short bursts only, note where tracers go, take corrections if necessary, and fire again.
- In tight turnfight when pulling lots of Gs, take more lead than necessary, unload the Gs, fire. That'll assure tighter groupings (especially if you fire MGs and guns at the same time) and faster kills.
- Stick with one kind of the guns (planes) for a while until you get good at it.
- Try not to be hamfisted. Short and light tap on the trigger will do the job just fine. That helps both, for flying and shooting.
- Timing. Get yourself familiar how long it takes for rounds (and planes) to fly over certain distance. Very important for high deflection shots.
- Practice, practice, practice....

[uberslet]

Ive seen some posts about tracers on and off, heres my opinon, go a couple weeks with tracers, turn them off and get good with them off, turn your tracers back on and you can see a considerable difference in your hit percentage. i used to fly no tracers stritcly for the element of surprise, however i started to lack my aim considrably, and turned my tracers back on to pick it up again. anyway, i set my cannons to 250 at most, and .50 cals at 400. i can pull lead at 400 with my .50's, so dont be surprised if i make a 400 yd shot in my F4U  . anyway, practice is also a thing that needs to be worked, as others have said before me. if you dont practice you expect to get better, your gunsight isnt a range computing gunsight. all in all, the more you practice and the more things you change with your shooting the better (or worse, hopefully better) your gunnery will be.One last thing, if your in a squad and a squad mate has a con on  6, if you have alt have your squadmate rope the con, easy kill unless they have enough e to puoll out of the climb and manuever, also helps your accuracy a great bunch. hope this helps!

[uptown]

alot of practice..and rudder pedals

[Odisseo]

The best thig you can do is fly in DA or TA starting with little caliber like Spit1 or the D3A (wich is a great turner) wich allow to train a little bit the aiming instead of ripp off your opponent after 2 hits. Then start with cal 20 and 30mm wich have all different speed wich mean aim with a different deflection.
When fighting i'm not used to use lag pursuit, following my opponent I wait for his reaction and I anticipate his flight line, sometimes having to watch him from 9 to 11 okl or 2 to 3 okl dooing a shissor ar an evasive, I keep flying straight aiming the immaginary flight line he will have in 2 or 4 seconds, as soon he fly in front open the fire.
Easy to say but it need some practices...and it don't work everytime

This tactic (the anticipation) can be used in a lot of different setup.
- when your wingman is dragging a con on 6 they are both fast and even diving on him won't give you a shot enought close...what to do? don't follow the opponent but follow your friend. Dive keep him on your sight, as soon you pull to get in your friend flight line a close enemy will appear from your belly on your close 12.
- same when instead of a dive you have to merge at same alt for example your flight line is 90° from your friend-opponent line. Don't run in the opponent, when you will have finished your turn they will be far away and since they was flying straight they will be mb faster. Follow your friend as if you want to get on his 6 and you will be surprised watching the opponent maybe at D200 flying straight in your gunsight.
- when turning with your opponent. What 90% of peale do is lag pursuit...let's say you'r fighting a spit 16 and you'r in a mossi or a 110. There's no way to do a lag pursuit you have to anticipate all your manouvers. when you get on your opponent 6 (slow turns) all (or more or less all) will do 180° flying upside down, pull and start a loop. In this case don't wait him to do it and don't keep it in your ideal nose range. Roll and start the loop in same time flying parrallel to him, it mean you will have to watch him (for example) at your 1-2 okl. Now ou have a great advantage, anything he will do you will be faster and an easy snapshot is ready.

Have fun!

[Connery]

Turning off tracers is probably the single best thing you can do to improve your gunnery skills.  People tend to get into the really bad habit of using their tracers to aim and after awhile it gets to be a hard bad habit to break.  By turning off the tracers, you are forcing yourself to learn how to aim and lead the target using the gunsight and not the tracers.  Keep in mind though, it does take about a week or so to get used to the lack of tracers but once you're over that hurdle, you will start to see an improvement in your gunnery. 

This is not to say that there are other helpful tips that can help as well, such as setting convergence and firing at close ranges, etc.


ack-ack

He speaks the truth, you might also want to mess around with other gunsights til you get one you like, also adjust head position for best view of enemy planes when they in your sights!

[Kazaa]

Kazaa's gunnery rundown. (copied from the other thread)

1: Setting my mouse/stick just right. I make sure I have enough scaling to make that smooth transition through the band.
2: The gun sight I use is key for me, I currently use the default one but scaled down to give myself better reference to the horizontal and vertical axis.
3: Don't always pull lead on the target unless you have full view of him. If he's under your nose then I will always pull/shoot/release to see where my tracers are going and repeat if missed. Most of the time the 1st tap is always a guide.
4: I tend to shoot in one second bursts.
5: D200-D400 is optimal for me.
6: My convergence in the Spitfire is set to 375.
7: The larger the cross section the easier the shot.
8: keep tracers on if your new to the ballistic of the shell's your using.

I hope that helps.

[The Fugitive]

I had posted a thread asking for tips on shooting. While there were a number of good responses, I'm a bit more advanced than them. I've been flying a long time, but I have never had the time to really log some hours like many others. While this may prove I have a life  It doesn't really help with my aim.

From what I've put together,

Practice, practice, practice ! This is the number one way to improve your aim. There is nothing like doing the same move a couple hundred times and KNOWING when to squeeze the trigger.

Move your convergence in to the 300-399 range, and don't shoot until the 400 range counter is about to switch to 200. I was stuck in the 2% range for a hit percentage, and by concentrating on NOT shooting till I was in convergence I can keep my hit % in the 5 area.

Get rudder pedals. I have used rudder pedals for a long time and they are second nature to me. I have been on the road for work for a bit during the summer and have been forced to use a twisty stick on a laptop (Can't believe they won't let me take my simpit with me !). I still reach for the pedals as I engage, but I've gotten comfortable with the twisty rudder. Even so, I find that my feet are much faster at kicking the nose over for a snap shot. Maybe its because you have to tune the stick back a bit with a twisty, and you can leave the pedals more responsive.

I havn't found any quick way to become a great shot. Some people are born with it, or are very good due to "hunting" and such all their lives. The rest of us either must find the time to practice, or suffer seeing "assist on xxxxx" for most of the night.