I recently talked to one of my dad's friends who served on an Aircraft Carrier after WWII and flew planes and jets. I felt a longing to get back into flight sims.
This is the story of my first night of Aces High II.
Offline PracticeAfter downloading the game, I read through what information I could and then decided on tooling around in the offline arena to make sure my stick was in working order and to get a feel for things. I use a Saitek ST290 and I found the buttons on it already conviently mapped, including the thumb toggle which allowed me to shift views easily.
PS: Barnstorming with the hangars doesn't work, I discovered. There's a wall in the rear of the hangar.
OnlineI soon logged into the main arena. The one that had 300 slots for players with almost all of them filled. I found myself in a map shaped somewhat like a globe and covered in bases. After examining the map and reading what flashing bases and the red/green bars represent, I decided to get in on the action as soon as possible.
I immedietly went south and attempted to take off from airfield 128 which was under heavy attack. Unfortunetly the fighter hangars were down and I had to lift off from another base across the channel.
I decided on flying a Zeke for my first 'real' combat flight. It lacks firepower, but being nimble is a good advantage. I imagined I'd probably be out-manuvered by veterans fairly quickly early on and be forced into a turn fight, which I expected the Zeke to excell at.
I flew south towards 128, reading some more information in the game as I went about controls and such and even tested my mic, which appearently works.
Upon arriving at the airfield, I found about 4 friendlies and 7 enemy planes in the air. I was sitting at about 14k altitude and most of the fighting seemed to be occuring at 7k and lower.
I circled for a moment, considering my options. I watched as a flight of enemy B17s flew away from the town in formation, appearently having bombed it. I felt my lone Zeke wouldn't fare well against a Flying Fortress and held to my altitude. Below me, I saw two enemy Typhoons zooming back and forth over the airfield once our fighter hangars were repaired and our team began to get onto the runway.
I did some quick calculations and watched as a Typhoon outran a pack of friendlies. My Zeke wouldn't be able to catch him even with an altitude advantage so I remained where I was. An enemy P47 at about my altitude approached but maintained a good 4k distance from me. I felt he was watching me cautiously, as I was watching him too. He didn't seem to want to dive down among my friendlies now over the town, and with bombs under his wings he couldn't manuver well enough to fight me. He probably knew I'd be able to out-turn him, especially with heavy wings.
I started in the P47's direction and he went into a dive towards the town. I decided to follow until my airframe started to groan. I cut my engine and slowly pulled out at about 9k.
By then a fresh wave of enemy planes had arrived and it turned into a furball. I used my "check six" button quite a bit, not feeling confident enough to leap into the fray just yet but doing my best to follow friendly planes and keep enemies off their tail as I watched them fighting.
A Spitfire screamed past me from the rear, and I'm pretty sure he only managed to knick me with his machine guns. It left a couple of bullet holes in my wing and cockpit glass. I tried to follow him, but he had a ton of smash and was 800+ infront of me before I had time to line up a shot.
I decided to put my Zeke down rather than press my luck any further with a plane that has paper for armor. I successfully landed after having to power out of my landing sequence to avoid an enemy T-34 sitting on the runway and proceeded to the tower.
I decided to try a Hurricane IIC. An ungainly beast, it could no doubt absorb more punishment than the Zeke. Not as agile and a much slower climber, I'd be sacrificing some of my agility and climb for armor and firepower.
I headed out to sea to gain altitude away from the fighting and soon returned with 7k of height in my pocket, which I could burn if needed for energy.
By then, 128 was in pure chaos. It was a good thing I'd traded in the Zeke, because many of the enemy planes seemed to be fighting over a clump of tanks and AAA on the ground near the base. I wouldn't last long in a Zeke getting shot up by anti-air.
Success!Typhoons continued to whip past, but seemed to pay me no mind as they chased after my comrades. A P-51 carrying bombs pulled up infront of me at about 500 yards. Not wanting to waste precious ammo, I turned on my engine boost and began to very slowly catch up to him. With the P-51 looming large in my gunsights at 400, I fired a short burst. I caught him and pieces of his airframe fell away. He spun into the ground trailing smoke on the far side of the hangars he'd probably been aiming to bomb.
Feeling proud, I used my chase energy to grab some more altitude and went into an Immelman. I found myself face-to-face with an enemy P-38, which screamed past off my port wing chased by at least four friendlies. I turned and got onto the tail of another P-51 chasing the pack of friendlies. I fired a couple of shots as the P-51 pulled ahead, and my tracers going past his cockpit must have spooked him because he broke away and began to climb.
With most of my ammunition still left I turned back over the airfield and struck out towards our town to see what was happening there. On the way I was shot at by several AAA but took no damage.
I glanced up and saw a P-47 diving on me from about 1.5k up. I immedietly inverted and dove, letting him chase me. Machinegun tracers zipped all around me as I twitched my rudder back and forth, trying to bleed off some of my speed as I nose-dived towards the ground. Feeling sufficiently safe as despite the fact the P-47 was unloading his guns on me from 800 through 500 he had yet to hit me, I suddenly pulled out of the dive.
I began to black out but maintained the pullout. I looked behind me and saw the P-47 smash into the ground. It had bombs or fuel tanks on its wings, so I wasn't sure if it were the same one I'd encountered before. Either way, it gave me credit for the kill for some reason.
I made my way back towards the airfield in a bit of a circular fashion to avoid the anti-air as I was still rather low on the deck.
A Spitfire cut across my field of vision from starboard and I turned in to chase him as he strafed our runway. He was pulling away from me but then pulled up hard for some reason and began to climb. He rose right into my guns and I put a two second burst into him. He lost his tail, continued to climb and then slowly tipped over and nose-dived into one of our hangars.
I decided to set my plane down at that point as I had about 1/5th of my fuel left and only 20 rounds for each of my cannons.
RevengeI sortied again and scored a kill against an A-20 almost immedietly after I took off. The A-20 pilot performed a bank turn right infront of me, and it was child's play to take his wing off. Call it a freebie for the new guy.
However, I got raked repeatedly by either AAA or machine guns from P-51s which were swarming the airfield. It was so confused. I spent most of my time in defensive manuvers trying unsuccessfully to scissor with low energy and get a decent shot.
I lost track of how many friendlies and enemies were in the area and my ammunition soon disappeared as I took unskilled snapshots. I was starting to get into a bit of a panic mode, as I had no control over the situation. My clunky old Hurricane IIC couldn't climb out of the treetop fighting because everytime I'd start to get some energy going I had to make a hard turn to avoid another hail of bullets.
With 40 rounds left for a cannon that had been blown away and my ammo bins empty, I had to set down. I went into a climb as if I wanted to yo-yo but instead kept pulling on the stick until I was on my back. Having lost almost all energy, I continued to pull hard and completed the loop about 100 feet off the ground. I cut engine power to 50%, twitched my rudder and lowered my landing gear. I'd lost a wheel, so I raised my gear and did a soft belly landing in the middle of the runway.
On my next sortie I never even got off the ground. Airfield 128 had been utterly overrun. I wasn't sure if it was a ground vehicle or one of those P-51s, but something hit me hard just as I was rolling down the runway. I lost my gear, did a bellyflop and slid forward. Before my slide ended, something else hit me and it was all darkness...
LessonsIn my first day of Aces High II, I learned a couple of useful lessons.
First is not to let myself to get pulled into a very low altitude battle when there is an enemy offensive ongoing. All of the visable enemies may be at 6-8k or lower, but many of the others inbound will have plenty of altitude and can come in with energy to spare. That sort of thing quickly changes the balance of a low altitude dogfight.
Second is that the check-six function is really useful for warning friendlies in a tight spot when there is a lot of radio chatter. I may have overused it slightly, as due to my perspective I accidentally warned a couple of people who were chasing rather than being chased.
Third is patience. My second sortie ever scored me three kills (one freebie) because rather than trying to jump immedietly into the fighting, I moved away some distance and built altitude. With a plane like the Hurricane that doesn't have horsepower to spare, a few hundred feet of altitude can translate into the advantage you need.
- SkyTiger
