Gunnery Tips

[Muzzy]

Probably been asked before, but what are your best tips for improving gunnery?

[mustng2]

Try some of the staged missions for practice (see my last post in the staged mission forum).  The AI planes are not as good as their human counterparts, but a lot more challenging then the planes flying in a circle in the standard offline practice.  The AI in the on line custom arenas seem more aggressive than the offline ones.  Record all your flights when you are in game and watch the films to see why you missed or why you hit. 

[Lusche]

- Use the TA as often as possible for training your gunenry. Bring a friend along and take turns.
- If nobody is there, use offline drones or offline missions. Do a lot of passes from the weirdest angles at the drones.
- Film your sorties.


And generally...
- get close. then, get closer even
- don't use different convergence settings for the same type of gun, and don't tweak to much with it at all. Choose one setting (not too extreme) and stick to it
- in the beginning, don't rely too much on fancy gunsights. Use the force, try to memorize a sight picture. Get a feel for shooting.
- lead more!
- the straight 6 o'clock attack is actually the one where hitting is quite difficult. Try to make passes, let the enemy fly into your stream of bullets
- use short bursts, then correct your fire.
- check for yourself if tracers off do help you or not. That's a very personal matter.

[FLS]

When you are in the TA use ctrl tab then tab to select a friendly aircraft. This will show you where you need to put your gunsight to hit your target.

[mustng2]

Try a new staged mission just uploaded, smfldftrmix .  A pretty good simulation of a 5 on 5 typical AH furball.  Follow the instructions for the bombing missions already posted in the staged mission forum.  You have a choice of 10 different aircraft.  Note the instructions for turning on the lead computing gunsight and the previous posts on selecting your target using shift tab and tab.

[Vudu15]

Pick one plane and learn how it shoots, take it to the Offline and pick some planes and put yourself in the most awful firing positions and just try to land bullets. Id start with tracers then when you feel good turn them off.
 Don't start with heavy cannon birds, 50, and 20s them have flat shooting angles and you'll pick up shooting faster. One of the most important things is learning how different planes have to move at different speeds, then start to visualize these flight paths as you move with them and fight them, take shots lots of shots even shots you don't think you'll make see how far off you are as your rounds arc in. Biggest thing is shoot, shoot, shoot...some folks say work on taking only shots that are guaranteed hits, Id say work on the hard shots as well and when you get to the easy ones they will be that much easier. But repetition is the key, as they're are no tricks save lots of shooting at lots of targets.

[Randy1]

I tried the staged, online mission published by Mustng2.  Online the AI are pretty aggressive and willl push your gunnery skills.

If you turn on the leading gun sight indicator, you might find it better to NOT shot.  Just watch the green indicator and try to get an eye for the lead required.  At least for me it lets me concentrate on the lead required instead of the kill itself.   I tend to get in a habit of over leading.

Print out his instructions and you will find it easy to setup once you have done it once.

[morfiend]

I tried the staged, online mission published by Mustng2.  Online the AI are pretty aggressive and willl push your gunnery skills.

If you turn on the leading gun sight indicator, you might find it better to NOT shot.  Just watch the green indicator and try to get an eye for the lead required.  At least for me it lets me concentrate on the lead required instead of the kill itself.   I tend to get in a habit of over leading.

Print out his instructions and you will find it easy to setup once you have done it once.

   This ^^^^

   I try to get players to do this,it really helps with the sight picture. The idea is to watch the position of the enemy A/C relative to your pipper. This is difficult to do if you're shooting at every target.


   YMMV.

   

[Triton28]

 I tend to get in a habit of over leading.

Yup.  Seems most misses in AH are behind the bandit, so if you know that and try too hard to compensate, it can certainly turn into over leading.  If I'm having trouble hitting in a plane I'm familiar with, I'm usually missing in front.      

On a somewhat related note, a couple years ago I read about a study that said amateur golfers under read the break on their putts 100% of the time.  I used this information on my next round and promptly over read the break on just about every hole.    

[Rich46yo]

Be trimmed or use auto-trim. Herky Jerky gunnery can lead to misses. My trim and auto trim controls are easy to reach and use. I still miss but at least Im trimmed while I miss.

[bustr]

Here are some questions to ponder.

1. - When you shoot down to your con as he travels left vectoring, right vectoring, or below back into you. Do you shoot too high?

2. - When you are in the same condition as question (1.) but, shooting up to the con. Do you shoot too low?

3. - When you are in conditions (1. & 2.) with the con vectoring back into you under your nose or over your nose. Are you shooting too late or are you missing by too little lead?

4. - If your con is at or near to your altitude flying level with only low E shallow turns. Do you pretty much hit them every time?

Apply these conditions to most of the base vulches and furballs you take part in. Eventually do you simply give up and get down on the deck with your vulchees to shoot horizontal getting picked by their comrades? And all the while watching a few well known names shoot at will from the attitudes of questions 1, 2, and 3 eventually landing kill strings over and over again?

One thing you can do is make a copy of your favorite gunsight. Then draw four lines on it. One from each corner  to the opposite creating two 45 degree lines in an "X" at the center. Then one horizontal across it through the center. Then count Down from center about 24-36 pixels and draw another horizontal line. Make all of these 1pixel wide. Before saving it make sure to erase from the edge of the bitmap about 5 pixels in from the edge with the ends of each line or you will get smearing on the reflector plate when you spawn your ride.

Now offline with the drones enable the LCG gunsight. Practice attacking the drones so you are placing them in tracking paths below or above corresponding to questions 1, 2, and 3. It will surprise you how much you are off in your elevation and lead assumptions. If you attack them from a 6 chase level you will notice by following the green LCG cross with the center of your gunsight that the lower horizontal line will slip into or just under the wing line of the con as you hold lead into the turn.

All of these lines are to give your eyes a standardized unchanging gauge to develop your sight picture from. Otherwise your Kentucky Windage would be perfect like a few well known names in our game and we wouldn't be having this conversation. The 45 degree lines in the NAVY Mk8 fighter reticle were not there just for glide bombing drift adjustments like in the Mk8 Bomber reticle.

[Tank-Ace]

1) get close, but not too close. I find that a lot of people will miss if they're at super close range, regardless of their convergence settings. If I had to guess, since he's fairly close to filling your forward view, and you're probably watching closure like a hawk, its harder to judge his movement, and he's not putting proper attention towards aim (figures I'm at D100, how can I miss?).

For me, D200-300 is ideal for a tracking shot (right around D200 for the 30mm)

2) Don't use excessive closure rates. You'll have less time to get into position, you'll be paying more attention to not hitting him than to shooting him, and it can affect the drop of your rounds (the speed of the round = muzzle velocity + aircraft velocity), although the last is minimal in most cases.

3) unload your aircraft. High G, high-speed deflection shooting is hard. I've seen even some of "the" vets miss those shots. I find med-high-six quartering shots (such as will be replicated by a lead turn) to be the easiest, since it offers a nice combination of larger target profile offered by deflection shooting, and easier aiming offered by tracking shots.

[deadstikmac]

Just a humble suggestion...


So everyone would agree its is more of a "feeling" than specific parameters they are meeting for shooting in this game. With that being said, Try doing some targeting while Inverted & flying, I know it sounds silly but with the controls being reversed and at first it might prove to be a difficult task just to follow someone while inverted let alone get the shooting solution.


For Practice:
TA with 30 minutes worth of fuel plane of choice. Turn on a target set to a distance you are comfortable with. DO NOT GO UPRIGHT DURING THE EXERCISE STAY INVERTED THE WHOLE TIME IMMEDATLY AFTER TAKE OFF AND 200MPH!! FOR REARM YOU SHOULD ONLY NEED TO ROLL UPRIGHT ONCE YOUR IN THE "GROOVE" DURING LANDING



Goal is to acquire a mental sight picture no matter the orientation of the aircraft.





Hope this helps!


 ~<Deadstik

[-error]

3) unload your aircraft. High G, high-speed deflection shooting is hard. I've seen even some of "the" vets miss those shots. I find med-high-six quartering shots (such as will be replicated by a lead turn) to be the easiest, since it offers a nice combination of larger target profile offered by deflection shooting, and easier aiming offered by tracking shots.

So you're basically saying "don't shoot in tight turns"?

I always couldn't grasp this "unload" thingie. I understand that this means to ease the stick or even pull it forward to get 1 or 0g when shooting.
But how to do this in actual fight? For example if I fight con in tight loops how can I ease the stick if by doing this I'll loose angle on that con?

[Latrobe]

A lot of really good tips in here already. I especially like the whole turning on the lead indicator and just watching it to see where you should be aiming. A lot simpler than how I learned gunnery.

When in doubt and you're having trouble getting hits on them then just get closer. Get really close. Does their plane fill your entire gunsight? Good! Now get even closer! The closer you are, the less lead you need to use and your bullets will do maximum damage.