Heavy Fighter Exit Strategy After Ords Drop?

[Randy1]

You go in with a heavy fighter in a proper dive, drop your ords and you take down your target. 

My question is what is the best path or action to take to escape ground fire hits after ords drop?

[Wiley]

You go in with a heavy fighter in a proper dive, drop your ords and you take down your target. 

My question is what is the best path or action to take to escape ground fire hits after ords drop?

Assuming you dropped from 3-4k or so.

As long as you're in range of the ack, keep moving in a downward direction.  I drop somewhat high so I'm generally diving about 20 degrees or steeper when I aim the plane about half a field width on the other side of the field.  Once you run out of altitude, go level and jink every second or two to avoid fire until out of range.  If things haven't gone right and I've had to strafe something on the way through, I'm doing this at treetop height.

I can usually pork both of a small airfield's ords using this method without taking a hit.

The main thing is, no matter what, never be climbing in range of the ack.  At worst, be level and jinking.  Even the slightest dive will help.

Wiley.

[Randy1]

Assuming you dropped from 3-4k or so.


Wiley.

Thanks Wiley for the advice.

I really don't know what altitude I drop from.  I judge by the hanger size.  I will do a practice run and see.

I thought flat would be the answer but I have got my butt busted going flat too.  Probably not enough evasive action while flat on my part.  I will try your way as you suggested.

[Wiley]

Thanks Wiley for the advice.

I really don't know what altitude I drop from.  I judge by the hanger size.  I will do a practice run and see.

I thought flat would be the answer but I have got my butt busted going flat too.  Probably not enough evasive action while flat on my part.  I will try your way as you suggested.

One other thing I forgot to mention as a rule of thumb that might help.  The closer you get to level, the more often you want to jink.  If you're at treetop level, a quick jink up isn't always a bad thing, but I'm talking about a quick instantaneous pullup, then get the nose below the horizon as soon as possible.  The steeper you're diving, the less you need to worry about jinking.  The 3k-4k was a rough guess, I often drop lower, but that's generally the plan.

Wiley.

[Naughty]

    Just fly as a NIT or ROOK, the ack never seems to touch them !   

[Babalonian]

You go in with a heavy fighter in a proper dive, drop your ords and you take down your target. 

My question is what is the best path or action to take to escape ground fire hits after ords drop?

I've found I have better luck running out of the auto and/or manned ack range as fast as possible below the tree tops.  As I escape it's range I recover as much altitude as I effectively can.

    Just fly as a NIT or ROOK, the ack never seems to touch them !   

The Bish still haven't caught onto the problem of wallowing slow, high and within enemy effective-AAA-range?

[The Fugitive]

When bombing a town or field I like to drop as high as I can too. I also set my run so after I drop my exit lane is the shortest route away from the target, no point in flying back over the field or town AFTER you drop. The other thing I do is a porpoise type move. After my drop I level off and will porpoise up and down a few hundred feet until out of range. Nothing drastic like to red out and black out, nice and smooth saving as much E as possible. Trying not to scrub off too much speed.

The same for when I go for GVs, but of course you drop much lower.... tough to spot those little buggers  The porpoise seems to keep me out of trouble, rarely get pinged. 

[Randy1]

Thanks for all the replies.  Flat exit with an evasive maneuver as y'all suggested will be my new exit strategy.

[Latrobe]

In through the least amount of ack and out through the least amount of ack. If you're target is on the edge of the field, come in from that side so you have the least amount of ack possible firing accurately at you. The further away the ack gun is the less accurate it is. After ords are away, immediately pull away from the field the same way you came in (least amount of ack in your way). The trick to having ack never hit you is make very tiny adjustments every second or two. When the ack fires, change your path slightly by nosing down slightly, pulling up slightly, left, right, whatever you want. Count "1, 2" and the next volley of ack rounds should be on their way. Repeat process.

This is how people are "magically" not being hit by ack no matter how many times they fly through it. You can even dogfight this way too. I loved chasing someone into their ack and killing them in it by avoiding ack this way. I had many pms calling me a hacker  .

[Lusche]

As a mild hijack:

You can also use bombers to pork fields, which allow you to ignore any ack, no more exit strategy for that one needed.
It also allows you to pork several fields or hit a lot of secondary targets.

And you don't need ages to climb to altitude first, there are several medium bombers in game which are much quicker at such a job than the ubiquitous Lancaster or B-24

[Mongoose]

  I plan my attack so that I am coming in from above, and flying away from the field when I pull out.  When I pull out, the center of the field should be directly behind me.  This way, I am flying away from the guns, and not towards more guns. I usually fly the P-38, which has broad wings, but a thin silhouette when viewed from the side.  I find that flying straight out with a little up and down motion often helps.  This presents the thinnest part of the profile to the guns, is evasive at the same time.

[bozon]

Assuming you dropped from 3-4k or so.

That is pretty low. I usually try to release at no less than 6k AGL, which means I can straighten out at 4-5k. Hitting hangars is still very easy from that alt. If you manage to level out at 5+k AGL, you can escape the acks by zooming up to 7k AGL. Otherwise, proceed as suggested in a shallow dive to keep speed and make small jinks. Speed gives you 2 things: 1. you get out of range faster. 2. acks need to lead more, so every small change of direction throws the acks farther away from correct aim.

As for direction of approach and escape, there are several considerations. First and foremost, I consider it a good practice to make your attack run in the general direction you want to egress to - this is more important in the presence of enemy fighters. You will build up a lot of speed in the dive and cover a lot of distance fast during the pullout and initial acks get-away, so it better be lots of distance in the right direction, instead of into deeper poop.

With respect to acks defense, it depends also on you attack profile. Lets assume the target is on one edge of the field (say West side). If you come from high, well above 7K, acks cannot shoot you till you drop below. Therefore it is perfectly safe to from from East to West over the base and then dive to attack, leaving all the acks on the east side behind you and on the edge of their range. If you come lower than 7K, it would be better to approach from the direction of least acks (from West in this example) and break away ~120-150 degrees (north-west, or sout-west) while in a shallower dive.

Fast bombers with level bomb sight can do a kind of "stand off" attak if they are lower than 7K AGL - come as fast as you can from the direction of least acks (from West in this case), release and break like a fighter 120-150 degrees to either side (no formations obviously). If you come fast enough and over 5K AGL you will release from such a distance that you will barely enter acks range, and exit it very fast. Mosquito XVI is the master of this attack profile and Tu-2 is pretty good also. I most often use this with the TBM - it does not have formations anyway, climbs like #### when loaded, and carrier operations are often at short ranges.

[Traveler]

I see guys suggesting that they bomb from altitudes of 3, 4 and 6 thousand feet AGL, I have no luck at all from those altitudes.  I’ve been flying P38’s in the attack role for the last 14 years with the 113th Lucky Strikes and none of our pilots drop ords from an altitude much higher then 500 to 1000 feet AGL. 

We also try to limit our attack run to just one run each on our assigned targets.  That requires that we put at least 5 rocks and two 1000 lb bombs on a hanger.  We try to coordinate our attack runs to help split the defending AAA, Ack and 88’s.   

We Generally are all attacking and diving in from altitude in an attack formation spread  across the entire base.   With a 1500K interval  between aircraft.  With a common route of egress to which we are all climbing to from our completed attack run, this provides mutual protection and allows us to wing up with our flights elements.  It also helps  us to pick off the defending fighters that have attempted to dive in behind us and zoom up on our six, just to discover,  much to their horror that the leads wingman is closing rapidly their six with guns blazing.

Once we reach our rally point the intel officer gathers the BDA and our CO assigns additional primary or secondary targets. 

If you would like to wing up with the 113th Lucky Strikes, we fly as Knights on Saturday evenings starting around 7:PM Eastern.  Vox 113, you can wing up for a flight or a night.  Everyone is welcome.

[Randy1]

Maybe this afternoon I will have a chance to check my drop alt.  The P-38L sure gets you there in style and speed with a full load of ords.

My optimum drop point speed is 400MPH which gives me a nice compression cushion in the P-38L  I do actuate the dive flap just in case.  Probably different than most I fire rockets first then blip blip on the secondary select button then bombs.

Traveler, I have been on the receiving end of your P-38 raids. Vox always gets excited when they see all those P-38s coming.

[BaldEagl]

My typical target at an airfield is the VH.  I fly an F6F to 10-11K and come in at a 45-60 degree dive directly over and crossing the airfield.  I drop at the last possible moment; bombs first then rockets all set to sortie 6.  As I'm already at the edge of the field headed away with a ton of speed I hit WEP and put it into a shallow zoom climb.  As I clear ack I put it in a full climb coming over the top as I lose speed, ready to engage whatever is nearby.

A good sortie is a destroyed VH and a handful of kills.