Today, sitting at my desk in the office eating lunch, I began comparing kill/death stats of the various aircraft during tour 24. I stumbled across something that surprised me.
During the whole of tour 24, the Ki-61 had a 2121/1687 kill to death tally, or about a 1.26:1 ratio. That's right up there with the La-7 at 1.32:1. For comparison sake, let's look at the P-38L, which comes in with a 0.90:1 ratio. Or the P-51D at 1.006:1! Geez, the Tony is doing pretty damn good out there. Even the mighty Dora is only marginally better than the Ki-61 with a 1.39:1 ratio.
So, I thought, "what gives?"
Well, this evening I tried the Tony offline for about 15 minutes and found it to be remarkably agile, with decent speed at low and medium altitude. Moreover, it dives
very well.
I then logged on and tried my hand at the Tony. Indeed, I was very pleased with the result. I flew one practice sortie at night and headed for a busy field with the dawn light. Two sorties later I had 3 kills and 4 assists, without anyone even much as getting a shot at me. These included a Dora, a Spit Mk.IX and a Seafire.
The Dora was a classic ambush from low, behind. He never saw me coming and was "Tail-end Charlie" anyway. However, the Seafire was a good old fashioned one-on-one. Much to my amazement, the Ki-61 had no trouble matching the Seafire turn for turn, until I gained enough lead to hammer his engine. My fight with the Spit IX was less interesting, other than it showed me that my marksmanship has greatly improved. I came roaring down on him at about 450 mph, got a few hits, and chandelled high to the right. The Spitfire, trailing coolant, half looped into an Immelmen. He spotted me high to his left, angling down. He tried to pull up and around to meet me head on, but his speed was far too low and his turn rate equally so. I killed him with the my next shot, about 30 degrees off angle at his 10 o'clock high position.
The assists? A P-51D, F4U, Fw 190A and another Spitfire IX.
I guess you could say that I'm sold on the Ki-61. Adding 2 additional kills in a Flak Panzer (one death when my M-16 got clobbered), I somehow managed to end up with an overall rating of 117 as of right now.
Of course, who knows what tomorrow will bring.....
As it stands, I think that I'll be flying the Ki-61 as often as my other favorite, the Spitfire Mk.V, in which, I managed a 1.7:1 ratio despite being a newbie.
My first week flying AH, Leviathn gave me a lesson, or more accurately, a beating. Both of us were in Mk.Vs. However, I'm a quick study and in our next encounter in the same type, I evened the score. Although, I don't have much confidence that I could do that again.
As it was, I had to chase him all over Hell's Half Acre to get 'em. He's one heck of a pilot. Guys like Leviathn and aknimitz are the type of pilots I measure myself against. So far, I'm about even against them.
Anyway, if you haven't tried the Ki-61, I certainly recommend it. You will be likely very surprised at its ability, and so will the guys in the Doras and Mustangs.
Now, where's the Ki-84?!:D
My regards,
Widewing
Postscript: I made two more sorties after originally posting this. Add 3 more kills and an assist, including an La-7, which I chased down and killed on the deck. Still, I've not yet been hit. Yup, I'm beginning to really like this Ki-61.
