To say that there was little or no gunnery training is simply a myth.
I would say that inadequate to average gunnery training was far more the norm. Most books, particularly ones like Heiden's that are full of individual stories would seem to support this. "The Mighty Eighth" is particularly insightful in this regard, though it is more focused on the bomber crews. Some of course, didn't even get formal gunnery training, though most at least got to take some runs on a target sleeve or two. This seems to have been a rather random affair though, even late in the war.
The aces in real life were easily as good or better at shooting than most of the sim aces here.
Some were. Bong, though, admits to being a poor shot who had to get close to get kills. This changed when he underwent additional training in between tours, which apparently HE felt was needed.
To think that a LW pilot that has 300 kills in 5+ years of fighting or even US 20+ kill aces are inferior to any sim pilot is rubbish. Read what these men had to say about getting kills
I believe Hartmann got close because his superior eyesight permitted him the luxury of surprise attacks most of the time, at least that is what he said in his book. Wait until the plane fills the windscreen, fire a short and devastating burst, and move on. Of course, there were those who said he was a fine shot at any distance, just that he chose that method being more of a "head" fighter than a "muscle" fighter.
But none of them fired, hit, or got kills on a regular basis at ranges exceeding 500 yards because it just wasn't possible with the equipment they had.
No argument with the first part at all. There are, though, more than a few accounts of hits and even kills at beyond 500 yards in the stories contained in Heiden's books and others. The pilots were surprised, but they took the shot in the first place knowing there was at least some possibility. 1000m is within the ballistic capabilities of the weapon. In Korea, 600m hits were not uncommon at high altitudes.
We are supposed to be flying and fighting under similar conditions with identical equipment, but some aspect of physics has been neglected in the area of gunnery. Dismissing the flaw by saying hundreds if not thousands of us are more proficient at air-to-air gunnery than real-life aces is ludicrous!
I don't know. The fact that we can literally get thousands of "kills" and be killed 1000s of times in the process would make a certain mastery of the game (obviously not WW2 air-to-air combat) hardly a ludicrous proposition. Of course, if there are physics flaws I would like to hear about them, please expand with specific examples. Not that I would understand, but if an engineering type like Ho Hun (or several others with that mathematical bent) can go along with it I certainly will.
Hey, I agree that kills beyond 500m were rare. I don't really think WW2 pilots had a lot of time to sit there, SA focused on one extending enemy, and just spray and pray. I don't believe the enemy aircraft gave them an easy set up with a wings-level extension either.
I have found such long range kills to be rare in AH as well (far more than AW). When flying an American aircraft the best I hope for at that range is a whizzer or a single plink or two to throw off an evader and make him do something stupid. Though if he's flying wings level and I have the time and ammo load, perhaps achieve more in the d600-800 range. I'm certainly not the best pilot in the game, but I don't fear a spray and pray from d700 when I'm on the receiving end. I really don't see what the fuss is about, and I tend to fly the La7 in the arena lately and it has about the worst ballistics of the bunch.
Charon
