A20 Havoc fighting tips

[akak]

I've recently discovered what a fantastic little fighter the A-20 can be.  For those of you from that 'other' sim, might fondly recall how fun it was to fight in the A-26.  Well, that fun can be had again at the controls of the A-20.

It's fighting ability is quite deceptive, no one realizes how well it can turn, especially in a flat turn, nor its powerful punch of its 8x .50 caliber guns mounted on the nose.  It can even maintain it's excellent turn rate with a full 4000 pound payload, though it will be very sluggish in a stall fight.  In short, it can fight its way both to and from the target against a wide variety of planes.

The best turning speed for the A-20 is around 225-200mph and in a flat turn, it will get inside of a Spitfire MkIX's turn.  Flaps deploy at 200mph and slower but you'll find yourself only using 1-2 notches of flaps max and are only really needed for stall fighting.  Torque isn't that bad at low speeds and you can use your rudders to counter it effectively.  One thing you have to be leary of is getting into a high speed dive.  If you're at 350mph or faster in a dive and you pull a hard G dive pull out, kiss your elevators good bye.  You can pull out of a high speed dive relatively intact if you do a low G pull out, no more than 3 G's max and once you start hearing the air frame creak, lessen up on the stick some but not much.  Soon you'll level out of the high speed dive intact.

The best way to fight in the A-20 is in low speed turn fights and stall fights.  Planes like the N1K2 and Zeke/Zero are best fought in stall fights.  The only troubles you'll have are those that BnZ you, only way to defeat them is to try to sucker them down into a turn fight but since I fight Rookies and squeakops, it's hard to sucker them down to fight since they never stop running .

Here's a film that I made during a duel with a P-51D.  Don't recall who I fought against but it does give an idea on how well the A-20 is capable of turning.

A-20 vs. P-51D duel



Ack-Ack
479th FG - Riddle's Raiders

[Ghosth]

On those fast fighters meet em nose to nose then just keep on truckin. They have to reverse, then catch you. Before they are back in guns range turn HO with them again. Meantime your keeping your E high, and getting closer to target or home.

3 or 4 A20's is an awesome force to behold so team up!

[Dr Lecter]

Excellent - a piece of bomber action.

Newbie question: I tried to open your video A-20 vs P51 after downloading it into temp folder, Windows said it did not recognise how ther program should be run.  Any advice please?

[Innominate]

lecter, there is a program in the AH folder called ahfilm.exe  use that to open the film.
And akak, Beautifull flying in the film.

Also akak, the a-20 only has 6 mg's pointing forward, the 2 in the turret are pretty useless.  Still 6x .50's are more than sufficient firepower, especially when mounted on something as durable as the a20.

The A-20 is the ultimate plane for base attack, it can pop two hangars, and still have plenty left to vulch with.  It's fast enough that it can punch right through fighter cover if need be.  And as you said, it's a capable plane in a fight.

[akak]

Originally posted by Innominate


Also akak, the a-20 only has 6 mg's pointing forward, the 2 in the turret are pretty useless.  Still 6x .50's are more than sufficient firepower, especially when mounted on something as durable as the a20.

Thanks for clearing that up.  I didn't know they counted the top turret guns as the extra 2 .50 cals.  I agree that the top turret is pretty useless if you're self-gunning since the fields of fire are limited by the large tail and that little hump forward of the turret.  It does have its uses if you have a gunner onboard, he can harass the bogie in a dogfight.


Ack-Ack

[Dr Lecter]

Thanks Innominate - I'm on it.