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[CWMV]

... donkey dingus  )

That still cracks me up!

[HundertzehnGustav]

You are flying it against IDEAL versions of aircraft that were plagued by various technical problems and other shortcomings in real life.
Your opponents don't have crap fuel, poorly manufactured engines or faulty, over-complicated and often sabotaged weapons systems. (Slave labour is bad m'kay)

Your opponents are not sane, rational people who fly like they don't want to be killed, they are fanatical, super-nazi-banzai cyborgs and you can't win against the cyborg flown 109 or 190 in a pitched battle with the P-51. You're John Connors in that Terminator world and, anything like the kind of fight that we all usually want to have in Il-2 is taboo in the P-51 against the AI.


Use guerrilla tactics, cyborg bitches don't know 'bout my Che Guevara handbook.

If you deny the enemy the chance to be effective (say by driving him away from your bombers and forcing him to sacrifice height to escape) then you've done your job until he comes back. Don't chase him, let him sniff around and try again and, when he does, have another go at him. Only get stuck in when you hold all the cards, if you don't hold all the cards then fold, you can't bluff a cyborg.

-player has "ideal/perfect" planes too. no gun jams, no misc mech problems... purring Allisons and Merlins...
-defnitely got a point about them "AI bitches" and "nazi banzai cyborgs", --> +1 for comment style.
--> AI of 4.11 any more real?

also good question about the PURPOSE of the plane, in context with the mission design. escortt or fighterbomber, "bodenplatte" style or "bodyguard" for the heavies?

[HundertzehnGustav]

Oh Im a god-awful 190 pilot.
Im serious. Really really bad.
Im really only any good in 109's and P-40's. Go figure the only aircraft in game Ive flown in 10 years...

i sat in 109F/G2s and spitpests mostly last year. after the 2 months break, i took up service with the Darwin defenders, P-40E, and am feeling very much at home in that crate. go figure.
(xcept the firepower... this "shotgun" style gun setup needs training. wheres my Hispanos and my 151/20s!!)

[JimmyBlonde]

No, he has a point.
We all know that the AI has some pretty severe advantages in game (not sure if resolved to a point in DBW...?).
But then flip it around. Take a 190 against a 51 and see how easy it is to make mince meat from them.

Regardless, lets try to keep it nice here. Remember this thread was started in a very tongue in cheek fashion!

This is true and why I'm excited about what might come with the AI as they are now in 4.11. Maybe there will be less dingus being sucked all round. I'm practically peeing my pants to see what happens with this DBW and UP when they are using it!

[FANATIC MODDER]

I never said don't be aggressive, only that the AI are suicidally aggressive. Do you see the difference between human aggression tempered with discretion and mindless robotic aggression?

Anyway, if you are right then everything in history is a lie, all the pilots in WW2 died in the first week because every engagement resulted in one side pursuing the other until it was utterly annihilated...

In the real world being aggressive is scary, people have respect for aggression and use caution.

I never said that the AI is 100% realistic. In fact, even with AI mod, even with the much praised 4.11 AI, there is a lot of improvement. The AI agression is indeed robotic but why is human agression more discrete? Would ever the AI engage a P-38 against a Ki-43 in a low altitude dogfight with their drop tanks still in?

People are more unpredictable that the AI and would act sometimes stupidly, not only if their are scared, but because their adrenaline is too high. Sure, in some occasions AI should act differently, eg. when a big formation is cracked in 2-ship elements and some of them are getting shot down, the AI would have as first priority to re-unite single planes into new pairs than make them attack the enemy (Check this, this is one of the primary reasons for being "utterly annihilated").  But it's not that way AI acts in a way that disadvantages especially the P-51. The AI fails regurarly to get out the 100% of the maneuverability of each plane.(it's something that needs too much fantasy for the capabilities of the AI...) Planes that their strong point is exactly that are the true losers from the AI behaviour.

And yes, many pilots died in their first week of combat, actually in their first mission. Fear and panic had a lot to do with that. It was quite usual to got in panic after their lost from their eyes their leader or after they took hits (but not enough to bring them down). Pilots that had performed well during training thet would be totally scared during battles. A loss of a good mate would shock them enough too to follow him in the other world, either because they would be paralysed (even an spontaneous 30 second cry is a century for an air battle) or because their would try in anger to revenge at any cost -  a classic battle stress sydrom, unusual, but it happened. . Sure, these factors are missing from the AI. But is its own way to make up a bit from its lack of fantasy, don't you think?

[HundertzehnGustav]

why is human agression more discrete?
-->because we care about our virtual a$$

Would ever the AI engage a P-38 against a Ki-43 in a low altitude dogfight with their drop tanks still in?
--> they do... or is there different code for
a)P-38 vs Ki43,
b)P-38 vs 190D
c)P-38 vs He-111/Ju88/Do17.217
d)...

one would need to code and implement various AI routines for different situations. But thet is AI. It is what it is, and does not bring us any closer to use the Mustang well, does it.

So, please, tell me something about our Mustangs and how NOT to make a fool of ourselves against the AI that we have today?

[Stratodog]

Im really only any good in 109's and P-40's. Go figure the only aircraft in game Ive flown in 10 years...

I think this is a key piece of info.  You will fly well in what you are used to and these two planes do not require the finesse (Mental and physical) that the Mustang does.  Remember, Dietrich Hrabak said "fly with your head, not your muscles"

I mostly fly P-51B and early Spitfire.  So I know them inside and out.  Once I tried a couple 109E campaigns and a couple DCG campaigns in the 109F - wow do I love that 109, it's an awesome airplane and if you can get in close you can blast your opponent open with one or two bursts - simply awesome and easy to fly.  Honestly, it made it more challenging to go back to the Mustang, I had to be much more careful.

[Stratodog]

BTW, there is a new campaign out for the Donkey Dingus 
D/L here: http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads3&file=details&id=1064

SAS topic here: https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,21363.msg231929.html#new

The "Yoxford Boys" campaign I mentioned earlier.

You will find that in certain historic contexts, it's easier to thrive and survive against the mindless AI 

Part of it will be you.  Position your group so that the robotic minded AI will want to go after the bombers, then swoop in to protect them and you will have an energy and a position advantage.  Keep it and use it wisely.  May the Force be with you 

[LANewell]

From what I'm reading you have everything you need to know about flying a P-51D.  You know all of its weaknesses.  You know what it can out preform and what it can't.  There's all kind of advice in here from specifications (Tom2) to maneuvers (yo-yo's, scissors).  She ain't a dogfighter.  She's an escort fighter, completely different.  She is closer to the tatics of a P-38 than that of a Spit.  She is designed to operate at altitude, not excel.  In comparison to other fighters sure she should be the best at altitude but that's because was designed to be there.  And the only way I'm going to get in a dogfight with a P-51D at low altitude is if I get bounced.  And even then I'm going to be asking myself "what the hell am I doing down here?" 
Energy is life.  Always have more of it than your adversary.  It won't keep you from getting killed, but it sure will help.

[FANATIC MODDER]

Yes, in theory, in practice you were forced to dogfight many times (Read about Robin Olds WWII experience...).

The truth is, whatever I or somebody else may say, the P-51 is the biggest aviation fetish ever existed. That haunts the IL-2 experience too, and it 'll hunt every new WW II simulator, no matter how much the realism level, including the AI behaviour, will rise.

[mmaruda]

A word on the Mustang. I have read this and that and personally I do not believe it's such an awesome plane. It performed well, was produced in large numbers and had insane range for that time. Most common US media will advertise it as uber-fast and uber-agile. From a pilots point of view, it's mostly advertised as reliable, comfortable and all around good. Plane performance is a subjective matter - raw charts do not cover real operating conditions, fuel quality, parts fatigue, weather etc. The Americans speak as highly of the P-51 as the Russians about La-7 and everyone else about the D-9.

I don't play DBW lately, but with 4.11 and the new AI and engine overheat, I'd say it's about right. If you fly properly and manage you pitch well, you can easily own a D-9. With the D-9, you can own a Mustang with a lot less effort (especially with the fire-power in mind since IL-2 doesn't give the .50 cal it's proper  credit IMHO). I'd say it's fine.

I know that all the US plane fans will swallow the "P-51 was the best plane of WWII" propaganda, but you have to be reasonable about this. The allies won, they had more resources, had better teamwork tactics and were superior in numbers at the end of the war. The Mustang was good, but against what? Mostly outdated Me-109s built in a shed at the end of the war and flown be inexperienced pilots, because the Germans were running out of resources. I know with flight sims it's always the charts and veterans opinions, but war is more Starcraft than IL-2 - better economy and Zergrush grants the win, not one uber-unit. So if you ask me - the P-51 is OK.

By analogy, the popular statement says that the Spitfire was better than the 109 and Battle of Brittain proved this, however in IL-2 you can easily beat the Spit in a 109, if you do a lot of negative-g manoeuvring as the Spit's engine chokes during these and that correlates with historical data. On the other hand, in IL-2 you do not have bingo fuel after 3 minutes over the target and the enemy does not have radar advantage.

So just because the Mustang isn't a total ownage machine out of the box like the History Channel says, it does not mean it sucks. It just takes some effort to fly efficiently. Pro-tip from a not so pro pilot: 55% pitch unless in a climb really makes a difference. Oh, and the agility also depends on the prop pitch - with hight pitch , you're more likely to stall out while hard manoeuvring and a lot of rudder work is essential. Seriously do not complain, it's great plane, only it takes a lot of time to learn. I spent countless hours with it and I still feel like I have only scratched the surface. Perhaps it was easier for real pilots as they generally can properly feel the plane as compared to us flight-sim geeks, who only can rely on the visual aspect of flying. Anyway, stop complaining, it's not the plane - its the pilot.

Just my 3 cents.

[JimmyBlonde]

 55%? Wow! I usually stick to within 5% of whatever the throttle is set at and back down to 75% or so at high speeds. At 55% it would take forever to accelerate but, if you can make that work then you must be flying very efficiently.

Nice post by the way.