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[Gamer22]

How does one get better at dogfighting?
Has anybody get a list of YouTube videos and books they recommend me perusing?
Kind regards
Gamer22

[genXgamer]

I doubt you will find anything better than these tutorials.

[Knochenlutscher]

Whatever you find letting the coin fall.
If a Video explains it, so have a clue, it's good.

Messerschmitt Start und Landeklappentechnik

A Messerschmitt pamphlet on introduction of flapps integrated a/c at it's time.
German, but from what I saw plenty Allied, post war Books, even highly granted,
the Flapps and use got never explained in such Detail as there.
German lang only. But for a real afficinado, lang is no barrier.
And I can highly recommend
other WW2 any Air Force Pamphlets, Manuals or Training Documents are worth too, since they are
precise as a clock at the topic

William Kershner The Students Pilot's Flight Manual + The Advanced Flight Manual + The Basic Aerobatic Manual
Good for starting too, as early as possible, as some quirks, misshaps or nasty habbits are hard to
erase later, as you get used to easilly. Better learn right from the hip.

Aerobatics Neil Williams

In Pursuit Johan Kylander

Fighter Combat Tactics and Maneuvering Robert L. Shaw

That's what I collected on books, as I had deeper interesst into it too.
Some are way too specialized, like Shaw's or Kershner's Advanced, but I would never miss them,
browsing, having them here. All these books are prizeless for my Flight Combat Simming and everything
that comes up. It's a long challenge, as it is a truely scientific topic, aviation, physics, for me. I can barely follow
it in my mother tongue, so I need to re-read everything over and over.

Stay away from false Combat Simming Squadron or online Tuturials or hobby physicians stuff.
An author must not just understand himself what he's blabbering about, you need to write it down
a way others understand too. Teaching is important too. All these books have that.
A bad example was a IL-2 Flying school, Online Jagdfliegerschule Squadron or heck knows what crap.
Obviously a German Nerd in Maths and Physics, but with no sense of writing
attitude or clue what crap he was talking about. Complicated sentences, no logic crap Graphics,
I had more questions than before. Stay away from such shit.

 Tips:
Get to know some tricks to survive. What can that be, a feature of the Plane or sth. you like having drilled.
You'll never in hell watch those Vids and turn into Giora Eppstein or Bubi Hartmann after it.
It is a process, when you can't survive, it's useless you can do a perfect Bla-Bla roll.

Examples of what really matters, but these Vids never show when you're in disadvantage, bleeded out of energy.
Someone knocking at your six.
Try and see what works, nothing can, all can...

Learn to fly super low, while giving pace

Tracers left right crawling for you, use Rudder and yaw,

another last ditch to spoil aim, high g dives, not regular dives, important!
Stick fully left/right and as forward as possible (upper corners) while kicking rudder full left/right.
The result is a high G dive, that results in everything spoiling aim, super ace AI or Human.
(as carried out by Bubi Hartmann himself)

adopt other methods, think of what parts of the aircraft you have, be creative, not repeatative.
Be surprisingly unforeseeable. They think they have you? Often made mistake, give them a fight.

Hineri Komi a Maneuver you rarely find in Western Bla-Bla Literature

try to survive

if things go wrong, bail out, try to crash land, or land in the Pampa

Room sense
this takes time, developp a 3-D dogfight sense. Drill is by constantly checking views, room around you,
know where is what, were do they go. The better your orientation there, the easier you score and survive.

[FL2070]

In general: simply practice. Try different things, see what works. Different ways of managing altitude, different ways of maneuvering when the AI is on you, different ways of trying to get a good angle on the AI. Eventually, you will gain a "sense" for what is the right thing to do, and what is the wrong thing to do.

But, there are a few things in specific that I've found to work well (in UP3.4, same AI as 4.13.X, may be transferrable to BAT):

When the AI is Behind you, strategy 1
The trick here is to know what kind of turn the AI is programmed to calculate the lead of.
Before update 4.11, the AI generally shot in a way that compensated for your direction of flight at the moment of the shot being released. This meant that when you turned, the AI wasn't able to calculate lead properly, because by the time the AI's bullets had gotten to you, your direction of flight had changed.
With 4.11 or later, the AI now compensates for changes in your direction of flight (turns), but, it's not quite smart enough to compensate for changes in the rate of turn itself. So, to avoid AI shooting at you, you not only turn, but change the way that you're turning constantly. A spiral roll makes it extremely difficult for the AI to hit you.

When the AI is Behind You, strategy 2
Because the AI is good at calculating lead for turns, but not good at calculating lead for turns that are constantly changing, the AI can be very easily fooled simply by you turning left, then right, then left, then right, etc...
If you manage to pull it off correctly, you can make the window of the AI calculating that it's the right time to shoot so small, that the AI lets one or two shots at you, or even doesn't shoot at all, because by the time it's set up a proper angle to shoot at you while turning right, you have already started turning left, and likewise.


Generally, whenever you have an AI behind you, you want to maneuver such that by the time the AI has set up an angle to shoot at you in one direction of turn, your turn has already changed to a different direction.

Head-Ons
The AI can be a very dangerous opponent in a head on, because it has lazer superman aim in that situation. The solution is to roll upside-down relative to the AI, and pitch up. For instance: if the AI is rolled 45deg to the right (which would be your left), you are rolled 135deg to your right. This works because during a head-on, the AI will usually try to roll so that you are above its line of flight, and then pitch up to point at you. Forcing the AI to always be in such a position that it will have to pitch directly down to shoot you makes it almost impossible for the AI to hit you in a head on. Remember: in a head on, it is better that neither of you take damage than that both of you do.
This strategy can also work against AIs that are behind you, but watch your altitude very carefully.

Managing 1v2s and 1v3s
Your main priority in fighting against multiple AI at once is to always present a threat to the AI that is closest (time-wise, not distance-wise) to being able to get a shot off at you. Whichever AI is in the best position to get a shooting angle at you, you want to be pointed towards that AI so that you can force them to pass by you in a head on. Once the threat is gone, look for the next one. If you are lucky (you will get lucky with enough time), you will be able to get a clean shot on one of them, and if you're patient enough, you can whittle them down from 3 to 2, 2 to 1, and finish off the last one.

Tight Turns
Sometimes it is the case that the AI is making a very tight turn in your direction. In this case, the instinct is to keep the reticle on or slightly in front of the enemy aircraft. Ignore this instinct, and instead treat your plane like it is a bullet: fly not directly at or slightly in front of it the AI, but instead fly ahead of it as it turns, so that you intercept its flight path instead of falling behind it. This strategy is very effective at getting on the close 6 of an AI that can both fly very fast and turn very hard.

Aiming
The best way to aim at an enemy plane is to try to infer what direction the target is moving on your screen (while in the cockpit and not moving the camera), and point your guns some distance away from the plane in that direction of movement—the faster the movement, the more the distance.

A poorly drawn example of this straight from the bowels of MS Paint:

[wern moldy]

You're talking about a game where the AI is programmed to avoid your cross hairs, where they have eyes in the back of their head, where bombers are more dangerous than fighters, where the AI gangs up on the player and ignores your friendly AI, where they somehow always have more climbing energy irrespective of which a/c it is, even with smoke coming out of it's engine, the same goes for diving, where the hardest a/c to shoot down are bi-planes and the easiest to shoot down is the Me262.......I remember seeing a youtube clip from a dude named Douglas Rangel, flying full pelt in a mossie and getting chased down and caught by a pair of Bf110s......WTF?!!!

The better you get at it, the more noticeable it becomes coz the AI needs to cheat more to beat you. After 10 years, I would say I can fly the thing pretty well, I've shot down in excess of 150 a/c in an 80 mission campaign, but the game isn't any less frustrating coz the better you get, the better the AI gets.....you're always chasing your tail. Lately I've been rolling my eyes in disbelief over some of the physics defying moves the god damn cheating AI does....to the point where I just shut it down and do something more productive before I really lose my cool and start smashing keyboards and joysticks. In 30 years of computer gaming, this is the ONLY ONE that punishes the player for getting good at it....absolutely no reward for effort.

And the flight models are questionable at best. In some a/c, if you're flying a lil' slow, just shooting your guns makes it stall and spin....seriously?!! Try this; select an Me262, sit on the runway and shoot. The damn thing falls back onto it's tail!! Realism? Pffttt....that's just sales talk. I believe the game was originally intended as a multi-player experience and the single player thing was thrown in at the last minute as a sales gimmick; and they spent as little time and money as possible on it.

What makes things worse is when some of the campaign creators make missions with tons of aircraft. What were they thinking?! In one of those BoB campaigns, I had 25 of the 28 enemy AI on my tail!! The more planes in a mission, the more of them pick on the player. You can't win....it's bullshit. The only reason I come to this forum very occasionally, is the hope that someone has done at least something about it. It doesn't have to be perfect, just a few minor improvements may satisfy, but nooooo! Maybe it isn't possible, I dunno. I only play it occasionally now. Why? Maybe it's insanity, and you know what the definition of insanity is; doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result! But don't take my word for it, you'll find out..........................

[FL2070]

The AI has always been a mixed bag in IL-2, inhumanly good at some things and laughably terrible at others. The trick has always been to, speaking in the most general terms possible, exploit the AI's areas of stupidity, and avoid situations where they can use their magic bullshit-powers.

There will never be a PvE game, which simulates players vs AI in what's supposed to be an evenly matched, realistic environment of vehicle-to-vehicle combat, which was originally designed in 2001, which will have a parity between player and AI abilities. So, in making IL-2, the developers just did the best they could to get as close as possible with the limited resources they had. With the updated AI in UltraPack (which even BAT doesn't have yet if what I remember hearing is still true), it's a lot less of a pain in the ass to deal with AI aircraft, especially with the modded flight models in UP generally trending towards players having more engine power.

[Wing Walker]

How does one get better at dogfighting?

Youtube: I would play a video, then try it out right away, or if you have 2 monitors, play the video while you are in game.

Playing a real humans online was the best, show'd me how shitty I was, and you talked to people to lean what they know while you flew.  It was epic too.

 ]salut[This is a really good discussion.

I have a pure BAT install, whatever BAT has is what I run, I don't add mods.

For single player, AI affects everything.

Wish there was a simple way to moddify it.

If there ever was a MOD for AI where you could apply certain styles to certain aircraft, I would be playing this until my hands stopped working.

From what I see with fighters, most AI planes want to turn fight you, even if they are in something heavy.

My Notes:
Booming and zooming seems to work the best in something that is faster than the enemy.  If you are not faster they will chase you down eventually and you have to try to gain speed over then or turn fight them anyway.  Am I wrong on this?

20mm is the way to go with any A/C....
... I love the P-47's, but there seems to be no change after 4 .50's and there are too many versions of the .50cals in game to know exactly how to use them all.

[Kopfdorfer]

1) Know your aircraft - what it can do and what it can't
2) Know the oppositions aircraft - what they can do and what they can't
3) Speed is life. Height is potential speed.
4) Don't pick a fight you can't win. Run away if you don't have an advantage.
5) Practice practice practice. I suggest using full real settings with Icons = OFF
   ( no external views - you can take screenshots some other time - this is serious business )
   You will improve your situational awareness immensely.
6) Make 6 or so missions in FMB on the same map with aircraft coming at you from different altitudes and orientations ,
    different Time of Day , and Different Weather conditions.
   Make these missions short  - Start all aircraft within 15 km of each other and in intercepting courses.
   Start with Average Opposition and fly at least One ( you ) against Two ( enemy ).
   Name them in such a way that the mission names do not give away
   anything to do with the situation.
   When you get comfortable handling Two average foes , make one a Veteran.
   When you get comfortable handling one Vet and One Average , make them both Veterans.
   Pick these missions randomly to practice , forcing you to assess each situation each time you start to fly.
   Go in to FMB and Change the Plane sets.
   You get the idea.
   Practice Practice Practice.

Good Luck.
Have Fun.

Kopfdorfer
   

[Dimlee]

And once you learned how to beat 4 or more AI aces offline, you go online and meet human players and understand that you have to start your learning again... 

[Kopfdorfer]

Yep.
No comparison fighting AI to fighting Humans.

Kopfdorfer

[Quietman]

And the flight models are questionable at best. In some a/c, if you're flying a lil' slow, just shooting your guns makes it stall and spin....seriously?!!

Heresy!!!! 
I agree 100%, but most casual players wouldn't know a realistic FM if it hit them in the face. They just follow the hype. I'd been working on FMs in Fighter Squadron:SDOE. The FMs it shipped with were abysmal to put it nicely (they were trash), but the physics engine was beyond belief. Had a series of discussions with an individual that had written a program for profiling airfoil performance and wrote combat simulators for the military. He told me there were parameters in the OpenPlane physics engine that weren't even in the military simulators.

You actually had to put the major components of the plane in the 3D airframe, set the weights and build the aircraft so the CG was in the correct place. People were talking about how realistic Il2 was, but at that time you couldn't do a realistic hammerhead stall in Il2 to save your soul. For us, you had to run the airfoils through a 3D fluid dynamic simulation program that NASA had made available for free (only ran on unix / linux) to get the performance of the airfoils through the full 360 degree angle of attack. Most commercial airfoil programs were 2D and only took you to a 45-60 degree AOT. You also had to build the props with the correct airfoil sections and twist. Then you'd fudge some things  to get the high altitude performance since supercharges were not modeled in the game.

This was NOT your typical table based FM. You had to build the planes, test them, and make changes in aileron surface area and angle, the props, and balance the plane until it flew like the  pilot reports claimed the real ones did. When we gave up because Parsoft was not willing to work with us, and at that time we had the Zero matching all the problems reported in it real flight characteristics that were reported by allied test pilots evaluating captured aircraft. (I think they thought they could build a newer sim, but they were clueless about the physics engine)

PC Pilot did a test of the FMs for the Spitfire Mk II and the P-51D using pilots that actually flew the real birds. Tailslide's Spit FM and the P-51 FM I'd worked on won hands down on flight performance. The comments were made that, not only were the turn, climb, dive performances spot on, but the 2 planes had all the little idiosyncrasies the real planes had, and none of the other sims could duplicate it. And here our FMs were being compared to much newer sims by a few years. Yes, the graphics were dated, and the models were a lower poly count, but the physics impressed the pilots. The Spit pilot talked about the tendency of the tip of the inside wing to dip (no shudder) just before a stall and how you'd avoid it stalling, and our Spit was the only FM that did that. He made othe comments on the FM saying how realistic it was.

I actually had to downsize the fuselage tanks on the P-51 (which I could get away with because of the map size), because casual players kept ground looping the P-51D with a full fuselage tank from being overly aggressive on the throttle in take off. Sound familiar? So we made a concession for the less experienced players.

A group of us tried to get together and get permission to use the physics engine in development of a new sim and sent Parsoft our mods to prove we were capable of it (one of their people admitted he couldn't figure out how we'd accomplished what we had). But they wouldn't do it. Was even in contact with the guy that wrote the physics engine who was interested if we could get our hands on it. He'd walked out on ParSoft for several reasons and when he explained them I understood why.

I bought Il2, was disappointed in the FM engine and the fact the planes acted like they were balanced on a stick in a wind tunnel . . . and immediately got jumped on by people that had no idea what they were talking about when I said so.

So realistic?, Somewhat, but on the other hand, it can be a lot of fun to play.

[Dimlee]

Interesting story, Quietman. Thanks.
Fighter Squadron:SDOE...  Just 2 years before the Il-2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_Squadron:_The_Screamin%27_Demons_Over_Europe