I'm sad to hear that... We've also had some run-ins with certain admins on WoP. I find that if we are careful on the forums and fly just Zekes vs Wildcats that is not as much of a problem.
Hah, clownwagons! 
In my experience, planesets are fairly balanced if you play them right. I am personally of the opinion that every plane has its advantages and disadvantages... You seem to have extremely good aim, which makes the firepower on the FW190 absolutely wonderful, so you are flying the plane right. Imagine you only had .303 or even just some .50 cals! In the Pacific early war the Zekes and the Wildcats are also sort of balanced. The Zekes flame super easily, but out-turn anything else in the sky on a whim, and have cannon. Sometimes, it just degenerates into a dogfight, and then blue easily wins In late war, with the Hellcat, you either keep your E and/or altitude, or you are also a goner.
I thoroughly enjoyed those videos! I can change the name of the topic, and you can post your sorties here too. It'd be lovely to hear some ADW stories. Since I was without a squad and without time, I never got into those big online wars. That's why I'm so excited about Ghost Skies now
We've never written anything on the WoP forums... Just one email sent about the band earlier this year. They never replied. We are obviously, for whatever reason, not welcome so might as well not go there at all, even incognito. And you're right, the ones that shall remain unnamed seem to mainly camp out at Spits vs 109s.
A lot depends on situational awareness, technical flying skill and how well you can "foresee" the events or and possibilities in 3-dimensional geometry. A lot of the newcomers will (or this is my experience and does has its exceptions) usually consider ability to turn, low-speed handling and firepower very important. Like the Zero vs. Wildcat/Hellcat. Hellcat has same advantages over Zero (speed, rate of roll at all speeds, dive) as Fw 190 has against Spitfires. The speed delta is just too high for the undedog to achieve anything without surprise or serious skill, number or co-ordination difference... IMHO the ability to turn should be considered a last-ditch method, purely defensive maneuver unless the odds are against you and you cannot disengage. Turn, and you burn... Seen so often. Like Erich Hartmann said, "dogfight is waste of time".
I see way too often people to just mix it with the enemy, burn their speed, lose their situational awareness and then get their brains shot out by someone they never saw coming in.
Just in that Wildcat vs. Zero example, I find the Wildcat a lot better in good hands. Wildcat dives better, not only higher break-up speed but it retains the extra speed gained in a dive considerably longer than any Zero model. Wildcat is also a little faster at low altitudes so that enables one to escape just about any situation as long as theres some altitude and speed reserve. Zero turns very well at low speeds so continued turn fights are not an option unless your turn gives you a firing opportunity - and at high to medium speeds Wildcat turns just as well or even better than Zero! It also rolls better, so as long as you dont "mix it" too much and retain some altitude reserve you can pretty much deny Zeros' from shooting you(roll, dive, change direction of dive at will without the Zero being able to roll nor dive after you) and escape. Those Zeros have just 60 rounds per gun in the wing cannons and even when used by a crack shot pilot its often enough to down just a single Wildcat.
Those things can take hits about 3 times as much as German or British aircraft typically... Crap ballistics and general relative lack of punch in those Type-99 cannons don't help any. At least they do work well against SBDs and other things that usually don't maneuver much.
About the 50 cals... Did you see the turbolaser vid? Thats my opinion on Browning M2 .50cals in il2, stock, unmodded game. First tries against various aircraft types...
What is fun is that the Japanese 50cal is practically the same gun except Japanese used nothing but incendiary rounds with it. Yet its almost impossible to make a B-17 or B-24, or anything else, to catch fire using them, but with the same 4 US M2s it can be done with every well aimed burst.
And notice I dont even aim particularly well there.
If I recall some a memorable sortie, theres a lot of them... Maybe this one from about 2 years ago:
Italy 1943. The task is pretty simple: patrol over Napoli, engage and intercept any enemy bombers. Righto. 5 of us in TeamSpeak flying Fw 190 A-5. Possible bad guys included Spitfires, P-47s and P-40s with an odd P-38 thrown in. Enemy bombers would most likely to be tactical 2-engine B-25s or A-20s.
Our plan of execution was the typical - numbers not enough to intercept all enemy bombers(whose, if they were even coming, position or heading where they'd come in was all unknown) so we climbed to the safe altitude of 6500 meters or 21,000ft and loitered the area. One of us was sent further to the South and over the sea to act as a picket.
For long, nothing happened. There was a fight going on some 40km to the North which our side was losing, so 4 of the 5 turned there while 1 was left to see if the enemy would come - we might be able to catch them on their way out any way. I had the fortune, or misfortune, to be the lone lucky guy.
10 minutes later my teammates found and engaged the enemy in the north, while I was counting cumulus clouds over the airfield. Then, banking the plane to the right and looking down, I saw it - 4 planes in formation, almost right above our airfield. They were flying S or SW so they hadnt come from the sea, where I had been looking. Radiator - closed, power - full, WEP on, dive! They were dark blue, almost black, with elliptic wings recognizable very far. Spitfires. They flew in a nice formation, climbing, unaware of the approaching danger, when the one flying as leader's wing was hit, started to smoke, slowed down, rolled over and dove to the deck - I never saw him again. Zooming up, I rolled for a second attack on the oblivious Spitfires and dived again. Only now would the Spitfires understand they were under attack and split. One would turn left, see the diving Fw 190 high above and behind him, roll to left and dive. Second would turn to right until he had turned a full circle. Third, for reasons that escape me, pulled up making himself an easy target, losing his entire rear fuselage and wing. He didn't bail out so I suppose he never understood it was him who was under attack.
The 2 survivors below 3000m and 2000m below me were now looking for safety in the clouds, apparently having lost each other. However those clouds were over our airfield, and the AAA was shooting them both with tracer rounds making it trivial for me to follow them both. I swept from the East, diving below the altitude of the higher Spitfire and approaching inside his turn, fired, seeing explosions and incendiary ammo flashes on wings and fuselage, and broke up zooming back to the safety of altitude. I never saw this Spitfire crash but apparently he survived home or the kill went to the AAA guns. After the attack he slowly turned to the left until he was flying East, very slow, engine smoking and losing altitude.
One Spitfire to go. The battle hadn't gone as I had expected - the best I had hoped for was 1 good attack before having to disengage and call my friends to help because 3 or 4 on 1 in a slower-climbing, turning and accelerating plane is just too much, even with the initial advantage, had Spitfires played their cards right. Now the last Spitfire, turning and banking wildly between the clouds, had obviously lost sight of me, so I climbed away and double-checked every direction in the sky to make sure there weren't more uninvited visitors nearby. No contacts, just a single thin-smoking plane approaching the airfield from the north at a very low altitude. I later got to know it was a damaged friendly Bf 109 that had diverted to this field from the battle in the north.
I decided to press on attacking the last Spitfire, who was now escaping to the East some 5-6km behind the smoking Spitfire, but much higher. He saw me approach inside his turn in the first attack and broke in a very tight turn towards me, so I was forced to pull up. He continued this turn until he was heading East again, just South of Napoli's port, and dived to gain more speed. The second attack went as the first, but now the Spitfire had no altitude to use. For the last attack I dived well behind and left to him to same altitude, let him start his break turn to the left and shot him, hitting his port wing. The Spitfire lost its balance, rolled more to the left and splashed in the Mediterranean. Horrido!
Not so special and at least the last Spitfire jock was a greentag who panicked and didnt make a single good decision after he was left alone, but I liked the sortie. The battle was actually over very quick in maybe 4 or 5 minutes from when I sighted the Spitfires for the first time. The 2 last Spitfires could still have forced me to disengage but they might have lost their leader right in the get-go. They were all real players from same squadron. Even the very last survivor still could have escaped had he not panicked but considered his options and kept his head cool. A lot of things went wrong in the Spitfires' teamwork - they failed to keep their situational awareness up, failed to work together or even warn each other; perhaps they thought there were more than one Fw 190 or perhaps they, after the first scramble, misidentified each others as me or me as a Spitfire, I dont know. I know I should not have pressed on the attack as hard as I did without being 100% sure there weren't more of them around, so there was definitely things to develop by both sides.
edit, fixed typos
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Topic: Let's Fly: IL2 Sturmovik 1946 with Bay12ers! [not livestreaming] (Read 8340 times)