Practicing in P40, furball against 109s and fiats G50s

[Grifter]

Today I did well! First of all I did not crash into an enemy plane. But better than that I got at least one kill per flight, usually two.. THen I ran out of ammo. Gotta work on my aim as always. Still lots better because I did not get shot down. To make sure of that fact, when I was winchester I would exit the furball in the weeds and run for home. If I got 5 clicks away, I knew I was safe.

UPDATE: I figured out how to do a snapshot and conserve ammo. I got four kills on my last mission. ;-)

[Nemisis]

Can you share this info with the rest of us hopeless IL2ers that end up using all our ammo on just getting one kill from an asleep AI fighter at 200m.

[Grifter]

Well conserving ammo will always be next to impossible,especially against 109s, they seem well armored. But I programmed my joystick to toggle between gunview and normal so that when I'm on my enemy's six I can zoom and take better aim. If he starts to jink too much, I toggle to zoom out to normal so I can stay behind his tail. With this method, I downed to 109s in a P40 on Veteran mode. Still working my way up to Ace mode.

[Jedi Master]

I have 3 views (plus the gunsight toggle for the German planes) mapped to my stick. There's the "wide" view and "standard" view (which only change your FOV by a minor bit, but you can't see any cockpit instruments in standard ), and then there's "pressing your face against the gunsight" view. I use that one primarily against bombers or non-maneuvering targets, or for lining up my AG attack run.
I also have another key mapped to switch the cockpit on and off. I can't picture surviving without being able to quickly switch between these views!