homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation IL-2: FB, AEP, PF What rules do you use to survive? ... (how not to get killed - Dicta for campaigners)

Hello,

I know that when I fly QMB I crash about 50% of the time. However, flying "iron man"/"dead is dead" in a campaign requires a very different mentality.

I recall a couple of campaign readme's that I saw a few years back. These listed "rules" to allow you to succeed. I'm not sure where to find these. However, I am planning to make a compilation.

What rules do you use?

Survival during attacks:
1) Never make a head on pass at another fighter, unless the fighter is clearly not flying towards you
2) Never fly towards or engage anti-aircraft guns which are firing at you (however, attacks can be made on guns firing in other directions)
3) Never conduct a level bombing run directly over an anti-aircraft gun (unless absolutely certain that you are well out of effective range)
4) Never persist in an attack on a bomber 4a) if the gunner is firing at you 4b) unless you are attacking obliquely with a strong speed advantage
5) When attacking a target at high speed (either a diver or head-on pass), always break away at a fixed range - ignore assessing the effectiveness of your fire until the pass is over.
6) Assume you have a fighter on your tail immediately after attacking a bomber and never continue an attack if you are being fired upon by a fighter.

Air combat engagement rules:
1) Never enter a steep climb for more than five seconds, unless absolutely certain that there are no enemy fighters nearby
2) Never initiate an engagement unless you have numerical superiority or are engaging with surprise and at altitude (in which case never make more than one pass)
3) If forced to scramble against enemy fighters, break away from the combat area, at minimum altitude and maximum speed. When returning always assess numerical odds and be ready to bail out.

Full real and dead is dead. Otherwise I don't feel the pilot value. If I bail over enemy territory I flip a coin to see if i'm captured.

Dicta Boelcke:
1: Try to secure advantages before attacking. If possible keep the sun behind you.
2: Always carry through an attack when you started it.
3: Fire only at close range and only when your opponent is properly in your sights.
4: Allways keep your eye on your opponent and never let yourself be deceived by ruses.
5: In any form of attack it is essential to assail your opponent from behind.
6: If your opponent dives on you, do not try to evade his onslaught but fly to meet him.
7: When over the enemy's line never forget your own line of retreat.
8: For the Squadron: Attack on principle in groups of four or six. When the fight breaks up into a series of single combats take care that several do not go for one opponent.


Mannock's rules:
1. Pilots must dive to attack with zest, and must hold their fire until they get within one hundred yards of their target.
2. Achieve surprise by approaching from the East. (From the German side of the front.)
3. Utilise the sun's glare and clouds to achieve surprise.
4. Pilots must keep physically fit by exercise and the moderate use of stimulants.
5. Pilots must sight their guns and practise as much as possible as targets are normally fleeting.
6. Pilots must practise spotting machines in the air and recognising them at long range, and every aeroplane is to be treated as an enemy until it is certain it is not.
7. Pilots must learn where the enemy's blind spots are.
8. Scouts must be attacked from above and two-seaters from beneath their tails.
9. Pilots must practise quick turns, as this manoeuvre is more used than any other in a fight.
10. Pilots must practise judging distances in the air as these are very deceptive.
11. Decoys must be guarded against — a single enemy is often a decoy — therefore the air above should be searched before attacking.
12. If the day is sunny, machines should be turned with as little bank as possible, otherwise the sun glistening on the wings will give away their presence at a long range.
13. Pilots must keep turning in a dog fight and never fly straight except when firing.
14. Pilots must never, under any circumstances, dive away from an enemy, as he gives his opponent a non-deflection shot — bullets are faster than aeroplanes.
15. Pilots must keep their eye on their watches during patrols, and on the direction and strength of the wind.

From WWII:

Malan's "ten of my rules for air fighting"
1. Wait until you see the whites of his eyes. Fire short bursts of one to two seconds only when your sights are definitely "ON".
2. Whilst shooting think of nothing else, brace the whole of your body: have both hands on the stick: concentrate on your ring sight.
3. Always keep a sharp lookout. "Keep your finger out".
4. Height gives you the initiative.
5. Always turn and face the attack.
6. Make your decisions promptly. It is better to act quickly even though your tactics are not the best.
7. Never fly straight and level for more than 30 seconds in the combat area.
8. When diving to attack always leave a proportion of your formation above to act as a top guard.
9. INITIATIVE, AGGRESSION, AIR DISCIPLINE, and TEAMWORK are words that MEAN something in Air Fighting.
10. Go in quickly - Punch hard - Get out!

I have a small trick to continue the campaignwhen my pilote is out of action :
I create a new campaign, starting at the next mission (ex : if I am killed in mission 5 of "mycampaign", I create a new campiagn called "mycampaignreplacement" starting at the 6the mission). Then I create a new pilot and start the newly created campaign :
That's it, a new pilot has arrived to replace the dead pilot.

1. Select a rank high enough that you will at least be the flight leader.... the AI will often lead you to your doom if they lead. Then, as flight leader, apply the good "Rules" already listed in this thread.

2. "Turn to Kill, not to Engage"... I think this is a "Jet Age" quote, but it does often apply here, especially with multiple bandits. Basically, unless I know there is no chance of being "bounced" by an enemy wingman, I'm careful not to turn hard to engage a bandit; I try to keep my speed up.

3. "Know when it is time to go home".... I usually enable Instant Success in my campaigns so that, like in real life, you can abort a mission that is getting way too "hot", run for home, and cut your losses.

Best wishes.

Dicta Uriah:
1. Stay above it all
2. Stay on your own side of the sand box
3. Only attack the weak and wounded
4. Get the hell outa there

I never follow my own dicta.

My own dicta is short:

there are old pilots, there are bold pilots;

There is no old bold pilot.

I only finished one single campaign without any dying yet, almost made it a few times (dying at last or prior to last mission !), usually die midcourse or even earlier. Sometimes it's simply bad luck, most of the time it's from being too bold.

There are three very simple rules to follow to survive any campaign, but I don't know them ...

I almost forgot to add the classic two line dicta:

Destroy the enemy.

Land alive.

Anything that is beyond accomplishing this doesn't matter.

Experience gained while flying over Russia in a Bf-109:

- Leave bombers to the rest of the flight and provide (top) cover against fighters instead. Your engine is more precious than those of your squadmates and emergency landings suck.
- If you're squad leader, do not waste your energy if your flight clearly outnumbers an opponent one. Stay high and command and watch out for more enemies. You won't get the kill anyways.
- Cannon ammo is more precious than your wife, your cash, your aircraft and Göring's art collection combined. So save as much of it as you can! "Probe" the shot with MGs only, if you have to, and only fire your cannon if you'll get an absolutely positively safe hit.
- You're in one of the best climbing aircraft of the war. Make use of it.
- Be aggressive, but know your limits. The war will be long enough for more kills.
- Focus on gaining air superiority instead of blindly sticking to objectives.
- Respect seemingly outdated aircraft.
- If you're attacking enemy bombers, do it near the front line and bug out if your engine has been hit.
- CTRL+E is preferable to a heroic crash landing attempt. There's always a replacement aicraft out there for you.
- If a wingman is under attack and you're in the vicinity, help him out. Loss of experience in your flight sucks.
- Use of "F2" and "P" for checking your six is allowed. You're flying a simulator with a stick with half-arsed force-feedback, stare on a flat screen with a few thousand by a few thousand pixels and get sound from two to five speakers. Nowhere near the sensual feedback of the real deal, so don't make it harder than it already is.

I saw two additional rules in the ReadMe to Amagi's Disaster on the Frontiers:

1. Never dive to attack an enemy aircraft if there are any bandits above you or at your altitude.

2. Don't make multiple attacks on ground targets.

Found another(USAS?):


Attacking Hostile Aircraft 3

The following “ten commandments” in aerial fighting are considered of vital importance. They may appear cowardly, but they are compiled from the experiences of the pilots that I have come into contact with on active service.
(1) Do not lose formation.
(2) Do not press an attack on a two-seater that fires at you before you are in perfect position. Break away and attack it or another hostile aircraft later with a chance of surprise.
(3) Do not stay to manceuver with a two-seater.
(4) Do not dive to break off a combat unless you are confident that your machine is a better “diver” than that of the enemy.
(5) Do not unnecessarily attack a superior formation; you will get a better chance if you wait five minutes.
(6) Do not attack without looking for the machine above you; he will almost certainly come on your tail unawares while you are attacking if you are not watching him. Look behind continually while on a dive.
(7) Do not come down too low on the other side or you will have all the enemy on to you.
(8) Do not go to sleep in the air for one instant of your patrol. Watch your tail.
(9) Do not deliver a surprise attack at over 90 knots unless you wish to scare hostile aircraft off friendly machines' tails. Most machines are not easily enough controlled at that speed, and the firing period passes too rapidly.
(10) Do not deliver a surprise attack at over 100 yards' range at the very most.
These rules only apply to an offensive patrol. If the hostile machines must be moved, they must be moved at all costs.


3 Albert H. Munday, The Eyes of the Army and Navy: Practical Aviation (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917) 187.

I have one rule. It applies mostly to mud moving. One pass, haul a$$.

For me the most important rule when flying DiD campaigns is: Do not be kill hungry and take survival as your priority. Not obeying this rule lead to many of my campaign deaths. Last one was when I was going for a fighter that I've hit and he was flying over my airfield into a wall of our FLAK - I managed to finish him off, but my own FLAK killed me - I was quite pissed off after 40 missions.

I fly partial DiD. Instead of being totally hard-headed about it, I will hit re-fly if I feel my death was unrealistic and will not count the death. I hit re-fly under the following circumstances:
1. I'm hit by my own flak near a friendly airbase. My reason is that this would not be likely in real life. Friendly ack-ack and flak units would not engage an enemy in real life over the field if a friendly plane is in pursuit. They would stand down and lay off due to the risk of hitting the friendly. In the game they are too stupid and keep shooting no matter how close to the enemy you are.
2. I'm shot by a friendly that is shoulder shooting right behind me or he mid-airs me for the same reason. The reason is that in real life, this would be unlikely. Your wingman would stay close but not shoot when he could hit your aircraft and he definitely would not fly close enough to mid-air you. There may have been some real life situations in the war where this occurred but it probably did not happen often.

So being strict dead is dead is not always realistic. Have some sanity and therefore some exceptions.........

During the New Year's battle over Y-29, friendly ack-ack was firing indiscriminately at anything in the air, friend and foe alike. A few days earlier they killed George Preddy, who just happened to be in hot pursuit of enemy fighters.

Well that's shows you how stupid it is to do that. And I bet after that it was stopped or toned down. Plus, you obviously didn't read where I said it was 'unlikely'. I never said it was impossible, never claimed it never happened one single time. The officers in charge of the anti-aircraft at that place should have been court martialed!! The gunners apparently were not well trained in silouette ID and for sure were not disciplined.

I'll continue to refly in the case of friendly ground fire downing me, it's just stupid. It just didn't happen very often. Just because you know of one single instance, suddenly it was commonplace? It just wasn't, hit refly and be more on the realistic side. Or not, it's your campaign loss, not mine. We are all free to play as we want.

It's just something that came to my mind. No reason to get so excited Take it easy, pal.