How to use the P-47?

[Akkarin]

So...first of all I am a complete novice at flight sims, easy AI is still often outmanouvering me even when it really shouldn't . I've started to really enjoy flying the P-47, it feels pretty unique to fly! However, as soon as any enemy starts to have an interest in me I just feel completely lost on what to do...

Once I saw a BF-110 following me and I figured a huge fighter like that could not be a big issue, to my surprise it actually pretty easily outturned me! Am I just terrible or are you kinda just screwed when someone gets behind you?

[Hootman]

You should watch some videos about dogfighting. Odds are you are yanking and banking and not employing "energy management" correctly, including the throttle. It takes some time and patience, and I don't think anyone ever stops learning. Don't be afraid to maneuever away from the fight to collect your thoughts and at the same time pick up some altitude. Another trick while you're learning is you can slow the sim down, even in combat, until you feel like you can properly fight at normal speed. It just takes time to lean what each aircraft can and can't do. And resist the urge to yank around on the joystick, your movements should be steady and precise, and it doesn't take that much joystick movement to maneuver the aircraft. Also spend the extra time to set the controls to how they feel right for you, with the implementation of the ability to set controls for each aircraft (I haven't tried that yet) you will probably have different settings for each aircraft.

So take it easy on yourself, everyone has to learn how to do it properly. So to me, for the new pilot, the advice is resist the urge to yank and bank too hard on the stick and throttle, be precise and deliberate, and always be thinking about about energy management. And there are very good videos that cover the basics of dog fighting in this sim.

[Hootman]

Oh, and one other thing. Your side AI is not your friend. As far as they are concerned, you don't exist, You could have 5 fighters on you, and they really could care less. Sometimes the best use of them, if you find yourself in a hot situation, is to fly towards one of them and hope the enemy AI decides to change and go after them allowing you to disengage a bit and get your stuff together. I basically consider them decoys.

[shadowgravy]

Avoid turn fights in the P-47, especially at low altitude. Keep your speed up as best you can. Stay above the fight when possible. Break away from the fight, build up speed and altitude, and look for a victim who doesn't have a wing man nearby. Save your water injection for bursts of speed when you need it.

For perspective: During WWII, Russia received approximately 200 Lend-Lease P-47s[vvsairwar.com]. They were not used as front-line fighters, presumably because the P-47s didn't have the maneuverability Soviet pilots desired at low altitude.

[Akkarin]

Originally posted by Hootman:

You should watch some videos about dogfighting. Odds are you are yanking and banking and not employing "energy management" correctly, including the throttle. It takes some time and patience, and I don't think anyone ever stops learning. Don't be afraid to maneuever away from the fight to collect your thoughts and at the same time pick up some altitude. Another trick while you're learning is you can slow the sim down, even in combat, until you feel like you can properly fight at normal speed. It just takes time to lean what each aircraft can and can't do. And resist the urge to yank around on the joystick, your movements should be steady and precise, and it doesn't take that much joystick movement to maneuver the aircraft. Also spend the extra time to set the controls to how they feel right for you, with the implementation of the ability to set controls for each aircraft (I haven't tried that yet) you will probably have different settings for each aircraft.

So take it easy on yourself, everyone has to learn how to do it properly. So to me, for the new pilot, the advice is resist the urge to yank and bank too hard on the stick and throttle, be precise and deliberate, and always be thinking about about energy management. And there are very good videos that cover the basics of dog fighting in this sim.

I do know some energy management basics as I played more arcady flight games before (War Thunder), I am terrible at actually putting them into action though.. I am DEFINITELY too rough with my stick though, the P-47 stalls a lot easier than my favourite plane (P-38, you really have to try hard to get that thing to stall).

I am also not using rudder enough, though I am not 100% sure when to use rudder except during take-off/landing, I'll have to look up some more stuff.

I did set up a seperate profile for the P-47 so I can use the turbocharger properly.

Originally posted by Hootman:

Oh, and one other thing. Your side AI is not your friend. As far as they are concerned, you don't exist, You could have 5 fighters on you, and they really could care less. Sometimes the best use of them, if you find yourself in a hot situation, is to fly towards one of them and hope the enemy AI decides to change and go after them allowing you to disengage a bit and get your stuff together. I basically consider them decoys.

Haha yeah, I noticed. I wish there would be a "Help me" command that lets 1-2 AI wingmates know to get enemies off of your tail.

Originally posted by shadowgravy:

[snip]
For perspective: During WWII, Russia received approximately 200 Lend-Lease P-47s[vvsairwar.com]. They were not used as front-line fighters, presumably because the P-47s didn't have the maneuverability Soviet pilots desired at low altitude.

I can understand the soviets, I mostly flew soviet planes (and the P-38) for now, US aircraft definitely feel very different, I already miss having all my weapons in the fuselage.

[3/4 MILE, CALL THE BALL]

If I may build on the sound advice of the others..
I like the "matter of fact" (calm) style of this video.
Of course, there are many videos but this one seems to address your question of "How to use the P-47" -- it's brief and he provides a number of kills using the strengths of the P-47

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaUk75UsWUY

[Euto]

don't get me wrong! I am grateful for the promo of this YT, but he flies only against AI. The more new players the better for all players of IL2.
Anyone who has been playing this game for a while sees that and also knows that you should rather not take his videos as reference.
Entertainment? absolutely! I like to watch shoot downs! To learn strengths of the aircraft? Maximum if something is told that you can easily read yourself.

[shadowgravy]

Link the turbo and throttle at all times. It seems contrary to the historic manuals but the aircraft performs best in the game that way. The engine power is nerfed also, let's say it's detuned, and the FM cheats around that by making 2700 RPM at 100% throttle the de facto Maximum Continuous setting. There's barely a risk of overheating if you open your intercooler and oil cooler shutters, and I think only the oil matters in practice. Full power is barely enough to drag the P-47 around, as a few holes in your wing will quickly show. The engine is overly susceptible to combat damage and pretty much any large caliber hit to the fuselage fore of the cockpit will cause an oil leak if not catastrophic engine failure.

I'm a huge fan of the historic P-47. I love flying it in this game but my opinion is it is hobbled. The career mode relegates it to ground attacker, and even that used to be suicide until fighter top cover was added to the missions. The P-47 is simply not a fighter in this game, it's a glass version of the IL-2 Sturmovik. If you want a fighter-bomber that's more fighter than bomber, use the Typhoon.

[Hootman]

Originally posted by Akkarin:

I am also not using rudder enough, though I am not 100% sure when to use rudder except during take-off/landing, I'll have to look up some more stuff.

Experiment with the rudder. It's quite useful in creating "tighter turns" at times. Also very useful when gunning, for instance when attacking multi-engine bomber, you can use the rudder to strafe side to side / align your shots a little better (targeting the engines, etc), and in ground attack mode instead of trying to use the roll and pitch axis if you're a little off on alignment, ease a little rudder in there to align the shot on the target. Like everything else, once you start trying it in different scenarios you will find it becomes second nature and you'll be doing it without even thinking about it.

One scenario I always use the rudder in is evasion, if I choose to make a diving turn with an enemy on my tail, I will throw some rudder in the same turn direction in there to initiate a tighter dive turn, that will usually confuse or give you that one second delay on the AI's part and I find it's fairly easy to shake them. Human opponents, well, that's not going to work as well as they will instinctively match what your doing, in fact they may have already beat you to it if he's initiating a lead pursuit (but it may make it more difficult for him setting up his lead pursuit)

[Occupy Mars]

Originally posted by shadowgravy:

The P-47 is simply not a fighter in this game, it's a glass version of the IL-2 Sturmovik.

If you want a fighter-bomber that's more fighter than bomber, use the Typhoon.

There ya go!

[Hootman]

Originally posted by קיינמאל מער:

Originally posted by shadowgravy:

The P-47 is simply not a fighter in this game, it's a glass version of the IL-2 Sturmovik.

If you want a fighter-bomber that's more fighter than bomber, use the Typhoon.

There ya go!

I find the same thing, but was hesitant to mention it because I'm not the best pilot.

Reading various articles about the P-47 during WWII, it is touted as an extremely durable aircraft able to take a beating, and more than hold it's own as a fighter as part of it's multirole. I find it hard to reconcile the historical accounts with the model in sim, much of that again is because I'm not a fantastic pilot and probably haven't fully learned the aircraft.

It racked up more kills than any other USAAF fighter in WWII, but most attribute that to the fact it was in the fight earlier than the P-51 and there was more of a target rich environment during those earlier years.

It's certainly capable of being able to hold it's own, and once a WWII pilot became familiar and proficient with it seems it was a great aircraft and the crews loved it. However it was also notorious for losing a lot of pilots during initial training, some seem to attribute that to the fact that there was no two seat trainer. I suspect there also were many a pilot lost in combat who unfortunately never made it to that "sweet spot" of finally figuring out exactly how to fly the Jug.

I may try a career just to see how long I would survive

[Akkarin]

Originally posted by shadowgravy:

Link the turbo and throttle at all times. It seems contrary to the historic manuals but the aircraft performs best in the game that way. The engine power is nerfed also, let's say it's detuned, and the FM cheats around that by making 2700 RPM at 100% throttle the de facto Maximum Continuous setting. There's barely a risk of overheating if you open your intercooler and oil cooler shutters, and I think only the oil matters in practice. Full power is barely enough to drag the P-47 around, as a few holes in your wing will quickly show. The engine is overly susceptible to combat damage and pretty much any large caliber hit to the fuselage fore of the cockpit will cause an oil leak if not catastrophic engine failure.

I'm a huge fan of the historic P-47. I love flying it in this game but my opinion is it is hobbled. The career mode relegates it to ground attacker, and even that used to be suicide until fighter top cover was added to the missions. The P-47 is simply not a fighter in this game, it's a glass version of the IL-2 Sturmovik. If you want a fighter-bomber that's more fighter than bomber, use the Typhoon.

Hmmm, it's a shame that it is underperforming a little...Still a ton of fun to fly though, as you have said. It honestly felt like the Plane is pretty tough from the few sorties I've flown it in, but maybe I was just lucky.

I mostly play with PWCG instead of the vanilla career, except for ground attack missions, the career mode does those waaaay better imo. PWCG also lets you use fighters at a much higher altitude than the stock campaign, so I might get to enjoy its high altitude performance eventually.

One more thing...is the D-22 variant from Battle of Normandy much different? It seemed like it performed about the same in the few videos I saw.

[shadowgravy]

The D-22 is a little faster I believe. Historically the D-22 and D-23 blocks were the end of the razorback production. The 'bubble tops' began with the P-47D-25, with the major improvements being more than 100 gallons of internal fuel capacity added for improved range, more water injection, and better all-around vision for the pilot. The drawback of the design change was of course more weight but also some tail instability (later solved by adding a dorsal fillet). I don't think all of that is modeled in the game, but the D-22 should be slightly more aerodynamically efficient while the D-28 has the greater range.

[Shawn]

The deal is that IL2 sturmovik is a game that simulates low altitude tactical aerial and ground (with TC) combat.

USAF fighters were generally designed to provide long range escort capability to strategic bomber formations at very high altitude. The P47 was no exception, it was meant to be a high altitude fighter.

Unless you are at 25k+ you aren't where the Jug was designed to be a fighter.

As air superiority was gained over Europe, the Jugs were repurposed as ground attackers (where they did well), but they were never meant to deal with with air to air combat down low. Simply put, you are trying make a P47 do what it was never meant to do.

The British had several aircraft that excelled in the low alt tactical combat, such as mentioned previously (my favorite the Typhoon), hurricane or spitfire.

The P51 can hold its own in deft hands down low, but you would probably be better served to get some stick time with the British aircraft first.