HS129 B3 'Duck' Gunnery and Telescopic Sight Usage

This guide explains how to effectively range, engage and destroy armoured vehicles using the HS129 B3 'Duck' in Warthunder.

Introduction

This guide will explain how to best range, engage and destroy enemy armoured vehicles with the HS129 B3 'Duck' in Warthunder.

Whilst the B-3 variant of the 'Duck' is underpowered, slow and very vulnerable to fighters and attentive AA gunners, it is undeniable that with its centerline mounted 75mm AT gun the Duck is pretty much capable of destroying any tank in the game when employed correctly. The following sections will explain how to achieve success either in Air Battles or Ground Battles when using the Duck.

Setting the pre-conditions for success (pre-combat)

There are a few things you need to do to prepare your Duck for tank-killing success prior to launching:

• prioritse maxing out aircraft upgrades to increase flight performance. as the Duck is underpowered at the best of times and you want to minimise this as much as possible.

• Select 'stealth' belts for you machine guns. This is largely to stop the tracers obscuring your fall of shot from the 75mm.

• Select the appropriate 75mm ammo for the BR you are fighting at. Note that correctly placed shots with the standard APHE will kill or critically damage all tanks either through directly striking something critical or secondary explosive frag doing the same. You can select the HVAP-T ammo as it does have better penetration at the ranges you'll fire (but is overkill) and a slightly reduced chance of richochet. However, HVAP-T will cost you 500 Lions, and lacks an explosive filler which means you have to directly hit something vital to score a kill. Finally, the HEI-T belts are not good for anything but unarmoured trucks (and maybe static targets in RB Air). Frankly you are better off with an FW190 fitted with suitable guns in that case.

• Set Guns Targetting Distance to 400m and Vertical Targetting to on. The reasoning for this will be explained in the 'Taking the Shot - Sight Usage' Section, but for now, just set 400m and VT to on.

• Minimise your fuel load. Face it, either the match will end before 23 minutes, or you'll be dead anyway.

• Bring friends. If you can convince a friend to cover you in a fighter when the time comes, it will make life easier. They will usually rack up kills as your slow-ass shenanigans will usually put attacking fighters in a low/slow position ready for your friend to rip into them with MG151 rounds.

• Securing points in Tank Realistic Battles to deploy the Duck. Putting the politics of planes in RB Tank battles aside, you need to secure enough spawning points to get the duck in the first place. It usually comes in at around 540 points and how you choose to get there is up to you. There are a couple of things to note:
  
  1) The earlier you get airborne, the more targets there will be, and less players will have switched to AA or fighters themselves
  
  2) The most efficient way I have found is to rush a cap early and secure your respawn points and then keep fighting until you get whacked. Note that other players may consider it unsporting if you cap, and then get destroyed deliberately, but they may not notice. Also, if you're killing or crippling 5-10 tanks in a match from your Duck, I'm sure your team will appreciate that.

Setting the pre-conditions for success (post-launch)

Okay, you've selected the Duck, chosen the appropriate ammo and have appeared in the skies (or on the runway) of the combat zone. This part of the guide will explain everything up to taking the shot on your desired target. Please note this is largely based on RB tank battles and not so much on Air RB.

• Approaching the target.

1) Depending on the level of threat from enemy AA and especially fighters, you may want to get low on WEP to make your way in undetected. Note that if you go low you will need to execute a climb at some point to about 300+ meters which will take both time and speed off you. Either way, you want to be at above 300m and at least 200+ kph on commencing your dive on the target.

2) go to a flank or the rear of the enemy advance. Most of the time you will fined that both teams will generally move towards each other on a predicatable axis. Determine what this is and approach either 90 degrees to one side or from the rear.
This achieves two things:

- It puts you facing the weaker side and rear armour of the enemy tanks.

- The enemy is likely scanning directly front at ground level for your team's tanks. They are less likely to spot you and therefore avoid, or shoot at you.

• Finding and selecting your target.

1) En Markers from engagements or friendly scouts are the ideal way to get orientated against targets, especially if you are still low. Note that these targets are either being engaged, or now the centre of attention as they are marked for everyone, so be prepared for them to die before you can get a shot off.

2) Objectives being captured by the enemy. There will be a vehicle in that circle, trust me.

3) Tracer fire, muzzle blast or smoke grenades. All these things are pretty obvious and can indicate the position of an enemy vehicle. Crucially, if it is there fire coming out of the position, that is exactly where your target is looking.. down his sights and not at you (see point 5 for when not to go for tracers). Additonally, smoke grenades can indicate that the enemy is damaged or immobile and hence an easy kill.

4) Scanning for movement. This isn't ideal, but may be required if there is a lull in the fight where no-one is spotting or shooting. use the freelook function with zoom to spot movement and track marks if you can. Do this side on to the AO to avoid flying over AA and making a target of yourself.

5) NOT AA units or near AA units. Don't target AA units if you can help it. They are designed to kill you and (if anything like me when running AA) take great pleasure in winning games of bullet chicken with planes. This includes AA shooting at something else, they can very rapidly turn and engage you during your dive. Avoid them.

6) NOT where friendly markers are. Some people really don't like planes in RB Tank battles. Don't make the problem worse by slinging a 75mm into the wrong tank either because you thought it was hostile or because it was mixed up close with a hostile tank.

• Setting up your run. Good, so you've located your desired target and are ready to execute the attack. Do the following to set up your dive:

1) come off WEP. It'll make the plane shake during the dive, any you don't want that.

2) Assess target aspect and approach accordingly. If your target's hull front is facing you, either circle it 90 to 180 degrees and then dive, or pick a target nearby that is side or rear on to you. The key here is to be able to see the rear deck of the tank hull or a flat presentation of the side of the hull. If you cannot see either of these, you are significantly reducing your chance of a penetrating shot.

3) Give yourself enough space. Don't feel compelled to execute a turn into a dive that puts you to close or low to execue your run cleanly.

4) Cut your throttle once lined up.

5) Approach at around 300m and so your dive angle will be more than 10 degrees. This is bit of an art, but is helped by the pitch ladders 'HUD' you can see either side of your crosshair in first person no-cockpit or the telescopic sight. The image below shows the leadup to a killing shot into the rear turret ring of a sherman. Note the pitch ladder is at about 25 degrees down, altitude is about 150m (noting that the dive started at about 255m high and 700m away from the target) and the rear deck is clearly visible.

6) line up using 3rd person or first person before switching to the telescopic sight. You don't want to be fishing around with the telescope trying to find the target while hurtling towards the ground.

Okay, now onto taking the shot.

Taking the Shot - Sight Usage

This section will cover utilising the duck's scope to take the shot accurately against a chosen part of the enemy vehicle.

• Ranging the shot. Remember earlier how you set your Guns Targetting distance to 400m and Vertical Targetting to on? This is why: at 400m a standard sized tank (T34 in this case) will fit neatly between the centre aiming post and either the left or right horizontal lines. 400m is also close enough to retain a good amount of your 75mm rounds penetrative power (120mm-45mm for APHE depending on angle.
  
  Your sight picture should look like the image below (okay, the target is at 360m, but you get the picture):

Once the target fits this profile, a round fired at the target aligned with the top of the centre post will strike the target at that point of aim. There will be errors due to your mouse skills and aircraft movement etc, but this round should strike cleanly. Note that as the tank was moving left-right I aimed at the forward edge of the tank in line with the height of the hull/turret join (at the point of the photo above, the sight had dropped slightly). The round struck and penetrated the turret side resulting in a kill.
If your target is not moving, line up left or right for ranging and then centre immediately before firing. As you can see above, aiming at the leading edge of a moving tank will usually result in a hit at 400m.

For front on targets, once half the space between the centre post and the horizontal line is filled by tank, you're at range. Be aware that Russian IS-3+ tanks are very wide and you'll need to adjust a little for this (shoot slightly later).

• Where to aim. For anything less than IS tanks (with thier thick turret armour), centre of mass is a good pick for most targets (so, the fat of the side of the hull). if you are approaching from behind, shoot for the spot where the engine deck meets the turret or the engine deck itself. Turret shots have less chance of success as they may be more thickly armoured all around. This being said, if you get a shot into the turret you are going to kill crew, damage the gun or detonate ammo (possibly in the hull as the round will travel down through the turret into the hull). Avoid deliberatly trying to hit (as opposed to aim) the extremities of the target as the round is more likely to miss completely.

• When to fire. Firstly, fire as soon as you cross 400m and have the target centred. Subsequent shots will be a factor of whether or not you killed the target in the first round and how close to the ground you are. I suggest absolutely no more than two shots especially if your dive angle is over 15 degrees as recovery from the dive will be difficult. In addition to this, it is recommended that you click for each round as opposed to holding the trigger down. your MG fire will obscure the target and may spoil your aim. If you are dedicated Duck pilot, you may choose to alter you bindings in order to only fire the 75mm. Additionally either mouse movement through clicking or gun recoil will force your aim point down significantly, which may spoil a follow up shot if you hold down the key.

Thats it for Taking the shot. The next section covers getting away in one piece.

Rinse, Repeat

RIght, so you've blown the turret off a IS-3 and are quite pleased with yourself. This part of the guide will explain how to keep you alive in order to repeat this feat and win your team the match based on a shortage of enemy tanks.

• Getting away.
  1) Your first priority after loosing your 75mm into the target is to avoid hitting the ground, the target (with your plane) or anything else in the area. Basically pull up while in telescope view and switch to another less restrictive view at the same time while applying WEP.
  
  2) Climb only as high as required to avoid collisions and then execute a low, erratic run away from the target. This will put alot of solid ground and building between you and any AA units while keeping your speed high. This is often when fighters will come after you, so be ready for that. Try to drag them into friendly fighters or AA.
  
  3) Run towards friendly lines and move outside of the Ground Battle area, assess what targets are available and commence another approach as detailed in 'Approaching the target'.

4) Note the the more of a menace you are killing tanks, the more vengeful planes and AA will come after you specifically. Get into chat and let people who are flying know you need help.

Conclusion.

Well, that's it. Good luck with you Duck-Hunting. To improve outside of battle I suggest these three things:

1) Review your replays of successful shots taking note of where you are pulling the trigger and at what ranges.

2) Watch Youtube montages of Duck engagements (noting that they may not sight the same as you do) to see variations of approaches and leading shots.

3) Practice against the ground targets in free flight (or a custom mission if one exists for this) to get the feel for when to shoot and practicing your approaches.

[Lung]

Necropost.

-

In Air Battles the Ducks Ground Target HEIT is spectacular against bombers and can 1 shot all planes. It's a bit slower than the APHE round but, a garuntee kill on any bomber is really nice. Also it takes a bit but once you get the drop pattern down doing this becomes almost easy.

[Vsolid]

>B2?
As said below, don't use the 37mm and use the mk103 instead as you have much better ammo reserves, more than enough pen for the BR and much less of a penalty if you miss. Since its more of a conventional plane than the B3 you don't have to fly as cautiously as you would the B3. You can also engage planes in headons just fine. So tl;dr play it like you would a normal heavy fighter, except since you got 90mm of pen you can do sideshots on most tanks except russian mediums and heavies.

[Quarren King of Q]

b2?

[Aapef]

A good tip if binding the MG and the 75mmm to 2 separate keys/mouse buttons, is firing the MG while keeping the target on the center of the reticle, and shoot once you get hits.

[Vander16]

Sea emperor use the 30mm mk103 with ground targets ammo, much more ammo and rate of fire. basically an a10 warthog of axis 3.0 .

[RAH-66 Comanche]

It has the 37mm

[RAH-66 Comanche]

I bought the Romanian B-2 varient to grind out my Italians, it doen't have the telescopic sight so what should I do?

[Vsolid]

Oh, something to note. Early game pay attention to kill feed and the map. If you see someone on their team rush cap then die you might want to wait a bit to spawn in the duck until your team has air superiority or at least 1-2 fighters up.

[Floydii]

Thanks gents.

As Vsolid points out, the fundementals short of lining up the 75mm are relevant to all dedicated ground attack plane.

TG, I suppose I could, but I'd have to practice with rockets and bombs first!

[Vsolid]

Good guide for any CAS dedicated planes really, the fundimentals can be applied to any of them.