Rear Gunner questions

G

griphos

Charter Member
Hello all,

I searched and didn't find much. Posted this by mistake in response to a P3 gunner question over in P1&2 forum.

I wanted to try out the rear seat as well. I tried it in the Strutter, the Bristol Fighter, and the RAF R.E.8. I started off in the air and then jumped to the back seat and waited for them to get on my tail, which they did, and slowly chewed me to pieces sitting either right under me or right on my rudder. Funny how they didn't mind hitting that, but I sure didn't want to. Plus, it was darned hard to hit them even when clear of my empanage.

Then I got in the R.E.8 and instead of jumping right into the back, I began evasive maneuvers while closing (mostly side-slipping a bit). Then I jumped to the back (mind you, I've never gotten near any keys for autopilot this whole time), and my pilot kept maneuvering. In fact, he made it pretty darn hard for me to shoot at the Alb because he was turning so tightly. I was leading like crazy, and I hit the Alb a number of times, but mostly just wasted all my ammo. Then I jumped back into the front and stalked the wounded Alb until I downed him.

SO, I've done some searching but can't find any info on this. I'll do some more experimenting, but it seems that if I jump in the back without piloting the plane first, the AI pilot just flies it pretty much straight and level, and if I jump back after piloting a bit, the AI pilot flies pretty much as if in a dogfight. Is this what others find? This seems like fun to me. Fly a little and then practice gunnery from the back while the AI flies a bit, then jump back and finish the fellow off!

One other question (off topic). Is there someplace in the game that lists the stall speeds of these craft? The MOW manual doesn't. This info is helpful when landing, especially on the floaters like the Tripe.
 
While I'm the cheatingest person I know, when I know my future will mean some back seat action, I switch to EASY for the flying, less evasive action that way, but you'd better be good if you wanna live long.

As far as the Tripe is concerned, a much longer approach is called for, sideslipping on 10% throttle all the way

Try on purpose to land short, if you kill yourself. You need more practice
 
Thanks Gimpy. Yes, the Tripe is quite a floater, and if you try to turn on the ground before she's good and slow, she'll ground loop on you! They know my Tripe in the squadron by the rash on bottom wings!

Anyway, I tried the back seat again in the Strutter and disproved my theory. It appears that as long as there are waypoints in the mission, the AI pilot will fly straight and level to them. I guess my one encounter where the AI pilot just began dogfighting either didn't have waypoints, or the waypoint was something like loiter above the field. I don't know. I've never paid attention to waypoints before. I wonder if there is some way to modify them before setting out in QC?

This rear gunner thing is fun!

I managed to actually shoot the Alb down this time even though my pilot wanted to fly to the far off waypoint by jumping in the pilot seat and turning sharply away and then jumping back into the gunner seat and shooting at the Alb while the AI pilot turned back to the waypoint. :jump: Sort of a complicated scissors. It was a lot of jumping. Finally just shot him down from the front. The Strutter isn't as bad a fighter as I thought it would be. I like the little gunsight on the gun itself (sort of like the sight on my .30-30). The Strutter is certainly slow enough to stay behind the guy without much effort.

I think I'm about ready to campaign. And I guess I'll look up how to do MP.

I'm addicted!
 
I think it was Cecil Lewis that said they used to actually switch the engine off on final. I do this on short final for British planes and that seems to take care of the bouncy bouncy, but, of course, then you're committed or ought to be:friday:
 
My engines frequently take that decision upon themselves. It's nice that they can be started again quickly when the prop is still turning!

I've been landing fine without more than the occasional little bounce, but I float a looooonnnnngggg way in ground effect in the Tripe before doing it. It's sometimes a long taxi back to the hangars.

I flew my first campaign mission (as second wing man). We saw bogies, but my leader never engaged, or even attacked the airfield we flew all that way to get to. Should I have attacked myself? Trying to be a good wingman, and all that.

However, sitting in the front gunner seat and letting my AI pilot keep position sure made for some pretty sightseeing.
 
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