Hi everyone,
As some may know I'm a long time 110 'flyer' and really enjoy the challenge of being competitive in the online MP environment. I've posted a bunch of threads before sharing some thoughts in the hope that others will try out this aircraft. Once you know its strengths and weaknesses and fly accordingly - noting different 110 flyers fly it in different ways in MP - its a lot of fun. And its still very satisfying to shoot down one of those nice fancy schmancy 'look at me in my nice new cannon armed Spitfire' in my trusty 110.
Here are the threads in case they help get people excited plus some from some other people re flying the 110
https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.c...ighlight=shark
https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.c...light=approach
https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.c...ghlight=egress
https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.c...ad.php?t=17926
https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.c...ad.php?t=26296
https://theairtacticalassaultgroup.c...light=airfield
So with DWT i was curious to see if my existing 110 MP environment 'business model' would still work given the change in theatre and introduction of cannon armed and 50 cal armed fighters.
In general the airfield attack approach outlined in one of the threads still works and by following those procedure successful attacks can be made on airfields. Low and fast and one pass only still works although you will take AAA damage from time to time. Low altitude navigation using time, heading and distance (using the map tools on the in-game map) is a must if you are attacking tgts located in the GAFA and want to remain 'hidden' from enemy fighters.
Using the C4B Trop and flying at very low level (300m or less) i can usually get it to around 420-430 km/hr IAS. The big difference is to keep a much closer eye on temps - the engines run hotter than on the channel map and will go up faster if you dont keep an eye on them.
And in general the boom and zoom approach of diving from around 3 - 4km altitude on unsuspecting fighters not closely checking their 6 when away from the front lines still works - there's still enough of them around to give me 1 - 3 fighter kills per sortie after I've dropped my bombs somewhere.
The big difference thus far is rear gunning and letting the more heavily armed enemy fighters close to within their gun ranges. Pre DWT the 110 could take a number of 303 hits and still keep flying, as could my human when i was rear gunning. So I would often be able to sit in the rear gun and duel it out with a Spit/Hurri and damage the attacking fighter and still be alive (albeit with red goggles on) and in an aircraft that was still flyable (albeit often on only 1 engine). This was a lot of fun.
The couple of times i have tried this in DWT its ended very badly for me - I've been PK'd when in the rear gun and/or the aircraft has been ripped apart by the cannons/50 cals. So even more so than previously its important to fly the 110 in such a way as to prevent the enemy fighter from closing to within their gun range - the cannons / 50 cals are very unforgiving.... And with the introduction of faster more heavily armed fighters this is harder to do and there's much less room for error in terms of deciding when to engage and when to be prudent and not engage.
Still early days but I'm enjoying the challenge of trying to adapt to the new theatre/enemy plane set.
If you have ever thought you'd like to give the 110 a go but have been put off by the largely inaccurate historical perception of it as a lame-duck fighter then hopefully this post might encourage you to give it a go. It was the first German fighter committed to North Africa and did reasonably well it seems - if flown to its strengths and weaknesses - and it would be great to see more 110s (or even our heavy fighter Beaufighter brethren) in MP adding some extra dimensions to the battle.
Ezzie
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