This episode is a rough guide on the targeting mechanics in War Thunder, as well as including some tips to improve your aiming skills in arcade and realistic battles.
Quick summary:
Different weapons have different velocities, aircraft with different armaments will see the difference between two weapons velocities increase the further away a target is, so take this into account.
Wing mounted weapons will have convergence while nose mounted ones won't.
It's usually best to aim a little in front of the target indicator in most cases.
Longer bursts are less accurate.
Try and anticipate where your target will be.
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Game: War Thunder ⬅️
#warthunder #aircraft #aerial #guide #walkthrough
Quick summary:
Different weapons have different velocities, aircraft with different armaments will see the difference between two weapons velocities increase the further away a target is, so take this into account.
Wing mounted weapons will have convergence while nose mounted ones won't.
It's usually best to aim a little in front of the target indicator in most cases.
Longer bursts are less accurate.
Try and anticipate where your target will be.
Social Media ⬇️
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/toreno.bsky.social
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Toreno4
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toreno170
Mastodon: Toreno17@mastodon.social
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@toreno170
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Toreno17
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/toreno5/videos
Game: War Thunder ⬅️
#warthunder #aircraft #aerial #guide #walkthrough
Category
🎮️
GamingTranscript
00:00Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of War Thunder.
00:03In this episode I'll be doing a guide on how to hit targets in realistic battles after one of my subscribers asked me to do a guide on it.
00:14I'll be trying to do the majority of this with realistic battle gameplay.
00:18I will show a little bit of mission editor just to help a little bit.
00:24I'll be showing a little bit of arcade, trying to keep the most of this in realistic.
00:29I'll be showing how the lead indicator can help you to learn, and how to use the lead indicator.
00:37I'll explain that a bit in a minute.
00:40Let's just get the mission editor up.
00:43Arcade battles. We're doing arcade battles for the moment. You'll see why in a minute.
00:48Let's just do Intercept Bombers mission.
00:52Get a few escorts.
00:56Enemy bombers to 8.
00:58Get a few escorts.
01:02Try and even the fight up a little bit.
01:05Now you'll see in a minute why I'm doing this.
01:09Because basically the target lead indicator is more of a guide than an actual where to aim.
01:19It's hard to explain, but the lead indicator as far as I'm aware doesn't take into account changes in direction.
01:28Let's just skip this.
01:30Yeah, changes in direction.
01:32So it's usually better to aim a little bit in front of the lead indicator.
01:36Which I'm hoping to show here quickly.
01:40We've got some Bf-109s.
01:43We've got some Spitfires.
01:45We've got some other escorts over there.
01:48Now I'm just going to quickly catch up with these aircraft.
01:54Now one of the things you also have to take into account is your weaponry.
01:58Your cannons are likely to fire a bit further than your machine guns.
02:04So if you're aiming at the lead indicator and firing all your weapons, some of them are probably going to be missing.
02:11Now I'm just trying to get on this guy's tail.
02:15I'm trying to get him into a turn fight so I can show.
02:18Now see here I'm sort of trying to aim a little bit in front of the lead indicator at times.
02:23Not straight at it. I mean if they're in a straight line then aim straight at it.
02:27But if he's in a turn fight, it's usually better to aim a little bit in front of the lead indicator.
02:34Let's just see if there's another enemy fighter.
02:39Alright.
02:42Now as we can see we're almost out of cannon ammo.
02:46I'm firing all of them.
02:48See we aimed a little bit in front there and hit him.
02:51Now we'll quit the test flight quick because I've basically shown the point I was trying to make.
02:56Now I was firing all of my weaponry.
02:59Now usually, I know I've just said because of the muzzle velocities, they're usually hitting different places.
03:06But usually if you're close enough they're basically going to hit roughly the same area.
03:13But if you're doing long range you may have to take into account the fact that your machine guns may be missing or your cannons may be missing.
03:21They may sometimes be hitting the same time. It depends on the weaponry really.
03:26I mean for example some of the weaponry is quite low muzzle velocity such as with the 75mm cannon on the PBJ.
03:35Obviously the muzzle velocity is a lot slower so the shells travel a lot slower.
03:42So it wouldn't make sense to fire that at the same time as the machine guns.
03:47Now we'll quickly do a test flight but on realistic battles.
03:51I will be showing actual gameplay footage of realistic battles.
03:58But this is just to quickly give you a taste of how it works.
04:04Get the escorts down again.
04:07About 10 on 10 should work.
04:11Just sort that out.
04:16Now of course in realistic battles you don't have the lead indicator.
04:21So all the aiming you have to do yourself.
04:24Which can obviously be a bit hard to do.
04:29You don't know how far to lead.
04:31You don't know where your shots are hitting unless you have a tracer.
04:34Now if you've seen some of my videos you'll probably know I use for the most part stealth rounds.
04:41Now I've got tracers on here because I haven't fully upgraded the aircraft software.
04:47But the cannons are using stealth rounds.
04:49Now the reason I use these is that unless I'm mistaken there's some sort of...
04:54I think the tracers have a slightly different trajectory to the rest of the bullets.
05:01I think it was like that in real life. I don't know if it's like that in the game.
05:05But basically if the rest of the bullets were hitting your tracers were missing.
05:12So I just generally prefer to go all stealth.
05:15Which also has it's advantages because obviously the enemy doesn't know where you're shooting from straight away.
05:21And if you fire and miss them, well they don't know that.
05:24They can only guess from the whistling of the bullets.
05:28Now I missed my first shots there.
05:30I mean I'm considering myself okay at realistic but it's still...
05:35You know I'm still not that great.
05:37So it can be very hard to hit target.
05:42Now I'm using my machine guns just to get some ranging in a little bit.
05:46But we're being attacked quite badly.
05:51Trying to find where the enemy fighters are.
05:56Here's one below us.
05:58Remember we've also got some more realistic flight models so it's obviously harder to manoeuvre.
06:05So that can also affect your aim.
06:08You can't just quickly manoeuvre onto your enemy like you could in an arcade.
06:15Now we've got some hits there.
06:17It's not telling us when we hit but we've hit him.
06:19There was a bit of smoke there.
06:22Now again I'm sort of saving my cannon.
06:25Using my machine gun to try and get some ranging shots.
06:27Doing quite badly at it.
06:30Just shoot down a few of them and I'll quickly show you some gameplay footage.
06:37From realistic battles like online.
06:40Also give a little talk on how your gun targeting ranges.
06:48Just trying to shoot down this fighter.
06:53Now again I'm using my tracers firing a little bit of cannon.
06:57And because of my wings damage it's a lot harder to manoeuvre.
07:04One of the other things you have to remember about realistic battles is that they can be slower if you get into a dogfight.
07:11I mean you can also be destroyed a lot quicker.
07:14Because you've got the more realistic flight models.
07:18So every time I try to get a shot on him my wing goes a bit.
07:24Well I can't quite aim at him properly.
07:28We'll quickly try and get him one last time.
07:33He's been shot at.
07:35Now I think I'm going to lose my wing.
07:38Soon.
07:44Even for relatively easy shots like this you can still miss quite badly.
07:52Right we're going to leave this aircraft.
07:56I'll quickly leave the whole hangar because you know roughly what I was getting at with the aiming.
08:08Now here's some footage of me in a realistic battle.
08:12As you can see I'm still using the Spitfire Mark 5B.
08:16It's over Berlin I believe so we're against Russians.
08:20Plus some premium aircraft from the Americans.
08:24Now getting quite near to the enemy.
08:27Just about 1.7km away from the nearest one.
08:31Or 1.2 now.
08:33I've been in quite a bit of a dogfight with other aircraft and I've managed to get after this Yak-1B.
08:39You can see there I've just fired and completely missed.
08:42I'm not sure why I even took that shot.
08:44Just trying to manoeuvre to get a good shot.
08:46Getting near but not quite near enough.
08:50Starting to get on his tail a little bit.
08:52But he's starting to outrun me so I need to get a bit nearer.
08:55This is post commentary so I'm sorry if I'm misremembering certain things.
09:00Just starting to dive down on him.
09:02Getting nearer.
09:04Now you can see I'm trying to aim in front of him but I just can't.
09:07And I'm aiming roughly in front of him where I should be aiming.
09:11But I just can't get sight.
09:13I can't get it.
09:15I'm the right distance in front but not actually in front of him.
09:17I'm a bit to the left or right.
09:19But here I've managed to get quite near to him.
09:21He's flown straight into my target in indicator of open fire and done a bit of damage to him.
09:27Got near him again, took a few shots, missed.
09:30But he's going down now.
09:32There's not much he can do to recover from this.
09:35I've got a few more hits in to him.
09:38Just to try and get him down a bit more.
09:42Because I wasn't entirely sure if he was going down or just trying to avoid me at this point.
09:47But by now I could see he was going down.
09:50He wasn't going to pull out of that.
09:52And yeah, he died.
09:54So as you can see there, I didn't actually...
09:56He sort of flew into my targeting indicator.
09:59And I opened fire on him.
10:01And that's something you...
10:03It's a good way of trying to take out an enemy.
10:05If you can try and anticipate where they will be.
10:08And put your targeting indicator there.
10:12Then you'll do quite well.
10:15That's one of the ways of doing it.
10:17I mean, it's quite hard to teach how to hit your target in realistic battles.
10:22It's something you sort of like...
10:24It's something you have to sort of like...
10:26It's instinct to learn for yourself.
10:28I mean, this can help a little bit.
10:30But it's not something that can be taught exactly.
10:33I'm coming up from another enemy aircraft.
10:35That's trying to shoot one of ours that's landed.
10:38Again, aimed just enough in front of him.
10:41Fired a few shots.
10:43Got enough cannon and machine gun ammo here.
10:45Now I was quite lucky here.
10:47He didn't seem to realise I was there.
10:49And even after this, I think he still ignored me.
10:51And went after that landed aircraft.
10:53Which was good for me, because he didn't fight back.
10:56Bad for him, the landed aircraft.
10:58Because he...
11:00Well actually no, he survived.
11:02The enemy aircraft crashed and I got the kill for it.
11:05I put a few shots into him just to make sure.
11:08You know, just to see if I could get some more hits on him.
11:11A bit more points.
11:13At this point, I didn't get any more kills.
11:15I crashed on the way back to the airfield.
11:18So that's one of the main lessons learned there.
11:21Try and anticipate where your enemy will be.
11:24So you can, you know, get a good shot on him.
11:28If you can, try and sneak up on them, I suppose.
11:31Because if they're not doing evasive manoeuvres, they're a lot easier to hit.
11:35And I suppose another hint I would use.
11:39Don't use your cannon ammo.
11:42Unless you're sort of guaranteed to shoot.
11:45I mean, get the hit not to shoot.
11:47Because obviously you've got a limited supply in realistic battles.
11:50Now the 7.7mm machine guns aren't going to do much damage.
11:54But you can, if you can get some hits on them.
11:58You know, if you think you can get a hit on them.
12:01Then, with the cannon, then do it.
12:03But if you don't, if you use the machine guns, you've got a lot of it.
12:06If you miss, you miss.
12:07If you hit, you've done a bit of damage.
12:09Which is better than no damage.
12:11Now here we've got another realistic battle.
12:13But with a slight difference.
12:14So I'm using the Americans.
12:16Now they're more accustomed to booming zooming.
12:19Than manoeuvre fighting, turn fighting like the British are.
12:23So obviously this requires different tactics.
12:26And this affects your targeting.
12:28Because if you're using it to your strengths.
12:31You'll be diving down on the enemy, rather than turn fighting.
12:34Which can make it a little bit easier to anticipate where the enemy is going to be.
12:37If they're travelling in a straight line.
12:40If they see you and they start jinking about.
12:42It can be very hard to get back on target again.
12:46Which can obviously be, well it's obviously not something you want to happen.
12:52Now, skip forward a little bit.
12:54Because obviously you don't want to watch me just flying all the way to the battle.
12:57I was just flying around a bit.
13:00Quite high altitude, 5000m.
13:02Spot some guys down low.
13:04Start diving on them.
13:06Now I didn't quite get a shot off during the initial dive, unfortunately.
13:10Because like I said, it is quite hard to do when they're already manoeuvring.
13:15This one for example is already chasing a B-25.
13:18It was unfortunately too late to actually catch up with him.
13:22And because of the cloud cover and the ground cover.
13:25Well not the ground cover, but it started losing the target a few times.
13:30Now I eventually regained the target.
13:33You can see me trying to turn, but by this point he's already moved too far out of the way.
13:39For me to be able to dive on him properly.
13:41So I try and get on his tail.
13:43But like I said before, American aircraft, big, slow and heavy.
13:46Extremely hard to manoeuvre them.
13:49Then I've also got other aircraft in the vicinity.
13:52An I-185.
13:54I believe there was another aircraft nearby.
13:56One of my friend Lee's has turned up if you look on the minimap.
13:59But like before, I start sort of anticipating where he's going to go.
14:03Trying to fire just above him.
14:06But he unfortunately missed.
14:10Now I left that one and went for the I-185 I believe.
14:13Because this one was already flying, there you see.
14:16I had my target indicator, didn't move it much.
14:19Just let him fly into the target indicator.
14:22When he got near enough I opened fire and damaged his fuel tank.
14:26Now obviously not critically damaged.
14:29Or not too much critical damage.
14:31The fuel tank will only really affect him if he's far away from his base.
14:35And he has a low amount of fuel.
14:38It does make him a bit easier to see.
14:40I used some of my machine gun fire to try and critically damage him.
14:44Now at this point I must have damaged him in some way.
14:47He was doing the basic manoeuvres.
14:49I managed to quickly just get up behind him.
14:52Open fire with the cannon and machine gun.
14:56Now you can see he wasn't moving much.
14:58And I had speed on my side.
15:00So it was easy to just quickly get near him.
15:04Sort of get the target indicator in front of him.
15:06It's hard to know how far to aim like I've said.
15:09You can practice a little bit in arcade battles.
15:11That could help.
15:13But really it's just like I said before.
15:15It's instinct.
15:17It's something you have to learn through experience.
15:20I hope this does help in some ways.
15:23It's not something you can easily learn.
15:26Now I ended up losing this match.
15:29On the way back to the airfield.
15:31Got ambushed by about three enemy aircraft.
15:33Got destroyed pretty quickly.
15:36Couldn't really do anything about it.
15:38So we'll end this little clip here.
15:42And I'll quickly move on to the last bit of trying to lead your target.
15:47Now the last thing you have to take into account is the gun targeting distance.
15:52Now I believe from looking online this is your convergence.
15:56Basically it changes where your guns are set horizontally.
16:01So say you set it at 500 metres.
16:04If you've got wing mounted weapons they should crisscross at about 500 metres.
16:08So obviously that's going to put all your firepower in that one spot at 500 metres.
16:13But I don't think it takes effect in arcade.
16:17And I've never really tweaked with the options myself.
16:22I always assumed it was the lead indicator but apparently I'm wrong with that.
16:27It might move a little bit.
16:30So if you want to kill an enemy at close range you set your convergence to closer.
16:35If you want to kill them at long range set it to further out.
16:38I've got it to 500 metres, a good middle point.
16:41If you want to hit the target that's nearer to you aim a bit more behind.
16:46If you want to hit him a bit further out aim a bit more forward.
16:49And it should work itself out I'm hoping.
16:52Now the last option we've got is vertical targeting which you can see I've set as no.
16:58Apparently if you've got it on it will compensate for your shell drop at the distance you've set above.
17:05So it angles your guns upwards a little bit to compensate for the bullet drop.
17:12But yeah it depends on your convergence setting.
17:16I've never really touched it, I've never used it.
17:20I'm not entirely sure how it would help.
17:23I mean I know how it would help but I've never used it.
17:27You may have to experiment with it yourself.
17:30I don't think it would have any effect in arcade but probably more of a historical battle thing.
17:37Yeah I'm not really sure what to comment on that.
17:42Sort of experiment with it yourself and that would probably be the best way for you to do it.
17:48Because like I said I've never really used it.
17:50I don't think I've ever touched it since I've played the game.
17:53I might have set it to no when I first got it but I've never really touched it.
17:57So I can't really comment on it too much.
18:00So yeah that's the end of this video really.
18:02Sorry if it hasn't been as helpful as I hoped it would be.
18:05I haven't really done the guide on how to shoot down enemy aircraft before.
18:11So I'm quite new to this guide myself.
18:15Plus like I've said throughout the video it's something you learn through instinct and experience.
18:20Hopefully it will help new people out there.
18:24I learned a few tips from the forums because I used to be useless at shooting down targets in realistic battles.
18:30I'm still not too great at it.
18:32I've got some lucky shots but I'm not exactly a master at it if I'm honest.
18:37Like I said instincts and experience is probably the best way to learn it.
18:40But hopefully this can help a little bit.
18:43Like the video if you liked it.
18:46Subscribe if you like these sort of videos.
18:48Leave feedback.
18:50Because I can always do with feedback and how to improve my videos.
18:53And just thank you for watching.
18:55I hope to see you out there.
18:56I hope this guide has helped and I'll see you next time.