Desert Deaths

Ah yes, when Japanese aircraft ruled the skies of Egypt....oh wait....

When the first announcements of bombers were to be finally included with World of Warplanes Update 2.0, my original thoughts turned towards the big and iconic four engine aircraft, mostly flown by the Allies. Sadly, not only did that not come to pass (as of yet), but the current offerings are not widely available to all players either (except through Tokens, earned or purchased with real money and for a limited time I am told).

Still, seeing a few Avro Lancasters parked as part of the scenery on the revamped Egyptian map does give me hope they might be included in a future version. However, I am not going to hold my breath, for risk of passing out prematurely.

In the meantime, I am continuing through the tier IV Army Zero towards my first goal, rolling progress over to tier V. This sortie was good for the results, but poor in the battle performance department....

Clearing the Homeskies

Until such time where I get bored, a worthy distraction comes along or some other reason not to do so, I will continue on and upward with the tier IV Nakajima Ki-43-I Hayabusa.

The conclusion I have come to, concerning World of Warplanes 2.0, is the gameplay has been refocused to favor more low to mid altitude, maneuvering aerial combat of Turn and Burn. Not to say the high diving strike tactics of the Boom and Zoom playstyle has been completely nullified, it just doesn't appear to be nearly as dominating as it was in previous versions, based on my observations.

Having said that and putting into motion my prior to 2.0 plans to try out the offerings from the Japanese Army Air Force line, it would seem that my timing and patience has paid off.

My goal going forward is pretty simple, to progress up the line with a near singular focus.

However, there are a few other things I need to work on along the way.

Hiya Hayabusa

As time in 1.9 was setting like the sun, I was preparing to start up a new line. However, real life stole more of my time away from World of Warplanes and just a flight or two, that plan was put on hold.

Along comes 2.0 and I jump back into the thick of things by revisiting select older premium and tech tree aircraft and experimenting with a few new ones. After getting a good feel of what might and might not work for me, I dusted off and opened the cover for the next adventure, planned from the last era.

Although I might have come late to the Japanese Army Air Force party (over a year since they were introduced), I was familiar with the first aircraft I wanted to skip ahead and start off with. I have put in a fare amount of airtime in the Chinese captured, premium Ki-43-Ic and based on that experience, made the decision to leap ahead to the same tiered, Japanese Hayabusa.

However, with a mostly untrained pilot and a modest upgrade to the weapons, how would I fare in battle?

アンシャープモダンソード

Back in August of 2017, I wrote this about the tier VIII J7W1 Shinden, sharing my thoughts and comments for a particular battle....

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It has been quite some time since I last flew the Kyushu J7W1 Shinden and was somewhat surprised to see a rather large amount of banked experience when I took to the skies in it today. I had two choices, go for the mid-grade engine or the next set of weapons, over stock. After a few minutes of seriously considering the options, such as a slightly better damage output potential, at the expense of a greatly reduced firerate, I opted for the engine and hopped it was the better decision.

Up until a certain part of the following battle, things were looking pretty good and I felt assured the new engine had worked out just fine. Then, I touched wings with a teammate and what happened after that was more of a pleasant surprise than I expected....

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Fast foreword to November and take note of how things are so very different....

Wow, huh?

Granted, I didn't fly the Shinden in the same manner as before, but I can't be the only one who saw a few things....wrong with the second video. Before, the J7W1 could nearly pivot in a pinpoint, now, it takes the whole acre to complete a turn? Never advertised as a solid climber, the reduced engine power to do so from before is noticeable immediately. Also, it seems the vulnerability factor with the aircraft and pilot has had the threshold adjusted and not for the better either.

Despite the weapons still suffering from rapid overheating, the damage they dealt was nearly on par with 1.9 days, since I was able to land a few seriously critical shots on some targeted aircraft. Having said that, it appears from my perspective, those IL-20's and NC 1070's are a whole lot harder to take down.

I am rather disappointed with the J7W1, expecting it to perform close to the same levels as I flew it in the previous version. However, the game has changed and sadly, the Shinden did too.

A Devil of a Defeat

With all the time I have been spending in the lower to mid tiers, in an attempt to get used to the changes to World of Warplanes, the upper tiers have been neglected. Perhaps I should address that now....

As much as I love jet powered aircraft, I have this feeling their ability to perform in maneuvering combat at lower altitudes, especially in my hands, might not be the best choice to make. Instead, I decided to break out my top British Fighter, which just happens to be a propeller legend, the Supermarine Spitfire.

In the mid tiers, I was rewarded with satisfying action and results from the Dunkirk Spitfire Ia (no videos or screenshots of that, not every battle I win or lose gets a write-up), but a while ago and slightly higher up on the tiers, I was struggling with the Gloster Meteor (the first battle I fought in this new era was in that old favorite) and came to the conclusion to avoid other jets from my hangar, for the time being.

Needless to say, I wanted to experiment with the Mark XIV variant and confirm/deny my suspicions on my decision....

Not the result I was expecting, not by a long shot. 

Seriously, not every battle fought turns into a victory, no matter how sound the strategy and expertly executed, despite how others might try to convince differently. A choice made will generate three outcomes, the one you want, the one you don't want or something completely unexpected. Just like real life.

I played this battle for the team win and watching the above video proved I put in a lot of effort trying to achieve that goal. Could I have made better/different choices? Perhaps, in hindsight, but at the time, everything I was doing (mostly) seemed to be the correct course of action towards the desired end result. Instead I was rewarded with personal accolades, mission completions and a defeat.

Sigh, patch the holes and rearm, I suppose.

She Goes La La La La

Time to take a break from premium aircraft and revisit some from the tech tree.

Before 2.0, I didn't advance too far up the Lavochkin line, stopping at the tier VII La-7 for reasons I have long since forgot. I do remember it was a very good climbing, maneuverable aircraft with decent weaponry that overheated almost too quickly, with a fuselage was prone to catching fire a lot (that hasn't changed in post-2.0).

The old rule of thumb, when it came to Soviet fighters, was they were good at low to mid level altitudes and could be equipped with some fearsome and devastating firepower, especially in the mid tiers. At the higher tiers, some of them could climb up to where Mustangs and Messerschmitts prowled and wreaked havoc on them, in the right hands and/or in flights.

But times have changed and I decided to dust off and take the La-7 into new skies, where the battles are fought a little closer to the ground....

I got a little button happy and while holding Left-Alt to bring up additional information, I tapped F4 to mark a target and closed the game down mid-battle. Although the inserted video interruption lasts only a few seconds (for that dramatic effect), in reality it was nearly two full minutes I was absent from the sortie before reconnecting.

Good thing I had a fantastic team that was able to secure the day during my short recess.

Victory to the Viper

Since World of Warplanes Update 2.0 hit the North America servers, I have been waiting for a certain moment.

I think it has finally arrived!

Like many others, I have gone through my hangar, testing previously acquired aircraft out in battles, taking note of any changes and examining those results. However, to sweeten the pot, there are quite a few giveaways going on to collect new planes and take to the skies in those, even ones I never laid my virtual hands on before.

One such example is the Bell P-39N-1 Airacobra, available from Alienware. In the pre-2.0 days, I wouldn't have considered getting this, the XFL-1 nor the Soviet P-39Q-15. The game didn't favor low altitude aircraft best suited for maneuvering combat, since they would be nothing more then circling targets for the high flying, dive, shoot and climb predators.

I should know, I spent a great deal of time in the closing days of 1.9 in planes like the Mustang, the Ki-88 and a few others. Now, things are very different.

Not only has the "Turn and Burn" playstyle finally come into it's own, it has done so with a vengeful awakening.

I first noticed it with the tier V Bell XFL-1. Although I tested this plane out before in previous Common Test servers, I never put one in my hangar. As a giveaway, I couldn't resist the temptation and I have been rewarded very nicely. Then, I took the chance on redeeming the code for the tier VI Bell P-39N-1 Airacobra....

A newspaper clipping from a scrapbook I started as a kid, showing Bell Fighters at the airport of my hometown (long before I was born), part of the Northwest Staging Route, ferrying Lend/Lease aircraft from the Continental United States, through Canada to the Soviet Union.

Needless to say, I have liked the look and lore of this aircraft for a very, very long time, but stayed mostly quiet about it, since they didn't really much of an impact or place in the game before and no real appeal or incentive to get any of them.

Now, I have two with one more to go.

Schwacher Verteidiger

When the Heinkel He 100 D-1 came to World of Warplanes, it broke the rules on German mid to high tier aircraft being mostly suited for the Boom and Zoom playstyle. Now, there was a Deutschland plane that was more than capable of turn fighting with same tiered British and Japanese counterparts.

However, the trade off was pretty poor damage output from it's machine guns and weak armor.

Although I couldn't perform it consistently in the pre-2.0 days, the trick with using the He 100 was to get in very, very close and open up the guns, trying to match the targeted aircraft's evasive maneuvers from behind. Versus other fighters, this tactic worked out well, slightly less against Heavy Fighters with rear gunners and Ground Attack aircraft took forever to bring down, if at all.

That was then, this is now....

Much to my surprise, I get this feeling the He 100 has made the transition to this new era relatively unchanged. While the weapons still put out dismal damage, the maneuverability might have been tweaked ever so slightly, unless wishful thinking is overriding my experience from this battle.

The He 100 wasn't designed to be a frontline fighter, by any means, given the tiers of enemy aircraft it potentially faces. However, as a base defender and/or harassment aircraft, I think it fits that role rather well.

What are your thoughts?

A Squirrely Little Bird

By now, I believe that a quite a few players in World of Warplanes have completed all the tasks and put the new Soviet tier IV I-207 multirole fighter in their hangars. If you happen to be one of those who haven't yet, I would recommend seriously considering it, before time runs out.

For me, collecting the plane took around ten battles (hard to get a few meaningful wins to count towards the mission), but decided to wait a day before taking out on it's first flight. That turned out to be a disaster.

Without going into great detail, let's sum it up to poor ping and packet loss.

After that band of internet bad weather passed, I took to the skies again and....well....yeah....had my "worst" fought victory as of yet....

I freely admit I did a lot of things wrong, from not paying attention to what was going on around me, pushing a brand new plane beyond it's limits and becoming target fixated on one of the top players in the game, while they were in a flight (in fact, the only flight in the whole match was on the enemy team).

The Borovkov-Florov I-207/4 is, from my experience and appearance, a biplane variant of the Polikarpov I-16. If you happen to be a fan of those aircraft, then you would be right at home in this one, since decent armament and fantastic maneuverability, but poor damage absorption are their shared traits.

I am not sure if it was me or my computer (with focus on my graphics card), but either I couldn't keep up with how the plane was over-maneuvering in the environment or the rendering of what was going on wasn't happening fast enough.

Despite the multiple deaths that broke the system on my end, the aircraft is a lot of fun, much like trying to pet a really rambunctious, but caged bird.

Just be careful not to get pecked.

Blasting in a Boeing

During this brief return to the post-2.0 era of World of Warplanes, I have decided to take a look at a few aircraft that I felt were underwhelming in previous versions.

One of them was the tier III premium Boeing YP-29 Fighter.

If memory serves me correctly, this aircraft suffered from a severely under-powered engine and thus, a less than average climb rate, hampered by low operational altitude. And, don't get me started on the guns....

I collected mine back October 2014 as a mission reward for the "Rare Challenge" event taking place then, a companion for my Open Beta Token purchase, the premium tier III Brewster Buffalo F2A-1. Although armed the same, the Boeing paled in comparison to the "Betalo" in most areas that really counted, so I didn't fly it nearly as much as the other.

However, like all the other changes that have taken place, I figured I would see if time had been kind to the cancelled prototype successor to the famous Boeing P-26 Peashooter....

The Improved Italian?

It's been a while, huh?

In the real world, life has me so busy that I don't even have time to think about playing much these days. Well, except for this weekend....

With the launch of Anniversary Celebrations, the chance to earn another premium aircraft and activities in reality slowing down a bit, I feel like I have begged/borrowed/stolen the time to try and pull this off. On the upside, it doesn't appear to be an impossible mission either.

It took two battles to collect the 10 destroyed enemy aircraft requirement, another two after that to finish off 15,000 combat points portion. Now for those 5 victories....

The halfway point battle through that was accomplished using the tier III premium Chinese Fighter, the exported Italian Breda Ba.27 Metallico.

In the pre-2.0 days, I would have had a very hard time recommending this aircraft to any interested party. Everything about this plane was "middle of the road," no exceptional or noteworthy characteristics of any kind.

However, thanks to being in the post-2.0 era, the plane has been....improved....I can't quite figure it out. There has been no change in performance attributes, nothing seems to have been altered about the aircraft that I can see, but it doesn't feel like the same mediocre machine I flew a few updates ago....