3
(1)Guns kills are like missionary, they are fun but can get boring after awhile. Try to master all of the following to make you a more versatile player;
Bombardier: Shows only once in your Insignias on your achievements but insignias are also shown on every plane that they are achieved in the plane stats.
- (2)offensive bomb kill: drop your load while overtaking a GA or low flying plane
- (3)defensive bomb kill: drop your load on a high spot in the ground while being chased
- (4)passive bomb kill: when you drop your bombs from a high altitude bomber and a GA or other plane just happens to get in the way. It is also possible to hit a plane mid air with your bomb but it is exceedingly rare.
Rocketeer: Get a beautiful green ribbon for your Honorary Ranks every battle you do it in and a Golubev medal in your Epic Achievements every time you get 3 in a single sortie and win the battle plus a token for your first one of each day
- (5)ground rocket kill: shoot your load directly in front of a GA or low flying plane, similar to an offensive bomb kill
- (6)offensive rocket kill: shoot your load right up an enemy's rear. Bomber flights make good stationary targets, GA's are next easiest, off bore axis shots are the most advanced. Air to air rockets are too easy so use HVAR's to truly master the skill.
- (7)defensive rocket kill: Heavy is coming at your multirole head on, blast your load strait in their face. Also works on humans but they are often new players that ram you but blame you for ramming them in their spitfire or zero.
- (8)long rang rocket kill: rockets blow up at max range even without hitting anything. If a plane is inside the blast radius it will deal damage without requiring a direct hit
Rear Cover: Get a red and blue ribbon in your Honorary Ranks
- (9)pure defensive fire: jump into turret mode by pressing T and than kill whoever is behind you
- (10)offensive turret kill: shoot the enemy with your forward firing armament to reduce their hit points than finish them off with your turret after you pass them
-(11)360 degree turret kill: some planes have turrets that rotate all the way around. Shoot the enemy until they are almost dead than simply let your gunner finish them off for a happy ending
- (12)passive turret kill: do absolutely nothing and let your gunner get kills for you. Requires no skill and is about as rare as a fish jumping in your boat
Ram Attack: There is no specific achievement but will show if you hover your curser over the silver medal in the battle results. A collision results in damage to both planes roughly equivalent to the remaining hit points of the opposite plane. This means the plane with the least hit points will die while the plane with more hit points will live but will still take damage.
- (13)offensive ram: when you are shooting a plane from behind but you are about to overshoot. only useful if the enemy plane is almost dead and you are short on time. In most situations the damage to your plane is not worth it and it is far better to be patient and make a second pass. Often happens when trying to kill a bomber or GA in a heavy.
- (14)defensive ram: when an enemy is shooting you from behind and just as they are about to overshoot you jerk in their direction forcing them to hit you. works well when in a turret mode while flying a bomber or GA
- (15)passive ram: someone with low situational awareness kills themselves by running into your higher hit point plane. Unfortunately it is just as likely to kill you and sometimes buy a noob on your own team. Be careful it isn't you with low situational awareness trying to steal someone else's kill and accidently killing your own team mate by cutting in front of them when there isn't enough room. It will appear that they rammed you from behind but it was REALLY YOU!
- (16)Head on ram: another form of passive ram. AKA the stupid ram or noob ram. someone in a low hit point plane (like a spitfire or zero) goes head on with a high hit point plane (like a heavy, including heavy air defense aircraft). Even without a collision they are stupid for going head on with a plane that has more hit points and bigger guns. If a plane with bigger guns is shooting you MOVE out of the way! Don't sit there trying to shoot back with your pea shooters. What makes them even more stupid is they will stay in your guns till the last second before turning away and than blame you for ramming them. NO IDIOT!, it is the other way around. YOU are the rammer. I don't care if "You turned trying to avoid the ram." YOU didn't turn away soon enough. YOU should have turned before he even got guns on you. He turned into you trying to keep his guns on you as long as possible so you don't get behind him and kill him. YOU are more maneuverable so if he rams you than YOU are doing something wrong because YOU can literally fly circles around him. The heavy isn't ramming you on purpose they are trying to shoot you. They are upset by the damage that YOU caused to their plane by being stupid.
Flames in the sky: Another Insignia like Bombardier
-(17)when you set an enemy on fire stop shooting and just sit back and watch him burn. If he puts the fire out with a fire extinguisher repeat the process. Low hit point bots and air defense aircraft don't have fire extinguishers so trust your fires and turn away to another target.
Critical Hit: No official achievement
- (18)crit an enemy's engine or (19)tail close to the ground so they crash
Maneuvering kill: No official achievement
-(20)Maneuver in a manner that makes the enemy crash. That could be around or through terrain features, (21)you could use a lower stall speed to make them stall near the ground or (22)you could use their high speed against them by not being able to pull out of a dive.
3 ways are rare but exciting. You could use 1 bomb to kill multiple enemies chasing you or an aerial rocket salvo to hit 2 planes at once. Things have to line up just right for them to happen but when they do it is so satisfying. The most I ever got was 3 kills with the big bomb on the F2G super corsair.
P.S. Yes I know the title is misleading but it is a song reference for old folks who get it. I only listed 22 ways to kill an enemy and you can't master the passive kills and maneuvering kills are situational so it is even less. To truly master the other skills you have to be able to pick a plane and decide what you are going to do before the battle and than follow through every time. At least be able to pick the type of kill if not the specific execution. If you can't do that than you haven't mastered the skill yet. Keep working on it and you will get there eventually. Turret kills are important because there are daily missions requiring them. Rocket kills can get you a token every day. There used to be daily missions to get 10 rocket or bomb kills for 10 tokens or 2 in a battle for 4 tokens. There are no air to air rockets below tier 8 so that actually took some skill to complete. I really miss those daily missions.
