B-25J Air Fighting One Going looking for trouble in the B-25 is none too smart. You are flying a barge with wings after all. However there is no need to simply allow a fighter a clear tracking shot on you. Why sit there and wait for doom? Make him work for the kill. If you are gunned then so much the better. The best general tactic a fighter should use against bombers in Air Warrior is to treat each one as gunned. That means diving from high 12 on them, shooting from long range to allow for high closing speeds, and jinking away and up (or down) as the he blows past. A fighter who constantly saddles up on the bombers is going to get a real shock one day when he does encounter a gunned bomber. A gunner can lay in a significant amount of damage on top of a fighter before the "net lag" tells the fighter he's being hit. A fighter won't see any tracers coming at him so the first clue he'll get is the first ping. Most times, and especially when the B-25 is a lone wolf, the fighters will let it all hang out when they spot the "B-25J" icon. All caution is thrown to the four winds, they come in fast (as they don't want anyone to steal their kill), they dive straight down, all energy considerations are forgotten. All they want to do is put the pipper on the hulk and squeeze. Some fighters will even ignore enemy fighters to get to the bomber... they just have to get that B-25. The fighter will get a few pings only if the first pass is avoided at all by the B-25. Jink away, dive and break nose low, barrel roll a bit, or break away wing under (throttled back). The standard guns defense will work, albeit you are a big target. What happens after that is up to the fighter. Usually they will turn hard to get back on your six. Out goes their "E" as they crank that FW or P-51 around... and now they are in trouble. The B-25 can stay at 200KIAS and 5Gs in a turn and just about get inside an FW190. You stick the B-25 in a slight descending spiral and go for him. The FW190 will be hanging on a stall to get around on you. You won't be even near the danger limit. As soon as you feel that you are going below your "hard deck" then pop up into a Yo-yo. The FW190 won't have enough anything to go up at this point. He can dive away on you. If he does dive away then put the B-25 into a 500ft/min climb and stay on top of him. He'll have to come back up and he will. The FW190 can zoom climb with the best of them. Wait for him to come back up and start it all again. However the Air Warrior FW190 is again a serious threat, as it is with all aircraft, from the 20mm Kannonen which they carry. A FW190 can knock a B-25 to bits with a head on attack and if he has any angles at all then the FW190 can destroy it in one FQ pass. It's a big target the B-25 and will always take hits from an accurate head on pass. The host always seems to allow one or two. If a fighter is going to head on then the B-25 can point his nose armament at the fighter too... those 8 x .50 Cals are not limited by convergence. The B-25 pilot will usually get hits. A B-25 should hose on out at the target from 1500 yards in. It's not much use to die with a full load of ammo and the B-25 has ninety-two seconds worth in the nose guns. Hose away... each ping adds up. If you are caught low (below 5,000feet) then by all means try to scissors the fighters. Even the Bf109 (good roll and great turn) can be beaten in the scissors by the B-25. The scissors depends on timing. Don't be afraid to reverse early and suddenly across his nose. He will get pings but the B-25 can soak them up. Put him behind your left wing, roll to left, and pull into him, then start rolling right and pulling to the right even before he crosses your six. A Bf109 was dragged into the scissors in the B25b.cam. He overshot and the B-25 got a hit on him. The Bf109 ran out of ammo and ran for home. What you are trying to do is to force an overshoot. If you make each reversal slightly nose low then the bogey will have to accelerate to keep up. If the fighter starts to go up in the vertical don't try to reach into a rolling scissors with it. The B-25 just can't keep the vertical moves going. Instead pull harder into him and continue the turns, getting right below him. Fighters have to come down too. If you are right under him he has to strive harder for the shot. as he blows past open up on his rapidly departing 6 and start climbing a little, get ready with rudder and turn hard again into whichever way he breaks (if he comes back fast). As soon as you see the fighter beginning to cross your 3-9 line in the flat scissors start shooting well in advance of him. Shoot as he appears off your wingtips and roll into him. Even one ping is sufficient from the 8 x .50s to wreck any fighter (bar the FW/P-47) as well as scaring him. No-one likes to get hit by a B-25, not from a head on, and certainly not in a dogfight. The B-25 pilot is not supposed to be able to work his way into an advantageous position against an aircraft designed to shoot him down. If he does it means that the fighter is making mistakes, and the B-25 pilot is making fewer mistakes. Mistake number one was to let the fighter spot him in the first place however. Now that he was spotted then the B-25 pilot should treat the B-25 as a very heavy and large Spitfire.