Taking down the AAA AI in an enemy town is generally one of the simplest things to do in a 110, and one of the easier things to actually do online, and practice offline. It is a great help to friendly aircraft (especially Stuka's, which get shot up by the AAA AI quite easily due to their slow speed and their tendancy to 'hang' at the top of a loop when attacking ground targets). Not only does it remove the threat to our low-level bombers but it keeps the enemy aircraft from being able to run to the town to escape (at least without coordinating with a player-manned AAA gun on the ground). As well, its excellent practice for making strafing runs on player-manned AAA guns, AT guns and tanks.
This image represents the flight path of my 110 in a mission where I took down the AI in two towns in the south of France (because thats where I could find a 110 :)). The red highlighted sections indicate a section where an attack run on the AI is taking place, and each of these has a movie to go along with it. The blue sections will be accompanied by a text explination only.
None of these attack runs are too spectacular. Often it will only take a single run to destroy the AI, which means you're already on the way out before most of the player-manned AAA has any idea what you're doing.
The video's are encoded in DivX.
Before you spawn in, I recommend that you set the convergence on the 110 to a high value (I use 450m). You can do this by typing ".conv 450" in the text-chat before spawning in. This will make it easier to fire on target at a long distance, meaning you'll be able to start hitting the AI position before it has time to swing around and begin firing at you with any accuracy.
On the flight to target, since I knew that I was going to be attacking the AI (a stationary ground target), I did not bother to gain much altitude. Once off the runway I slowly climbed to about 1.5k. This is about the maximum altitude where I can pretty easily spot ground targets, and where I know I can start a shallow dive from a reasonably far distance and not be going too fast to pull out over the AI, while still keeping speed enough to avoid his fire. Also, I had determined ahead of time that I was going to be attacking this particular AI emplacement, and had checked that I had a good line of attack from this direction. (This may seem like a little bit of overkill, but the value of it becomes apparent when I am flying at Charleville a little later in the mission).
Movie: Initial Pass Video
For my initial pass, you can see that I began my dive at quite a distance out. I did not have to cut throttle or drop flaps in preparation for it, becuase I knew I was coming in at an angle that would allow me to pull out without hitting the ground or buildings behind. I use a slight amount (slight!) to get the target right in my sights, this allows me to slide the sight from left to right without having to bank the plane at all.
Another thing to notice is that I start firing quite early, cannon only, and 'walk' the rounds up to the target. Once the rounds are hitting in the right area, I apply a little forward pressure on the stick to keep them hitting it. The fact that I had to push down on the stick means that the plane is naturally trying to pull up out of the dive (because of the gain in speed from its trimmed level flight to target), and that will help to pull the plane out of the dive after its finished (as you can see when I black out).
Once the pass is complete, and I've started to pull up, I switch to the tailgunner to see if the AI position is still up. When you blow the AI position, a large explosion can be seen, but it is often difficult to tell it from the explosions from the cannon rounds. The easiest way to check is to see if its still firing at you :).
Since the AI position is still up, I know I'm going to have to make a second pass. So I pull out and fly straight for a few seconds, before starting a long turn around the town again, rather than pulling tight and heading right back for the AI. There's a couple reasons I do this: 1) It allows me to keep my speed up, meaning AAA (both the AI and the player manned AAA) will have a harder time hitting me. 2) This extra distance allows me to line up on the target more easily, giving me a longer more accurate shot at it. 3) It gives me some time to check the air around the plane for enemy aircraft that may be attempting to intercept me.
On the first pass, I also noticed some buildings and trees that might obscure my view from the West of the AAA position, so I decided to circle around the town entirely to the north, and come in from the East again.
Also, after the initial pass until the second pass I climbed almost constantly, trying to get my height back up as much as I can.
Movie: Second Pass Video
This pass is done in almost exactly the same way as the first pass. A long straight run at the target, walking the cannons into the AI position. Notice that since the last run, I emptied out the rest of the cannon remaining in my clip (ie. I'm on the 2nd cannon clip in the 110). I knew that I used a lot of cannon in the first pass, and didn't get too many on target, so rather than running out 1/2 way through my second pass, I emptied the first clip before I start the second pass. This means I'll have plenty of ammo for this attack run.
If you watch carefully you can see the larger explosion as the AAA AI position is destroyed just before I pull out of the dive.
I had originally intended to RTB after this, but I noticed some tracers coming up from the South as I passed Montherme. I figured that I'd go down and take that AAA down as well. I began another slow climb on the way, and tried to keep an eye on where the tracers were coming from, so that I could line up the AAA as soon as possible.
I was also trying to keep an eye on the other planes as I approached the town, if any of them had turned out to be enemy aircraft, then I would have to decide whether to continue with the AI busting mission, begin a dogfight, or bug out.
Movie: Second Target, First Pass Video
This was a poor pass. Although I managed to line up on the AB itself soon enough, I had no idea where the AAA AI position was, and so by the time I spotted it I was already far to close for a good long shot at it. Also my line of sight was almost completely blocked by another building on the North, and the bunker and some trees on the South.
I broke the attack run off as soon as I realized that I wasn't going to get a firing opportunity on the AI position (at least, a very poor one) and begn to reposition for another pass.
The first pass was a failure as far as damaging the AI was concerned, but it at least allowed me to spot a good approach (from the East-West direction). So after pulling out of the first pass, I pulled around to the West and repositioned for my next run. Once again I pull far away from the town to make sure I have a nice straight approach to the target.
Movie: Second Target, Second Pass Video
By now this should be pretty much self explanitory. I really should have been able to take down the AI in this pass, as I was lined up almost perfectly and had started hitting the AI at quite a distance. However, I had forgotten to empty the last bit of the cannon clip from the previous firing pass, so I ran out a bit early. One other thing to notice is that I used the machine gun tracers a bit at the begining of the pass to get an idea of when I should start firing the cannon.
Once again: Pull far out, keep speed up, and make sure you're coming around to lineup on the target where you'll actually be able to fire.
Movie: Second Target, Third Pass Video
The final pass on the target. By this point there was a player manned AAA gun up in the AB, but by keeping my speed high and firing early I managed to be far away before he was able to get a bead on me. The AI exploding can also be seen just before I pull out.
On the way back to base I made sure to steer clear of the town so I would avoid the player manned AAA that had spawned earlier. Then it was clear flying all the way back to the airfield.