[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by IceFire

You are probably on to something that the Rookie pilots are perhaps too successful in this area. The effect can be toned down surely.

But remember, there's some dispute over what "rookie" skill actually means. Does it mean "straight from training" with about 350 hours flying time and about 50 hours flying time "in type", plus an adequate gunnery and air combat maneuver training, or does it mean "straight from the farm" with less than 50 hours total flying time and no gunnery and combat maneuver training?

Originally Posted by IceFire

But its not unrealistic for an average to veteran to ace pilot to be able to make this shot.

Agreed. Some real life pilots described doing exactly this sort of thing.

It's also the reason that Veteran or Ace pilots will also break in an unexpected direction when they're "under the nose" of an enemy. They will anticipate the firing solution their opponent is trying to achieve on them and move to counter it.

Originally Posted by IceFire

No reason the AI at perhaps the veteran level to be able to do that kind of shot semi-reliably. The rookie AI... maybe not as much as it does.

I can't imagine even a well-trained rookie being able to pull off this shot.

The most realistic fixed-air gunnery training of the period was against towed targets pulled by a target tug. But, target tugs were (mostly) slow-moving obsolete planes to begin with, even ignoring the drag produced by towing a giant wind sock or banner.

That means that (most) target tugs just didn't have the speed required for trainees to make shots that required extreme amounts of lead.

I also can't see any responsible training officer allowing novice pilots to run the risk of accidentally shooting the target tug by making a badly miscalculated high deflection turning shot. I haven't found anything really detailed about exactly how fighter pilots attacked towed targets, but my guess is that attacks mostly consisted of "pursuit curves" which ended up with "high side attacks" against the target drogue, while keeping the target and the target tug in sight at all times.

In such situations, when a "trained rookie" can mentally plot his intended shot in advance and can keep his target in view at all times, accuracy from a high-side attack at 30-60 degrees "angle off" from the target should probably be about 2-3% at 200-300 meters, maybe a bit less for 60-60 degrees "angle off. (3% was the expected accuracy standard for UK and US gunnery schools, 5% was considered to be very good.)

For an "under the nose" attack where a "trained rookie" can't see his target, accuracy should be less than 1% at best, and might result in the rookie ending up colliding with his target, getting ahead of it, or losing awareness of its location.

For pilots with no gunnery training (e.g., 1941-43 Soviet rookie pilots, post 1943 German and Japanese rookie pilots, and many pre-1944 Chinese rookie pilots) any sort of deflection shooting at much more than 20 degrees "angle off" from the target's front or rear should be a waste of ammo.