WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

[Harmor]

The USS Essex AA gun is a easy kill for the average pilot. If you want to get killed over and over again and not have a chance to shoot back (they come from weird angles), then by all means.

The braver pilots will come directly at the AA gun from the most obvious direction and still win 90% of the time (all they need to do is drop flares and you're dead before they hit the water).

And if its not jet pilots its helicopter pilots who can TV guide their missile from 550m (your lock range is 350m thanks to the v1.03 patch).

Oh, and don't fire your missiles because they'll just hit your teammates.

You've been warned.

[Jaz]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

It depends on the draw distance they have as well. Not all people have top of the line machines so you have to drop the graphics abit.

It takes me a few seconds to line up a shot on the carrier as my draw distance isnt maxed out. Whoevers is has the upper hand.

[imported_Psycho]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

I just fly straight at the gun normally don't even bother to fire flare, normally ill lose 1 bar of health and get a kill, i have circle the carrier firing until my ammo ran out while both guns were maned and didn't get shot down.

[Madmech]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

Actually I fund the opposite to be true . I have never been shot out of that thing by a plain. Forget about using the missiles, concentrate on the front gun and you can smoke them every time. Also on Sharqi, you can use the gun to kill people by your artillery and on land

[imported_Rafterman]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

I made a post a few days ago about the need to have radar on the Essex and the AA vehicles like in DC. Face it, the AA is crap in this game -- the missles are a coin toss and the guns, well you might as well be hurling insults at them for the good they do.

I'm not saying it would be much better with radar, but at least let us know from which direction we're going to get killed.

[Lasher Dragon]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

Once I almost killed a jet by placing all my C4 on the deck near that AA gun. When he came in for his inevitable strafing run I blew the charges what appeared to be about 6 feet under the belly of his jet - he flew away smoking.

[Teaves]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

Yoo catch a lot of base-raping pilots out by manning the rear deck gun i find, having both firing can be very effective as well. Who uses the missiles on a swooping jet, that cannon is much more effective as it has good suppression when exploding on the cockpit making lining up difficult. Of course it is much more powerful then the Jets vulcan cannon so if you both fire together the USS Essex will always win IMHO.

If by some chance the attcking planes makes it past alive you then fire the missiles up his afterburners. The aa missiles only TK when they have a better angle on friendly planes exhausts, they are heat seeking after all, they will of course also lock the second enemy jet as well giving no missile warning.

When you have learnt the way the AA missiles behave they are actually very effective and their tendancy to "re-aquire" Lock-On elsewhere can be used to your advantage if both enemy planes are airbourne. especially when friendly planes are easier to track like on the carriers (friendly's will come directly on the re-supply "circle" 90% of the time)

[-{DFA}-Brak710]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

I have been flying since the original DC release, so this tactic is easy for me:

Simply fly strait up, then once your above the carrier, dive bomb them. Don't drop the bombs (unless you see that you should, but makesure you don't fly into the bombs), just gun. since the AA gun rarly looks up (Can it even?), you can sneak up/down on them.

Works for me, but newer pilots may need to practice the required last second pull up on a unranked/LAN server.

[PFC.WELCOME]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

there is 2 AA guns on the ship dude. there is a big as* one at the noise of the ship.(bigger in size but not in ammo load)i think the AA gun might last longer tell overheating. no more SAMs then the rear gun.lot of people don't know about that gun.(or know its useable at lest)

[PFC.WELCOME]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

and if you people read a post of mine a day or 2 ago it said how to bomb easy like. avg speed (930) 100 altitude 230m's away drop bombs you hit target.make sure your sites lined up on target

[raceacontari]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

The AA missiles suck. Sometimes they will work for me, other times they wont. Example: I'm in a mobile AA and I see a hovering chopper about 200 feet away. I lock on, and fire my missiles. The idiot pilot never tried to dodge or even deploy flares, he just sat there hovering for a perfect kill...but just as the missiles would get close to him, they swerved off to the right and hit a friendly chopper. Gee...I was just so surprised they did that...

[ConscriptVirus]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

heres the tip...dont jump into the AA gun until after the jets make their bombing run..when they start to turn around..hop in and fire away..but the aa gun is best to take out helicopters and ppl parachuting

[shadow_wolf]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

I get in that AA gun when jets come and waste lots of pilots. screw missiles, the minigun on that thing annihilates planes if theyre dumb enough to come right at you. or go can get on the second gun on top of the superstructure instead of the obvious one on the back.

[Riggz]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

lol..that things a coffin. If you want to have some sort of chance, try jumping in the one at the middle of the carrier since most focus at the one near the end. I take that thing out at will.

[ConscriptVirus]

Re: WARNING: The USS Essex AA gun is a death trap!!!

lol..that things a coffin. If you want to have some sort of chance, try jumping in the one at the middle of the carrier since most focus at the one near the end. I take that thing out at will.

i don think u can get in that one...idk..havent really tried..