Barracuda

The fastest of the zeppelins ever constructed, the Barracuda makes quick work of moving goods. Its spacious interiors also make it an ideal pleasure cruiser. Welcome aboard shipmates!

Attacking the Barracuda
The Barracuda's turrets can easily shred overconfident or inexperienced pilots and planes. Make sure you have a plan of attack down before you go charging at one of these. The Barracuda has two major vulnerabilities: directly fore and aft. Its turrets cannot fully cover these two spots. Additionally, small planes may be able to park directly on top of the Barracuda while staying inside its four arcs, allowing them to fire on it without issue. The large Silhouette should make it hard to miss. Barrel Roll is a very useful maneuver for making attack passes through the Barracuda's guns whilst taking minimal damage - so use it if you have it. As with all enemy planes, taking down the Barracuda is merely a case of making enough attack runs to put it out of commission.

The Barracuda is fast for a zeppelin. It can use Afterburner to make sudden advances (being one of the few maneuvers available, AI Barracudas tend to do this frequently) and it turns remarkably quickly.

Lower tier planes may have some difficulty attacking the Barracuda as small MGs will do little damage and Autocannons will simply bounce off (see Armor Class).

Fighting as the Barracuda
The Barracuda's pivoting diagonal arcs make it an interesting plane. One decent weapon layout option is to equip all four arcs with Flak Tubes, modded with Improved Swivel Mounts, Extended Barrels, and Explosive Rounds. With this configuration you can get arcs to overlap on both sides and in the front and back, making the Bolo's coverage look weak.

Taking down most enemy planes is a bit of a waiting game. The Barracuda has the best turning speed at a stall so it is effective to wait for a plane to charge you, turn so that your side faces it and unload. You should be able to get a clean double-flak shot off on most planes as the enemy plane passes through. Higher tier planes will pass through only allowing time for one shot. Reload early and often so that you can always fire as soon as you have the opportunity. With some clever use of Afterburner you can hop into the path of those pesky performance planes and turn them to scrap.

The Barracuda can even take out Leviathans. Simply get in front of one beasts and slow down just enough so that you and the Levi are moving at the same speed. Your rear arcs should twist back to meet the larger blimp and send it swimming.

With an experienced combat pilot at the controls, even Thunderbolts wont stand a chance.