Hi. I have only played WC3 a couple of passes through. I never have much luck in a T-Bolt. Autosliding in an Arrow vs corvette I still manage to get shot up often, but otherwise, autoslide or torpedo is the way to go. In a longbow you gotta torpedo them. Seems to me that you must be a good shot to get the corvette rear turret, in the higher levels. I've found kilrathi corvettes and vaktoths much harder to deal with in WC3 than in Prophecy. I have little luck on the tail of a vaktoth in WC3, and little problem with them in WCP.
I have yet to play past the first mission in WC4. I have the game and will start it shortly. Really looking forward to it, so much so I guess I've put it off for the "right time", or until I finish these annoying LucasArts games I recently got.
Been playing WCP and SO since late 99. Best games of their kind out. As for the simulator and the Kilrathi, fighter vs fighter they are no match for you. In a shrike (or T-shark) use charging mass drivers (CMD) head on. 1 dart works great too, but shoot head on further than 10,000 km away, so they don't shoot it. Forget about going after a turning and evading fighter with your bomber, unless it is the last one, or you have a close-in IR shot lined up. Boost your bomber's front shields (see below) and use CMD/dragonflies, or devastator plasma on fighters that will charge you in a straight line. On nightmare, you cannot afford many misses here though... As for the Kilrathi corvette, you can't attack turrets separately, but you don't need to. The afterburner/autoslide combination destroys corvettes at any level. With a T-shark, I use CMD's and afterburn in at an angle, like an autoslide, then get off the throttle and pivot at the last second and release a fully-charged CMD blast, usually on his rear, where I can release a heetseeker as well. I don't use dragonflies, unless I have them left over, as you are too vulnerable while firing them. In shrike vs corvette, you are a little too vulnerable with CMD's, but you don't need them. Make sure your power adjusts engines to normal or slightly better, and fly past the corvette at a tangent, like you were autosliding, and get into the rear turret! You take it over and seem to have unlimited guns at a high rate of fire. If you are getting hit by cat gunfire, hit or tap the afterburners (the key "strangely" works in the turret) and the corvette cannot hit you. When your guns quit hitting the cat, swing around in the cockpit and repeat as necessary. I can usually complete sim mission 3 in an unedited shrike at nightmare with "no damage," except for several armor hits from the fighters.
My basic approach in the main game or the sim is as follows. First, I hit the P key and push my joystick forward. This boosts gun and shield power vs engines. I use afterburners and autoslide to pilot the ship. As most of you know, afterburning straight to full speed and then getting on autoslide and releasing the burners gives you burner speed with no fuel loss. Going back and forth between Tab and Caps Lock is the key here. In ships without autoslide, you can usually complete the mission with judicious, although frequent, use of the burners. In a devastator, burners go fast so I let the fighters take out some bug fighters, and be sure to "not miss" a charging enemy attacker with plasma fire. This is the only senario that I would , at times, not boost power as above, but keep it balanced instead. Next, to compliment this strategy, I boost front shields 80/20 vs rear. Keep them off your tail with burners and turning, and decoys. I use full guns except as above, and in SO I use dust cannons in a wasp and pulse particles in a shrike (dust cannons drain too fast in a shrike). I never use full guns in a bomber. I don't order wingmen around much, except when they are in bombers and I tell them NOT to attack tritons -- they will throw away their torps on long-range shots, easily destroyed by bug turrets. I kill tritons close in with shrikes and via plasma gunfire in a devastator. Regarding capships vs fighters, I autoslide while taking out missle turrets first, using decoys and close-in maneuvers to evade capship missles. In SO you can shoot capship missles, although I have a tendency to get a bloddy nose relying on this tactic vs a fighter's head-on missle shot. In a bomber vs capship, as noted the rear is vulnerable. In a shrike I get a bridge lock and weave slightly to evade turret fire and shoot close-in. Tapping the tab key also evades turrets. Then I fly away, adjusting shield strength, and repeat as necessary.
As for devilrays, in a fighter I try for a couple of rear hits and follow-up with an IR shot close-in, and only when he is flying straight away from me. The other tactic is to attack his front shield, getting off burners and allowing him to retreat and pivot and attack you again. A missle shot, followed by flying off at a slight angle (so he does not shoot your missle) will work on a weakened front shield of a devilray, but this is a passive approach, slower that you may be able to afford. In a bomber I target the nearest Devilray and order my wingmen to attack it -- it will tear them up if they don't anyway, so what the heck. I rely on the "passive" approach above with plasma or CMD's/dumbfires, evading after I shoot. It usually works. I don't use the nav map much, so if a wingman's in trouble I'm usually too busy and far away to save him.
The result of all this is that I have periodic trouble with WCP's second-last mission (the second 1/2), and the SO "Holy Crap!" mission, where you face unlimited enemy fighters until you kill the capships. Otherwise, I "shoot them until they die!" Hope this helps.