Thanks admiki, that was the tonic; I repeated that process about 10 times in a row and gained control quickly without losing much altitude as well. Much appreciated.
And thanks for the suggestion Taniki44, although when I looked up the synch settings I didn’t have it turned on. I also mapped the reset trim to a button on my hotas to see if it was a trimming issue coming into the mission but it didn’t work.
Now I just need to figure out why the dismounts are harder to kill than the vehicles!