Partial panel was standard RAF training. The turn needle, ASI and altimeter can be quite effective but without training it would be very difficult. A turn needle over-reads like crazy unless only 1 g is applied to it.
I once pulled 6.5 G (within aircraft limits) during a "no horizon" UP recovery on an IRT and blacked out my IRE. He never admitted it and I still passed! Mind you, I'll bet he never gave another partial panel UP from inverted at the top of a barrel roll
