The following material is taken verbatim out of a file called "tnt-guid.txt", which was first compiled for the Air-Warrior Training-Academy back in 1994, I think. I included it because it's useful to hear the views of good pilots. Some of the terminology might be out of date, as the Air-Warrior program has changed a bit since then, but most of the discussion is still as worthwhile now as it was then.
This material was written by JD, Killer, Rash, Holmes, Fool, Bug, Spellbound, and Twist.
AIR COMBAT MANEUVERING (ACM)
AWTA Briefing compiled by JD, from posts by various pilots
It has been said that all ACM is just turning, with some degree of vertical thrown in. The trick is knowing WHAT kind of move to make, HOW to make it, and most important of all, WHEN to do it.
The essential elements of fighter combat are:
A. Situational Awareness,
B. Energy,
C. Position,
D. Gunnery.
Situational Awareness (SA) is the subject of another briefing.
Energy is the currency of aerial combat. He who goes broke first dies. Hoard your energy when you can, you WILL need it!. When you spend it, make sure you get something in return, ideally a kill. Speed of course is kinetic energy. Altitude is potential energy. DO NOT assume that you are safe just because you are faster and/or higher than the enemy you see. Look for the higher or faster one that will kill you. As a rule, the higher plane presents the greater threat.
Position - the ideal one is where you can shoot the enemy, but he cannot touch you. The tail shot, or "6:00" position is prized by fighter pilots for this reason. Above the enemy is nearly as good.
Gunnery - normal maximum range of anything but a tank cannon in AW is 650 yards. Your guns fire in one-second bursts. Hold the trigger down for 1-1/2 seconds (on the SVGA FE at least) and you expend 2 seconds' worth of ammo. Fire short, well-aimed bursts. Don't spray, all you will do is waste ammo. The host will only acknowledge one hit at a time, so holding down the trigger will accomplish little if anything in extra lethality.
Caution on the rear-view phenomenon: This is caused by the network delay. When you see a plane at 1000 yards in your rear view, remember that what you see is his position ONE SECOND AGO. A second's worth of closure can be 3-400 yards, placing you at 600 yards in front of him. That _may_ not always be the case depending on HIS delay and speed, but follow this rule, it will save you many deaths: OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR _ARE_ CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR!! Always, always, *always* subtract 4-600 yards from the distance you see an enemy on your 6:00 at, and figure that is where they see you. In other words, if you see an enemy at 1000 yards, assume you are at 600 in his front view. You are not _truly_ safe from an enemy's guns until you have at least 1400 yards of separation, and 1600 is better.
Here's Killer on gunnery and the effect of network delay.
I've found that I get hit from 1600 on in with good regularity. In realtime anyway. I always consider 1600 out my rear view as 700 yds. It all depends on closure rate. If the guy is moving at 150 kts, he travels one helluva lot less distance in a second than he does at 350 kts. Especially in realtime, if the guy is diving on your 6 he can hit you at just under 1600 out your rear view with the net delay, if he's only coing 150, your prolly safe at 1400 or even less. Also remember that the gun range is set with muzzle velocity + duration time of bullet flight, your speed is added to that muzzle velocity so at high speeds you can hit at slightly more than 650 yds. Also I've noticed that if the guy is losing packets, you will freeze in his sight motionless for brief instants and warp 500 yds or more into and back out of range, The FE only gives hits for bullets that hit the plane, so during those warps you can be hit no matter how far you actually are from him. Yet another reason I set 1600 as my limit.
The delay value (d=) is an average amount of delay. Its the average of delay in seconds for the # of trips, and is rounded to the nearest whole number. Trips are just that, the data packets make the trip from Host to FE and vice versa. Hist is the last average before the current one I believe.
All the info sent back and forth from the host to the FE and back is sent in packets of data. The delay is the amount of time in seconds that that transfer is taking.
Esc Q lets you know more about how many packets have been sent and acknowledged by the host and provides a ratio of sent/acknowledged.
Due to the effects of the network, gunnery is modeled with a "hit bubble" around each plane. The bubble is normally set to 3 times the plane's wingspan. Bullets reported to the host as passing through the bubble are checked by the host against a series of criteria that includes range and aspect angle. If the host decides that there was too much range or deflection involved, the hit is not allowed. If the hit is allowed, then the target plane's Front End (FE) is notified of the damage to apply. When the damage exceeds the plane's ability to withstand it, the plane is destroyed.
- Killer =>DFA<=
Mr. Mustang, Rash on the subject of head-on shots:
I have found it a "good idea" if your are being killed a lot, to change tactics. If a plane is within firing range, expect to get hit, and It is your job to make it as hard as possible for him to hit you.
I'm not saying this to sarcastic, but I believe that with the delays, our FE's (while planes are pulling G's) can be off by 180 degs or more for brief periods of time, and with this new version any angle is deadly. - never trust what your FE is showing you.
True, it's chicken dodo for a pilot to fire on a merge, that is straight and level coming from 180degs opposite directions. But if you take away the headons, f6's will be able to once again loop in front of firing guns, and Zeros will be able to do flat turns until they run our of gas with no fear of receiving any hits. Now getting caught low, slow or hanging on your prop is certain death, and that's how it should be - I like it! Just because some people are getting killed more, because they are using old outdated tactics, doesn't mean something's porked.
Rash =>DFA<=
THE TWO MAJOR TYPES OF AIR COMBAT
You know this already, they are angles fighting AKA "stallfighting", and energy fighting, which is sometimes known as "E-fighting," "Boom & Zooming" or "B&Z'ing".
ANGLE FIGHTING (STALLFIGHTING)
The basic elements of angle-fighting are simple:
1. get on the enemy's tail,
2. hammer him until he dies.
The opening move is the CRITICAL one in a stallfight. Since the combatants are close, and generally neither has enough speed advantage to escape, the opener often determines the outcome, unless:
A. neither pilot gains the advantage in the opener,
B. one pilot makes a mistake the other can capitalize on, or
C. an ally intervenes. The ally can be another fighter, the ack, or even a dump.
Once combat is joined, assuming neither pilot has a favorable position, it's a 3-D chess game. It is axiomatic that a pilot who makes all his moves in the horizontal will not live long. A lot of our fellow aviators have taken that viewpoint to the extreme. All of their fights are a seemingly endless series of pure vertical loops, until one pilot runs a little short of Energy, and it's all over for him. Rule: He who loops last, wins. That simply means that the pilot who hangs onto enough E to go vertical after his opponent is too slow to do so will usually win. A high yoyo, in which the attacker goes vertical to cut across a flat-turning plane's turn circle, is the tactic of choice if you have the E for it.
If both pilots are at the same energy state ("Co-E") and neither can go vertical anymore, then the engagement degrades into a horizontal turning match. Usually by this time both are low, and it's not an option to use a low yoyo to cut the other guy's turn from below. The low yoyo is less efficient than the high, and riskier too. At this point, it's a matter of who can out-turn the who. It is not necessarily a case of whose plane can turn tighter. The ability to ride the edge of blackout and/or stall will often determine the outcome. Weight is an important factor in this situation. If you are locked in a horizontal circle with an enemy and you are hauling nearly a full load of ammo, "dumping" some of it, just shooting it off without a chance of hitting, will lighten your plane and may give you the edge in turning.
Flaps will tighten your turning circle, but will also slow you down. Use them, but use them cautiously. Practice offline holding your plane in a max-G turn. Lower flaps, see the effect.
My advice on the looping and flat-turning stalemate situationsdescribed above: AVOID THEM! Even if you are a dedicated anglefighter, keep your speed and altitude up enough that you have options. Learn to perform lead turns in the horizontal and vertical, and make good use of them. Timing and speed control are the important issues.
The spiral climb is a DEADLY tactic against many stallfighters. The zero and Ki-84 are most susceptible to this, though a spitfire or 109 can sucker FW's and 51's this way also. It works like this: you have an E advantage over the enemy, OR a plane that climbs better. You engage him, and notice that he stays close to horizontal in his moves. Maybe he does a zoom climb, but he's not working the vertical effectively, and is anxious enough to pepper you that he is bleeding E too quick for his own good. You turn with him a time or two, keep your speed up, and don't pull as many G's as he does. The bad guy's gaining angle on you, and you know he's salivating. At that point, you go into a spiral climb. Don't wind the spiral too tight or you'll stall out. You may need flaps and WEP as you get close to topping out. Watch the enemy the views, paying close attention to his range readout. When you see his closure stop, and then his range starts to rapidly increase, he has stalled out. Roll over and pounce! Don't get impatient and overshoot. Stay on top, tap-dance on his head. He will have to dive to regain control, but you will be nearly impossible to shake off. Just roll your plane to track him as he turns. A few hard break turns, and he's likely to black out. Then he's yours!
ENERGY FIGHTING
An energy fight between two good pilots is actually a series of openers. It's like jousting; thrust and parry, then break off for another pass.
There are a number of things that come into play in high-speed fighting. What you CAN'T do most of the time is just line up on a bad guy from way out, and expect him to hold still. I often do just that, though, _if_ I am clearing the bandit off a buddy's tail. I make him break, he blows E, and the friendly lives.
I like to climb out away from trouble, and cruise around at about 28k. Most people, even 51 drivers, level out way below 25k; it's kind of a psychological thing. If I see a lone bad guy on radar or get a radio report of one, I figure that's either a dweeb or another hunter. If I'm near enough, and thinking about engaging, I need to know how high he is. After I find out, I close on him and judge his speed. If he is heading for some probable target, like a tower, I will try to get there first. When I figure he's starting his dive, then I dive on his target also. All I have to do is adjust my speed so I don't overtake him too fast. At some point in his dive, I'll pull onto his 6. It's amazing how few people will abort a bomb run, even when death is breathing down their necks.
If I'm tracking the enemy toward a furball, I generally dive in behind him, but don't go anywhere near as low, and make no attempt at setting up a firing pass on anyone in the furball (yet). I follow him down, then pull off and line up on where he's going to climb out. As he zooms up and out, I dip slightly below him, line up, and BOOM.
I often make a big circle around a furball, and it tends to piss off some of my allies who are in it, fighting for their lives. They get real quiet when they see me whack an enemy B&Z'er like I just described.
Plucking a low, slow, tight-turning enemy out of a furball is a little different, but not much. The trick is NOT to focus on the enemy, but tune in on the rythm of the fight. Watch a furball, and you will see that planes go round and round, up and down in a rythmic, predictable, TARGETABLE pattern. (credits to DoK) OK, that's fine but how can you LINE UP on a spit going around at 150 IAS? Well, one of my favorite tactics that I learned from Fool is to make a few low-G S-turns as you come in, and follow the flight path of the plane that the targeted bogie is going round and round with. If the bad guy is in a looping fight with one of your pals, and they are not right down on the deck, dive below them as you come into icon range. Then, carefully gauge the timing of their loops, and zoom up behind the bad guy as he climbs. At the worst, you'll make him break, and give your pal some breathing room.
I make my first pass into a furball AWAY from my eventual egress route. This is because I will have plenty of speed on my align="justify" first climbout, and an enema who may be trying to stick it to me like I described back there will not have turning room to get on me if I zoom out toward him.
If your pal is in trouble, low and slow, or if the fight is in your home turf and you won't have to fight your way home, the BEST way to kill a low, stallfightin enemy is to get RIGHT on top of him, cut throttle, and dive straight down on his head. It's damn near impossible to evade this, because all you gotta do is roll your plane to track him. You will be in lag pursuit as you dive on him, then rapidly switch to LEAD pursuit at the moment you set him up to die. 1K-1400 yards, depending on speed, is where you pull lead on him and slide onto his 6:00. I usually drop a notch of flap at that point, and I'm working the throttle to stay at 275-300 knots. The P-51 turns nicely at that speed, especially with a notch of flap. You can lower flaps in a 51 up to 300 IAS. I usually get at least 2 hits on a pass like that, and often more. If the bandit has hits on him at that point, he's dead unless I really blow the setup. Even then, I buy my buddy time.
Leveling out with your victim is sometimes successful, but the only time I do it is if he is at very low altitude. His speed being lower, he can out-turn you, so there's no way you can follow him in a break. If he has 4-5k of air under him, dropping below his line of sight and zooming up to him is often the best way. This is especially true if he is making vertical moves, i.e.in a looping fight. Catch him at the top of his loop, fill him with lead, and zoom up over him. At that point you should roll 180 and watch what he does. Hopefully he will blow up, but if not you may see him go into a spin from trying to evade you. If a friendly is fighting him, ask the friendly if he's OK. If he says yes, then get your alt back as your pal finishes off the bad guy.
It all gets more complicated in a multi-plane engagement. If you are in a B&Z plane like a P-51, do not get drawn into the furball. Some of your friends are likely to die, but the best way to help them is to stay fast, put hits on as many of the bad guys as you can, and make any incoming enemies break or die.
- JD 2959
Holmes ^TH^
Yeah the gut-shot :) Particularly effective when there's no radar operatin for the bad guy. If you angle the approach from below just right, he'll not see your icon when he looks in direct rear view til it's too late. Don't give away too much alt before the merge, yer lookin only to get a better angle and delay his seeing you. Another plus is it puts you nose up when you overshoot. Then you can get right to bidness goin vertical without yankin too many G's.
- Ho 5551
Fool on Boom & Zoom Fighting
B&Z...in a one versus one... We will assume here that your enemy has seen you and turned around to take your pass headon. Score 1 advantage point for you, you forced him to turn 180 degrees and use up some of his energy. Now dive in but stay about 1500yds above him and pull stright up. Pull up early so he sees it, hopefully he will pull up and try to follow. Watch for him to stall and dive in on his 6. If he doesnt follow you up, at the top of your zoom pull back on the stick and level out, you will be inverted at this point and way above your enemy. When he turns around to take your next pass, (note; you just scored another advantage point) wait until he is passing under you, then dive straight down on him. Now any direction he turns you only need to roll your ailerons to pull in behind him. The main point here is to make as many passes as required to slow your enemy down to the point were he can no longer pull his nose up. I.E. he can no longer loop, he can only do level turns. Then dive straight down on him. Some guys don't like this approach, but the straight down dive negates the enemy's faster turn rate.
- Fool 5047
B&Z by Bug
The technique that Fool describes is also known as the "rope-a-dope" and is dependant on the bad guy following you up. The problem with it is that it burns up E a lot faster than the classic b&z, due to the high g's you must pull to get pointed straight up. You usually cannot do more than about two of these manuevers before getting dangerously slow and easy meat for a skilled defender. The usual b&z involves low-g zooms and long extensions in order to keep that good E. And yes, I will usually go level with the bad guy just outside of gun range - this is particularly effective vs. bad guys already involved in a fight. If they have been fighting for any length of time it is likely that the combatants have pissed away their E and are now stuck turning in the horizontal plane. If you blow through them in the vertical plane, your chances of a nice tail shot are greatly diminished.
- Bug 2472
OPENING MOVES
The following is a post by Spellbound dealing with the all-important topic of opening a fight. Opening moves are not restricted to the start of a fight. However, properly done, the opener makes the rest of the fight unnecessary!
PRACTICE THE VIEW KEYS!!!
ACM 1vs1: Now that you know the basic fighter manuevers, we'll start putting them together in 1vs1 engagments. The first move you make during the merge in a 1vs1 is known as an "opening move".
The following are some examples of opening moves used frequently.
High G Immelman: As you are closing on the enemy, you pull up into a full g immelman, in realtime I tend to start pulling up around 1k or so, bout 1/2 that in 1/2 time. This is an aggresive opening and the quickest way to reverse direction on the enemy. It's main disadvantage is that it bleeds energy quickly.
Low G Immelman: In this opening, you conserve energy in doing a low immelman. You can also pull up a bit later than a high G immelman. Be prepared to take hits if your opponent went with a high g manuever. In this opening you convert most of your energy to alt. If your opponent used a high g manuever, you will have an energy advantage. While you may take hits, he will likely stall trying to follow you. Once you have an energy advantage, use your alt to gain position or make firing passes, now YOU dictate the fight. Vertical Lead Turn: As you are going head-on, enter a shallow dive to gain vertical separation and airspeed. If you have the vertical separation, pull up into a high g immelman a little earlier than normal, 1300 is good for me. This is a super agressive opening and can gain you a quick victory, when it works, its beautiful. You find yourself a couple hundred off the enemies six as he starts to pull up. You must kill QUICKLY or you will be at a major energy disadvantage. If you need to follow him over, use flaps to get over the top.
Low g climbing spiral: In this opening, you pull up into a low g climbing turn. The idea is similar to the low g immelman but it is a little more difficult for the enemy to keep you in views. Basically you show the enemy your rear, enticing him into blowing all his energy to get ya, then you use your energy advantage to gain alt, then position or make firing passes. This opening may require you to take hits as well. There are many variations on these but basicly they fall into high g and low g categories. The high g manuevers are agressive and designed to get angles as quick as possible, ie the quick kill. The low g are designed more to get you an energy or alt advantage which you can then use to dictate the fight.
What you do following the "opening move" depends on what your enemy does. Once engaged, you are both reacting to the other. In an engagment, the pilot making the smarter decisions will prevail. If you both make the same decision, and the same moves, the one making the quicker decision will prevail <G>
When in doubt, DO SOMETHING, don't fly straight thinking about what to do next. Also when in doubt, or if you lost the enemy in views, go up :) use the vertical to gain alt while you find the enemy in view.
Practice flying the planes at the edge in a turnfight, practice riding the edge, both in low speed maneuvers or stallfighting and at high g, riding the grey.
Be aware that unlike 1/2 time flaps in realtime will give you a TEMPORARY increase in turnrate at the expense of drag and energy. After dropping flaps, go nose low to gain speed back when you pull them up. Also be aware that some aircraft are equipped and modeled with maneuvering flaps in which they help your maneuverability at medium to low speeds without a major addition in drag. The P38 is equipped like this, as are the P51 and F4U. The first notch of flaps can be dropped at under 225ias or so. Also dropping flaps can help you pull over the top of that 2nd immelman much quicker.
- Spellbound
Here's a good one from Twist:
With almost all planes the idea to making it productive is the same: find the strengths of that particular aircraft, and apply them. Use it at what it does best and try to get the opponent to follow along and you will have him.
For the 109, the strengths you should look for are the high climb rate and very respectable turning ability. A 109 in a flat turn with a Spit pilot who knows what he is doing will most likely loose the battle. A 109 who makes that same Spit pilot follow him into a _climbing_ turn has an edge. Much the same for the 38.
Note the interesting reversal: the strength of the 38 is an amazing turn rate when it is supplied energy, which most 38 pilots get by pitching the nose down in a turn. The 109 pilot who turns with a 38 nose down is dead. If you are engaged by an energy player and he doesn't have a large starting alt advantage, simply climb for everything you are worth when not evasive, while of course maintaining enough speed to turn when necessary. The easiest way to do this s to always remember the stronger and weaker points of your aircraft overall. When you are faced by another in combat you can take your energy state vs. his plus your plane strengths and simply stick with the maneuvers that best use both. The only time you are truly in trouble is when his plane shares all of your strengths or better, and you are co-e or lower.
-Twist 2471
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