Why the fuss about HO?

[Herc]

I got frustrated when a FW got me HO when I was tring to dodge.  I took off again and went mano on mano and we killed each other.  It's kind of like a challenge.  Do you have enough guts to go HO?  I've never read any historical accounts about someone being looked down upon for going head to head with the enemy.  I used to avoid HOs until I met up with the previously mentioned FW.  I now view them as a challenge that I sometimes take and I sometimes pass on.  It's kind of naive to expect a FW to pass on it's advantage with a HO and engage a Spit in a turn fight.  I at times get frustrated with HOs but they are a valid part of the game.

MG

[Wardog]

Ive been using the p51 in HOs against all planes,and will continue to do so.It is an art to survive an HO against anything with cannons.Ive checked my plane stats and no surprise to me i dont survive the HO merge with the 190 as much as i would like to  

But for the most part,i can take the 190 out with me

[juzz]

Wardog is a fine example of why people whine about the HO I guess...? (No offence intended to Wardog  )"It is an art to survive an HO against anything with cannons." HO isn't good because if you tried it in RL alot of the time you would soon be dead. But AH is a game, so that doesn't really apply does it? If we were flying in a one life scenario event you wouldn't see much HO, except as a last resort I'll bet.

[Fishu]

For me HO means suicidal action, even though I do fly most best HO machine with all the guns in it..
HO is either both dies or enemy dies, for my calculations, that both dies option is more likely  
Only plane which I might to head on is P-51, one .50 caliber hit doesn't hurt like 20mm  

[leonid]

In RL, it's a matter of survival, since replaning is not an option.  I'm sure pilots ended up HO'ing in WWII, but I doubt anyone turned it into a normal method of attack.  There is simply too much chance for unfavorable results to occur.  In the Russian front, LW 190 pilots would often HO Yaks, since these VVS fighters were fragile and had light armament.  However, after a Yak variant went into production that housed a 37mm cannon in the prop (Yak-9T), LW pilots began to discontinue HO'ing, since they could never be sure if they were about to be plugged with a 37mm round.  And since, Yak-9Ts were distributed among the Yak-9 fighter regiments, and only to marksmen, the percentage was not good in the long run.

But the thing is, AH is not RL, so HO'ing will be what it will be.  Personally, I avoid HO's like the plague, but there are times when it is unavoidable.  And there are ways to sucker an HO'er into an inferior position when E-fighting.

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129 IAP VVS RKKA

[Herc]

I don't look for HOs either but you get them when you are co-alt and merge.  They do have some relevance to real life.  Stat mongers will avoid them like the plague, they don't want to die, just like real life.    Also, most people who initiate them are flying the plane with the biggest guns, or which can't turn with the opponent.  This is much like the FW vs. Yak example stated above.  I'm not sure about using the 51 in HOs though.  

I'm  starting to accept more HOs rather than dodging them now.  If more people accepted the HO challenge, then cronic HO pilots will think twice.  They have an advantage now because many people try to avoid them.

MG

[Nash]

I don't think HO guys have the advantage at all. They enter the merge without any workable seperation, no lead turn, no nuthin'. If you have these things, then chances are you don't get hit. The best bet for someone who HO fires at the merge is just to keep right on going. Which mostly, when they realize the position they're now faced with, do. Gives new meaning to 'One trick Pony' <g>.

[MiG Eater]

leonid wrote:

"In RL, it's a matter of survival, since replaning is not an option. I'm sure pilots ended up HO'ing in WWII, but I doubt anyone turned it into a normal method of attack."

In the Pacific campaign, it was one of the desired ways of attacking Zeros that were aware of your presence.  Unless a bounce could be made unseen from behind the 3-9 line, head on attacks were seen as a viable tactic.  The famous Thatch Weave used alternating forward quarter attacks by a two plane section on the nimble Zero's that tried to maneuver for a rear quarter shot on one of the wingmen.  The .50 caliber weapons had a greater effective range and a higher rate of fire putting more shells in the air than the zeros could.  

The Japanese usually "sighted in" the cannons by opening fire with the machine guns first.  When hits were observe, the cannons were fired, which lobbed the shells over the straighter trajectory of the faster machine gun rounds (hopefully) to intersect on the target at the harmonization range.  But his required a rear quarter tracking solution and was nearly impossible to perform with the closing speeds of a head on pass.  It may have been a low percentage shot, but the lightly armored Zeros could be crippled or destroyed with a few hits.  

There are many great accounts of head on attacks in the books written about the experiences of American aces in the Pacific.  There are also commercially available videos with gun camera footage which graphicly show how effective head-ons could be.  They also illustrate how dificult it was to turn with a smaller lighter airplane.  

Head ons weren't as viable in the European theater since many allied fighters could maneuver behind the German airplanes (and vice versa).   Airplanes were generally armored quite well making the head on shots less effective, but they certainly still occured.  There was a notable exception; The Germans used head on attacks a good deal of the time on allied heavy bomber formations to lower the risk of being shot down by the bomber's gunners.  The attacks were highly effective especially for FW-190's firing all of their weapons in a curtain of lead in front of a targetted bomber.  The chin turret incoporated in the B-17G was a direct result to help counter the German tactic.

I am glad to see that head ons are modeled in AH as well as they are.  It ads another dimension of reality missing from other brand "x" sims.

MiG

[leonid]

To MiG:
<leonid smacks himself i the head> Totally forgot about that!  Thatch Weave!!

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129 IAP VVS RKKA

[Yeager]

In real life if you are hunting another human being with a gun and the other human has a gun as well, the last thing you want to do is go nose to nose.

The chances are great that you will hit your opponent but the chances are just as great that you will be shot as well.  A real last resort to say the least.  In a combat sim, its not nearly as devastating.

I have a guncam clip of a 109 flying at a p51 from a left to right, up to down aspect but nearly head to head.  Hit flashes can be seen on the 109.  If the audio that accompanies the video shot can be trusted, the p51 pilot was Bud Anderson.  The only other comment I can make about the clip was that the shot appeared to take place very rapidly, in the order of a seconf or less.

Yeager

[Nash]

Ugh...

I just reread my post... and I just hate the kinda generalizations of the ilk I posted regarding ponys. Wardog is an example of a pony driver that, sure, will go fer the HO for all it's worth.. but he's not afraid to mix it up close - and will dive low, get slow, and is skilled enuff to handle a 51 in situations that would get most 51 drivers killed in an AH minute. My personal Kudos to WD and guys like him who *know* how to fly a 51 at the extremes of that plane's performance.

To all you 51 drivers who run like frightened Gazelles with a limp at the first suspicion of a disadvantage - there's a few things you can learn from him. And to the rest of us who complain about 51's as if they were the anti-christ, we should keep in mind that there are a few guys out there who have mastered their plane just the same as we try to master ours... and who deservedly rise far above and oustide the kind of post I submitted earlier in this thread.

[Dinger]

Well, this one is for all those dweebs who check a poster's score before reading what he has to say  :
In these sims, HOs come in many flavors:
A. The classic co-E HO Merge.  Here you ignore flying skill and concentrate on gunnery and collision avoidance.  Note that with lag, a competent pilot on the other end will probably put enough rounds in your passing plane to kill you.  Planes with particularly bouncy noses might not be as successful.
B. the shallow HO.  Plane A has an alt. advantage over B, and goes for the HO taking a shallow approach.  Plane B, in my limited experience, actually has an advantage here -- going slower, it's easier to bring the guns to bear on target.  This is a classic example of stupidity on A's part -- trading an advantage for a crappy guns solution while letting B get a good one.
C. the roped dope.  Plane B (usually an afficionado of big guns and co-E merges) has been chasing plane A, who has a decisive energy advantage.  Plane A gets B wallowing at stall speed, and whacks him.  If it's from the front quarter, it's an HO.
In short, (A) is advisable only if you've got really big guns, and the bad guy doesn't, (C) is a classic move, and (B) is what you start looking for when you screwed up and 5 cons are swarming all over you.
One thing that makes me wonder, why do people who get shot down complain about the "HO dweeb" who did it?  Doesn't it take two to tango?

Dinger

[Westy]

"Doesn't it take two to tango?"

 Not always.

-Westy

[Pongo]

HO HO HO
Well they get you a lot of assists. Other people get to finish what you have started.
Wardog is very good at them(not quite good enough to break me of the habit)
LW pilots have to practice them. Definatly most survivable attack against buffs.
They seem particularly suseptable to lag problems.
30MM absolutly rock!

[NATEDOG]

I think Westy said it best. People seem to forget that it takes two people to HO. I've been in alot of HO's, some I've won, some I've lost, but every time I tried to avoid a HO, I've been killed. So now I go at'em with my guns-a-blazin!  

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Nathan "NATEDOG" Mathieu
Art Director
HiTech Creations
-=HELLFIRE SQUAD=-