P-51 vs 109 post merge tactics

[Yeager]

A P-51 encounters a Me109 at 23k.  The merge
is fast and clean with no shots fired.  Immediately following the merge, the 109 pulls hard and high right for the reversal.

Problem is the P-51 doesnt seem to pull the hard, high merge well against the 109 with the 109 coming around sooner, bringing guns down to bear against the P51 sooner than the 51 can do likewise.

What is the best defense for the P-51 following the initial merge against the 109?
(Assuming that the P-51 decides to fight rather than extend away)

Yeager

[Udie]

Extend, climb, reverse and attack.  Repeat as required until target is destroyed   By all means don't get into a turn fight.  You should have a wingman up there with you too. That way you and just drag and bag him from the start  

udie

[dolomite]

This sounds familiar... ;P

[Vermillion]

One tactic you may try Yeager is this.

Wait till you pass in the merge.

Typically the 109 knowing it has the advantage in the vertical, will immediately pull very hard into a loop to reverse on you, pulling over 5 G's in the process. But if he pulls as hard as he can it is a very wasteful energy move, due to the high G's he is pulling.

So what you do is wait about 3-5 seconds after you pass and then you pull into a low g (around 3 G's typically) vertical move.

What this does is since your not wasting as much energy due to the high G's you can actually get higher in the vertical than the 109 will. Plus since you waited a few seconds, you will have horizontal seperation to protect you from a shot.

Now he is peaking at the top of his loop at stall speed, while you are still going up and above him.

Just wait till he has to level out or point his nose down, and you have free access to his six. At that, its all academic  

I posted a guncam film a while back in this forum where I used this exact move to beat a 109 in the merge with a P51, if you want to see it in action.

It does work, but it takes practice.

------------------
Vermillion
WB's: (verm--), **MOL**, Men of Leisure,
"Real men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires "

[ra]

I don't have much to add that hasn't been said here.  Keep your speed after you see him pull vertical, extend a  bit, keep the G's low as you reverse back to him in a shallow dive.  The big thing you need to know is how good he is.  Head back toward him and give him an impossible shot, if he takes the shot and tries a tight turn to follow you, he probably aint that good and you may be able to drop your flaps and stallfight him.  If he  ignores the shot and keeps his E he may know what he's doing, so shallow dive away and dare him to follow.  At about 375mph or so you can scissors him and hope he screws up.  Either way, at 20k you can always dive away if things get hairy.  That's why they're called Runstangs.      


--ra--

[This message has been edited by ra (edited 12-30-1999).]

[Wardog]

ra..

you can only dive away if you have the E advantage to start with,but if your low E he will catch you quikly in a dive..

If you intend to stay and fight a 109 against a p51 you are in for the best and toughest fight youll ever have. 1st and formost,you must be able to judge his E state. Judge his speed on the initial merge,how much E did he lose on the snapshot.. Also very important is the 1st hit,on the merge most good 109 pilots wont go for the HO in the merge.. there judging Your E state and preping for the snapshot. So you must do an aileron roll,keep your speed and get a round into his wing. You can take his Aileron off on the merge and extent. Dont even look back till you think he is 3.0 behind.. This is the point where you decide to stay and engage or leave the fight.

I am in the very bad habit of staying to fight just so i can work on tactics.

Even with E dont loop back against a 109 unless you know he is close to stall. Flat turn,keep speed and again Aileron roll on the merge get a few rounds off try & hit the same wing..On this second merge you are committed to the fight,you cant dive out as he will catch you. As you can see Gunnery is very important. Its not easy to hit something as small as a 109s wing on an Aileron roll at speed,many things have to be judge.

But ill be damn if it isnt one of the most heart stopping fights youll ever get into.

If your lookin to get out Split S.. old tactic but it does work. I had a hi 109 6k my hi 6 come in for me while i was grabin.. i was very slow 220kias.. At his speed he couldnt turn with me in the Split S. i ended up doing about 4 in total till i was 10ft off the deck,he did take pieces off me but i was easly able to ditch ..

Pyro has opened an Training area on the BB so i will be filming the 1v1 fights & posting them for others to have a look..

I cant stress the importance of SA when flying,its more than knowing whats around you its also being able to judge E status of cons around you. Dont assume because you see an La5 4.7 away from you and he looks to be engage that he isnt going to dive at you  



[This message has been edited by Wardog (edited 12-30-1999).]

[Mr.ED]

Another great post Verm!

Wardog, By "flat turn" I hope you mean a notch of flaps and nose down slice. Every tactics manual I've ever read said never flat turn a pony. I use both of these ACMs, but Only against a 190 with low "E" would I flat turn, and even then I'd smack the flaps.

Great post & responses!

Mr.ED
Pony Driver
Knight

[Central]

Cure all here Yeager,

DON'T have a clean pass ;-) See, then you won't have to worry bout the reversal. Plane would be spiraling down to mother earth.

Pray N Spray!  hehe


Central
Dickweed FG

[fats]

You don't need E advantage to be able to run away. You don't even need a faster ( top speed ) plane. Just disengage when you have ~180 degrees between you and him at the time when you point the nose down. This means that sometimes you will have to _enter_ the fight first in order to be able to 'avoid' it.

As easy to imagine example: HO merge where both go flat due to poor initial speed or what ever. Watch which direction the other guy is turning and go nose-to-tail for 45 to 90 degrees and then 0G away. If the enemy accepted nose-to-tail now he has ~270 degrees to catch up to before he gets to 0G ( accelerate ). As a side note, enemies with better turn rate plane will accept nose-to-tail as it's their advantage if you have the better turn radii plane, but I would guess majority of pilots don't even care wether they do nose-to-tail or nose-to-nose cause they have no idea what either of these turns are about. That means ~12 seconds of acceleration for you and a whole lot of separation, and you will keep pulling away from him as he is still accelerating after turning.


//fats

[dolomite]

Seems like a few "ifs" might be added here...

You don't want to HO a 109 IF he has the gondolas (big punch).

You don't want to pull up after merge tightly IF you are both co-E, as the 109 can get inside you.

IF the 109 goes vertical for alt after merge you could be screwed.

IF you wait too long to dive away the initial acceleration of the 109 will catch you.

IF you try to keep the fight too tight you are playing into the 109's hands.

IF you scissors in front of a lightly-loaded 109 it will get you.


I don't pretend to say that I know everything about these two aircraft, but I think I can say that 1 vs. 1 definitely favors the 109 if the stang decides to duke it out. With WEP the 109 can pretty much power out of a lot of the trouble it can get into.

[Minotaur]

Yeager;

A few more notches worth noting in this discussion.

The amount of lead turn the NME has or does not have on you, is often not well perceived at the time of merge.  If you get outturned badly after the 1st rev or 1/2 rev, the NME probably had some lead angle on you.  Best to find your escape vector and use it quickly.  A hard turn on the merge might mean that the NME feels they have some lead angle on you.  Re-think who had seperation and who has lead, you or them.  Many fights are won or lost right then and there.

The 109 has better climb.  With better climb comes better aceleration, don't let the 109 have your six if you are slow.  You have to play the angles game, but not too long.  I find 10k is safe disengage altitude for 51, or be prepared to play the death knot end game.

Keep the fight fast, that is the 51's strength over 109.  Conversely, the 109 should be striving for E advantage, as it regains E faster.

Lastly, the 109 is an unruly plane.  It is often flew by someone very experienced and "Savy in the ways of Simulated Air War".   You often can tell right away if it is flown by Experten, by judging the reactions to your manuvers.  Most often, starting the fight with tentative or what I call "Jousting" passes, designed to aquire your E state.

I also suggest flying the 109 some, so that you can better learn how to deal with it.  Good Luck, the 109 is a tough nut to crack.  

Mino

[ra]

Warbird,

You don't need  an E advantage to dive away, just the SA to know when it's time to get out.

Dolomite,

Scissors are more a test of pilot skill than of aircraft performance, if they don't work it's because I misjudged my opponent's skill and should have kept running.  At high speed the Stang rolls faster than the 109 so scissors, with some barrel rolls thown in, can be used to get inside him, again the key is knowing when to bug out.

I don't think the 109/P51 matchup is quite as lop-sided as others seem to.  The 109 has a slight edge at low speed, the P51 has a big edge at high speed.  Fuel loads make a big difference here.

--ra--

[Vermillion]

Guys most of you are forgetting to use the Pony's greatest strengths.

You say its impossible to outdive a 109 from 20k?

Bull puckey  

If your at 20k, and even if the 109 is GLUED to your 6 at 300 yards, if you can survive the first 3 seconds you are home free.

Your first reply is gonna be that the 109 can accelerate faster and therefore win the dive with the P-51.

Your right, but your wrong.

Yes the 109 will easily out accelerate the P-51, and thats exactly how you can escape the fight   Confused yet?

When you decide to disengage, roll into the very steep vertical, and watch your speed gauge. If you can survive these first 3 seconds then you can escape. Some lazy rolls help here to survive.

As soon as you reach around 375-400 (the 109 is probably much faster due to his superior acceleration) roll hard 90 or 180 degrees' and level out into a shallow dive. The 109 can't stay with you due to its problems with compression. So right here you should gain horizontal seperation, and breathing space.

If he stays in the dive with you he will be totally uncontrolable by this point and will probably lawndart eventually. Also by this time you should be able to reach your higher top speed and start to pull away.

9 out of 10 times you have disengaged by this point and you can run home to mamma   One time outta 10 though this will happen.

Here is the trick though, if your fighting a VERY good 109 pilot.  The smart 109 pilot will pull up to retain control and plan on catching you in a few minutes with superior E.  So you need to watch your rear, and as soon as the 109 levels, you should level too and keep that E in the bank.

This is so that once you both bleed off that dive speed to normal level flight speeds he doesn't have alot of E on you and catch you eventually with another dive.

If he does catch you and you still have sufficent altitude, just rinse and repeat the above method.

Very very rarely can a 109 catch a P-51 with enough altitdue under him to dive away, due to its far superior high speed handling.

Actually, you can use the same exact manuever against 109's in the FW190, the La5FN, and the F4U-1.


------------------
Vermillion
WB's: (verm--), **MOL**, Men of Leisure,
"Real men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires "

[buhdman]

Vermillion,

I would love to see the guncam film you refered to, above.  Could you include it again, here?  I haven't been able to find your original post.

Also, if any of you P-51 lovers have some good film showing any of the classic tactics (especially the ones involving high-speed turns) I'd love to see them.  I really suck at 1:1 vs ME-109 or even vs another P-51, so I would appreciate anything I can get my hands on.  It seems I have a lot to learn about this energy fighting thing.

Thanks!

buhdman, out

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Walt (buhdman) Barrow
(formerly lt-buhd-lite)
The Buccaneers - "Return with Honor"
home.earthlink.net/~wjbarrow

[dolomite]

Not taking anything away from your comments Vermillion, but that is a mighty big IF when you say:

 

...if you survive the first 3 seconds...

Tearing an aileron off a 51 does wonders to slow down its roll.   This is where the 109 acceleration wins the day. True, if the unwary LW pilot continues the dive, he dies, but that snapshot can't be passed up. As you say, pull out, follow level, and wait for the 51 to make a mistake. If he turns back into you he is in big trouble....