Author Topic: HO clarification (Read 3999 times)

AutoPilot · « **Reply #30 on:** January 23, 2006, 05:58:45 PM »

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As a last resort you'd HO, but you wouldn't go looking for it

The museum that i volunteer at has an after flight pilot report stating that him and his squaddies were at 20-K in P-47's when they spotted a large group of 109's.Then he describes the forward deflection shot that himself and the german pilot took at each other.He then explains that he only had 2 guns left working and his K-14 gunsight no longer worked,he reversed then rolled over on too the 109's 6 and continued firing.He stated that he never saw a chute or anyone bailing.

The " Forward Deflection " shot was more common than you think,and this is just one Pilot's accounts of what happened.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #31 on:** January 23, 2006, 06:36:08 PM »

There are a few "proper" places for a HO.

While one does involve face-shooting, none involve planes. Lets keep things in perspective.

DoKGonZo · « **Reply #32 on:** January 23, 2006, 06:59:18 PM »

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Originally posted by fartwinkle
A better player would not get suckerd in by a newby going for an HO.
Remember it takes to nutts to fill a sac.

You don't always have a choice, like if you're already in a fight - which is what the HO-dweebs are counting on.

NoBaddy · « **Reply #33 on:** January 23, 2006, 07:04:02 PM »

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Originally posted by JMFJ

ICU2- The guys flying for rank & prestige are the main complainers...

I would tend to disagree with this statement. Players from all strata of the game complain.

The only problem I have is with the dyed in the wool Ho Monkeys. These are the guys that are under the mistaken impression that Ho's are all that planes like the Fw, P51 and 109 are capable of. These folks are simply sad, because they never take a chance or the time to work for a 6 shot. These are the only guys I give grief to.

As for the general ease of the headon shot...I believe that its over use stems from the fact that dying is of little consequence. Stop and think about it....would anyone really want to play Chicken at mach 1.2? You would need to have a death wish.

SlapShot · « **Reply #34 on:** January 23, 2006, 07:06:04 PM »

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Originally posted by Guppy35
Here's the danger in using the history as justification.

It WAS life and death for those guys. As a last resort you'd HO, but you wouldn't go looking for it. Make a slip and your life is over.

At no time in AH is anyone really dying so it doesn't take the same kind of, for lack of a better word, courage to take the risk that you'd miss, collide, etc.

If we die to a HO, we get a brand new plane and a brand new life in the game.

It just isn't the same thing.

Way to much sense going on in this post ... please edit it for content.

SKJohn · « **Reply #35 on:** January 23, 2006, 10:03:53 PM »

The main reason that people complain about "HO"ing is because way back in the good 'ole Air Warrior days, the game was fixed so that a HO had a low to non-existant chance of sucess. Most people did not HO because it was a waste of time.
THen, when AW folded and the old sticks came here, and found that people could HO them and kill them, they started complaining and haven't shut up since.
Then, as the new players come and learn, and see the older players complaining about HO's, they think that's part of the culture and adopt the "anti-HO" attitude 'cuz that's what the vets are saying.
This of course, flies in the face of the obvious fact that the HO wa a valid tactic that was used in WWII. All of these cries for "more realism" are ao phony when they cry because they were realisticallly shot down with a valid and often used WWII a/c tactic.
So, in summary, people complain about HO's because they have been taught to complain about HO's. THere is nothing ing the rules against them, they were used quite regularlly in WWII, and there is no reason to not use them in AH.
As someone stated above, if an enemy a/c is in my sights, I fire - simple as that.

DoKGonZo · « **Reply #36 on:** January 23, 2006, 10:28:57 PM »

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Originally posted by JMFJ
... The guys flying for rank & prestige are the main complainers, In a way they are valid complaints. ...

Puh-leaze.

If you read through this forum regularly, you'll see that most of the frequent contributors are the ones who outright say they don't care about their rank or their perks. They are looking out for the good of the game as a whole. That's the way it's always been. Hell, that's kind of how HT started WarBirds.

Easy HO kills have been a problem in these games for almost two decades. The only positive aspect they add is to allow n00bs to get kills their first day.

Mace2004 · « **Reply #37 on:** January 23, 2006, 10:32:04 PM »

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Originally posted by JAWS2003
This is from Luther's Soviet fighter tactics in 1942

FW-190 will attempt to close with our fighters hoping to get behind them and attack suddenly. If that maneuver is unsuccessful they will even attack head-on relying on their superb firepower .

OK, a couple of thoughts about this.

First, define "head-on". Any forward quarter attack can be considered "head-on" but zero degrees of aspect i.e., both aircraft on exactly the same flight path headed toward each other is suicide. No pilot in his right mind would maneuver intentionally to this position and maintain it to the merge although it can and does happen unintentionally. Even if he's successful in killing the other fighter physics is physics and he will be fragged by the debris which don't stop just because they're no longer part of the same structure. Instead, you have a lot of aluminum, steel and human remains "bullets" flying in close formation with a total closure speed of 800 kts. If both fighters miss you still have an extremely high probability of a collision as you have no idea if he's going to push, pull or roll at the last second (remember again that total closure may be upwards of 800 kts). The probability of a collision is so high that US fighter training ROE requires pilots to maneuver to pass left to left (to be predictable) and call out the direction of the pass if they're on the same frequency. Same for passing high or low. Before anyone says "yeah, but jets have even more closure" the ROE applies regardless of your speed. Also, I'm not saying that in wartime pilots won't fly at the edge of the smartness envelope but you would never HO till you merge any more than you'd intentionally dive into a tank to strafe it. Bottom line is that when you see legitimate documentation about "head-on" tactics they're really talking about any forward quarter approach EXCEPT 0 aspect and assume you're not trying to ram and will break away BEFORE you see the whites of their eyes. If you read anything different they're using a lot of hyperbole and drama like Yeager does when he claims to be able to see enemy fighters 50 miles away.

Regarding the Spit V tactic, they're talking about turning into the adversary to make a neutral merge, i.e., with neither aircraft having angles and denying the adversary separation. At best, the Spit with it's superior turn, may even be able to early turn the 190. At worse, the minimal separation may allow a forward quarter shot by the 190 but neither would boresight the other till the merge as you see in AH.

This is the "gaming" part of AH...not those passes that are forward quarter with some aspect or the unintentional "hey he just showed up right on my nose" but those players that boresight the other aircraft and hold the trigger down hoping the target breaks away giving him angles or blows up leaving nothing but a smoke cloud before they hit. I believe this is the "HO" that most gripe about. Just tonight, several guys were complaining about a HOing 190 (who would have thought it!!!) and I had him try it to me two or three times and on each pass he just kept his pipper on me and he missed only due to my maneuvers (plus I was in a Hurri which can take a lot of hits). Eventually I'd had enough so boresighted him on the next pass and held the trigger down to see what he would do He kept coming and made absolutely no attempt to avoid. He took a bunch of hits (as did I) and we collided (OK, guess that makes me a one-day-HO-dweeb but I got the kill). This, at least to me, is proof that he was doing exactly what I thought. Yesterday a certain 109 "pilot" got pissed I downed him, immediately uped another and headed straight in for the ram. I looked at the film and it appears that he didn't even pull the trigger.

You will not find a HO WITH NO ATTEMPT TO AVOID part of any fighter pilot's training.

Mace

fartwinkle · « **Reply #38 on:** January 23, 2006, 10:43:25 PM »

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Originally posted by DoKGonZo
You don't always have a choice, like if you're already in a fight - which is what the HO-dweebs are counting on.

Bullcrap turn the plane ,dive the plane or climb there are any number of ways to avoid it.

People cry about it because they have tried it over and over and come out on the short end of the stick.

Mace2004 · « **Reply #39 on:** January 23, 2006, 11:07:02 PM »

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Originally posted by fartwinkle
Bullcrap turn the plane ,dive the plane or climb there are any number of ways to avoid it.

People cry about it because they have tried it over and over and come out on the short end of the stick.

Hardly. He was talking about being in a fight and you could very well be too slow to maneuver and/or caught between a rock and a hard place with the only choices being to accept the HO or roll out and have the guy on your tail hose you.

People probably do "cry about it" more than they should, especially when it's inadvertant or really just a forward quarter attack but the head-on-till-they-hit-dweebs are out there.

Mace

DoKGonZo · « **Reply #40 on:** January 24, 2006, 12:33:15 AM »

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Originally posted by fartwinkle
Bullcrap turn the plane ,dive the plane or climb there are any number of ways to avoid it.

People cry about it because they have tried it over and over and come out on the short end of the stick.

You either have no clue what you are talking about or are a troll.

Or both.

bagrat · « **Reply #41 on:** January 24, 2006, 12:38:49 AM »

the reason people go head on is not always because one of the two intends on a headon, but because it is a game of chicken, the first person to break has given up the attack position and is now forced to evade the others maneuvers. no one wants to be the "chased".

RTSigma · « **Reply #42 on:** January 24, 2006, 02:26:23 AM »

Listen, people will ALWAYS complain about HO's. People will always complain about P-51's running away, people will always complain about the Spit's turn on a dime ability, people will always complain about someone shooting at long distance, people will always complain about the FM, DM, graphics, controls, tactics, strategy, base cap, bombers, bombers guns, bombers alt, alt, lack of alt, carriers, carriers guns, CV waypoints, trees, trees near fields, trees that are "1k high" trees that are solid, trees that aren't, bushes, hard bushes, small bushes, vulchers, hanger-droppers, ord killers, Tempest pilots, fuel burn, flaps, flaps on American planes, flaps on the 109, flaps on flaps, guncam films, ah guncam films, rubber bullets, lag, ping, netcode, rails, convergence settings, ditches, crashes, landing, text buffer, kill buffer, swearing, sportsmanship, smoke, frame rates, fires, alt monkeys, deck drivers, the MOILs, Tigers, Panzers, no Sherman, bouncing tanks, tank damage, and so on...

Its a never-ending war that no one will ever win because its pointless.

On topic, HO'ing is a way to shoot someone down. If you were in my sights, regardless of you coming to me, away, over, under, or I'm doing the same, then I'm going to pull the trigger. I won't spray, I'm usually in a 109 so hard-hitting ammo isn't plenty.

Theres no rewind button, you can't go back and start over. If you got shot down, then just re-up and fly.

Tilt · « **Reply #43 on:** January 24, 2006, 07:28:34 AM »

I still advocate it takes two to HO............

I dont hold with the "low e victim" theory.......

In fact its my experience that the low e victim is invariably the one to "offer" the head on as a manouvre of last resort to balance e or chance the exchange.

It is possible that SA is challenged in a furball and that a HO has been established "accidentally" but it still takes two to hold the 180 degree merge even if only one is guns ablazing.............

That is the only HO IMO

The rest are snap shots taken as merge angles briefly cross........... some are "clever" some are "foolish" some are miss timed deflection shots...its a fine line IMO but they are not HO's.

WMLute · « **Reply #44 on:** January 24, 2006, 08:03:39 AM »

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Originally posted by bagrat
the reason people go head on is not always because one of the two intends on a headon, but because it is a game of chicken, the first person to break has given up the attack position and is now forced to evade the others maneuvers. no one wants to be the "chased".

(cough) lead turn (cough)

here is what I hate/love.

It's the pilot that points his nose at everything in the sky spraying away, and making no attempt to do anything but face shoot. They just fly around, point their nose, shoot, and keep on trucking. I hate it when I can't catch them due to them being in a much faster ride. I LOVE it when I DO catch them, because I tend to fire a few rounds over their cockpit to get their attention, then watch as they flounder around with absolutely no idea what the heck to do. For some reason I get a kick out of that, and I tend to draw it out some.

Head on's are desperation moves. A forward quarter shot isn't a head on. What you read @ WW2 pilots taking forward quarter shots are valid attacks. Pointing your nose at the nme's nose spraying away wasn't. No pilot in their right mind would give an nme that large of a chance to kill them, which is what a HO/Joust is. It's also why many of the "vet's" don't like them. Why risk damage to my plane, let alone death? It's an easy shot to make, as Dok pointed out, but it's also just as easy to get hit. When I take off, I plan on landing, and letting some pilot with no clue how to fight face spray me and preventing it is not in the cards typically. I don't mind getting beat. I DO mind getting face shot by some 1 trick noob that is clueless. (fyi I almost never get ho'd. Maybe 3-4 times a tour tops do I get damaged from one)