Originally posted by toonces3
I don't agree with most of what you said.
If you want to fight 1v1 then the late war MA probably isn't the best place for you.
Part of doing well in the late war MA, in my opinion, is knowing when to engage, and knowing when to disengage.
If you're only looking to fight till the death, then forget about the disengage part.
If you're looking to try and save your cartoon life, then I suggest you choose your fights wisely. There's no problem engaging at fair or uneven odds. However, if you're happily flying your 1v1 and you see the dar bar growing and growing, it's YOUR choice whether to stay or disengage. Hey, that' part of flying and fighting.
A skillfull disengagement can be every bit as satisfying as a hard fought 1v1, in my opinion.
I agree with this 100%. I recently just flew an entire camp flying nothing but slow turners, Fm2, F4F and some F6F (In LW arenas only) just to sharpen the 'ole knife. In those planes I prayed the guy would be dumb enough to turn with me, as opposed to when I'm in my Typhoon I pray the guy is dumb enough to try to run from me. No matter which type of plane or style of fightering though the real art or trick to being successful, by successfull I mean down as many aircraft as possible without getting yourself wacked, is exactly what toonces says. That is knowing when to get involved and how deeply invested Energy wise you do so. Then knowing the time to disengage and having the ability, SA and retained energy to actually do the disengaging.
This is something only gained by experience and is always a judgement call, no matter in which style or in which plane you fly. Fail to engage and disengage at the proper times and you either die or fail to kill, either of which means you were unsuccessful. It's a constant balancing act, you must weigh the concern of maximally inflicting casualties to the enemy and avoiding becoming one yourself, sometimes this dual faceted goal is even in diametric opposition adding to the tactical intrigue of it all.
Now if you're just a, dive into the swarm and flail around till you die type, it's not this nuanced, you just put as much lead into as many planes as you can before they finally chop you down...So, it's kind of like you're only playing half the game, from a fighter tactics point of view...
One of my sayings I coined many years ago is this, "Killing is fun, killing and getting away with it is pure ecstacy"
