Sound tactics are universal. Whether applied in 1917 or 2007, it makes no difference. What Boelke laid out was and remains the framework for all air combat tactics to this day. If you read Shaw's, "Fighter Combat; Tactics and Manuevering", you'll see the exact same principles put forth, expounded upon and applied to modern air combat. Also, throughout that book are anecdotal accounts from all era's that re-iterate the exact same principles in vivid and practical detail.
The simple truth is, in cartoon combat as in real combat, dead pilots get no kills. Any tactics employed that keep your weapon involved in the overall protracted engagement is a good thing. Sometimes that means dis-engaging from a bad situation then re-engaging with an advantage, sometimes that means beating feet when things really get bad, sometimes that means securing a significant altitude advantage to offset numerical inferiority. But, the mindset is to consistantly exercise good tactics and allow yourself the chance to perform in combat to the maximum potential of both yourself and your chosen aircraft.
To ignore sound tactics and piss against the wind so to speak is pure folly. Sure, doing that could provide some sort of learning experience on occassion. But, for the most part the net result is simply you die and fail to realize the maximum potential value of yourself and your plane to the engagement.
There is the one immutable problem when equating Boelke's laws to our game. That is obviously that highly trained and experienced pilots in war are a precious and rare commodity. Of course, in the game, trained and experienced pilots are an infinite resource. So, the emphasis on the preservation of that resource is a non-factor in AH. But, this does not mean that there is no value in exercising sound tactics to keep yourself "alive" and an active participant in the engagement. If for no other reason than the time involved in getting yourself back to combat readiness after being re-planed causes you to temporarily be a non-factor in the fight.
In AH, during a protracted engagement between two fields, the value of good tactics exercised collectively becomes quite evident. If two teams meet between two fields with relatively equal numbers the side that inflicts the most causalties to the enemy while suffering the fewest of its own will tend to "push back" the fight toward the enemy field. If both sides kill and die at the same rate the "front" remains static. Sure, because we don't really die the total number of pilots involved never changes, but the relative E states of those planes will inevitably tip more and more in the favor of those that die less and against those that die more as they are forced to re-plane and re-aquire E. Not only that but the 'less effective' side will have less room to accumulate E prior to being engaged as they are pushed back closer and closer to their field. Therefore, good tactics ends up causing your team to be in a position to capture more bases in the end.
So, as you can see Boelke's tactics are just as relavent in cartoon air combat as the real thing, just for slightly different reasons due to cartoon pilot immortality...
