It takes just as much skill to fly turners, and be successful, as it does to fly a TnB plane and be successful.
Slappy, we've been through this debate before. So, if you reread my posts on this thread you will notice I consciously never made any allusions whatsoever that the purist version of either mode requires less or more skill than another. The reason this argument intrigues me is because if you look at the extreme of each style they are different philosophically and therefore require quite unique skill-sets, not more or less skill respectively, just different skills.
TnBing is a very physical exercise, mostly a function of reflexes and muscle memory where knowledge of your plane's idiosyncrasies and those of your single opponent and how to exploit both are tantamount. I have flown with and against the best sticks over the last 18 years, reviewed a lot of film and fought my share of turn-fights and know, for a fact, once you get latched onto someone it's really pretty simple mentally from that point on. Air combat is a lot like chess, for every move there is an ideal counter-move, identifying and executing it becomes largely instinctive with experience. If you watch a lot of film and good sticks, you will also notice they tend to rely on one specific maneuver that they have honed to a fine edge, they will use this maneuver repeatedly to gain the upper hand or reverse their fortunes, the move will sometimes vary by plane choice but it is always there. It doesn't leave much to the imagination, once you're in tight with someone of comparable skill your options get more and more limited, eventually devolving to the point of a tight, usually flat, turn assuming you've ended up on the deck which is usually the case..
The problem with this is in MA and in real life for the TnB combatants is, when two equally skilled pilots in very maneuverable planes are involved, it can be rather time consuming, in a multiple plane environment every second you spend on one foe is another saddling up on your 6 or taking a highspeed gun pass. That is the ultimate source of these diametrically opposed factions.
When flying a poor turner the entire premise of your flight philosophy will be to keep your options as open as possible at all times, affording yourself multiple choice decisions to make at every critical juncture of the engagement. In a very real sense, once you've flown yourself into the predicament of having only one decision or course of action you've failed in this regard. So, in essence, the successfull TnB'ers goal is to narrow the fight down to a point of only one option, turn with me or die trying. Conversely, the poor turner's goal is to keep as many options open as possible, using decision making at precisely the correct moment in time and space as the deciding factor, not the turn-rate of his aircraft...So, one method doesn't necessarily require more skill than another but strictly TnB'ing is, without a doubt, less complex, outcomes are based more so on physical attributes of the plane and pilot not so much the mental acuity of sound decision making.
In my opinion, a TnBer whining about a poorer turning plane using speed to engage and disengage at will is as rediculous as a poor turner whining that a Hurricane used a hard turn to avoid getting shot down by him.
