Beating the barrel roll defense

[Noah17]

So many posts have written about performing the barrel roll defense it seems to me that there are a lot more people that can do it well.

So, my question is when you come across someone that can really do it well they can almost defend against you all day until you have bled your E or, friends show up to help them. I got in to a great fight 1 vs. 1 the other day against a Spit 8 (me in my usual F4U-1A). No joke this went almost 20 minutes and the Spit 8 guy was doing a hec of a job. He never rolled in the same direction, he alternated a barrel roll with a split S but; continued to climb back up to his original altitude and almost exactly the same speed after the split S. The result being that I gained nothing on him.

I would B n Z him starting from approximately 2 -2.5 above him. Normally I would TRY to roll straight down on top of him from slightly ahead of his flight path to eliminate his turning ability with my rolling ability. But, he was almost always able to keep me slightly offset and above. The end result was that I would come in more at a 45 - 60 degree angle thus making his maneuvers a little easier for him to evade me.

Eventually I ran out of WEP and he got on my tail. We were at about 5k and he chased me down to the deck. I was able to shake him with some violent maneuvers but he had gotten a couple of shots in. I don't know if there is an easy answer here. I did a quick search on the BBS and all the posts were about performing the Barrel Roll Defense, not beating someone that  performs it well.

Thanks for your help.
 

[Dawger]

If by beat it you mean get a good tracking shot then you would have to commit to an angles fight in the match up you describe (Corsair versus Spit 8)

The simplest way to beat it is to go find someone easier to kill. The Spit 8 is attempting to make you fight his fight.


The initial move by the bandit as you begin your attack is going to be some sort of break turn. If it is a violent turn when you are still well out of guns range then chances are you are facing a neophyte just trying to point the guns. If the bandit starts a gentle energy conserving turn  then you might be up against someone that knows what he is doing. He is trying to draw you in. If you grab the bait and press for lead pursuit and a guns pass it is a fairly simple matter to defend  your high angle guns pass and execute a nose high lag roll into your rear quarter.

Instead of pressing for the shot drive to his turn circle. This is classic lead-pure- lag pursuit transition to get you on the bandit's turn circle. You start in lead pursuit to gain closure with the bandit. As you close on the bandit you will transition to pure then lag pursuit as you arrive on the bandit turn circle. This transition may take a few seconds or much longer depending on the closure rate. Once you arrive on the bandit's turn circle in lag pursuit the bandit determines your next move. If he is wrapping hard in a full blown minimum radius turn your only choice (if you are staying on offense) is to go nose high into a high yo yo. The yo yo is not a radical maneuver. A little less bank and let the nose come up above the horizon. Once the nose is above the horizon (how high is dependent on relative energy states and how hard the bandit is turning) you are going to place your lift vector in front of the bandit's nose and pull. This will put you in the saddle until the bandit get wise and decides to counter it.

In summary, the best counter to barrel roll defense is to not let the bandit draw you into a position that allows him to use it effectively. Don't go for the high angles guns pass if you intend on staying in the fight. If you want to make a guns pass and extend out of the fight that's fine but it is not an effective opening strategy (unless you kill him in that first pass) for an extended fight with a bandit who wants to get you into an angles fight.

[RTHolmes]

sounds like a fun fight also sounds like u were doing the right thing - lag displacement/yoyos to maintain E and make angles. perhaps close up the fight a bit more and be more aggressive?

If you're zooming back 2-2.5k away each time thats giving the spit plenty of time to build a little E and reset for the next attack. the closer in you keep it the less options he has. I like to imagine the other guy is flying inside a large box, the idea is to keep cutting him off so the box he has to fly in gets smaller and smaller. its basically keeping the pressure on him constantly until he runs out of options. if hes got BRDs nailed I'd feint the initial attack then commit one way or the other for when he comes out of the BRD, then you got a 50/50 chance of a shot depending on which way he goes.

[Steve]

I would B n Z him starting from approximately 2 -2.5 above him. Normally I would TRY to roll straight down on top of him from slightly ahead of his flight path to eliminate his turning ability with my rolling ability. But, he was almost always able to keep me slightly offset and above. The end result was that I would come in more at a 45 - 60 degree angle thus making his maneuvers a little easier for him to evade me.

 

2.0 - 2.5 is too far away. At this distance, he has ample time to gauge your angle and attitude and evade accordingly.   Stay 1.0 to 2.0(at most). If he tries to nose up at you, convert to rope.  At the correct distance, and in a hog, you really have the fight in hand. As you nose over to make your pass, he has less time to effect a time consuming evasive.(barrel rolls have to be started a little earlier than a simple break).  also at this closer distance, since you are in a hog, you have the option of getting your plane dirty and staying behind him. Nothing slows down like a hog.  

If you are using WEP to keep your E advantage, you need to work on this. With an E  advantage to start, you should be able to "beat" your target down at your leisure, without WEP.

[TequilaChaser]

Steve (and others who mentioned it ), are correct in telling you to shorten your extending range, as you progress you want to shrink your extending to keep that pressure on, eventually he/she will not have room to evdade your attack........

As Dawger said, for the most part you want to fly in "Lag Pursuit" mode when you have the energy advantage so you can enter the "Turn Circle Window" with the correct geometry needed to follow your opponent....... using Lead or Pure will throw you off and actually help the Defender thwart your attacks and cause you to be on the wrong side of the fight ( wrong side meaning infront of his 3/9 line )

A film of this fight would be nice, because you say you are diving on him, and he is using a barrel roll or a split S...... this is throwing my mental picture a skew, because prob 99% of the time when a Defender is using a barrel roll defense , the attacker is coming in from a high 4/5/6/7/8 oclock position to near horizontal / dead level 4/5/6/7/8 oclock position......

As Badboy had wrote in his "Teaching Aid" Thread
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,173151.0.html

if you are one who flys Pure or Lead Pursuit, you are infact using what people call "GunSight BFM"........ and flying toward the front of your defending opponent or right at them and once there will have to pull excessive amount of G's to try and obtain a shot....most times this will prob make one blackout going for such a shot..... and end up on the wrong side of your opponent's 3-9 line ( infront of his 3-9 line )

When wanting to counter/beat a person using this Barrel Roll Defense Technique, you must move your thought process back to the beginning of the attack and make a solid decision on 1 of 2 things:

1 - do I want to stay the energy Fighter and keep the E-Advantage and use a Hi-Yoyo or zoom Climb to stay on top of my defender and keep attacking from my perch.......???? or

2 - do I feel confident enough that I can trade my E Advantage for an angles Advantage and switch to the angles Fight ( Turn Fight ) all the while maintaining a "Behind the 3-9 Line" position of the Defender???

it is up to you to know which option will better suit you for your plane maneuvering abilitys, and also to take in to account if their are more than just this one bogey in the area???

back to Badboy's article (linked to above ): He shows how one should go about employing the Barrel Roll Defense, but further down he offers suggestions on what one should do to counter a person who uses a barrel Roll Defense

hope this helps

[Noah17]

A film of this fight would be nice, because you say you are diving on him, and he is using a barrel roll or a split S...... this is throwing my mental picture a skew, because prob 99% of the time when a Defender is using a barrel roll defense , the attacker is coming in from a high 4/5/6/7/8 oclock position to near horizontal / dead level 4/5/6/7/8 oclock position......

If I was about 2.0 above him and slightly ahead of him when I would dive he would split S and then roll. We were 5-6k and he would have more time to extend the chase (can you do a downward barrel roll?) I would pick up a lot of speed being I was in the Hog and pull up or auger.

A lot of time as I zoomed he would extend and be farther away than I expected. I would start my dive again and come in from the rear quarter as you said. This is when he would barrel roll.

[TequilaChaser]

If I was about 2.0 above him and slightly ahead of him when I would dive he would split S and then roll. We were 5-6k and he would have more time to extend the chase (can you do a downward barrel roll?) I would pick up a lot of speed being I was in the Hog and pull up or auger.

A lot of time as I zoomed he would extend and be farther away than I expected. I would start my dive again and come in from the rear quarter as you said. This is when he would barrel roll.

Hey Noah,  that downward barrel roll? is more of a Defensive Spiral Dive, when you do a defensive spiral dive, the idea is to keep it tight and reduce throttle very quickly, maybe even drop flaps if your plane has maneuvering flaps and watch for the attacker to pass outside your spiral passing your 3-9 line NOTE- he is faster so his spiraling/turning is a wider radius hence he/she should be outside of your turn/spiral, once you see him passing your 3-9 line, you immediately go WOT/(WEP even ) bring in the flaps and pursue him if ya don't get him on a lucky crossing shot 1st....

defensive spiral dives are fun to use when in the F6f or F4U and you have planes trying to BnZ you or attack you from a superior alt....... you want to perform it quickly to not give them enough time to react to what you have done... they most times will be passing you up saying "uhoh" ..."I done blew it" or whatever those people say  

hope this is of help

[Noah17]

I've tried the dive with someone on my 6 trying to use all the tools the F4U has to get slow: chopping throttle, gear out, fishtailing rudder. I've never tried the spiral dive as you've described it. Sounds like a great way to get the overshoot from a fast diving attacker but not lose too much speed.

Thanks!

[Steve]

I watched that film TC... lol     awesome execution.

[ACE]

good film



-Spektor

[Big Rat]

Noah17,

One thing to keep in mind when diving on an opponent and he pulls into a spit S.  When he first starts to pull that move downward, he normally will lose sight for a moment until he can pick you up in his up view, at which point they will try to use a barrel roll defence to get you to overshoot. This is if you did what he wanted and you followed him with a superior E state on your end.  The counter is relatively simple.  When he split S's and you had a lot more E then he did, simply immelman in the same direction he spit S in.  You are now even higher above him and probably sitting almost over the top of him.  Now he has even less potential E from altitude.  You can simply repeat this action as long as he keeps split S'ing. Eventually he runs out of alt in order to pull E from and you can kill at your leisure from a superior E position above.  If he tries to go offensive after Split S'ing and you immelman'd he's got an uphill fight, that makes for an easy rope on your end.  

The funny thing is I normally teach a Split S into a barrel roll defence and most students are in awe of how fast I'm now on their six.  Then I show them how to counter it and realize how simple it was to counter, by simply being a bit patient.  Remember greed is more often going to kill you then your opponent

 
BigRat    

[Soulyss]

Noah17,


The funny thing is I normally teach a Split S into a barrel roll defence and most students are in awe of how fast I'm now on their six.  Then I show them how to counter it and realize how simple it was to counter, by simply being a bit patient.  Remember greed is more often going to kill you then your opponent

 
BigRat    

Aint that the truth, I remember just being dumbfounded at some of the video's that were posted by people showing reversals into snap shot kills then I realized that there's actually two things happening if you're the defender.  First you have to defeat the initial attack this is something you have a lot of control over, to turn that into a reversal and a kill however requires a good deal of cooperation from the other guy.

[Noah17]

Thanks BigRat!

You're always a big help. Most of the time I would not follow him, I'd zoom instead(I remember u kicking my A_ _ in the T/A every time I followed u in a Split S lol). I was amazed at how this guy was able to get almost right back to the same alt. and speed as when I started my dive. I thought after I pulled up that If I pulled hard in to an immelman that I might end up nose to nose facing his 20mm's.  In addition to this I was hoping that he might try to follow me up so that I could set up "the rope" but, he didn't so i'd reset for another dive. I'm sure everyone that has posted here is correct that I should not have zoomed so much and not have pulled back up to my 2.0 distance above him.

I know this will sound a little funny but I'm probably not alone in that I'm used to B-n-Z'ing at my leisure. Not being in the game that long I'll play it careful, take my time and set up over a con with not many bad guys around. This way I don't have to worry about getting shot in the back. But maybe this has kept me from learning when to push the advantage rather then waiting for the guy to make an obvious mistake.

I started using and mostly having success with the dive from 2.0 if I could remember to be properly positioned above the con. I learned how to do this from an appendix in the back of "The First Team" by John Lundstrom. This appendix is a copy of WWII Navy training manual. It's a "Must Read" if you like early war PTO. It is really all about the B-n-Z using the F4F as an example.....Any way I guess if you're up against a really good stick you have to adapt. This guy sure did.

 

[Big Rat]

Noah17,

A lot of the trick, to go along with what I said earlier, is to be able to judge your oppeonents E state.  Now the hard part is trying to figure out his E state after he pulls that split S.  The easier part to figure out was how fast was he when you dove in.  This you can figure by your closure rate when you dove in.  Now when you dive in on him and you know he's a good stick (just assume they are is the safest bet), look at your closure rate.  If it's real fast the more aggressive you can be, the slower (he's got a lot of E), the more carefull you should be.  On a con that I'm diving on is low on E and pulls into a split S, I'll immelman his same direction, and he'll hopefullly seeing me 2 k directly above him will try to go for a nose on shot straight up.  Now when I pull an immelman over someone split S'ing the one thing I'm keeping in mind is how much speed do I need to keep to stay manueverable.  I'll try to keep myelf around 200mph at the end of the immelman which is plenty for a hog to do just about any move I need.  Remember you are in no danger when you start this fight and have the energy to disengage if needed after your immelman if you did it right. Now back to the low con trying to get a guns solution.  Think how hard it is to try and shoot a circling aircraft while trying to climb straight up at him, very tough.  So I simply start a flat turn above them if they want to try a verticle suicide run at me.  Not only am I know circling around to their backside while above them but I'm forcing them to turn a plane low on E trying to get a guns solution straight up on a plane with a low aspect ratio.  They can't do it very long .  Obviously I'm now in the drivers seat to kill the stalling plane as soon as it falls over.   Now on a high E con you have to play a bit safer, and wear them down. The trick is to maintain some pressure without losing your E advantage.  When you dive in and he split S's, take your immelman easy, maintain as much speed as possible.  Keep yourself in a position that you are always an immediate threat, and keep the fight above their altitude (always make them fight up). I'll wright some more later, have to go out to breakfast .

 
BigRat

[Noah17]

Jeez.... The flat circle on the "nose up" con......So simple... why the hec didn't I think of it that way. I'm usually worried about them getting in a good shot but you're right that's pretty hard.
Nice!