The ultimate dogfighter's help thread!

[Latrobe]

I've had a few people ask me to write a book on dogfighting ( you silly people think I can write a book!) or something along those lines, and the tips I've posted before in this forum seem to be pretty popular so I thought I'd combine the two. In this thread I'm just going to post all my thoughts, tips, and things that worked for me over the years of flying in this game. I don't want this to be just me rambling my head off though as I may be wrong in some points. If you have some tips or thoughts that might benefit the community of Aces High 2 and help others improve their game or found that I am wrong on something then feel free to post it here! If you have any questions regarding dogfighting or ACM in general then feel free to ask. There are no stupid questions in this thread, only helpful information! I hope to be learning just as much from this thread as a free 2 week player will be!  

So to start things off, I will very much be jumping all over the place from one topic to another as this thread goes on but here goes.

To start learning how to fight you'll need to obviously pick a plane. A lot of people say to fly the Spitfire when you're first learning and that is a good starter plane to choose! It's pretty decent at everything and is a very forgiving aircraft. The first plane you should fly should be something you feel comfortable in though, something that suites your flying style. Do you like the TnB knife fights? Try out the A6M's, or Ki's, or Spitfire's. Do you like the BnZ energy fighting? Try out the P-51's, the 190's, the P-47's. Try out all the planes until you find one you really like. Now fly that plane non-stop! Take it to bases your country is attacking. Take it to defend a base. Use it to escort bomber missions. There's bound to be lots of planes coming to intercept those bombers. The key though is to fight! FIGHT FIGHT and FIGHT! Throw the option of running to preserve your life out the window and fight everything to the death! 1 on 1 against a spitfire? Fight it until someone dies. 3 on 1 against 3 P-51? Fight them to the death! No matter the odds, no matter the situtation, throw yourself into the fight and fight until you run out of airplane parts or everything else is dead. Yes, you will die... A LOT! But so does everyone else when they first start. No one has ever walked into a dogfight with no knowledge of aerial combat and became an Ace instantly. Heck! I spent 2 whole tours in the 109F4 trying to learn it, and I must have racked up over 2,000 deaths! In 2 months!! (No that is not a lie, that actually happened ) But now I know that plane inside and out. I know how well it turns, how fast it is, how well it can climb, how slow it can get, and how far I can push its performance envelope. That's what you must aim for as well! Learn your plane inside and out until you know more about it than anyone else. Now that you know all of it's strengths and weaknesses (and probably the strengths and weaknesses of most other aircraft from fighting them all the time) it's time to put that knowledge to use and start living more and killing more!

First, I'm going to share some thoughts on dogfighting. Many will say that "speed is life" and this is absolutely true. Without speed you can not maneuver and you will die. However, the other part to this saying that I like to stick onto it is "altitude dictates the fight". If you have the altitude advantage then even if your opponent is in a superior climbing plane, then you still dictate the fight. You get to choose when to start the fight and where to start it. Your opponent, even in a superior climbing aircraft, has to use his speed climbing up to you. This will make him slow, and as we know, speed is life. A slow plane has fewer options to choose from than a fast plane.

Now remember that even though you have the altitude advantage, you are not immune to everything. There are a few problems you have to consider. The most immediate is being TOO high. Yes, there is such a thing as having too much altutude. When you dive on your opponent you obviously build up speed. Speed is an advantage you can use but a good pilot can use that advantage against you. If you have too much altitude, lets say you're at 15K in a P-51D and you dive on a Spitfire Mk 16 at 5K. You are going to build up a LOT of speed in that dive, easily over 550 MPH. Now, a P-51D may handle pretty well at high speeds, but they don't exactly have the tightest turning circle at high speeds. The Spitfire 16 will be cruising around at a decent speed of 250-350 MPH most likely. A Spitfire 16 at those speeds easily has a tighter turning circle than a P-51D at 500+ MPH, so he can easily turn inside your attack and avoid you. My general rule of thumb is most everything that is over 10K above me is almost no threat to me as they will build up too much speed in their dive and I can very easily avoid them. Anything that is just 5K above me or lower is a much bigger threat because they have the altitude to convert into speed, but not so much that I can easly use their speed against them.

The other problem with holding the altitude advantage is when you come up against someone who is in a superior climbing aircraft, or multiple targets. With the altitude advantage in these situations you get to decided when and where to start the fight but you are on a time limit. Eventually the superior climbing aircraft is going to climb to your altitude and neutralize that advantage you have, or even gain it himself. In a multi-con engagement they can climb out in seperate directions, and even if they're in planes that have a worse climb rate than yours then eventually one or more of them is going to get to your altitude while you're engaging the other(s). You have to make your move sooner rather than later in these situations in order to keep your opponent(s) from getting to your altitude.

Dogfights are NEVER set in stone. They are ever changing with every single milisecond! From  1 milisecond to the next the speeds, positioning, and altitude of BOTH planes in the fight can change drastically. This, I think, is something a lot of people don't yet understand, and something they must learn first and foremost. When you make a simple left flat turn there is a lot more things happening than just the turn. You're using up speed to make the turn making you slower, you're changing the angle drastically with each passing milisecond (Angles explanation can be found here http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,360317.0.html ), and you are leading into your next maneuver whatever that may be depending on the current situation. If you go into a fight thinking that you will do this and then that to win the fight, then you're only going to win maybe 1/5th of your fights because those moves only work in a certain situation. The other situations you will find yourself in those moves will probably not work and you will find yourself in a very bad situation or shot down. Go into a fight knowing the strengths and weaknesses of both aircraft. Realize what you must do in order to win the fight that is currently presented to you, but always keep a plane B and C in mind. Do not stick to just one plan of attack. If that plan fails then abandon it and adapt to the situation.

[Latrobe]

BnZ (Boom and Zooming) fighting: This form of fighting, in my opinion, is much easier to fight than TnB'ing. This form of fighting involves using your superior energy against your enemy and keeping an altitude advantage. Planes like the P-47, P-51, and 190's are great at this form of dogfighting because of the speed they build up in the dive and their zoom climbing ablity. Planes like the 109's and P-38 are also pretty good at this form of fighting because of their great climb rate but these two planes in particular suffer from some bad compressability problems at the speeds you will build up in the dive, so you'll have to keep this in mind when flying these planes. Now, how do we fight in the BnZ fight? It's quite simple really. First and foremost you must have the altitude advantage as this leads to the "booming" part of BnZ. With that altitude advantage you need to position yourself in the most advantageous postion you can get. This means getting into a spot where you can drop down onto your opponents 6 oclock position or close to that. Do not just dive immediately at the first target you see below you. Have some patience and set up for the best shot you can get. An attack from the rear has the best chance of success and I'll explain why a little later on. Now that you have remembered not to have TOO much altitude and have attacked your opponent from his rear, one of two things most likely happened. Either you have successfully scored some hits on him and killed him, or he surived the attack or avoided it all together. Now comes the Zooming part of BnZ fighting. You have built up excessive amounts of speed in your dive. Far more than your opponent has since he's just been maneuvering to avoid you and burning speed. Now use that excessive speed advantage and convert it into altitude. There is no way you opponent will be able to climb with you if you played the BnZ correctly. Whatever you do do NOT, I seriously mean this do NOT NOT NOT NOT, try to dive away from your opponent. All this does is give up that altitude advantage you had, exposes you 6 oclock to your opponent, and puts you in a VERY bad situation. You had the altitude advantage, you converted that into a speed advantage. Now USE that speed advantage and out climb your opponent to gain the altitude advantage again!

TnB (Turn and Burning) fighting: This is the other form of dogfighting and the more difficult of the two to master in my opinion. This form of fight has to take into consideration not only the energy states and positioning of both planes like in BnZ fighting, but also more depth things like the angles, and strengths and weaknesses of both planes (which you also have to consider in BnZ fighting but even more in depth in TnB fighting). As best as I have ever heard TnB fights described, it's a knife fight in a phone booth. One mistake and you are not exactly screwed but you are in a very VERY bad situation and must react immediately and correctly in order to survive. Honestly I don't even know where to start with this and TnB fighting is my preferred form of fighting! There are so many different variables that you must consider that are constantly changing with each passing milisecond, so I'm probably going to be all over the place here. First off, angles as I linked above (here> http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,360317.0.html ). This is probably one of the most important things about TnB fighting is learning to work the angles to your advantage. Believe it or not a P-47 can win a TnB fight against a Spitfire if the P-47 pilot uses the angles better than the Spitfire pilot. I'll skip over this for now since I think I explained it pretty well in the link above but if you still have questions about angles then feel free to ask! The other big thing you must consider in a TnB fight is the E state and strengths and weaknesses of both aircrafts. This can be very overwhelming as there are a ton of different possible fights you can get into: P-47 vs P-38, Spitfire 9 vs Yak9U, A6M3 vs Ki84.... the possible fights are as many planes are in the game! Learning what both planes are capable of can only come from fighting in or against that plane and just learning it yourself. Someone can tell you a 109K4 is an excellent climbing plane with great speed but until you fight in it or against it for yourself you will never know for sure just how good it is.

The strengths and weaknesses of both planes, in all forms of combat, is very much the key to winning in a fight. If you are in a 109K4 and you get into a TnB kind of fight against a P-47D-40 then you have the advantage of having a better climbing rate while the P-47D-40 has a better diving ability. Use that climbing advantage and take the fight into the vertical where you can out climb the Jug and eventually gain the altitude advantage or kill him while he stalls out (Remember, altitude dictates the fight!). Or if you are the P-47D-40, realize that the K4 has a better climb rate than you and don't even try to climb with him if you feel you won't make the climb. Level off, keep you speed (speed is LIFE!), wait for him to make the first move and then reverse him and gain the advantage.




I'm sorry for the wall of text to start off with. Pictures and stuff will follow as questions are asked or I think of more things to add here.  

[Arlo]

Apparently you can write a book. Whenya gonna dump the Mups and join the JRs? 

[Latrobe]

Apparently you can write a book. Whenya gonna dump the Mups and join the JRs? 

Not very likely. I like the Muppets but I'll fly some missions with you guys. 





Some stuff on lift vectors to follow soon! 

[Raven3]

Very timely for us Newbies. Thanks a bunch!!!

[Gman]

I'd like to see you write your take on aggression and situational awareness, and how to best combine both of those while applying the other "book learning" ACM stuff like managing energy and vectors and such.

edit - 1500th post, hurray!  Couldn't be in a nicer guy's thread.  I won't write my own opinions, Latrobe asked for questions so he can write his, and I think my question is a great one for any a2a focused pilot in this game.

[Arlo]

Not very likely. I like the Muppets but I'll fly some missions with you guys. 





Some stuff on lift vectors to follow soon! 

I'll settle for that (as I'm sure the rest of the guys would). 

[CeeEff]

Good stuff Latrobe, maybe after another year or two of getting it pounded into my head (by 50 cal, 20 mm etc.) I will finally get it.

[BnZs]

BnZ (Boom and Zooming) fighting: This form of fighting, in my opinion, is much easier to fight than TnB'ing.

In general, I find fights against Spit16s FAR simpler (and less demanding of excellent gunnery) when flying an Fm2 than when flying a Mustang, especially when one does not have an advantage over the Spit. But this is a mere quibble. You're awesome Lat, questions forthcoming as soon as I can formulate them clearly.

[Latrobe]

I'd like to see you write your take on aggression and situational awareness, and how to best combine both of those while applying the other "book learning" ACM stuff like managing energy and vectors and such.

edit - 1500th post, hurray!  Couldn't be in a nicer guy's thread.  I won't write my own opinions, Latrobe asked for questions so he can write his, and I think my question is a great one for any a2a focused pilot in this game.

This video is the best write up I can possibly do on that kind of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4vngMd2XCU

For me, personally, I am ALWAYS aggressive. Definitely not a good thing as there are moments where you need to be more passive and wait things out a bit which is probably why I get myself killed a lot, but I just can't help myself. I love throwing myself into a fight with no regard to my own personal safety.  

When it's one on one, my idea is to always be aggressive. Fight the fight that is most advantageous to you as aggressively as possible and try to kill them as quick, but smoothly, as possible. It's important that all of your moves flow into one another very fluidly so to conserve as much energy as possible. As an example, if I'm in a 109 and I'm fighting a P-51 who has the altitude advantage on me then I'll be passive and wait for him to make a move. Then once he makes a move I become aggressive on him and most likely perform a break turn into a Barrel Roll Defense and stay aggressive on the overshoot until he gets out of effective gun range. The key is that I time the break turn to BRD as perfectly as possible so it's very smooth as if it's one whole maneuver. Then once I no longer have effective shots on him I become passive again and try to work away at his altitude advantage while waiting for him to make another attack. Then I'll go aggressive again. I'm pretty sure I have some good films of me doing this so I'll take a look in my film folder later for them.

In the case on the video I linked above, it was all about picking out the biggest threat amongst the crowd. I was out numbered so my best bet was to try and gain and keep the altitude advantage to allow myself to choose when and where to attack. Planes that can not climb up to me are not a threat as they are bleeding speed to gain altitude. Planes that have altitude are the biggest threat, and the ones with a better climb rate than me are the most immediate threats. An even bigger threat than that though is the P-51 who shows up mid-fight higher than me with speed. In the specific situation I found myself in at the time, the P-51 had more speed than me and a better climb rate. He immediately becomes my main concern and I focus mostly on him. My secondary concerns are the planes that are co-alt with me or the ones who can get co-alt with me since they can get shots on me if I'm not careful. Anyone below me or who can't climb up to me at the moment are not of any threat to me as I said before they will have to use up their speed to climb to me which makes them slow and an easy target which that spitfire found out firsthand in the video. Even when you are alone against 5-8 planes you can still fight 2-3 on 1's if you use your advantages against the others weaknesses and keep them in a position where they're out of the fight.

Threat assessment is a very important thing to learn in a furball and something I might go into more depth later. I would just like to ask everyone who watches the video I posted to take note of my SA. Note how when I'm attacking  one plane I am keeping an eye or a note on where everyone else is at the time and what they are doing until I get within firing range of my target. Especially take note of when I dive on the spitfire and kill him how I climb back up and continue to look around to re-evaluate where everyone is and what they are doing. SA is a very life saving skill to have and quite easy to master IMO. You just have to look around once in a while, make a mental note of everyone and what they're doing in the immediate moment, and then re-check all the threats again in about 2-5 seconds.

[Gman]

Fantastic stuff Latrobe, I hope it helps a lot of people who've asked for it.

Note how when I'm attacking  one plane I am keeping an eye or a note on where everyone else is at the time and what they are doing until I get within firing range of my target

IMO this is hammering the nail right on the head, the critical piece in a post of great advice.  I was taught this when I first started by Fester/Citabria - always, always keep your thumb/hat, fingers/keys, or trackir/head, MOVING.  Even during an attack.  Especially then during a multi threat fight, as many guys will go for you when they see you commit to a target that isn't them.  Constant scans, especially behind you in the rear quarters, give you the chance to decide if you need to cease your attack on one target in order to defend yourself from a threat that will get a gun solution on you before you can fire on yours.

Great stuff, I'm enjoying reading this well written and considered info based on your experience and flying style Latrobe, keep it going.

[Latrobe]

Explaining Angles, Lift Vectors, and Horzontal and Vertical Problems a little bit now.  

If you haven't seen the threads already, check out these threads.

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,359053.0.html
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,355446.0.html


Let's take in the situation first. I have a P-38L trying to sneak up behind and below me from my 6 oclock with
 a little more speed than me while I fly my 109F4. Too bad for him I had spotted him long before hand and am setting up for my first move already!  



At about 1.5K I start to make my turn into him. I know one of the advantages I hold are a better turn rate so I can easily get inside his turn and deny him a shot, but the P-38L has a much better climb rate than me. Whether the 38 pilot knows this or not I will not know until the first turn. Anyways. My goal is to get my horizontal flightpath perpendicular to his. I want to point my wing at the P-38. The link above will show you that a perpendicular flightpath creates sharp angle, creates higher closure rates, and makes shots more difficult for your opponent. That's exactly what I do against this P-38 in this situation.



I do not want to make a tight turn as that will bring me around my turn and into a head on pass with the P-38. That's not something I want to do right now, so I instead loosen my turn once I get my flightpath perpendicular or more to his flightpath. In this following image we can see if I continued my tight turn then I would have a head on pass with the P-38 which, as I said, is something I wanted to avoid in this situation. You can see how I loosen my turn to keep my wing pointed at the P-38 as to keep his flightpath perpendicular to mine.



Now just 1 second later. The P-38 continues his turn into me to try and get a shot, so I continue my loose turn into him to deny the shot. We see that his current flightpath takes him no where near where he needs to be for a shot on me....



But that is just one frame from the fight. He can easily turn into me and gain my 6 oclock....



HOWEVER, just as he can turn, so can I! I can continue to turn into him and my tighter turning circle will continue to deny him a shot until he overshoots.



And that's exactly what happens as the P-38 can not make the shot, I keep inside his turn, and he will now overshoot me.



Throughout the previous images though I have just been showing you an overhead view of the fight and how to create the horizontal problem for your opponent. Planes can climb and dive as well as turn and that's where the vertical problem comes from for your opponent. In this next image if I were to continue a flat turn into the P-38 then he would maybe get a shot on me if he saw me turning to foil his attack and corrected his flightpath beforehand. It's likely he would have missed in this situation as he did not correct for me turning into him, but even so this next move sets me up perfectly for what I have in plan for him.



What I do is pull up as the P-38 gets into gun range. What this does is create a vertical problem for him as well as a horizontal problem, and it's at such a close range with such a high closure rate thanks to my turning into him and getting my flightpath perpendicular to his that he is physically incapable of ever getting his guns on me in time for a shot. What this also does is set me up for my first turn...



I know that my 109F has a better turn rate than a P-38L, but I am slightly out of position. So, what I do is position my lift vector behind the P-38L. This will give me a positional advantage of being behind his 3-9 line  thanks to my better turn rate and positioning of my lift vector.



Note how in the image above the P-38 is clearly behind my 3-9 line but now he is not in this next image? Now I position my lift vector in front of him in an attempt to cut the corner and close the distance on him for a shot. Doing this is risky as you put yourself at risk of overshooting but when you're in a plane that has a better turn rate you can get away with stuff like this. (I say attempt to cut the corner, but I already know my 109F can out turn a P-38L so it's just a matter of time really.) (also, typo in the image! I'm to lazy to fix one typo!   )



This is the plan I have in mind that I know for sure will work here. As the P-38 comes around his turn I plan to use my superior turn rate to come over the top and drop down behind him and line up a crossing shot.



We can see that my plan goes perfectly as I drop down behind the P-38 and just a second or two later I get the crossing shot I want and kill the P-38.



I shouldn't really say "plan" though as I don't really plan these things out. I'm the kind of pilot who just reacts based upon what the current situation calls for. When I saw the P-38 coming for a shot in my blind spot I just instantly knew what to do thanks to years or practice. You too can achieve this kind of "muscle memory" if you stick to it long enough and keep fighting and keep practicing!

[McShark]

Great stuff Latrobe.

Thanks a lot for time and effort!

 

[BnZs]

Okay. There is a certain scissoring technique...You are pursuing in lag, trying to win the nose-to-tail chase. They deceleration combined with an element of vertical that put's God's G to work turning back into you to get the nose on. Seems very difficult to counter within the bounds of human reaction time. Any ideas?

[TonyJoey]

I'd like to see you write your take on aggression and situational awareness, and how to best combine both of those while applying the other "book learning" ACM stuff like managing energy and vectors and such.

edit - 1500th post, hurray!  Couldn't be in a nicer guy's thread.  I won't write my own opinions, Latrobe asked for questions so he can write his, and I think my question is a great one for any a2a focused pilot in this game.

One quote that I heard on Dogfights and I'm sure has been taught since the beginning of air combat that is always ringing through my head is that "whenever you're about to shoot someone, check your six" because the easiest time to shoot another plane down is when he's trying to shoot someone else down.