I got beat by an interesting move last night and I wanted to outline it. When dropping straight down on a con, he (Krupinski I believe, and later another player who's call sign I forgot) pulled straight up at me. The zoom climb only gave me the briefest of snapshots and after a couple of passes like this, the cons were able to neutralize my e advantage. I was flying a P47 D40 at the time.
1. How they did it: From what I understand they built up some speed in a shallow dive, waited for me to make my move and commit to the plunge, then pulled up in a zoom climb right past me. This exposed one of the weaknesses of the Jug: its inability to pull out of a dive quickly. It also allowed them to neutralize my e advantage.
2. How to beat it: this is where I'm puzzled. In the jug the only thing I could think of was to try and extend away and reset. The question though is what to do when you know your adversary is going to use this move on you. Any ideas on how to counter it?
What you encountered was the advanced BRD that uses your momentum against you in order to gain a 6 spot on you or make you pull up and go around for another attempt ( which can be deadly if he has other friendlies around). So basically he is dictating the fight because he has a second of lead time ahead of you ( what he does first you will follow) so as you are diving on him, he has a tiny amount of E gained from going in a nose down turn. You follow him but are attempting to make a shot which causes you to black out or lose sight of him. While that is happening, he is in the process of pulling up and over to perform a barrel roll Defense in attempt to get a quick snap shot, If you do not pull up fast enough or have the E to zoom away from him quickly, he will have a chance to reverse the fight to your disadvantage.
If you can pull up early and they pull up for a shot you can spiral climb and watch them for signs of stalling, nose bobbles and/or wing drops, which is when you'd reverse for another attack. Remember bait only works when you appear to offer a shot opportunity and both sides can be hunting vs hunted.
FLS explains that you need to pull up earlier instead of following him in the nose down turn. Following into the nose down turn in order to gain a shot could be deadly if you have much more E than him. So as he is going into the nose down turn, you can pull up and do a loop to keep the atl advantage and dive on him again, rinse and repeat until you can get a firm shot ( now this can be deadly to keep pulling around and diving on him if he has friendlies in the area who may be on the way to engage. Every time you pull up and around you are also losing valuable E, so you need to be careful that you do not follow into the nose down turn going too slow and then get reversed because you will not have the E to get away from the reversal. IE you better make the shot or be in a plane that can out roll them by chopping serious throttle and getting flaps out immediately.
Also as FLS described, if you do follow into the nose down turn with a lot of E and notice that the enemy is going to attempt this maneuver you need to either A. level out and zoom away with your E then when he is about 1.5k out start climbing again, or B. pull a split S immediately as you see the enemy start to pull vertical so that you are going in the opposite direction, the instincts of the enemy will either A. go straight realizing they dont have the E to follow you in the split S, or B. They will attempt to follow you in the split S thinking they have the E to climb with you. If they go for option B and attempt to follow you in the split S, they will lose a considerable amount of E. You were diving on them so you know you have more E than them already. Just the enemy pulls behind you (normally upside down trying to make an impossible shot) you pull up and do another Split S or spiral climb to get them to be completely stalled out. In this case, if they follow you and try to make that upside down shot, your split S or spiral climb will have much more E retainment and you can roll around on them on the second split S. Some pilots will not follow in the second split S so you just pull around and get back on their 6 where you started, but the E levels will be a lot different and you may be able to make shot with lower E states. Keep in mind, it is all about SA here, because if you pull the split S to the split S spiral Climb rope you will lose a considerable amount of E and be on the verge of stalling, if other planes are around they will be able to pick you easily. SO if other enemies are around and some are Co-alt or E you will want to simply attempt a quick shot and then zoom away so that you can use your speed to get away from the rest of the enemies around you.
It is timing, E reading, SA, and plane E/stall management that depicts whether you want to attempt the rope and continue to engage with your E or Zoom away and retry after you regain your Alt.
The reason why you becoming "co E" with them is because you either did no pull the split S hard enough and far enough to get them to stall out while following you, or you went around too many times without regaining the E your previously had. Plus if you cut throttle and try to follow them in the BRD you will lose tons of E thus allowing the enemy to follow you up after you over shoot, or out roll you in the rolling scissors because he has control of the rolling scissors by being slower than you to begin with.
it takes some experience to know what to do in situations like this, whether you want to follow in the roll and then do a split S to rope/or keep in the rolling scissors, or pull up before following in the nose down turn and do a loop over them, or follow in the nose down turn but instantly pull up to a split S and then another splitS/SPiral climb for the rope. Lots of E reading and SA awareness for this type of engagement.