The newest arena whine: Head Ons

[Urchin]

Its not so much the HO's as the ramming that almost inevitably follows.  I've got no problem with going nose to nose with a guy, I usually fire a really short burst and then break off, but lately I've noticed that it appears that 99.5% of people in the MA will go for a shot, any shot, if they think they have a tiny chance to hit you.  They also won't budge- they fly straight at you wth guns blazing until either you die or they do.
And oftentime, you CAN'T get out of the way, at least it has seemed that way to me.  

This actually brings me to another question, which is the "net lag" effect in rams.  A couple months ago, I thought I had it figured out, but I don't.  I thought it was whoever "saw" the ram, i.e. was looking at the other plane and saw them run into you, that got "blamed" for the ram, and killed.  I actually thought I had a good case here, because I had a 8 or 9 kill sortie in an M3 a few months ago, and my last 2 kills were rams.  I deliberately rammed a couple airplanes that were trying to take off after I had run out of bullets for that uber .50  .  I was careful NOT to look at the enemy airplane when I rammed them, and it seemed to work, they collapsed and I took no damage.  

However, in the past few days I've been rammed 5 or 6 times by people that were still going for a shot as I manuevered out of either a head-on pass or a tail-end bounce (that one was last night).  I'm watching them (I typically try to barrel roll out of the HO), and I see them adjusting their course to try to shoot at me, only to drive their plane right through me.  In the last night one, I was in a Ki-61 and was attacked by a spitfire as I took off.  He managed to miss on his first pass (while I was still on the ground) and came around again as I lifted off the runway.  I was only doing about 150 or so, so I "broke" left (as hard as you can at 150mph...).  I was watching the Spit out the back (the Ki-61 has an atrocious rear view, by the way), and when it looked like he was going to overshoot, I rolled 180 degrees so I could keep track of him through the top view, and maybe get a snapshot off at him.  Instead, I watched him continue to try to follow me through my turn, and we collided canopy to canopy.  

Now, my question is this-  On my end, I'm watching psychotic Spit and P51D drivers try to ram me with their airplanes after I manuever away from their guns.  What are they seeing on THEIR screen?  Am I like 200 yards farther away and they are still tracking for a shot when I suddenly just explode into flames?  How does this game determine who gets "blamed" for a collision?  To me at least, it appears that the person with the fastest connection always gets blamed, no matter what- I've NEVER seen an enemy go down in flames that I hadn't shot right before, but it happens to me all the time.  Or does it?  Does it show as a ram on my end, but on their end they shot the "me" that was 200 yards away and I blew up?

Anyway, if anyone knows the answer to that question, I'd very much appreciate it.  Oh, by the way, it is a QUESTION, not a WHINE.  I'm sure some folks will call it a whine anyway though, so I don't even know why I bothered.

[SKurj]

the only person that can ram is you... never your opponent who then flies away as u cascade to the deck in widdle bitty pieces

SKurj

[ 09-07-2001: Message edited by: SKurj ]

[Urchin]

Ah.. no.  I simply disagree Skurj.  In the example with the Spit that I gave, I was doing about 150 mph.  The Spit was going 300+mph, at least I'd guess.  Maybe 275.  After my turn, I ROLLED 180 degrees, I didn't turn back into him.  I was flying straight, albiet not level and not at a wings level attitude to the horizon, but I wasn't manuevering for a ram of ANY kind.  As I said before, he continued his turn into me after he had overshot to a point where he had NO SHOT on me with his guns (at least on my end he didn't).  

Try this experiment.  Have someone chase you running 8 mph, while you try to get out of the way at 4 mph.  When he hits you, are you going to say "excuse me, didn't mean to run into you!".  No, you are not (well, I hope not), because it is obvious who's fault the collision was.  

My QUESTION was, did that Spit ram me intentionally, or did he see "me" as being in a different spot that he had no chance of occupying while I was still there?

[hazed-]

ill fire at a HO but rarely press it home i prefer to try to roll out and watch the real unskilled HO'ers flop around trying to get the final burst killing off 'e'  by the bucket load.If they have some skill they will be entering their next move  

its a great way to tell if your attacker is good or not  

[oki]

hmm I ride over peds and joggers all the time on my mtn bike, its always their fault    so that slow plane theory isn't correct   , as far as HO's go, hell a little fun never hurt anyone. Besides the people that whine about HO's are the same morons that whine about everything else anyways, and it is good entertainment on channel 1. JERRY JERRY JERRY.

[Lephturn]

1.  HO's can be easily avoided provided you have enough speed to maneuver.  If you are low on speed, a 0G shallow dive will help you accellerate to maneuvering speed, and it's what you would normally do in an HO merge situation anyway. (dive below his nose)

2.  The avoidance maneuver conserves energy and often translates into a gain in both angles and E over the bogey.  This is because you are lead turning vertically at a point when he is still flying straight shooting at you.  In addition, you are generally gaining E from a relatively low speed at the start of the maneuver, while the attacker is often diving to very high speed, bleeding some of his E advantage away due to the higher drag.  Also because he will be moving much faster if he started with more E, your turn radius will be much smaller, so you can turn inside of him if he tries to reverse with you.

3.  Sometimes it's in your best interest to accept a head-on.  It's a low percentage/high risk shot, but it may be all you have.  If you fire at the other fellow, you are participating in the head-on situation, and you should expect to be damaged at least 50% of the time.

4.  Collisions are detected on your front end, always.  It's not relevent where you are looking, only where the objects are on your FE.  If you run the 3d object of your plane into another object on your FE, you collide with it.  It's that simple.  It doesn't matter what the lag is or what the other fellow see's on his FE, only what happens on yours.  You can hit his plane and collide, while he avoids you on his FE and does not.  It must be this way because of lag.

5.  It's almost impossible to intentionally ram somebody while flying an airplane in AH.  On the ground in a vehicle, you can likely make weird things happen due to very low speeds and network smoothing code that is optimized to track fast moving airplanes not barely moving vehicles.  In the air you would have to guess the lag and fly some distance in front of him.  Even then, if he saw you and avoided, he doesn't crash.

Sorry guys I'm rushed.  I'll come back to this later tonight for more info/questions if I can.

[Creamo]

Urchin cried on open channel forever last night about someone purposley ramming him. I have no idea who this guy is, and why every post is 7 paragraphs long, but I enjoyed laughing at his rants. Now they are getting old.

Fatty is the only one I know who intensionaly goes for a ram kill when out of ammo. It's almost impossible I think, but you have to respect the kill em all attitude. Plus it's historic, the LW had squads that removed guns to make planes faster just to ram bombers. Those guys were friggin nuts.

[Fatty]

It ain't easy.  The only two times I've been successfull were once vs a bomber that was out of ammo (crashed thru his tail section, killing both of us), and rammed an F4U once with a c47 (was at about 100 feet and managed to ditch that one).

It's nearly impossible to hit even on your own FE on purpose, and on the majority of times I actually succeed (which are very few) I'm usually the only one dying.

I've had a lot more collisions on accident than I have had trying for them.

[Russian]

Had 3 guys attacked me. Killed 2 of them by HO, 3rd guy got me but so did I. Got kill too  

it simple JUST DO IT, HO  

[AN]

Many times in the MA I'd much prefer to ram someone than shoot them.  It's harder.

Last night I was trying to vulch a Sturmi in my Zero.  I put the last of my cannon in him while he was taking off, and got him smoking (fuel leak, I think).

I zoomed back up, then came down fast on his six, blasting away with my bbs and rammed him from dead six o'clock.

I 'think' he just kept on flying.

anRky

[SunKing]

I find that pretty pathetic. The guys a hypercrit for private msg'n you squeaking after he attempted a HO. Anyone can avoid the HO by simple flying away from the incoming plane. Obviously that was his intent. I'm glad he lost that duel.

[BigJim]

<S> Swulf another well thought out and stated reply.  Heres another <S> to your bellybutton (which is always showing)

BigJim

[DanielMcIntyre]

HO's can not always be avoided, very untrue, every time you try to avoid a HO you give your opponent a snapshot opportunity, even if it is fairly brief.  I fly the Typhoon quite a lot and almost all avoid HO'ing me.  When this happens I have considerable success with my brief moment of opportunity, if they go under, I push the nose down, adjust with rudder at 600d and fire short bursts, most of the time I get the kill because I've had lots of practice, I'll occasionally get them when they break left or right and if they go vertical they're history too.

And hopefully you all know what happens if you don't try and avoid HO with the typh  


OKI, I whine quite frequently about the N1K but think HO's are fine, so your statement can't be all that true.


 

[DanielMcIntyre]

Urchin, next time your in a HO and the enemy is not trying to avoid the collision, don't try and avoid it either.  Just a theory but most of the time I'll try to manvr to avoid a collision and I take damage while the moron who flew straight into me fly;s off.  I tried just letting go of the stick the last few and amazingly did'nt die? might be wrong but this is possible cause?

[StSanta]

1: It takes two to HO. It is easy to avoid an HO. If you were in an HO it was your fault.

Really depends on how you define a HO. With the definition you're using, a HO is when two planes put themselves at a collision course going straight at each other, both trying to go for a shot in the face. It is not necesarilly a definition I agree with  .

2: HOs were rather common in WWII. They were dangerous of course, but common nonetheless.

And not *that* effective. In AH, a HO as defined by you in #1 will result in one or both planes going down in flames 90% of the time. But they happened and were even part of military doctrine.

3: A front quarter shot is not an HO. An HO is only when both parties can shoot at eachother while flying straight and level.

Here's the gist of the discussion. Say I turn into an enemy to increase closure rate and angles and spoil his shot - if there's enough distance between us, I'll come into a position where I can bring my guns to bear. I then have the choice of either taking the HO, or trying to avoid it. if i try to avoid it, is it then no longer a HO but only 1 plane taking a "front aspect" shot? I'm not too sure about this.

Or the loop fights, which result in one or more nose-to-nose passes - essentially snapshot HO's for both planes. Very hard to avoid, and in doing so, one certainly gives up position. Still, giving up position and working one's way back to an advantage or extending beats the 50-50 odds of a HO (assuming both planes have equal guns).

Scissors properly executed can also result in a series of nose-to-nose passes, where both planes can open up at once and destroy each other. Again, if you tuck yer nose under his lift vector and avoid the [whatever it is], are you avoiding a HO, or avoiding a front aspect shot?

Similarly, let's say two planes are heading directly at each other nose-to-nose. They're clearly on a collision course. At the last possible second, one of the planes makes a hard break and avoids a collision. Now, were they on a collision course, or merely "front aspect closing"?  .

What I am trying to say is that a HO is more than just two planes firing at each others faces. There's a setup involved - and that's the interesting aspect of the HO discussion.

When I avoid a HO, or refuse to take one, I do not believe I was avoiding a front aspect shot - I *deliberately* put my plane out of his gunsight - let's for the sake of the discussion assume it was by a mere fraction of a degree.

How many degrees separate a HO situation from a front aspect shot? I dunno; I guess Andy Bush could be helpful here  .