Best Defense against Wingover/Reverse

[Kini]

Title says it all. 50% of the time an opponent that misses his HO (which I try and avoid) I'll watch them pull up and reverse with usually a high percentage of a lock on and eventual kill on me. Jinking, split s, diving away, Immelmann all fail. There a maneuver that is successful assuming I have enough speed and altitude.

[The Fugitive]

Enough speed means you go up in a wing over as well and merge again. On the other hand I try to put my nose down a bit and extend. I bank and turn as they come in for another pass tightening my turn as they close to guns. If you have good timing, you can roll back in the opposite direction of your turn and get a shot as they pass. Eventually they will lose enough E either by doing wing overs and rudder kick trying to hit you, or by catching on to you and dumping speed. Either way you now have them on more equal terms and you can switch to an E fight, or.....more likely..... they will dive away and run for ack   

Well thats what I try to do.

[Kini]

Enough speed means you go up in a wing over as well and merge again. On the other hand I try to put my nose down a bit and extend. I bank and turn as they come in for another pass tightening my turn as they close to guns. If you have good timing, you can roll back in the opposite direction of your turn and get a shot as they pass. Eventually they will lose enough E either by doing wing overs and rudder kick trying to hit you, or by catching on to you and dumping speed. Either way you now have them on more equal terms and you can switch to an E fight, or.....more likely..... they will dive away and run for ack   

Well thats what I try to do.

Thanks!

[Badboy]

Title says it all. 50% of the time an opponent that misses his HO (which I try and avoid) I'll watch them pull up and reverse with usually a high percentage of a lock on and eventual kill on me. Jinking, split s, diving away, Immelmann all fail. There a maneuver that is successful assuming I have enough speed and altitude.

Hi Kini,

The situation you are describing is a difficult one, and you have already received a very good response from Fugitive, so I'm not going to add much, other than to elaborate a bit so you can understand what's happening in that situation and why Fugitive gave you such good advice.

First, its a tough situation to be in because when most opponents go for the head on attack it is because they have two main advantages. Better guns and more speed. Better guns increase their probability of a kill (PK) and so does the extra speed. Their speed adds to the velocity of the bullets and can result in your death before your rounds even reach them. If you survive and see the attacker pull into the vertical, that means they are probably not just faster, but much faster. That presents you with a big problem, because if you follow their maneuver in a one circle fight, you a most likely to have real difficulty avoiding another head on pass because you are going to be slower and less maneuverable and they are going to have more time to line up the shot and their PK is even better than before. Even if your speed is almost equal to theirs and you have the same weapons, your odds went from bad to 50-50 at best.

That's why good timing and rolling out of plane can be a very good tactic. You can do it in two ways. The First mentioned by Fugitive is to roll 180 degrees and reverse your turn and look for a shot. That only works when you are able to force a tighter turn circle inside that of your opponent so that they overshoot and concede a shot. By reversing your turn you are essentially initiating a scissors maneuver and it only works if you can get a smaller turn radius and you recognise the visual cues involved and time it just right. The other option, a more difficult choice to execute, but one of my favourites is to only roll 90 degrees out of plane before they get their nose around for a second attempt. I try to make that into, or as close into the vertical, as possible and it creates a very difficult shot and leaves you with a very nice positional advantage. With practice and good timing, you give them an impossible shot and often end up on their 6 looking for your own shot. The only question then is will they get beyond effective guns range before you can get a kill. That is often determined by the relative low speed acceleration of both aircraft, and many of the big gunned aircraft are faster and have great low speed acceleration, so you won't always get a kill here.

Then Fugitive mentions putting his nose down a bit and extending. Again, excellent advice, and here is why. If we are working on the basis that your opponent wants to take a head on shot and is probably faster, you would like to equalise your energy states. Using short extensions is a great way to do that. To do this you need to do several things. Firstly time the extension for when your aircraft are pointing in opposite directions, i.e just after his failed head on. He will need to turn 180 to follow giving you time to get separation without losing too much altitude. Watch the rate of closure, keep your extension going while you are increasing the separation, then the moment you notice he is begining to gain on you, start your reversal. Do a gentle low slice so that can maintain a good turn rate and hold speed.

What will have happened now is that you will have reduced the energy disparity, it will be closer than it was before. So you will be entering another merge with a slightly improved situation. If your opponent had wanted to keep an energy advantage he would have needed to do a climbing turn and followed much less aggressively while maintaining or gaining altitude. So after that evolution your situation should be better. You may need to rinse and repeat this process until you judge that his energy advantage is sufficiently reduced. Then as you turn back into him you have more options and two good choices. You need to watch his nose position as you approach the merge, if it looks like he might get a shot, you can choose one of the options we have been discussing. It is amost always good to keep your nose below his in the early stage then at the last moment to roll out of plane and pull up hard. You choose the 90 degree roll to get a positional advantage and a two circle fight or the 180 degree roll to stay one circle and convert to a scissors by reversing your turn and turning inside his circle to force an overshoot and hopefully a shot.

I've made this sound easier than it is in practice because so much depends on the aircraft involved. Often the pilots who like to take high aspect shots like to fly the aircraft that have high speed and big guns and so the most common scenario is a match up that involves an aircraft that has high speed, good acceleration, very deadly guns and while those aircraft are not the best turners they have the ability to generate very high pitch rates, jerking the nose momentarily for a snap shot. The other aircraft is most commonly slower, with less effective guns but higher turn rate and tighter turn circle. So most of what I've described will work over a wide range of dissimilar aircraft match ups and also for similar aircraft engagements that begin when one pilot has a significant energy advantage.

Fighting aircraft with deadly guns, particularly when they have an energy advantage is just plain difficult. Against anyone it is a challenge, against good shots it can be more about survival than anything else and then you have to factor in the location of friendly aircraft and bases etc.

For most BFM problems, the solution is rarely about a single maneuver, so my additional comments should clarify some of the options. Fugitive summed them up nicely and hopefully I've helped you understand it well enough so you can make good choices.

The key skills involved are:

• Avoiding high aspect shots
• Energy management and equalisation
• Correct choice of one or two circle options
• Lastly and always, situational awareness

Hope that helps

If you want me to elaborate on anything let me know.

Regards

Badboy

[hazmatt]

Once upon a time I had a problem with HOers. I started flying the Mossie and started shooting them in the face at 1k out. I got to the point where I'd win close to 5 of 10, draw 4 of 10 and die 1 of 10. Pretty sure that's not what you're looking for but it worked for me. Most of the time they would break off once I started shooting.

[Badboy]

It is almost always good to keep your nose below his in the early stage

Just noticed that this really needs to be explained.

One of the most common scenarios is when two aircraft are flying towards each other at the start of an engagement. The aircraft close the range with high aspect and approach the merge head on. When one player is intent on taking a pre merge shot he will fly directly at you trying to reduce any flight patch separation in order to make his shot as easy as possible.

However, it turns out that this is absolutely not the best way to merge. The best way to merge is also the best way to avoid the HO. It is simply to create flight path separation. Of course that might not be easy because anyone intent on a head on shot will try to take away any flight path separation you try to create, he still wants that easy shot.

So, why is creating flight path separation the best thing to do and how does it avoid the head on shot?

Flight path separation is essential for a lead turn, and a lead turn has the potential to give you the largest and fastest advantage possible of any maneuver in air combat executed right from the merge. The amount of flight path separation needed is twice your turn radius at the speed of the merge. A little practice executing lead turns and you will soon find what the looks like. The flight path separation can be achieved above, below or to the left or right of the enemy aircraft but if you are also trying to avoid a head on shot one direction is best. It is what ever direction you need to go to position your below the bandits nose, because that makes it more difficult for the bandit to maintain visual contact and easier for you and it makes it harder for him to take a shot if he attempt to push his nose over. What is more likely is that he will roll to to maintain sight and allow some separation in the hope of snatching it back at the last moment to get the shot. If he does roll, you adjust to stay below his nose and you have to force the flight path separation aggressively, that forces them to keep adjusting all the way in. That explains the quote about keeping your nose below his.

Now, you will almost never get the separation you need for a classic lead turn, but every bit of separation you get will win you some angular advantage if you initiate the turn at the right moment. The trick here is to watch the changing line of sight rate. Simply put, that means how quickly the bandit is moving across your canopy. The correct time to execute the turn is the moment you notice the line of sight rate increase and that always happens in the forward quarter well before the merge, you always turn early. The secret to success is to begin your turn before he begins his. That will maximise the angular advantage you get from this.

So, if you begin to turn into the bandit won't he just get the head on shot he wanted?

No, for three reasons, first you were creating your fight path separation under his nose making it hard for him to maintain visual on you, but making it very easy for you to maintain visual on him. Secondly when you do it correctly, no matter how hard you both pull into each other your noses will never meet, if they do, you messed it up. Thirdly, the final trick up your sleeve is that you not only forced flight path separation, and began your turn early, you now also pull out of plane in the turn, that means that you keep your turn circle tilted relative to theirs. That makes a head on shot very difficult and almost impossible. Even the best head on shooters in the game, and there have been some very good ones, can't get make that shot when you execute it properly.

So, you just avoided the HO, big deal?

It is a big deal because you didn't just avoid the HO, you did it with flight path separation, turning early and out of plane, all the ingredients for optimal angular and positional advantage, it simply doesn't get any better. Best case, a decisive advantage. Worst case, you avoided the HO with minimal advantage and the fight goes on. Where you end up between those two extremes only depends on how well you do it.

It's a bit more difficult and a bit more scary against the heavily armed high speed fighters, which is why that type of aircraft is the first choice for those who rely heavily on high aspect shots.

However, the method I described still works very well when you learn how to do it regardless of the type of fighter you are engaging so it should be what you do at the beginning of every single 1v1 engagement. Obviously, for anything more than 1v1, or against bombers different tactics may be more appropriate. 

Hope that helps.

Badboy