A common complaint in this game recently is that too many people run from a fight instead of making a go of it. Fair enough, although the old (WB) culture that I have been used to placed the emphasis on surviving (in which case points awarded for kills were tripled) whereas here in AH the name of the game is to fight to the last bullet and auger (to avoid wasting time on RTB, and thereby boosting k/t
). I decided I would be a bit more aggressive today, and to engage in fights even where it seemed inadvisable, knowing that I would die a lot more, but in the hope of making the game more interesting for both myself and my opponents. In all the following, I was in a 109G10.
P51 Cherrypicker. I had taken off with 100% fuel – as one does in a 109. Then I saw a dot up high, and it’s showing on dar as a con. Must have been 10K above me. All righty then, I’ll climb up and see what happens, but clearly I'm a sitting duck if I venture too far from the field. By the time I had got to within 5K of his alt, the P51 has circled behind me. My speed was low as I turned to face him, and here he comes, hammering towards me. I avoided what might have been an HO attempt, but he got behind me, and pinged off my rudder as I dived for safety – which happened to be above the field, but hey – I’d not long since taken off... He pulls off, and I grab alt and chandelle over to be looking down on him. Then follows a bit of scissoring, and I end up on his 6. Just as he’s running for his life at 1.8, he accuses me of being an ack runner! If that was in reference to my evasive dive, so be it. And with no rudder, I was somewhat compromised. Ends up with him running away “to answer a call to another part of the map”. Right. Well, he was a gentleman about it, and I couldn’t fight much without my rudder, so that was the end of
that engagement.
Spit and LA5 nose wipes. I had taken off to check out a con which had augered or been killed by the time I could get to him. So I went to the next nearest enemy field. I shot a MOSS, but then two of the deceased’s friends decided there was a score to settle. I found myself co-alt or very slightly higher than a Spit and an LA5. The see-saw began, but every time I got an opportunity to kill one of them, by the time I was close enough to get a shot with the spud cannon, they would turn. I did eventually kill the LA5 as he tried to set up an HO, but hadn’t quite completed his manoeuvre by the time I loosed of a couple of spuds. But because of the distance I’d already flown, I was out of fuel and had to auger. I
both Spit & LA5 and apologised for not being able to continue – a bit like the handshake if resigning from a chess game, or any game. The spit pilot's response was to shoot my chute. Hardly a handshake – felt more as if he’d wiped his nose on my tie. Thank you very freaking much.
Alt Monkey, who conveniently overlooks his Aces and Kings. I was in a 1v1 with a Spit. This fight had begun from something else – we had just stumbled into eachother. Neither had much of an advantage, and as my G10 mentor Urchin would agree, the G10 v Spit 9 fights often end in stalemate just as this one did. Because of the length of time it had gone on, two other guys thought they would join in, making it a 3 v 1. One guy was a 205 which I’d seen before – no problem. The other was a P51 with about a 10 K alt advantage at least. He came screaming down from on high, and I disengaged with the Spit and turned for base. I was nudging 500mph TAS, with the P51 still closing. He closed from 5.0 to less than 1.0 – and later asked me why I hadn’t turned to fight – LOL!!!!! Oh sure, and present him with the perfect opportunity for a deflection shot with his .50 cal lasers. No thanks. If not that, then the Spit or 205 would have got me for sure. The P51 pilot was so consumed with killing me that he forgot about the ack - and my friends - never saw him again.
The Steamroller. A noob Spit had just come in and tried for an HO. I thought I could avoid it but get just close enough to squeeze off a spud or two. I left it too late. I killed the Spit, but my wing was pinged off. So I reupped to find a bunch more noobs inbound. Hehe, they were crap – came in high but blew all their alt in one pass. I was engaging an F4U which was near the deck. I thought he was going to follow my zoom climb, but wisely he didn’t – ran out to sea instead. So as I tried to reacquire my target, I was killed by the Spit I’d shot down a few minutes earlier. By that time, the steamroller had a full head of steam, and the usual four or five plane types showed up. Just in case you can’t remember the list, they are: P51, Spit, YAK, LA7. Not having received a 6-call from my “friends”, I decided to bugger off elsewhere...
Real Life Scenario. Francis Gabreski was flying a P47 over Germany one day, when he noticed a 109 on his tail. I don’t suppose anyone here would suggest Gabreski was a coward, so can you guess what happened next? Did he turn back to face the 109 – perhaps get into a turnfight? Hell no. He decided that it was safe to “run the guy out of ammo”. The gap between them must have been considerable. Anyhow, Gabreski took a hit on his rudder and the impact was so severe that the rudder pedal was deflected with such force that it snapped off against his foot. He dare not look at his foot in case there was blood. He thought the sight of blood might make him pass out. Then he descended into cloud and made some turns, and lost the 109 that way.
After hearing the various whines about “cowardice” – both in the text buffer and on this BBS, I am now able to form my own opinion. Yes this is a game, and yes maybe some guys run from a fight just as Gabreski did. And just as I did when I knew I had no other chance to survive. But it seems to me that at least SOME of the fight-don’t-run whiners conveniently overlook the odds when those odds are overwhelmingly in their favour. They don’t just want a fight. They want you to hand them your own head on a plate.
