yes, more questions about the HO

[33Vortex]

Originally posted by toonces3
The other night, I got shot right in the face by a very well known, very high ranked pilot...twice.  In one case, I, in a zero, followed his P-38 up into a loop.  He reversed at the top so that we passed each other vertically nose to nose, my zero nose high, his P-38 nose down, nearly vertical, and as we passed he plastered me at 200 out.  It frustrated me because I could have/would have shot him as well, but was holding my fire since we were nose on nose.  In fact, I had bumped my nose down a hair to avoid a collision.

This is not a HO, it is a vertical reverse maneuver which usually means death and destruction for the lower, less maneuverable plane. It happens that the speed is so low that even the pilot performing the reverse can not avoid falling down on top on his adversary and in some cases he realize too late that he should have pulled away (target fascination).

How to avoid a vertical reverse? Well, don't follow him up handsomehunk!

I use the vertical a lot and E fight when I can, many times I've been guilty of the above. Unable to avoid collision or realizing too late what is about to happen. Remember also a HO is a HO not a high deflection angle shot. HO is essentially playing chicken, with guns.

Edit: Spellcheck!

[Sincraft]

When I'm on the bottom, I lose.  When I'm on the top, I win, unless the guy turns his wings.

Now this is the direction I go, UP if I am above or DOWN if I am below.  The fact that I still get hit AT LEAST once a night tells me that people are purposely ramming me! HA, go figure.  But, methinks it also has to do with the code being a little behind and 'too late' to matter.

I know it's fun to shoot at people when you have center cannons and the other guy you know doesn't but for gods sake please pull away after a bit people, ramming sucks.

[clerick]

If all i see of any enemy plane is prop and blazing guns i'll try to dive out of the way and get below the merge, but sometimes you cant easily do that.  If i see a guy 500 out guns blazing i'll teach them a lesson, kick hard rudder and spray them tip to tail.

What i consider an unacceptable HO are the ones that seem to ONLY come at you head on, dont try to get on your 6 or fight for angles they will zoom off and come back head on every time.  I have been acused of hoing but when i'm looking down on a nme and can see the top of the plane, even if we are flying 180 degrees apart i'll take the shot IF i'm not going to give up position.

But there is nothing nicer to see then a spixteen explode under the 38's arsenal on the ho.

[Larry]

What vortex said. He had more E then you, he went up, you followed, he nosed over and got you. Its called a rope-a-dope or just a rope. I can bet you were less then 100mph about to stall. It is my faverite move you have more speed and watch the guy zoom up with you, right when you see him start to loose it roll over and get your easy kill.

[Sloehand]

Originally posted by dedalos
Oh please show me.  Then post the film so you and the rest of the people that think it is easy to avoid it and that you get an easy kill after  the HOer misses the shot can see how false these statements are.

Then we will try it with you engaged with 2 other guys and me bringing my lala in for HO pass.  I expect to see you easylly avoid me and then kill me a few seconds latter.

When and where am I getting my lesson?

Where did you pick up that burr under your saddle Dedalos?  Calm down and don't take things quite so literally or personally.  A few manners wouldn't hurt you either.

It is fairly easy to avoid most HO's, and you know it.  Especially if the other guy thinks you're going to stay in and go for the HO yourself.  My statistical probabilites may be an over-embellishment, but were actually intended to strongly represent that you can avoid the greater majority of HO's and die less from them.

As for easy kills, I don't think I said that specifically.  It all takes work and skill, but if you surpise an HO monkey who is too focused on getting his shot, do proper avoidance and pull into a good Lead Turn, you will gain initial angles on him as he adjusts both his tactics and position, all of which gives you some small advantage and maybe the kill.

However, you may be right in your skeptisism as at this point, at good pilot wil still put up a good fight against you and nothing is assured.  BUT against most of the dedicated HO monkeys we are talking about, the edge may be even more significantly in your favor.

I know for a fact, my skill and score immediately improved (both cause I killed a few more and died a bit less in the HO engagement) by changing my tactic to NOT go for the HO more often than I do, and learning from other vets how to more successfully avoid the HO.  My squad did extensive practise sessions on just this thing, where I learned a better move than I was previously using.

Finally, while I tried to keep the tone of my post friendly, funny and informative, my offer to assist in helping someone learn what l currently know (however much or little it may be - everything is worth exactly what you pay for it) about this topic was both friendly and sincere.

So, frankly, get some manners (I have dogs more polite than you) and quit being a horse's patoot, even when you don't agree.

[BaldEagl]

Originally posted by clerick
What i consider an unacceptable HO are the ones that seem to ONLY come at you head on, dont try to get on your 6 or fight for angles they will zoom off and come back head on every time.

In some plane match-ups that's all there is if it's one-on-one.  No decent 190 pilot for instance is going to turn-fight a Spit to try to get on his six.  One-on-one even angles would be tough in this match-up.  If the 190 wants to engage then the only viable option is to get enough seperation to turn back, likely with the chasing Spit now coming directly at him, and use those big cannons in a HO attempt.

Spit vs LA or P-38 vs F4U or 190 vs 190 or something that match up a little better is a different matter.

[Sloehand]

P.S. Dedalos, you suck at sarcasm!  My 12 year old nephew has more wit than that.

[BaldEagl]

Originally posted by WMLute
It's all bout pursuit.

Lead pursuit = aiming your plane at the front of the bad guy

Pure pursuit = aiming your plane in plane, or equal with the bad guy

Lag pursuit = aiming your plane at the back of the bad guy

Most pilots I fight go for Lead pursuit.  Hence all the Head On's

Me...  I go for Lag.  I try to position myself beind the nme's.

Once I am saddled I go to Pure pursuit, and for a deflection shot I switch to Lead.

(gawd bless you Robert Shaw)

Yep, you got it.

[dedalos]

Originally posted by Sloehand
P.S. Dedalos, you suck at sarcasm!  My 12 year old nephew has more wit than that.

Well, all I did was say that your statements are wrong.  Check your texts and then check back with the dogs to see who needs some manners.

To make it simple, you are spreading BS.  Lots of people spreading BS makes new guys think that the BS you are spreading are facts.  I am willing to let you show yourself that what you are spreading is BS and maybe you will learn something out of it.  If I am wrong, you will post the films and everyone may lern something from them.  I can help you with that.

Unfortunatly, I cant help you with your manners

[JimmyZ]

Most of the time the HO occurs because people are flying the "gun sight" and not the "plane". By that i mean, most if not all of the fight is seen from  their twelve and six views. This is obvious by the often most used tactic of ho-run-turn-ho-repeat until one of you is in tower.

I've been noticing after i started filming some of my fights, the ones i tend to win(damn few btw:D) are the ones where i was in their gun sight for a majority of the fight. They would put themselves in a disadvantaged position just to keep me in their twelve or six view while i was working to improve my position or E by climbing or maneuvering my plane all the while keeping them in sight throughout using all the views

It's not an instinct to be able to pull a split S or immelman or chandel while keeping a bandit in sight throughout all of the available views and do the maneuver properly. That takes a lot of practice. A lot of us take that for granted now, but one of the hardest things for me to learn how to do, way back in the day in WBs, was to learn how to fight while looking everywhere but where the plane was going after the initial merge. Something we should be teaching the newer ones how to do instead of just letting rip with insults on 200. Jmho, ymmv.

However in a 2 or more on 1, anytime you come anywhere near the pointy end of my plane while I'm totally defensive, you're getting sprayed. That's just how it is, you horde monkey bastages.

[Charge]

"What ever makes him whine apparently works well."

-C+

[mtnman]

The HO IS easy to avoid.  Don't be silly.  All you have to do is turn ever so slightly, or apply a slight amount of elevator, and you've denied him his HO.

You've turned it into a deflection shot, which isn't an HO.  Now you need to dodge his deflection shot, hehe.  That might not be as easy.  A high deflection shot is a tough shot to make though, and as such would seem easy to avoid.  My experience says it IS easy to avoid.  Could I teach someone else to avoid it?  Been there, done that- it works just as well for others as well.  They also feel it's easy to avoid, and get excited about the "easy kill" when someone tries to HO them.

If you don't both have a shot solution, how can it be an HO?

If he chooses to take his deflection shot, and you can successfully dodge it, he is very often pretty dang easy to get behind.  For one, he MUST pull lead to actually hit you, which sets him up for an overshoot.  Easy to get behind him on an overshoot?  Generally, yes.  Can you catch him and kill him?  Maybe not.

Two, if he's opening the fight with an HO, it generally says something about his skill level.

From my experience, the folks that open with an HO ARE easy to dodge, easy to get behind, and will OFTEN make another mistake that makes them easy to kill.  Even if it's in a F4U ( my only ride) vs spit, hurri, LA, 190, P51, etc...

Seriously, if I die to more than 2-3 HO's a month I'd be surprised.  If you counted the ones that dive an at mach 3 to pick me during a 1v1 it might be a bit higher, but I count those as picks more than HO's.  Even those are really my own fault anyway, either through an error in SA, judgement, or by taking too long to finish the 1v1.

Ramming? On purpose? LOL!  By the very nature of the collision model I seriously doubt that is even possible.  I ran an experiment in the DA with Saber, and have film that basically proves that where you see the other guy, IS NOT where he actually is.  How can you purposely RAM something that isn't there?

Our experiment was an attempt to land an F4U on top of a B24.  We tried to land so that the landing gear would catch over the leading edge of the B24 wing, and hopefully "piggyback".  Didn't work, for several reasons.

The main reason was because from the F4U perspective, the F4U wheels were touching the B24's wing (even had the puff of smoke like when touching a runway), they then go "through" the wing though, and the F4U suffers a colloision, and falls apart.

From the B24 pilots perspective, the F4U was still about 50-100 feet BEHIND his stabilizer, and NEVER even came in contact with the B24 at all.  The "collision" gave the B24 no damage, as is fair, since he showed no contact.

Any guesses as to the result had the F4U intentionally tried to ram the B24?  A dead F4U, and a healthy B24.

[dedalos]

Originally posted by mtnman

 How can you purposely RAM something that isn't there?

Can you shoot it?

[mtnman]

Of course Dedalos, hehe.  

That's because HTC transfers hit data from your PC to the "hit" planes PC.  

So if you shoot, and see hits, your PC tells the other PC to "act dead".  The "hit" plane can (and likely will) see "misses" that are actually "hits" from your perspective.  That's ok, the system is set up so if the shooter sees hits, they count as hits on both sides, regardless of how the hit plane saw it.

That's not how the collision model works though.  You're discussing two very seperate things here.  The collision model (as opposed to the "damage" model) has been discussed ad nauseum on these boards.  Do a search and "read all about it".

This thread is more about HO's.

To that end, I have found a short film showing a very simple "Ho Remedy".  It follows the formula of-  Turn the HO into a deflection shot that he will miss, get behind the bad guy, shoot him down.

Total film length is 28 seconds.  Can anybody post it?  I'll email it if I have a volunteer...

MtnMan