Something about E-Fighting

[Keez]

Hi all,

For quite some time I have flown the Spitfire, and I feel that I have mastered the plane. Well, not mastered, but to a point where I wont get much better with it. So its time for a new challenge.

I want to learn to fly an E-fighter, but I keep having the same problem: when I engage an enemy, I often make sure I dive on their six. They pull away hard to the left or right, and to make sure I do not lose my E-advantage, I pull up, climb, and come back to do it again. After which they will turn away, I will climb, etc. Up to a point where I have lost too much E, and when the enemy pulls away again when I am diving in, I follow him in the turn. I might get a fix once, depending on their plane, but if its a turnfighter I am up against, they always get the better of me. They always turn much better than I do and eventually get on my six. If I am high I can dive down, speed up and extend, but that only keeps me alive. It doesnt provide me with many kills.

So there it is. This is what very often happens when I am in an E-fighter. In my Spitty that is never a problem, I can out-turn most other planes in a spit. So... I feel I cant learn to fly an E-fighter unless someone doesnt tell me what I am doing wrong. Could someone?? Thanks in advance.

Edit: topic typo.

[ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: Keez ]

[Dinger]

Somebody smarter than I will come in with some more details.

First, the Spitfire IX can (and probably should) be flown as an Energy Fighter.
Second, what you're describing are repeated boom-and-zoom passes.  Energy fighting is not simply booming-and-zooming to death (although I guess it can be) -- what it is is an attempt to build up such an energy advantage that the opponent is powerless to escape an attack.
For me, nothing illustrates energy fighting better than the rope-a-dope.  An E-fighter with superior energy gets the lower-E angles-fighter to climb after him.  The E-fighter then heads skyward.  Eventually, the angles fighter runs out of airspeed and starts to flounder.  At that point, all the turning in the ability isn't going to matter.  That's the point where the E-fighter reverses and uses its superior maneuverability to terminate the engagement.

So E-fighting then is all about building up an energy advantage, then converting that for a kill.  That conversion might mean one turn with a bandit, but most often it's getting the bandit in a position where the plane is barely flying.

In your B-n-Z example,m the problem seems one of gunnery (and I have this problem too).  Try to think of your prey as a major league pitcher.  If he's sleeping, he won't evade and you'll hit it out of the park.   Chances are he's gonna break.  Study the break.  On the next pass, set up to shoot him down if he breaks like that again (if the guy makes two flat right turns in a row, he deserves to die on principle).  Start working on anticipating his move.  If he moves like you think he will, let him have it; otherwise, zoom out and repeat.
At some point he will be on the deck, with no more altitude to convert to energy.  Keep making passes at him, forcing him to break.  Eventually, he'll get below his best maneuvering speed and you;ll be able to nail his ass.

[Keez]

Okay, so I got Boom n Zoom and Rope a Dope now. Any other E moves I should know about?  

[Hammerhead]

First of all Keez, let me congratulate u on ur arrival into the world of E-fighting.
I used to be in ur shoes not so long ago (3 months to be exact).......
TnB is all I knew, hell I even tried to turnfight NIKs with P51s....   .
Anyway a few basics are good. Here are a few moves I made up with the P51D....(beautiful plane).
1) The simple vertical loop. Don't underestimate this tactic, as its often never expected by ur nme. Also, its the most effective way IMHO to get a Buff. Nailed several Lancs, and B26s and a few B17s with this manoeveur and suffered little or no damage.
2) Try loopin and rolling at the same time.
3) Most effective against TnB fighters, and fighters that can't zoom with the stang.
Half a loop up, when u r inverted with the nme just below u, half a roll, followed with full rudder downwards. Watch as u end up on the nmes six and follow on to the kill. Because u r diving you can also turn with the nme, for a few secs at least....
Chewed up too many zekes and C205s with that one....
Personally, I think the best planes to start E-fighting are the LA-7 and F4U, fast and comparatively good tuners.
In any event, succesfull E-fighting means u need to really know reversals, (some thing that I suck at). Practice them and u will kick butt.....  

[Zippatuh]

One of the keys in energy fighting is patience.  If attacks are forced to quickly you’ll soon find the E advantage gone.

Dinger made some good points that I’ll repeat.  The rope-a-dope and/or hammerhead is one of the best maneuvers for an energy fighter.  For the rope patience ways in once again.  Whenever approaching an enemy contact where you have the altitude advantage don’t try and force the engagement.  You will be surprised at how often the enemy will try and climb to you.  If this should happen, wing over a little to keep an eye under and pull the nose up some.  Next becomes a judgement call on when the right time is to nose over and go in for the kill.

The hammerhead is a bit more risky as most of the time the enemy could be just outside weapon range when trying to pull them up to stall.

Gunnery.  I still have a problem with this.  You’re only going to get a viable gun solution for a very short period of time.  With factoring in the speed you’re engaging at, the enemy’s speed, as well as convergence settings the angle of attack may leave very little room for errors.  Also don’t forget about the energy the bullets will have when they hit also.  A single slash may not provide the kill but may deal enough damage that when they run another friendly will finish them off for you.

A good way to practice gunnery on a hi-speed B&Z is vulching a CAP’d base that’s being attacked.  The aircraft are generally a lot slower and continually making turns.  Just remember not to fire until you see the rivets in there wings  .

Its hard to get away from but be patient.  There is nothing worse then letting them fangs come out and dig into your objective.  If you find your pulling hard because the last few passes have missed and are getting aggravated at no hits it’s time to break off, regain your altitude, take a deep breath, and go look for another poor bastige  .

It may seem like its all about B&Z; however, if you stick with it awhile you’ll start to find some interesting tactics to use.  They usually all boil down to trying to get your enemy to pull his nose up while you are above him.  You may also find that after some success at energy fighting your angles fighting will improve too.  The spit is a good E-fighter but I would stay away from it, as it will be too easy to result to T&B.

Good luck.

Zippatuh

[Zippatuh]

An addition.  The Immelman.

A good tactic is after a few passes when your E has bled some and it appears that it could soon end up a co-alt co-e fight, bring in the Immelman.  As you loop up roll over at the top and hang.  The stall buzzer will be blaring like mad and you will loose complete sight of the enemy.  What I have found is that most of the time, if not all, they are climbing in the loop behind me expecting a vertical HO.  After a few seconds I roll over and dive.  Generally the other aircraft is just recovering from the stall.  It takes good judgement of both your energy states though so beware.

Also the double Immelman.  The enemy may be suckered into thinking they can follow you up.  If you extend or keep climbing they will probably break off.  However, if you flatten out on the first one and then pull for the next most of the time the bad guy will not flatten out at all and continue to climb.  You will have just put someone in a rope-a-dope that didn’t expect it.  Be careful on this one.  Its easy to stall most E aircraft doing this and distance between you and the bad guy can close quickly.


Zippatuh

[Puck]

Originally posted by Keez:
Okay, so I got Boom n Zoom and Rope a Dope now. Any other E moves I should know about?  

High and low yo-yo.  Offensive barrel rolls.  Deadly gunnery    

[funkedup]

Keez you should try your Spitfire with the E fighting tactics.  It's not bad in that role.  The only problem is that you don't have the speed to get out of an outnumbered situation.  But if you have a bunch of altitude, that can substitute for speed.

[FirstBorg]

I have some questions
What is an Energy Fighter and what is Energy Fighting?
What is rope and dope and hammerhead?

[majic]

Borg... I'll assume you don't know what energy is to start (as it applies here).  At its most basic it is a combo of speed and/or momentum.  You need the speed for to be able to fly and manuever, lose it and you stall.  E-fighters excell at retaining energy because they either are fast and/or can accelerate well.  (P51 is one of the best).  Usually in an e-fighter you can't turn with some planes so you absolutely do not want to get in a turn fight with planes like a spitfire or n1k.  You'll lose all your energy advantage and they will turn inside you and kill you.  Those planes retain E well but in a differnt way.  i.e.- they can manuever at low speeds for a long time.  E-fighting is merely using your speed advantage to keep the other fighter away from you while you can make passes at them.  (There is a lot more to this, but I'll leave that to the experts.)

[akak]

Energy fighters are planes that skimp on manuaverability for the sake of speed and power.  Pretty much all U.S. planes fit this catagory.  

Energy fighting is the concept of air combat that emphasizes using energy state of your plane to gain an angles on the enemy.  Energy fighting can encompass everything from Boom and Zoom tactics to a Spiral Rope Climb.  Energy fighting doesn't have to be at high speeds either and can be combined with turn fighting tactics.  IMO, the most deadly pilots are those the employ a mix of energy and turn fighting tactics.  

One Energy tactic that I've found works in AH just as good as it did in AW is the 'vertical 8'.  I don't know how effective it is in other planes but it works quite well in the P-38L.  The Vertical 8 is one of the many types of Rope-a-Dweeb tricks out there.  When entering the merge, have your plane slightly nose down with WEP on.  This is to build up some extra energy for the vertical 8 on the merge.  Make sure you've got some seperation from the bogie to avoid the head on shot on merge.  As you merge with the bogie, pull into a 3-g Immelman and as you roll out to level on top of Immelman, if you've built up enough energy on the merge, you should have enough energy to go into another Immelman.  As you reach the top of the 2nd Immelman, you'll be low on energy so use your flaps to get you over the top.  Usually the bogie will try to follow you up on your first Immel and not expect you to pull off another one, so when you get over the top of your second Immel, 7 out of 10 times the bogie is stalled out below you showing his belly for your guns.  If the bogie doesn't try to go into the vertical with you on the merge and instead break turns or even does a Split-S, no worries.  Now you've got an altitude advantage over him with potential energy stored up.

An example of using energy tactics in a turn fight is the "stall loop".  The stall loop is a manuever where you do a loop, usually at low speeds, and you stall going over the top and it's your stall that carries you through the rest of the loop.  Again, this works in the P-38L and I haven't tried it in any other planes here in AH but in AW it worked with pretty much any plane.  The best way to employ the stall loop is to get your bogie into a low speed turn fight.  This is were energy fighting comes in.  While in the turn fight, while getting the bogie to turn tighter to burn his energy way even further, lessen up on your stick and slightly start to widen your turns.  This will reduce the g-load on your plane and will build up a little energy for you.  As you get close to 150mph, pull into a loop using your flaps to get you over the top.  If everything works well, as you stall, your nose should be pointing down above the stalled out bogie.  Since the bogie didn't have the energy to match your stall loop, he should be stalled out right below you.  If the bogie continued to turn or used the time you did your loop to try to extend and run, don't worry you still got him because now you've got the advantage over him.

For more stuff on mastering the merge, you should check out Rocketman's site.  Don't let the Air Warrior stuff fool you, his lectures of merge tactics are real world ACM tactics and work with any flight sim game that models flight realistically.

For a site with good Energy Fighting tactics and lectures, BulletHead's site is one of the better ones.  Again, these aren't Air Warrior only tactics and they work just as good, if not better in Aces High.

Rocketman's site: Mastering the Merge

Bulletheads Energy tactics:  how to "E" fight

You can ignore the screenshots of the stick scales on Bullethead's site as they are AW specific.


   

Originally posted by FirstBorg:
I have some questions
What is an Energy Fighter and what is Energy Fighting?
What is rope and dope and hammerhead?

[ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: Ack-Ack ]

[Hobodog]

Well i will make a meaningless post and say that the others here are very right in their tactic asnd also nothing better than a suprise dive on an angles fighter or a successful rope-a-dope. Well there are some things better but those are another time and another place. Oh and i have flow E-Fighters for a while and find the F4still baffles me. I find it a very hard plane to fly. thats my 2cence.

[-ammo-]

Lots of good points above.  Good gunnery is paramount in energy fighting. You must be able to predict where the enemy AC is going to be a few steps ahead of him.  Place your bullet stream in his path and let him have it as he passes through.  No turning, gentle energy conserving manuevers. Your manuevers should be vertical in nature to rebuild and recover your enbergy you spent in your pass. That means no hard corrections when tracking a con. That means no saddling up on the con. THAT is the hardest thing to overcome. ALSO your situational awareness must be tuned in. Too easy to get yourself in a bad situation.

for gunnery practice, this is a great exercise, however it is boring.  Offline, get yourself around 6-7000 feet above the circling drones. Make passes at them at high speeds, but noit from their 6 oclock.  Make your passes head on to them, or 90 degrees or greater. Dont shoot till you are close. I also suggest turning your tracers off. Keep up beating on those drones and your gunnery will improve. Strive for 10% or better. You check your gunnery at the scores page.  To get a good idea of how well your gunnery is doing using the scores page, you shouldnt strafe ground targets as it degrades your hit percentage. (BTW your hit percentage has alot of bearing on your score,  believe it or not)

Good luck, keep practicing!

[Am0n]

im buy no means a expert stick, listen to these guys before hand, this is all good info i see here.

But heres my 2 cents.

normaly when im E fighting, such as you described after 3-4 passes im going to recover fully for a few minutes (some times 2 passses depending on what air craft im fighting, or how much alt i had on them to begin with.)

As ammo stated gunnery is the most important part of E fighting/BNZ fighting. I dont fight with tracers becuse they are useless for this type of attack. Plus the element of surprise is 10 times better than anything they will ever do for you. In nearly all BNZ kills you will not be able to see your opponent when you are shooting, because the correct angle will be well ahead of them.

ive flown all type of fighters for a few months at a time, im currently working on turn fighters. One of the biggest mistakes a E fighter can make when he gets low on E and i 6 him is if he out sciscors me, or gets separation from a manuever he tries to turn back into me for a kill, which is a deadly mistake, i see it all to often.

Also patients is another key to this type of fighting, nothing can kill a e fighter faster vrs a turn fighter than not having the patients to wait for your kill, play with your food a little before you eat it.  

Good luck Keez

Amon

[crutch]

If you guys dont mind a checking a post in the 'other' forum    
 http://agw.dogfighter.com/agw//Forum9/HTML/000252.html

Just about any plane can be flown as an 'energy' fighter and even if the 'T&B' crowd doesnt admit it a good turnfight is still an energy fight when you analyize it.

[ 12-07-2001: Message edited by: crutch ]