The "Hammerhead" - an opinion

[ArtLaws]

I have never made a single kill with the sucker move known as the "HAMMERHEAD".  Nor do I teach it to any I newbee I train.  But they hear about it and my experience.  They won't be falling for many your little hammerheads.   I warn them that some of the best pilots in the game can do 1000s of tempting variations of 1 simple newbee killer move "THE HAMMERHEAD".  You pilots are using the fact that a persons veiw is limited.  In this and all other sims.  A real pilot has over 200 degrees of vision.
 if we had the ability to recreate that vision "NO ONE-EXCEPT THE EXTREMELY STUPID"  would knowingly pull up into a straight vertical stall.  You are using this game limation to get the magority of your kills.  So I say you are cheating.  Yes your a bunch pansy cheaters.  IMO   If anyone can show my WWII Film of a SINGLE hammerhead kill.  I would like to see it.  How many times would you do that SUCKER MOVE in the real world.  As your pulling into the SUCKER MOVE,  my WINGMAN  drop froms alt and makes a big mess in the cockpit of your plane.  You are a sitting duck during the move, if we all flew with wingmen in this game as they did in reality you would not return to base many times.  
  The thing that really pisses me off is that the same people who DEPEND on this SUCKER MOVE are the same people who will  squeak for hours a day about the flight modeling of NIK or this or that.  I suggest the planes are fine, maybe its our own flight modeling skills we should work on. Art

[Jekyll]

I don't understand a word you are saying Artlaws.

But if you are suggesting that 'rope-a-dope' is a cheating tactic then I would be VERY, VERY careful about making a suggestion like that.

But seriously, why the rant?  The 'rope-a-dope' is simply the ultimate expression of the energy fighter.  It has nothing at all to do with field of vision... I don't know how on earth you could have come to that conclusion.

An energy fighter builds an E advantage over his opponent.  At some stage, he cashes in that excess energy for a positional advantage.  The hammerhead reversal is the ONLY move I know of which does not involve a tradeoff between energy and nose position.. you get both for free.

I use the hammerhead a lot.  I get a few kills in it ... I die a few times when my E assessment is not quite right.  So, you're calling me a cheat?

Grow up... fast!

------------------
Jekyll
9./JG 54 "Grünherz"
Aces High Training Corps

[Karaya One]

Art:

You will probably never find any "film" on a Hammerhead because most combat camera's were turned on when the odds for a kill were extrememly high. This was to conserve film.

Also, a Hammerhead looks like a Hammerhead from a certain point of reference. Sometimes its not easy to tell when a Hammerhead is being used.

Your argument should be dropped until you have had some time to do REAL research. Read some real WWII stories and find some notable books the illustrate the combat moves used in WWII.

The Hammerhead is a valid move. It may not be one of the top 5 choices for defense or offense but it WAS used and it is still considered a ACM to this day.

K1



[This message has been edited by Karaya One (edited 04-30-2001).]

[Drex]

[This message has been edited by Drex (edited 04-30-2001).]

[loser]

i remember a few months back i went into the training arena because i was really fuggin bored.

anyway i tried pulling some airshow-style aerobatics in several different planes.  I could not once in any plane perform a true hammerhead..it was always some sort of lazy arsed stall that was as clean as my ex girlfriend.

maybe it is because i suck..but why call cheat on something that is next to impossible to do.

[Mark Luper]

I remember a hammerhead being a common maneuver in WB. I have seen it very little in here. 7 of the 10 or so times I've seen it it has offered me a great slow to still target. I love it when I get those. 8 .50's love it too  .

It may have been used on me at some point and I just didn't realize it.

I know the last thing I want to do in my 47 is get stoped in mid air. It is a big and slow enough target as it is.

Of course I'm not the last word on ACM either. Just wish Drex hadn't edited out his post.


 

[-ammo-]

I use it all the time in a P-47. I judge an enemy as having a lower E state than mine and bait him by allowing him to start closing slight through slight turns or other manuevers. The idea being to get him to "take the hook" so to speak. he follows and if I do it right his AC rolls over with mine rolling back over and pursueing him to a kill or at the minimum I have gained superior position. Its not going to be found in combat film, at least Ive got quite a bit in vhs tapes, and havent ever seen it. Now, keep in  mind those cameras were activated by gun activation or when the pilot deemed a gun shot was immenent. But pick up Hub Zemke's book and you will get detailed descriptions of the 56th FG using energy tactics such as the "hammerhead" to great success.

<S>

ammo

[SpitLead]

Uh, I usually hit my head with a hammer after I get shot down... does that maneuver count?

[bowser]

He didn't state his point of view in the friendliest manner, but his point that very few pilots in WWII used the hammerhead move is probably pretty accurate.

I've never read any accounts.  Probably has to do with the chance your taking that the con doesn't have enough E to follow you up.  In here, if he does, big deal.  In RL, hardly worth it to take the chance.

Anybody have WWII accounts of it's use?

bowser

[SpitLead]

The only time I've ever seen it online is when someone is JABO'ing a field and making multiple passes.  Usually, nme planes are low and have little 'e'. They dive down, strafe and zoom climb above before anyone can catch them.  Then, knowing no one has the 'e' to follow, they do a hammerhead at the top and repeat the process.  It's very effective for this type of attack.  Just make sure there are no nme's at the same altitude when you do it.

[Montezuma]

   

Originally posted by bowser:
I've never read any accounts.

Read much ?    

While I suspect this thread is a troll, I give you:

1st Lt. Jack Jones
39th Pursuit Squadron, 35th Pursuit Group
Cape Ward Hunt, New Guinea, June 9, 1942

Jack Jones was piloting one of eight P-39s escorting a group of twelve B26s attacking a Japanese Airbase at Lay.  The bombers had completed their run, dove to the deck, and were leaving the target area at full throttle, skimming the water.  The bombers were then attacked by zeros.

..."I was in a fair - not too steep - dive.  As I got closer, I could see a lot of Zeros - between 8 and 12.  They were out over the water, like flies around what was left of our bombers...."

"... I picked out one of the Zeros as my target... Sure enough, the guy I was zeroing in on pulled straight up, hanging on his prop.  It was their best evasion tactic.  All four of us started firing at him, but he didn't start smoking or catch fire.  I had not fired at an aerial target since being assigned to the 39th Pursuit Squadron in 1941.  We had only fired at ground targets in Michigan, and I'm sure some of us hadn't even done that."

"... (My flight was) going one way and I was going back in the opposite direction, somewhat downhill, to engage a Zero, which was stalking Price back there."

"The Zero started up in that vertical climb business - hanging on his prop, up and up, expecting me to stall out.  If I had stalled, he would have come right back down and shot me to pieces.  I had a good deal of speed.  I guess he didn't realize that we had just come down from altitude and had a good deal of speed built up.  I was going full out, full throttle.  He was 12 o'clock to me - straight ahead - and high.  I was following much further than he expected, firing all my guns.  The 20 mm in the prop spinner, the four wing mounted .30 caliburs, and the two cowl mounted .50 caliburs - in real short bursts.  I had modified my gunsight, I had scratched an additional elevation line on the reticle mirror.  That was the bird-hunter instinct."

"I'm sure I started firing too early.  As I fired those short bursts, I realized I had to be careful I didn't stall, but I tried to hang in after the Zero.  Luckily, he turned to the left, broadside to me.   Right then, I'm sure I saw just one of my 20 mm shells explode just forward of the front end of his cockpit. "

"The Zero flattend out and I saw movement inside the cockpit, which was beginning to smoke.  Sure enough, it was the pilot.  He was climbing out of the cockpit, on the left side.  I tried to pull in my lead a little tighter to shoot him off the wing, but I sensed I would probably stall out before then.  I was down below 140 miles per hour.  The Zero's nose was just beginning to drop.  As I passed behind it, the pilot was holding on to the cockpit, looking back at me.  He was standing on the trailing edge of the wing, clutching the rim of the cockpit.  He had no parachute on.  The wind was blowing his scarf and billowing his flight suit."...

That Zero pilot was Warrant Officer Satoshi Yoshino, of the Imperial Navy's Tainan Fighter Group.  He was a 15 kill ace.

Saburo Sakai was also involved in that fight.

This story appears in the book 'Aces Against Japan' by Eric Hammel.  You can find it in paperback and it is easily worth the  $6.50.


[This message has been edited by Montezuma (edited 04-30-2001).]

[Spatula]

The Hammerhead or wingover turn for me and most energy fighters is the 'coupe de grace' (excuse spelling), the summation of well fought energy fight. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

You call it a 'sucker move', then whats your problem with it? unless your calling yourself a sucker, then you shouldnt have any bone to pick with it.

And can the 'real world' speech. In the real world 70% of kills happened when other pilot wasnt even aware of it, in AH it prolly only accounts for 1%. The differences between the real world and the representation of it in AH are too many and too great to even bother fairly comparing the two.

You are right in that its not allways the best thing to do when there are higher cons around you. But you'd be pretty dumb to try it in that situation.

I (and other practitioners of it)dont 'depend' on it, it is one of a number of offensive moves designed to trick the enemy into misjudging your true E state, and that is what E fighting is all about.

[batdog]

 Troll... gotta be, lol.

[This message has been edited by batdog (edited 05-01-2001).]

[Hammer Head]

 

Originally posted by batdog:
Troll... gotta be, lol.

Unfortunately not batdog.  Artlaws has been quite vocal about this topic while I have been in the MA and BBS lately.

To Artlaws:  Take a chill pill.  If you don't like the rope-a-dope, learn to avoid it.  Don't tell the rest of us that we aren't allowed to use a RL maneuver.  You should also teach the people you train to avoid it too.  It is and will always be a move used to take out low E enemies dumb enough to try to follow you up.

I benefitted from being shown the rope-a-dope early on in my AH experience.  I was killed by it many times until I learnt how to recognise and avoid it.  Now I use it on others.  Not showing this move to newbies is the cheat... it allows them to be slaughtered much more easily by pilots using good ACM.

My $0.02.