What does a furball mean to you?

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by FiLtH


    But back to the main reason. I dont like flying in a plane that can easily get outturned by another type.  Thats how I like to fly, and when it gets down to that point, I want a chance to have a good turn fight. My main targets are spits, hurris and zeros.  I like to wander into a furball and target them first. Maybe when I get older, and my reflexes are gone I will start flying the fast planes, and dream of the glory days when the wingtips scrapped the water, and the trees were king.

In alot of ways flying a fast and therefore less nimble plane is more difficult. You eluded to the reason here. In a nimble plane it is rather trivial to avoid passes by faster and less agile planes. In a slow, manueverable plane you always have the TnB card, you can always just yank n' bank with any opponent and have a good chance of victory. In a fast plane you do not have that luxury. If you find yourself facing just about any plane with an E advantage on you you are committed, you have no trump card, if they have the E to prevent you from seperating you either have to fly your arse off vs. a more manueverable plane, which is quite difficult, if the guy is worth a chit, or you're going to die....period...

So obviously someone in a fast plane is going to try to keep slower and more agile planes at arms length. The only way to do this is to E fight. A slow plane really has no such concerns, they can E fight or dump all of their E and shift to angles fighting knowing they have an advantage there too.

The trouble I see people running into in slow planes is if they have really bad SA, they get BnZ'd alot. The people with good SA are almost impossible to purely BnZ as a nimble plane can flick away from a high speed pass from a fast plane effortlessly. It is the SA-less guys flying slow planes that are always whining about cherry-pickers, they may be great sticks, but if your SA sucks and you're in a slow ride you're going to get picked ALOT, it's just a fact. Just as it's a fact, as filth says, if you're in a fast plane but lack the discipline to E fight, but instead get into low-speed angles fights with far more manueverable planes you're going to get killed ALOT.

I'm not saying people in fast planes shouldn't turn fight. I'm simply saying they have to pick their spots far more carefully and they generally have to be very good at turn fighting to enjoy consistant success against planes that have an intrinsic manueverability advantage.

Zazen

[FiLtH]

Id say if I were trying to live, I'd take fast over turn anyday of the week. But day to day flying I'll take a turner. Stuff like FSO and scenarios its nice to have speed and climb.  

      As far as it being harder to fly in a fast plane, I cant say I agree. If you are high and fast, and can look around, unless you pull on that stick, you dictate your destiny. You can even dive away . But if by chance, you get caught, and find yourself trapped. It all falls back on the down and dirty turn fight as a last resort to survive. From what Ive seen, the guys who fly the turners well, seem to get the most out of even the worst turning planes when times are tough.

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by FiLtH
.  

      As far as it being harder to fly in a fast plane, I cant say I agree. If you are high and fast, and can look around, unless you pull on that stick, you dictate your destiny. You can even dive away . But if by chance, you get caught, and find yourself trapped. It all falls back on the down and dirty turn fight as a last resort to survive.  

Not many people who fly fast planes who are worth a watermelon stay high and fast all the time. Read my breakdown of a typical flight. A good portion of the flight is spent at or very near the deck and definately 'underneath' alot of the enemy. Staying high and fast all the time is a recipe for 1 kill an hour. The fact is in AH, unlike in real life, the 'food' is under 10k, usually under 5k, so if you want kills that's where you must end up. So, when a fast plane goes down to feed he is virtually guarenteeing a turnfight at a severe manueverability disadvantage at some point in the sortie...A turnfighter fighting under 10k, unless ganged, is guarenteed to be at the very least even money in a turnfight, skill being equal..

The point is, everyone ends up turnfighting at some point in a typical sortie. To enjoy similiar success and survival rate a Jug driver has to be quite alot better at it than a Spit driver, for example. If the Jug driver is not very good, way above average,  at manuevering his plane he will rarely survive anything vaguely resembling a turnfight as he will almost always be at a severe innate manueverability disadvantage. A Spit driver doesn't have to be nearly as good to survive a typical turnfight as he will almost never be at an innate manueverability disadvantage...

To summarize, an E disadvantage is fairly easy to overcome, a manueverability disadvantage is hardcoded and impossible to overcome. The only way to be successful with an innate manueverability disadvantage is to fly ALOT better than the more manueverable plane's pilot and be absolutely perfect at exploiting any and all mistakes he makes. This requires alot of skill...In a plane that has an innate manueverability advantage you can actually fly alot worse than the disadvantaged plane and win easily, in order to lose you'd really have to screw-up and/or be very badly out-flown...Time is on the side of the more manueverable plane, E naturally degrades over time, the fight gets tighter and tighter, sealing the fate of the less manueverable plane.





Zazen

[FiLtH]

You see it that way, I see it this way.

    Take the 2 planes in here at opposite ends of the spectrum. The 262 and the Spit1.  If the 262 stays fast, he has no fear, short of another 262. No matter what the spit1 does, he has everyone to fear. You seem to think the Spit has all the time in the world tooling around just waiting for someone to turn fight him. In reality its guys in the faster planes, he has to be constantly on guard for, as well as the other turners he will face.

    Im sorry I just dont respect the fast hit and run flying as much as I do a guy that can work a fight to gain a 6 shot, and more so a guy that can do this against multiple enemies.  

   To me its like swordsmen and archers.  The swordsmen hack away at eachother and the archers shoot into the mass of fighters. After the battle the archer says to the swordsman, "Whew...that was a tuff fight!"

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by FiLtH
You see it that way, I see it this way.

    Take the 2 planes in here at opposite ends of the spectrum. The 262 and the Spit1.  If the 262 stays fast, he has no fear, short of another 262. No matter what the spit1 does, he has everyone to fear. You seem to think the Spit has all the time in the world tooling around just waiting for someone to turn fight him. In reality its guys in the faster planes, he has to be constantly on guard for, as well as the other turners he will face.

    Im sorry I just dont respect the fast hit and run flying as much as I do a guy that can work a fight to gain a 6 shot, and more so a guy that can do this against multiple enemies.  

   To me its like swordsmen and archers.  The swordsmen hack away at eachother and the archers shoot into the mass of fighters. After the battle the archer says to the swordsman, "Whew...that was a tuff fight!"

That's a poor example, but your whole argument is predicated upon the erroneous assumption that fast planes never, by choice or circumstance, turn-fight. That's just untrue, except when perk planes like the 262 are involved such as in your example, but that is a very unique and special situation. Show me a guy in a fast plane that doesn't turn-fight at least once or twice a sortie and I'll show you a guy who's either vulching, buff hunting or getting 1 kill an hour or less and therefore of no consequence anyways...

With the predominance of planes like the Spitfire/La7 and the relatively very low altitude of engagements in the MA, finding yourself at an E disadvantage and getting into at least one turnfight of some kind during a sortie is a foregone conclusion for any type of plane. When that inevtitably happens, the faster, less nimble plane is at a severe and virtually insurmountable disadvantage, his only possible recourse for success in this scenario is to dramatically out-fly his much more manueverable opponent...The reverse, however, is not true, a very manueverable plane need only erode the E state of the opponent to the point where he can use his distinct manueverability advantage to consumate the victory. Unless the pilot of the angles fighter is badly out-flown or makes a glaring mistake his victory in this scenario is assured...Fights between planes equal in manueverability are decided by who makes the least mistakes and raw pilot/gunnery skill...



Zazen

[FiLtH]

"The reverse, however, is not true, a very manueverable plane need only erode the E state of the opponent to the point where he can use his distinct manueverability advantage to consumate the victory"



    The plane with the E advantage should never be in the position to let a turn fighter dictate his E state. If so he, like me, just wanted to get in fight and see how he could do against the turning plane. If you really want to stay alive in a fast plane, odds are the survivibilty percentage favors it, rather than a slow plane. I think thats fairly obvious.

    But back to the topic of the thread, to be part of a furball, I believe the consensus believes its at equal speeds in a turning mass of planes, most likely on the deck with no way to dive out to escape, having to brawl your way out of the fight. Traveling through one, although low, with speed, doesnt constitute as being part of that furball, merely going through one.

[DoKGonZo]

Originally posted by Zazen13
....Show me a guy in a fast plane that doesn't turn-fight at least once or twice a sortie and I'll show you a guy who's either vulching, buff hunting or getting 1 kill an hour or less and therefore of no consequence anyways...

[mars01]

I have to agree with Filth good posts, spot on.

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by FiLtH
"The reverse, however, is not true, a very manueverable plane need only erode the E state of the opponent to the point where he can use his distinct manueverability advantage to consumate the victory"



    The plane with the E advantage should never be in the position to let a turn fighter dictate his E state. If so he, like me, just wanted to get in fight and see how he could do against the turning plane. If you really want to stay alive in a fast plane, odds are the survivibilty percentage favors it, rather than a slow plane. I think thats fairly obvious.

    But back to the topic of the thread, to be part of a furball, I believe the consensus believes its at equal speeds in a turning mass of planes, most likely on the deck with no way to dive out to escape, having to brawl your way out of the fight. Traveling through one, although low, with speed, doesnt constitute as being part of that furball, merely going through one.

Let me explain this another way. All it takes is one Spit higher than a speed plane and the speed plane has no E advantage and if at or near the deck cannot dive to escape, this happens all the time in the MA. Anyone diving can be the fastest plane with the most E, a diving Zeke is faster than a level La7. A smart turn-fighter can easily seduce an E advantage away from an over-zealous opponent, just ask people like Greebo who are masters at it.

You seem to be clinging to this notion of perfect polar opposites where all of the slow planes are 2 feet off the ground, flaps out at 100 mph and all the speed planes are 20k or diving thru the low guys at 500 mph with their hair on fire. While this may be how some people fly, it's not how the very sucessful, therefore dangerous ones fly. If you want to kill efficiently and effectively in the MA you have to chop throttle and go a few turns with your prey in most cases, especially if he has any SA at all or is any good. While you are doing this chances are a friend of his with equal or better E is going to latch onto your six.  It is in this way every plane in a furball ends up involved in some turnfighting. When this happens, the most manueverable plane will always win unless the guy in the much less manueverable plane totally and completely outflies/out-shoots the more manueverable one.

Zazen

[gatt]

Originally posted by FiLtH
(Snip ...)
    Im sorry I just dont respect the fast hit and run flying as much as I do a guy that can work a fight to gain a 6 shot, and more so a guy that can do this against multiple enemies.  

   To me its like swordsmen and archers.  The swordsmen hack away at eachother and the archers shoot into the mass of fighters. After the battle the archer says to the swordsman, "Whew...that was a tuff fight!"

The Main is made by furballers, cherrypickers and everything in between. Furballers are targets for me, as I am a target for them when I come down and eventually loose my E advantage.

Uhm, no respect what? Does everybody have to play the way furballers want? No matter which aircraft they are in? No thanks, I for one prefer to fight from 20K down on the deck, trying to sharpen my SA. I dont like to be shoot down by one of the 10 foes around me, probably unseen, as 99% of furballers do. I dont like no gravity aircraft (like Spits, Lalas, Franks, Nikis and Hurries) and their full flaps maneuvers often on and beyond the edge of the flight envelope. For me AH is not just a shooting game like BF1942. Its much more. However, I respect furballers: hell, I am often one of them once I've lost all my E and SA

[Zazen13]

Originally posted by gatt
, I respect furballers: hell, I am often one of them once I've lost all my E and SA

Precisely Gatt. Everyone ends up turnfighting. I am one of the most disciplined and patient E fighters in the game (not the best, just disciplined), yet I still end up turnfighting on the deck every sortie either by intention or circumstance...Doing so successfully  in a plane that turns substantially worse than 9 out of 10 planes in the air is far, far, far more difficult than doing so in a plane that intrinsically out-turns 9 out of 10 planes in the air...


Zazen

[Waffle]

Originally posted by Zazen13

1) I  locate a nice fight on the map, up for the fight from a nearby field almost always with 100% fuel and DT's. I tailor my style to my diminishing fuel load as the flight progresses.

Drop Tanks? and 100% fuel - screams TIMID ALT MONKEY to me (especialy in a furballers paradise)

2) I then Gain altitude to be at or slightly above 75% of the reported/guesstimated enemy within optimal aircraft performance limits, which is generally 15k or less.

Verification of ALT-MONKEY

3) Usually I overfly the focal point of the fight scanning for targets at or above my altitude. Once those are dead, flee or are dragged down I continue to the opposite perimiter of the fight area.

[/B]

Sound like the start of a cherry pick....

4) Once on the extreme edge of the fight opposite the side my home field is on I vector toward friendly territory engaging targets of opportunity along the way, always highest to lowest and fastest to slowest if in an E Fighter or the most nimble first if in a turn fighter, engaging and destroying cons all the way down to deck if necessary.

[/B]

sounds like confirmed cherry picking or afk all-starring......

5) Once my altitude/energy degrades to the point I am either on the deck or on the bottom of the pile I attempt to gain seperation and egress toward my field and friendlies in order to regain operational altitude.

[/B]

IE Run for my ack buddies

6) Repeat stages 2-5

[/B]

Rinse n repeat......

Well you proved your stance to me...a timid "furballer" who spends all his time in ostwinds or feild guns.

[FiLtH]

Zaz...I've flown with you.  We are squadmates.

     Sortie for sortie, the faster planes will have a better survival rate.
    Better climb gets them to safer alt sooner and more often. Better speed, usually better dive as well. Most times better armed. Your definition sounds more like a dogfight to me.

     I too dont always furball. What Im trying to do is define furball.  You dont have to defend how you fly, whatever works.  Ive seen alot of posts in here lately assaulting the bomber types and how they ruin furballs, when in fact the reason they hate to see furballs ruined is they lose targets..not because they cant take part in a furball.

     If someone gains kills off the unaware, or the busy so be it. But please dont call it being in the furball. Save that for the poor saps who crawl into and out of them.  Again..this thread is defining furball, not attacking how one plays, or even what plane someone should use.

   I'll let you have the last word. Feels like its getting a little heated and I dont want to go down that road.

[DoKGonZo]

Originally posted by FiLtH
... What Im trying to do is define furball.  ...

My observation is that a typical furball is more like a meteorological storm cell than a cluster. It's more dynamic than static, though it does retain a visual form, like a storm. Usually starts around 8-12K from the initial merge and it quickly drops down below 5K. Then more planes feed into this from above (B&Z planes) and below (T&B planes) or co-alt (either kind of plane). The median altitude can change depending on where people start dying, and what altitudes people come in at to feed the system, but everything pretty much funnels downward.

This means you have planes with a range of energy potentials all in the same space, depending on how recent they joined. It also means you have players with a range of SA because the more recent arrivals have a better sense of the big picture. SA, altitude, and energy all degrade the longer you stay inside the system. Now maybe some of those planes aren't classified as "furballers" but they are contributing to the system in one way or another.


As for looking down on killing the unaware, don't underestimate the satisfaction of dropping in fast and alone behind a flight of 3 or 4 La-7's or Spit16's on their way to your base, picking out the one who isn't paying close enough attention, and nailing him in one pass right in front of his wingmen. And then knowing that he's now on the radio about "Gee, thanks for the check-6 you guys."

A classic bounce is not the same as cherry-picking and it's awesome when you can pull it off given that there's neon.

[SlapShot]

Originally posted by DoKGonZo
My observation is that a typical furball is more like a meteorological storm cell than a cluster. It's more dynamic than static, though it does retain a visual form, like a storm. Usually starts around 8-12K from the initial merge and it quickly drops down below 5K. Then more planes feed into this from above (B&Z planes) and below (T&B planes) or co-alt (either kind of plane). The median altitude can change depending on where people start dying, and what altitudes people come in at to feed the system, but everything pretty much funnels downward.

This means you have planes with a range of energy potentials all in the same space, depending on how recent they joined. It also means you have players with a range of SA because the more recent arrivals have a better sense of the big picture. SA, altitude, and energy all degrade the longer you stay inside the system. Now maybe some of those planes aren't classified as "furballers" but they are contributing to the system in one way or another.


As for looking down on killing the unaware, don't underestimate the satisfaction of dropping in fast and alone behind a flight of 3 or 4 La-7's or Spit16's on their way to your base, picking out the one who isn't paying close enough attention, and nailing him in one pass right in front of his wingmen. And then knowing that he's now on the radio about "Gee, thanks for the check-6 you guys."

A classic bounce is not the same as cherry-picking and it's awesome when you can pull it off given that there's neon.

The most technically correct definition of a furball that I have ever seen.

I agree ... a "bounce" is not a "cherrypick" ... a cherrypick is killing someone who is already engaged ... and your fellow friendly could be winning or losing in the engagement.