unlearning bad habits

[boomerlu]

You may have the advantage built in, but that doesn't mean that bleeding E will allow you to go vertical. I may not be seeing what you're seeing.

How big of an advantage does the F6F have in turn rate with 1-2 notches of flaps? Is it sustainable?

If it's not a sustainable turn rate advantage, you'll lose E more quickly than the Spit. Once you do, the Spit can pull out of plane to deny you the shot (Badboy had a post on this, and that's what I'm referencing).

If he chooses to try to scissor with you rather than fight a nose-tail fight, of course he's dead. But if he RECOGNIZES that you are trying to force a nose-nose fight (and this is the big IF), he'll realize that your E-state will be low enough compared to his that he can go vertical.

Once he's vertical, your chances go down, especially if he does a few jinks to avoid guns while zooming.

Remember, the F6F can't replace E as easily as the Spit. Burning more E by using combat flaps just worsens the situation - you had better get the kill soon or hope the Spit doesn't know that the counter to a scissors is a high yo-yo.

Edit: My big assumption is that the Spit is good or at least as good as the Hellcat driver. Perhaps that's an overestimation since a big part of the analysis comes from Badboy/TC via an old post.

Edit: I probably should have just posted the link. http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,271266.0.html

That thread was what made the turn radius vs turn rate concept click in my head.

[humble]

boomer,

Complex ACM is just that and its not easy to comment with any real authority on the application of general concepts. We all acquire a general flying style that suite our temperament and many of us can easily identify other pilots we encounter on a regular basis by the various "tells" we all give. Speaking in generalities we can define air combat as being either neutral or having a positional advantage or disadvantage, translating the advantage to a kill is often very easy vs an "average" pilot and darn near impossible vs the Greebo's, Drex's & blukitty's of the world (just a few examples of the top of my head). Since I don't fly in circles and am just as happy to have you 1200 behind or above me as 800 in front the only thing I know for certain is that my intent is to exchange one bad look for control of the fight or to "sit on you" (out of plane lag) till you crack. Obviously my goal is to either exploit an advantage or to create one from adversity. Most of us get smacked around from time to time but by and large I almost never go down in a MA 1 on 1 without having manufactured a "winning position" at some point unless I'm facing a very good stick. now actually converting is a different story....sometimes you are by definition "all in" based on circumstance...other times you can build a sustainable advantage but in the end there is a point were ACM meets gunnery and that is my biggest weakness.

Here is a clip that might help illustrate what I'm saying. This is a relatively even (for MA) fight with me vs a well known C hog driver. This is exactly the "you can't bleed E" and catch him in the vertical...but the truth is you can since nothing is ever absolute...it's all relative and in relation to balancing the variables at hand. here I generate exactly the only fight (in my mind) I can win once he goes angles on the merge and yet the shot itself comes on the low E "zoom" since he can't top me out. The only questionable call is not flying up thru the shot but my gut call was he had a better chance to rotate and saw me up vs bailing on the zoom and running.

In the end good pilots will both try and press the fight they think they can win and also the fight they think the other guy can't win. In then end most of the time I'm looking for switchblades in a phone booth if I can get it. For a spit to turn with me he has to close with me. Getting him from 600 behind me to 200 in front is just a part of the process. A lot of this is feel for managing relative lift vector and confidence that I can make you miss me enough that I'll squeeze on thru your guns pass. If I can make a good stick in a favored ride miss my big ol A-20 I'm pretty confident in being able to make most spit drivers miss my F6F
http://www.az-dsl.com/snaphook/A-20/chogflambe.ahf     

[boomerlu]

Yeah Humble, I think we generally agree.

My style is such that if I'm the Hellcat and I want to live, I'll do the lead turn merge and try for the kill there and if I can't get it, I'll disengage UNLESS the Spit's given me some kind of tell which indicates that he's not as skilled. I am all too aware of how quickly the Spit can erode the Hellcat's angles and energy advantage since I do it all the time in my 109 (for energy) and have had a Spit erode a huge angles advantage I had (I stayed in an angles fight when I should have gone back to energy fighting).

So I think we are saying much the same thing. It's just that I don't look favorably upon a situation that can only be won by superior pilot skill - i.e. relies on your opponent making some kind of mistake.

[humble]

to be honest I think we approach it from exactly the opposite tact. You "wan't to live" and I "want you to die", in the end I'll win 90% of the time. ACM is all about controlled aggression. In a fight where your looking to keep an out and I'm  looking to push all in you end up not being aggressive enough to win and not being timid enough to live...just the reality IMO

[Anaxogoras]

Snaphook, I didn't read a "stick to belly approach" at all in boomer's post regarding how a good XVI pilot would fly.  Rather he described energy tactics.  Can you explain?

[humble]

energy tactics are not relevant to a turn radius fight. If your +E you have control of the fight. How you choose to use that control is up to you. Being +E is not conducive to a sustained tracking shot, hence the conundrum that allows the pilot in inferior position to kill you. If you keep enough E to get away you can't prevent an overshoot on a true guns solution. If this is further compounded by the other pilot hiding E and/or manipulating angles/lift vector well enough your either all in, all out or all dead. There is no free lunch in ACM...at some point you need to push in all your chips to win. I was simply trying to point out that none of this is relevant to turn radius since I won't be flying in a circle.

[Anaxogoras]

Hmmm, ok.  I'd love to try out this f6f vs xvi fight sometime.

[humble]

anytime U see me up...

[boomerlu]

to be honest I think we approach it from exactly the opposite tact. You "wan't to live" and I "want you to die", in the end I'll win 90% of the time. ACM is all about controlled aggression. In a fight where your looking to keep an out and I'm  looking to push all in you end up not being aggressive enough to win and not being timid enough to live...just the reality IMO

Yeah, I agree about controlled aggression - that's why I suggested an aggressive lead turn merge. The thing about THIS particular fight is that the F6F loses its advantages over time. The aggression is going for the shot early.

The control is realizing that you are not going to be in any better position during the fight than you are right after that merge unless the Spit makes a mistake.

At THIS point, you have the option of continuing the fight or disengaging. You've gained enough angles that you can disengage by diving out and he won't be able to follow. You'd preserve this out e.g., if this weren't a true 1v1 and you were afraid other cons might come in on you. Controlled aggression is knowing when you have an advantage you can press and knowing that pressing it will give you a bigger advantage over time rather than losing it over time.

If you choose to continue to fight after that, then of course I agree, it's ALL IN or dead. But if the Spit is equally competent, it's more than likely "dead". Hence the emphasis I'm placing on judging pilot skill.

On the other hand, the option for the Spit remains completely open during the entire fight. He can push as aggressively as he wants the whole fight because of better turn rate, going so far as to chop throttle in order to tighten turn radius to match yours, or he can keep an E advantage and zoom when he loses his shot solution. Remember, if the other guy is trying to force an overshoot, you always have the option of going vertical to control closure.

And no, Energy tactics are ENTIRELY relevant to a turn radius fight. I have to completely disagree with you here because horizontal turn radius is reduced to ZERO if you can zoom vertical. That's the entire point of a high yo-yo - to cut inside a turn. Not to mention that all our planes turn tighter at corner velocity than at sustained (by Badboy's numbers).

Edit: If I'm trying to give advice or analyze a specific fight, I have to assume that the opponent doesn't make a mistake except possibly on the merge. The ACM solution is trivial if for example, a 190 chooses to turn fight a Spit16. Or if say... it's a mirror match but your opponent departs from controlled flight for 5 seconds.

If my opponent does make a mistake, there's a whole bag of ACM tricks that can be used and it quickly becomes a very complicated question because it depends on what mistake is made.

Yes, mistakes are part of the game, but when somebody asks me "how do I fight X v Y" I can't in good conscience tell him to rely on his opponent messing up.

Edit: I reviewed your fight against SHawk. Several things stick out. FIRST he retained his drop tank. Mistake 1. Second, the shot solution you generate and win with relies ENTIRELY on his choosing to scissor back across your nose. Mistake 2. If he had simply continued his turn, you would not have gotten that shot on him - he scissored twice in fact. Third, the A20 from what I know has superior slow speed stall characteristics vs the F4U1C. Therefore getting into a slow speed stall fight with an A20 is Mistake 3. This allowed you to pull a barrel roll and reverse him as well as allowed you to get the killing shot. Fourth, you gained angles on him with a climbing lead turn merge while he inexplicably flat turned - Mistake 4. One of the first trainer films I ever watched said "Immelman beats a flat turn."

That fight was as much "He lost" as "You won". P.S., the ACM that you did is very close to what I would have done.

[humble]

I think your missing the entire point here on a number of fronts. An aggressive lead turn is the last thing you want to do vs a spit IMO...for a number of reasons. 1st and foremost can you actually beat a good stick in a spitfire in an all in angles dueling merge? You yourself have pointed out that the spit has the edge...further if you go for the aggressive lead and he flies a disguised E opener you have both the possibility of either scrubbing to much E or actually giving him an overshoot option on the merge (literally flying out in front of him). The F6F never loses its advantages (and neither does the spitty). What will change is the application of BFM specific to circumstance. IMO the worst position I'm in is at the merge, it's the only time where I'm forced to guess. Once we've merged I now know where I stand. It's like a poker player in holdem, the better the player the less inclined to push a race. If I'm pushing money in a pot I don't want to be guessing if I'm 52/48 or something similar, I want 4/1 or better on my money...

So to me I'm very content to fly a read and react merge knowing that the merge isn't going to get me killed and it won't win the fight, what it will do is shape the fight to come. Now this can be mis interrupted quite badly in that a bad merge can loose a fight but a perfect merge won't always win one. As for your comments on "controlling" the fight thats not entirely correct at all. It's very very hard to control a fight vs a good pilot in anything. As per your example the spit driver has a very minimal opportunity to turn with me or zoom with me or even get a glimpse of the back end of my plane if he is passive...his option is to loiter or run...but to kill me he has to fight me and if he fights me he either wins or dies....anything less then a total commitment to victory will more often then not get him killed.

Do me a favor and review the clip with Shawk and the 2nd fight with grmrpr and outline what you see as the mistakes they made and how you'd do it differently. Further take a look at the film of slap and I. This is an A-20 vs an FM-2 in an on the deck "dueling merge". Look at how the same patterns of flight transfer to the 1st two fights. I bet you see tremendous furballing in grizz's 152 clip...good pilots can fight any plane in any way within a certain limit. That limit is far beyond what some consider possible. The common denominator in the fight with the c-hog and the pony is order to get them in front of me I 1st had to get them behind me. So your hypothetical spit driver is simply another guy that I need to transition from behind to in front. The more focused he is on keeping his advantage the easier that is to do...feel free to look me up any time your on, i'd be happy to show you what i mean.

I just read your comments on shawk fight.

1) he went for an aggressive lead turn...just like U said...fight was over then. 2) he didn't go for a scissor he went for a shot...same as you would. 3) once the shot missed he was dead again, this is an induced overshoot that allows very poor surivival...he felt his best option was to try and float the bird up (I agree). Functionally the simple reality is that he missed the shot he selected. This is the same reality in any fight of this nature. so the 1st issue you really have is in not understanding the cause and effect at work. In effect he died using exactly the same tactics your outlining...your simply assuming you'd do it differently.

[boomerlu]

1) he went for an aggressive lead turn...just like U said...fight was over then. 2) he didn't go for a scissor he went for a shot...same as you would. 3) once the shot missed he was dead again, this is an induced overshoot that allows very poor surivival...he felt his best option was to try and float the bird up (I agree). Functionally the simple reality is that he missed the shot he selected. This is the same reality in any fight of this nature. so the 1st issue you really have is in not understanding the cause and effect at work. In effect he died using exactly the same tactics your outlining...your simply assuming you'd do it differently.

I'm saying I'd fly the way YOU did, not the way SHawk did.

1) "Aggressive lead turn" to me means climbing lead turn, not a flat turn. He blew his E while losing angles at the same time.
2) He went for the shot when you climbed past him yes. Maybe I would do this, maybe not. I'm not sure, it depends on what I'm seeing. Thing is, the fight would have evolved completely differently with me. I also quite often do the barrel roll-ish reversal that you do when I outzoom somebody.
3) Once he missed the shot, he turned INTO your guns (twice). That's what I mean by "he tried to scissor." If I were in that situation, knowing I have a power and probably turn RATE advantage, I would have continued the turn instead of reversing it (twice), only rolling level to pull up if you go for the shot.

These are the exact types of mistakes that I'm looking for if I'm the F6F driver flying against a Spit (or A20 flying against a CHog). These are the exact types of mistakes that I know the Spit needs to make for me to win.

Edit: but any advice I give would not try to rely on my opponent's mistakes. That would end up being a TOME on ACM. If somebody asked me how to capitalize on mistakes, I'd probably steer them towards an authoritative source like Shaw or a bunch of ACM articles.

[Anaxogoras]

Just watched the film.  It's hilarious that you only convinced him to get ride of one of his two drop tanks before you blasted him.

[humble]

To be honest I have no idea how you fly or "what you do". Shawk is a very technically sound pilot, without a doubt there was a complacency issue. Going beyond that how he (or you) chooses to engage is beyond my control and really not relevant to the outcome. That does not mean I'm going to win every fight or even control them...but that each fight will evolve in a chain of cause and effect. The better pilot will win a majority of fights because he will make better decisions relative to the other guy a majority of the time. Under circumstances like the one here I greatly benefit from both his complacency and lack of knowledge about the A-20 and how I fly it. The flip side is that the A-20 (as much as I love it) is a total dog. It has a top end speed of less then 450 and is subject to structural failure under load from about 370 mph up. It is a barge if slow and actually is far far inferior to the hog at low speed.

So lets actually look at the fight....1st Shawk is simply looking for a shot. He kills an awful lot of people who make the mistake you did that he flew a bad merge...in fact the counter you suggest would just make you another victim. This is no different then a "flat" 109 merge...it's a low to high high aspect guns merge...he's looking for a 1 timer here IMO. He's looking to pop up thru the counter...remember anything inside 800 yds vs a slow manuevering bogey is golden to a guy like him....so at 19 sec I read and react and go out of plane in the vertical. At 20 seconds I determine I'm a dead man flying...so I'm off the gas. I need to change my lift vector and get down and inside...he's speeding up and I'm topping out...anything along the lines you seem to propose and you die here....all the time, every time. 24 sec and I'm off the gas pulling over driving to get inside of his potential options. In effect I'm flying to his donut since he's not bringing it to me.

At 27 seconds I'm 90 degree out of plane with my lift vector in lag and managing my throttle, all elements of managing closure. These are all very important later when you look at how close the shot window is later. It's important to realize that I conceded the shot window at 19 sec as inevitable...all this is happening in a read and react merge well before the real action. Most fights are determined in the 1st 5 seconds IF you can't alter the outcome. At 33 sec I've transitioned from out of plane lag to in plane lead....on my way back to out of plane lag. The combination of being out of plane and tightening up my lift vector takes any chance for him to pull lead and creates this compressed window as I fall back into plane...I can't pull lead either and let the nose fall off. At this point I've got both angular advantage and parity in E state based on the decisions above...trying to keep speed would have just killed me. Notice how aggressive Shawk is here...he's not only defending a perceived shot but reversing for an overshoot...had I tried to keep lead and bled E he's have killed me here also. Take a look at his shot at 44 sec...thats how close this was. Then look at my shot window....everything your saying he "did wrong" is just about 100% the best option he had. The truth is he'll win that fight most of the time since I have no margin for error at all there.

Basically what you have is a forced rolling scissor...once I read ,react chop and roll into him at 19 sec we have the scissor at 33 seconds and neither of us can stop it. I manage that one time to work a lesser shot window to a slightly better one. Thats the simple reality that you or any spit driver faces vs any good p-47, hog or F6F driver...you may kill us but only on our terms. In fact i'd guess that shawk was looking for the rolling scissor as well...just as most hig drivers would

[boomerlu]

Look, I'd love to keep discussing this with you... but you have a problem here:

1) You have no idea what I would do in a similar situation. You are also misreading my meaning. Therefore there is no point you telling me that I am wrong or that what I have suggested is in any way wrong. Our discussion is completely mismatched at this point. There is no debate to speak of.

We are just throwing words at each other, and you (it seems like to me) are putting words into my mouth about what I would or would not do, despite you saying you have no idea what I would do.

I have no idea if you are doing it due to misreading me or you are trying to "win" an argument that neither of us is really losing.

2) Edit: never mind about time stamps.

Anyways, this is what I see (again)...

1) On the merge he goes for a high vs low aspect merge (first mistake). If I'm flying, I want to be in YOUR position (A20). The first shot you have (not a good shot) when you are nose low and he is nose high climbing is what I'm saying a Hellcat driver should go for if he thinks the Spit 16 driver is good.
2) You overshoot him and he gets a shot. At this point you are both in a vertical scissors, which is what YOU want, given your stability at low speeds and the fact that you can't possibly beat him in a turn-rate fight. A vertical scissors after all is still a nose-nose turn radius fight.
3) Taking the shot looks like a mistake, as he has to pull nose high to get lead on you whereas you are already in zoom mode, plus you have better slow stability.
4) Once he misses the shot, you top out above him and do a barrel roll to get behind him. This is the pretty much the exact same move I would do flying the A20.
5) After you finish the barrel roll, you have his rear aspect, but he is turning away from you.
6) Instead of continuing to turn away from you (resulting in a turn rate fight where the CHog's extra power and fighter-nature would make the difference), he chooses to reverse into you going for a shot/scissors. This is a mistake because it yields you (the A20) a shot where no reversal would have denied any shot opportunity completely.
7) He crosses your nose, you don't get a good shot. Once again, he has a chance here to convert to a turn rate fight.
8) Instead of doing the safe thing, he reverses aggressively once again trying for the shot. But at this point, he is significantly faster than you, and thus LOSING the turn radius fight big time (you are in a scissors at this point). This is final mistake which allows you to get the shot and kill him.
9) Edit: Something I just saw. Instead of reversing flat, he could have done a lag barrel roll to get your six which would be more conservative than the flat reversal but more aggressive than continuing a turn rate fight.


To conclude, how YOU flew the fight is how I envision myself flying it, almost exactly. It's actually eerily similar to some of the fights I've had. It's also how I envision an F6F flying against a Spit who makes the same mistakes that SHawk did here.

Edit: Basically my recommendation would be to fly the merge like you did and take the first shot while trying to gauge the other pilot's skill. Since he did yield the merge, I would probably continue in the fight as you did.

However, if somehow I judged the other pilot much better than me, I would take the first shot (A20 nose low, CHog nose high) and extend if I missed.

Edit: I make strictly sure to differentiate a "Rolling Scissors" and a "Vertical Scissors". The first is a turn rate fight whereas the second is a turn radius fight. The first has a barrel-like flight path, the second does not.

[humble]

From what I gather the "problem" is that you appear to be clueless. the only purpose this forum has is to help others. Just like the TA the problem is bad advise is worse then no advise. As I stated his merge was not only 100% correct but it was the only correct merge he could fly if he wanted to press home the engagement. Any "high aspect" merge there would get him killed in 30 seconds or less. His merge correctly gave him angular parity and the nose low configuration added E....this is a sound -E merge vs a plane with inferior performance but superior position. At no time do I actually overshoot in the true sense, I'm dropping into the scissor and he's climbing into it...which is very unusual. He is managing a completely different set of variables. As I pull into lead I am behind but faster then I want with no ability to stabilize an AOT. Normal doctrine calls for a break 90 degrees away from the bogies lift vector but he is already creating that variable so I can zoom. This is a continuation of the angular advantage he gained on the initial merge so in effect I am still ahead of him but out of the cone of movement dictated by his lift vector (barely). This creates a very unusual type of overshoot after his shot....as an FYI I never have any early shot or even try and pull the trigger. As a general rule that involves either freezing the nose or chasing...if flown correctly an out of plane lag to in plane lead transition generates a natural shot window (see nikki/p40 clip).

Your comments on what he "did wrong" are laughably incorrect and delusional IMO. Feel free to post a few clips here to change my mind...i'll gladly admit if i'm wrong...but based on your comments your going to hurt folks a lot more then help them.