Tired of being HO'd

[Buck]

Do you have any film of you doing this?

Well i would have, but i don't record my fights all the time, usually when i record is when i make a film for youtube. 

[boomerlu]

As mentioned, the key is to recognize that an enemy attempting a HO is an invitation for you to do a lead-turn merge and get angles on him.

[Buck]

As mentioned, the key is to recognize that an enemy attempting a HO is an invitation for you to do a lead-turn merge and get angles on him.

These things are to confusing for new pilots to understand, its easier to learn and do it yourself, rather than take it from someone who you don't know. 

[mtnman]

Its not just dive dive dive. that would be dumb  . you just have to dive a little to confuse your enemy then bank away hard before he starts firing. rather then staying on the same level of altitude which he is set on range, if he's skilled enough to know where the bullets will take place, he will most likely hit you, which is where this move tops both skilled and none skilled pilots. the dive makes it harder to know where the bullets might hit, there for leaving the pilot with doubt, causing him to miss his chance in order to hit his target.... make sense ?


PS if the pilot which you're facing is dumb, and just shoots, he has a 10% chance of hitting you  .

Yea, I understand the dive part.  It's the sharp turn you mention that seems odd.  Just with the small, brief dive, you've foiled most shots.  Banking away hard seems to serve no purpose, scrubs E, and will likely lead to you being in a defensive, rather than offensive position.  Hard for me to visualize anything else without film.

10%???  There are only a few players in this game that have a 10% chance of hitting you.  Most have less than a 4% chance.  On a shot like this, it's probably less than 1%.

[mechanic]

10%???  There are only a few players in this game that have a 10% chance of hitting you.  Most have less than a 4% chance.  On a shot like this, it's probably less than 1%.

Not quite true Mtn, I don't think. Certainly very few players have a hit% of 10% or more. But the hit% is worked out by how many rounds are fired/how many rounds hit, surely. Thus a player with a 5% ratio could fire 100 rounds on the head on, hit with 5 rounds and score a kill or otherwise damage you. So hit% stats are not an acurate tool to determine the likelyhood of being hit head on.

[Buck]

Not quite true Mtn, I don't think. Certainly very few players have a hit% of 10% or more. But the hit% is worked out by how many rounds are fired/how many rounds hit, surely. Thus a player with a 5% ratio could fire 100 rounds on the head on, hit with 5 rounds and score a kill or otherwise damage you. So hit% stats are not an acurate tool to determine the likelyhood of being hit head on.

Sure its not true, if it was not why do you think i would say 10% ?  I've had it happen to me before. many people have hit me a few times, being lucky  .


Now for you mtn, i may have said things that you quite don't understand, first off, do a dive to confuse your enemy, second is a bank (turn left or right) which is used also to confuse your opponent, it helps give you a better chance of not getting hit, if you just nose downword its just going to change the range at which your opponent may be shooting from, this bank is not done hard enough to lose air speed, this tactic works, and works well, reason why ? I've done it many times, and 9 times out of 10 come out alive  .

I call it (A trick to Fools) tactic.

[The Fugitive]

Sure its not true, if it was not why do you think i would say 10% ?  I've had it happen to me before. many people have hit me a few times, being lucky  .


Now for you mtn, i may have said things that you quite don't understand, first off, do a dive to confuse your enemy, second is a bank (turn left or right) which is used also to confuse your opponent, it helps give you a better chance of not getting hit, if you just nose downword its just going to change the range at which your opponent may be shooting from, this bank is not done hard enough to lose air speed, this tactic works, and works well, reason why ? I've done it many times, and 9 times out of 10 come out alive  .

I call it (A trick to Fools) tactic.

I love this, trying to explain to a "trainer" how to fly, your digging yourself a nice little hole there buck 

[mtnman]

Not quite true Mtn, I don't think. Certainly very few players have a hit% of 10% or more. But the hit% is worked out by how many rounds are fired/how many rounds hit, surely. Thus a player with a 5% ratio could fire 100 rounds on the head on, hit with 5 rounds and score a kill or otherwise damage you. So hit% stats are not an acurate tool to determine the likelyhood of being hit head on.

True...  Each round fired has a 0-10% chance to hit me, with a "likely" chance of 1-2%, and any of those 1-2% that hit me stand a "likely to cause damage or death" chance of something less than that...

But, every single plane that fires at me "could" hit me, even if it's a small chance. 

I guess I just see those minute chances as nothing to worry about.  As I'm sure you're aware, once you learn to recognize potential HO situations and act accordingly, they're really not that effective as an attack.  I probably die to "true" HO shots only 1 or 2 times per month.  I probably take a few random hits from HO's 20-25 times per month (and really, those are front-quarter not HO).  I probably take noticeable non-death damage only 2-3 times per month.  The can of Pepsi by my keyboard is probably a bigger threat.

[mtnman]

I love this, trying to explain to a "trainer" how to fly, your digging yourself a nice little hole there buck  

It's not a problem sir, even a trainer can be confused or just plain "wrong".  

I was really trying to find out if he was intending the "hard turn to the left or right" as a confusingly-worded reversal of sorts, or whether it was an additional "dodging" type maneuver.  I didn't want to put words into his mouth, by hinting too hard at what I was looking for.

If it was meant as a "dodge" recommendation (which it appears to be, based on his next post- "second is a bank (turn left or right) which is used also to confuse your opponent, it helps give you a better chance of not getting hit") that concerns me more, and gives an opportunity for teaching/learning...

[mtnman]

Sure its not true, if it was not why do you think i would say 10% ?   I've had it happen to me before. many people have hit me a few times, being lucky  .


Now for you mtn, i may have said things that you quite don't understand, first off, do a dive to confuse your enemy, second is a bank (turn left or right) which is used also to confuse your opponent, it helps give you a better chance of not getting hit, if you just nose downword its just going to change the range at which your opponent may be shooting from, this bank is not done hard enough to lose air speed, this tactic works, and works well, reason why ? I've done it many times, and 9 times out of 10 come out alive  .

I call it (A trick to Fools) tactic.

First off, I'm a person who see's absolutely nothing "wrong" with an HO shot.  That doesn't mean I take them, or train folks to take them.  I just see them as a valid, valuable (from a fight-quality viewpoint) tactic.  And, I see it as one of the most simple, basic tactics for putting a bullet into your opponent.  It's a "low-odds" tactic though.

I see it like this- two highly experienced master-black-belt-or-whatever martial artists stand off face to face.  At the instant the fight begins, one of them kicks the other in the groin, ending the fight.  The guy rolling around on the ground whines "BS choice of tactics!  You dweeb!  You didn't even try to karate-chop me! Groin-kicking tard!"  The way I see it, if one of them isn't skilled enough to recognize the most simple, obvious threat, and defend against it, the fight should be over.

That said, (Buck) your initial dive has defeated the topic of the thread.  By entering your dive, you've eliminated the HO.  Done deal.  Of course, you've now opened yourself up to a front-quarter shot, but the HO threat is gone...

Thankfully, front-quarter shots are a lot easier to avoid than HO's.  All you need to do is offset yourself a bit vertically, and ideally a bit horizontally, and you've made yourself a tough target to hit.  If you can add in presenting a small profile, and doing it all while pointing your nose in a beneficial direction for a reversal, even better!.  Now add doing it without scrubbing excess E.  And just for good measure, lets make it tempting to the other pilot to pull hard for a bad shot, which scrubs some of his E, and since we're tempting him to point his nose where we want, let's try to make that a bad direction for him to prepare to reverse , or maybe even to maintain his SA.

Where does that leave us?  In an advantaged position over our opponent, in several ways.  And this has taken how long?  At the expense of how much E?

I'm going to tack a few films on here that show a few HO attempts, and if you watch closely, you can probably pick out many "HO-possibilities" that I simply don't allow to occur, due to the choices I make in maneuvering.  Look at what taking the HO shot does to his position, and what dodging it does to mine in the first film.

http://www.4shared.com/file/qpAsV313/1Stblood_high_spit16_b17s.html

Kind of wrecks his chances to be a threat in the rest of the fight, doesn't it?  No fancy dodges on my part, just some simple offsets.  Sometimes the vertical offset needs to be below him, other times you're better off above...  It depends on what?

Another one, same pilot a few minutes later.  My offsets here don't even make it worth his effort to fire.  But, see how he sets up his approach the same way?  What was his intent?  So we reverse...  What's he looking for at about :55-1:00?  What does it do for his position 5-10 seconds later?

http://www.4shared.com/file/Mf4Yn_DV/1stblood_again.html

And one more-

http://www.4shared.com/file/O-qfBLYs/Me_v2_F4U_and_Zeke.html

Any HO-possibilities there?  They may not have taken the opportunity to shoot HO.  But 2v1's are tricky...  Best bet is to ALWAYS ASSUME THE HO IS A THREAT.  Maneuver accordingly.  But not wastefully.

[WMLute]

I've done it many times, and 9 times out of 10 come out alive  .

I call it (A trick to Fools) tactic.

So you get hit 1 out of 10 w/ this maneuver?  
I would be looking into finding a new merge.  
Terrible odds.

I usually get hit 3-5 times per tour when an opponent attempts a head on.  (and that is out of literally 100's if not 1,000's of attempted ho's)

MY merge I am amazed when they land hits.  

1 out 10 wouldn't work for me.

Pretty good explanation MtnMan on how to control your HO'n opponent.  I know one of my training sessions is about how, when you are faced with an opponent that like to face shoot, you basically control their first 2-3 moves.  YOU dictate their actions and if you know what you are doing (and time it correctly) your opponent does exactly what you want them to do.  The key is to make sure they are putting themselves out of position for the rest of the fight by "going for it" with the HO.

[Buck]

I don't need training guys, i know what to do in a dogfight, I've played for 4 years, not 2 days.

[Buck]

I love this, trying to explain to a "trainer" how to fly, your digging yourself a nice little hole there buck  

I've done it, it works. leave it at that. no need for big details guys. and I'm not digging myself in a hole, quit posting your dumb comments at me Fugitive, your losing your reputation, at least with me    .

[mtnman]

I've done it, it works. leave it at that. no need for big details guys. and I'm not digging myself in a hole, quit posting your dumb comments at me Fugitive, your losing your reputation    .

They're not "dumb comments".  This is the Help and Training section of the forums, so that's what we're doing.  Helping and Training.  You claim to know what you're doing; that's fine.  I'm not trying to convince you to fly differently.  Heck, it's always nice to run across guys who fly that way  

What I am doing, is correcting erroneous "help", so that others can enjoy some greater success.  Your posts just made it easy to highlight some misconceptions.  I wouldn't want people who are trying to learn something here trying to apply tactics that are flawed.  Learning can be frustrating enough as it is...

LOL, Fugitive has nothing to fear.  His reputation stands.

[WMLute]

Maybe if you got rid of the "I know what I am doing" attitude and exchanged it with "is there anything you can show me to improve my flying" you might start killing more than you are dying.

Heck, i've done this more than 14 years (15?) and I am still learning.

MtnMan was correct to step in here. 

You were trying to tell new players to do something that wasn't very good advice.

If I did a move that killed me 1 out of 10 I would for sure be login' the time with a trainer figuring out what I was doing wrong.