Avoiding the HO

[SkyRock]

Tempests (*cough*wussboi*cough*) are especially good at this,

[Wiley]

The trick is offset and force their nose down for the shot.  Make them going for the shot put themselves in a bad position.  Eg. going nose down on an initial merge almost always gets you in a bad spot.  AS you pass the bandit coming downhill you should be merging verticle as he goes past.  This should fairly easily give you the bandits 6 as he'll be accelerating coming down hill and you can easily get your nose around quicker coming uphill and decellerating.  So you normally end up with a higher speed bandit below in a defensive position, with you in a slower speed but superior postion.  It's simple physics, the key is just getting them to commit nose low going for the shot.

 
BigRat       

That makes sense.  It's kind of the result of what I'd been doing, but it really helps me refine things when I have a 'why' to work from.  Thanks, BigRat.

Wiley.

[RotBaron]

Good stuff ty gentlemen.

[SAJ73]

BigRat is spot on, was going to put my reply to this thread but I am glad I read through all comments first. BigRat's answer covers it completely the way I see it, better than I could have put it too.

But I can put in my version anyway.. 

Forcing the hoer to dive for the aim, and at the same time as you make an angle to one side he will have to dive even harder than you to force lead on you, and he will also have to calculate for your angle by using about all control surfaces on his plane to make the shot. This will be a very hard shot to make, and performed perfectly on your end you will be lower than him on the re-merge and already started your climb while he still racing downwards trying to pull out of it before he can get around. His best choice by then is to just continue to run downhill, the merge is lost on his part because you will be on his 6 very shortly. 

[Wiley]

In broad terms, where I was going wrong was I wasn't being aggressive enough with my turn, I was thinking it was time to conserve E.  I've been having a lot of success with a lot of guys pulling hard after that merge, in many cases he does just blow through keeping his speed, but I usually have favorable position to start running him down. <g>

Wiley.

[Big Rat]

That makes sense.   Thanks, BigRat.

Wiley.

Why don't I ever get that response while explaining my latest toy purchase to my wife

 
BigRat

[SAJ73]

Given that you pull this off successfully and merge nose up under your opponent while he is still in his dive you absolutely should be aggressive about your turn. Unless offcourse he is climbing out high to re-set the fight to his favor, this could be the case if he is in a better climber than you. Say a 190 or a K4 vs your 47M. But you should see this early enough to not fall into the trap of pulling back under him, while you should rather just abort the aggressive turn and just make some distance to gain back some energy to work with.
Then we are back to square one, he is high and coming for the ho while you zoom down to one side making his shot hard all over again till he makes a mistake or falls for the temptation of committing to the hard turn.  

[Puma44]

The trick is offset and force their nose down for the shot.  Make them going for the shot put themselves in a bad position.  Eg. going nose down on an initial merge almost always gets you in a bad spot.  AS you pass the bandit coming downhill you should be merging verticle as he goes past.  This should fairly easily give you the bandits 6 as he'll be accelerating coming down hill and you can easily get your nose around quicker coming uphill and decellerating.  So you normally end up with a higher speed bandit below in a defensive position, with you in a slower speed but superior postion.  It's simple physics, the key is just getting them to commit nose low going for the shot.

 
BigRat       

Great description of using the "Energy Egg" concept.  

[Randy1]

The only flaw in Big Rat's post is when you are dealing with a super climber match with an average climber.  The K models as an example can be nose down at the merge and still achieve position if there is enough mismatch in two planes.  The only counter I have found is blow through, watch for enough spread to turn back for the second merge hopefully as Latrobe says give him a more complicated gun solution and a snap shot.

[BnZs]

 A lot of people say "The guy who tries for the HO on initial merge is at a disadvantage."  

A lot of people say things that simply aren't true, and this is one of those things. Real fighter pilots are trained to fire weapons on head on merge. Doing so does not implicitly prevent you from lead turning and otherwise doing that pilot sh**. But in real life two plans converging head to head at a combined 800 mph would go from being a barely visible dot to blasting by you so quick that your window to identify, aim, and shoot would be limited. In AHII you have the icon from 6K which greatly improves the probability of hits on a head on pass, plus so many people are good at gunnery. This tends to turn head on passes into a coin-toss situation that will end with one plane shot down and the other at least badly damaged almost every single time, so most experienced players tend to avoid that no-win situation.

[Puma44]

Real fighter pilots are trained to fire weapons on head on merge.

Real fighter pilots are trained with the crawl-walk-run concept of employing the aircraft/weapons system using BFM/ACM to effectively manage energy to get the kill, not a one move fits all.   

[BnZs]

Real fighter pilots are trained with the crawl-walk-run concept of employing the aircraft/weapons system using BFM/ACM to effectively manage energy to get the kill, not a one move fits all.   

Robert Shaw, for instance, suggests firing on a front quarter pass when practical for psychological reasons and to possibly do some damage. But as far as I can tell, there is a major difference in how easy it is to line up a front quarter shot on the merge in RL versus our game, head ons have much higher lethality in game I think. If everyone went for the head on all the time though, then the fights would be nothing but boring coin tosses with near mutually assured destruction. That is the real reason for avoiding the HO, not some false idea that it is inherently a disadvantage.

[Wiley]

I've found it interesting the last little while since I've gotten more aggressive on my lead turn to get on the guy.  If he's trying to one pass haul ass, I may burn more E on that first turn, but I get headed in his direction a lot sooner, which means he has less time to gain separation.  I've also been finding more often than not I've gained angles if he sticks around to fight.

Still rarely get tagged on the way in, so I say feel free to try to shoot me, same as any other time.

Wiley.

[Puma44]

Robert Shaw, for instance, suggests firing on a front quarter pass when practical for psychological reasons and to possibly do some damage. But as far as I can tell, there is a major difference in how easy it is to line up a front quarter shot on the merge in RL versus our game, head ons have much higher lethality in game I think. If everyone went for the head on all the time though, then the fights would be nothing but boring coin tosses with near mutually assured destruction. That is the real reason for avoiding the HO, not some false idea that it is inherently a disadvantage.

Shaw's writings are certainly a place to gain a solid foundation of the basics of air combat.  It's a matter of reading and applying it.  Then practice, practice, practice,............and then practice some more.  

[Puma44]

I've also been finding more often than not I've gained angles if he sticks around to fight.

If you are gaining angles, that indicates your timing for the lead turn is working and you've built turning room.