Defensive Technique

[IRON41]

Hello,

I’ve been flying RAF side mainly the Spitfire. I need some help. Ok.....I look behind and see a 109. Break right? Try to extend, probably too late. Pull a split S. I don’t know! I’m dead. I’ve watched videos and I’m getting better but still having trouble with defensive tactics. What about when you do a head on pass? What next? Thanks for any suggestions. Great fucking game though.

[19//Moach]

What I usually do, is treat the 109 like an incoming missile.

 

Much like dodging a guided missile in a modern day jet, the technique to evade a BnZ attack is quite simple once understood, but not entirely obvious until pointed out.

 

 

 

So, you look behind, yellow! That's the wrong color nose!  Gotta do something quick or your flight might get very unpleasant.

 

The obvious thing to do is:  Break.

 

 

Sure enough, but how does one break most effectively?   Well, that's the non-obvious part:

 

The best evasive move is performed by turning your aircraft perpendicular to the attacker.  Then break determinedly towards the ground (hopefully you got enough altitude as to not break into it)   

 

The idea is to make your aircraft trace a circle flat against the plane of his gunsight. 

 

 

If done correctly, it is all but impossible for him to get anything besides a lucky one-bullet hit.  By breaking into a loop perpendicular to the enemy's line of fire, you're making yourself the most uncooperative target imaginable, since your path will be seen as the maximum apparent motion from his perspective. 

 

 

As for direction, right or left, doesn't really matter.  The important thing is to break in the direction least convenient for your 'guest' to follow.  It often proves worthwhile to try and duck "under his nose" - Those yellow things are fairly large, and it's easy to lose someone behind them if he makes a rapid change of direction that way.   

 

 

Another thing to consider, avoid stalling as you break - This same maneuver can be executed in a calm and deliberate fashion without even getting pre-stall buffeting much.  There's a Jedi-like knack to finding a 109 on your tail muzzles aflash and somehow not totally panic.  If you manage to keep your cool and maneuver only as hard as you need to turn into his cross-plane and change direction only just enough for him to overshoot, you'll preserve precious energy which you can use to turn the fight around on your new friend.

 

 

 

Anyways, In general, "Down" is a very good direction to break. Not only because you can blind-spot yourself under his nose, but mostly because then you can easily follow your (ideally unstalled) breakaway with a high-speed dive. 

 

So once the attacker is away in the wrong direction, you're nose-down with everything under your left hand pushed all the way forward.   

 

By the time your foe turns back around to find you again, you'll be miles away.  Even if the 109 is a better diver, there's basically no way he can catch up if you break down and continue on with your dive before he ever gets a chance to start his.    

 

 

Once you're on your way downhill fast, that's the part where you call for help.   Get in TeamSpeak, it really helps get the point across when others can hear you in the high sopranos of extreme urgency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now... On a head on pass, it's mostly all about luck.   The tricky thing is to be certain that it's an enemy approaching you and not a friendly.  If you're sure it's Fritz, (or Tommy, if you're Fritz yourself) then you can do the only thing which one can possibly recommend on such a situation, having failed in getting across the vastly more productive advice of "don't go head-on":

 

Shoot First!

 

It's really all you can do at that point in this desperate turn of fate you've conjured for yourself. And make sure you dodge in a direction he's unlikely to choose as well.  If both dodge the same way, none do.

 

 

And don't wait to see if your bullets make pretty sparks when/if they hit him, your rounds will reach him only a few milliseconds before your engine with you and plane in tow gets there too.

 

Moreover, It's best to always assume the other guy means to run through you and/or has no plans for doing any dodging today.   

 

So just fire and forget.  Miss and miss, you live to shoot again.  Hit and hit...  Oh well.

 

 

 

Another thing to keep in mind:   Check your ping.   If you're flying with a 200ms-ish delay, that's roughly the amount of time your enemy will have you for a stationary target even as you break away in what to you seemed like perfect timing.  

 

Remember, any other player sees everything you do after a delay of at least half your ping plus half his own.  That is the mathematical fatalism of net latency.  And since ballistics are computed client-side and the server "takes your word for it", a high latency invariably favours the attacker, giving him that extra time for a head start.  This is not a bug, it is but the "least worst solution" to an impossible technical problem faced by all online games.

 

 

This is particularly important on head-on passes, it is also why so often one player explodes and another doesn't in a way that's almost always hideously unfair.   To one player there may have been a collision, but not for the other.  And who knows what the server understood of these two disparate versions of that same event.... There's no right answer to this mess, so the server helpfully serves us a wrong one instead.

 

 

So rule of thumb is:  Break/Dodge as early as your ping is high.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fly safe out there.

Edited February 9, 2018 by 19//Moach

[Ehret]

If you have speed and get bounced, you may just pull hard to blackout. If enemy pilot will try to follow your turn, he will blackout, too. If he doesn't then he lost a gun solution. It will only buy you some time of course, but in a ditch it can mean a lot.

[IRON41]

I appreciate it! When you say break down, obviously not a positive G thing but with maybe the split S trying to get under the 109?

[Sokol1]

More like this: roll (2) ~45 - 135 degrees - depends on your altitude, attacker closure, and pull back the stick, this will move you away from attacker path. 

If instead make a Split-S will will take more time - need roll 180 degrees and still in the attacker path. 

 

Image adapted from another ACM

Edited February 10, 2018 by Sokol1

[unreasonable]

First thing is not to let a 109 get behind you. I know this sounds trite, but it is not - knowing where the bandits are and getting height and sun advantage is half the battle. So the battle in this case starts with you at a significant disadvantage. But all is not lost. 

 

If you see the 109 start it's attack run early, turn directly towards it and open fire early. While head on's are 50/50 that is always way better than giving the 109 a free shot. Many attackers will break off rather than accept a head on merge: he thought he had a sitting duck and now his advantage of speed and height counts for nothing until the merge is over - it is all about accuracy and weight of fire.

 

Third, if you are too late to turn directly at the attacker, you want to be doing whatever you can to give it a hard shot - ie high deflection, while also getting it to overshoot.   If he does you will have a chance to shoot him down - or he zooms up and away - in which case you can either dive away towards friends, or turn so that if the attacker tries again he will have to face a head on shot.

 

Make sure that you have the 109 in view until he tries again - or goes away to polish his baubles. 

Edited February 10, 2018 by unreasonable

[56RAF_Roblex]

Remember that the 109 will lock up above a certain speed so sometimes, if you can see him coming from a long way back,  it is good to start a shallow dive to make him go even faster then break as normal when he is nearly in range.  Even if he is not fast enough to lock up, that extra speed makes it much harder for him to follow any break.   Also most VVS fighters, maybe not the spit,  fly better when going faster so if you were not going very fast when you saw the enemy diving on you then a shallow dive will make you more maneuverable while giving him nothing extra because he is already flying fast and he might end up too fast as I said earlier.

Edited February 10, 2018 by 56RAF_Roblex

[Ehret]

If you know in advance that getting jumped is probable, you may patrol flying in wide arc-like turns. Not only you will have an easier time checking your 6, but you will be already in the first part of an evasion maneuver if attacked.

 

A good idea is to get a bit extra altitude before flying your patrol routine, and do the latter in a very shallow dive for a bit more constant speed. It will make it harder to intercept you and improve your odds in a sudden need of defense.

[Sokol1]

IRON41

 

The old and good guide "In Pursuit" describe ACM in a friendly "flight game language":

 

http://www.virtualpilots.fi/en/feature/lento_ohjeet/inpursuit/

 

Don't know this, but looks well made.

 

http://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/sw_acm.htm

Edited February 10, 2018 by Sokol1