MPGames RT
 Category 35,  Topic 3
 Message 5         Tue Dec 13, 1994
 D.PIEROT [RAPIER]            at 00:06 EST

Sub: ACM-Angles and E-Fighting

Hi Gents!

        Super long post!  I apologize but its impossible to do it right with
 less :)


        Basic art of ACM...or...How to keep your tail from being blown off
:)

        "The heavens were the grandstands and only the gods were spectators.
 The stake was the world, the forfeit was the player's place at the table,
 and the game had no recess.  It was the most dangerous of all sports and the
most fascinating.  It got in the blood like wine...No words can describe the
thrill of hiding in the clouds, waiting for human prey.  The game is
sighted, then a dive of 5,000 feet, 30 seconds of diabolic evolutions, the
 pressure of triggers and the adversary hurtling downward in a living hell."
 Elliott White Springs, 13 kills, WWI

        Several things to keep in mind first.  AW is not like any stand
 alone computer flight simulator where you adversary is a computer.  Your
 adversary is a living, breathing, THINKING human being.  There are NO
 TRICKS!!  NO MAGIC MOVES!!!  No manuever that the computer hasn't thought
 of. One of the most common questions by neophytes since time immemorial is,
 "What do I do if the guy gets on my six?".  Initially, they are
 dissappointed in the answer..."Most likely you die."  :)  ACM takes place
 BEFORE the guy is on your 6.  Once he is there you are going thru the
 motions until he pulls that trigger one final time.  There are a few
 desperation moves for this portion, but they are just that, desperation
 moves.
        Second point is, that you can't just follow the guy around hoping
 for a tracking shot.

"Fly with the head and not with the muscles.  That is the way to long life
 for a fighter pilot.  The fighter pilot who is all muscle and no head will
 never live long enough for a pension"  Colonel Willie Batz, Luftwaffe, 237
 victories, WWII.

        You must think in 3 dimensions, and project a point in space where
 your opponent will be in N seconds, then manuever your plane to be in
 position to fire on that point in space at N moment.  If you think about it,
once you know a plane's present position, the area that it can be in in 3
seconds looks like an egg.  The point of the egg is where he is now.  He
 cannot go backwards, he must travel in some flight path forward.  He can
 pull up, dive, turn left or right or some combination of this.  How hard he
 can manuever is limited by his speed and type of plane.  You must figure out
 where he IS going and place yourself THERE!

ACM-GENERAL DISCUSSION

        As we said in class, there are two main styles of fighting
 Angles/Stall fighting and Energy fighting.  A successful engagement will
 probably use something from each style and will not be purely one or the
 other.  Your choice of which tactics to use depends on the RELATIVE
 performance of your plane against the opponent, and the parameters of the
 initial engagement.  For purposes of discussion, we will talk about the
pure styles so that you can see how they compare to each other.
        You must also understand lead, pure, and lag pursuit.  Lead pursuit
 is where you are aimed at a point ahead of the opponent's present position.
 It is characterized by having your nose or in the case of a turn, your lift
 vector (we could go into a long discussion of what lift vector is, but
 suffice to say it is represented by the point on the mid point of your
 canopy, directly over the pilot's head) placed ahead of the enemy's present
 position.  Pure pursuit is having those things aimed directly at the
 opponent's present position, and lag is having them aimed behind the
 opponent's position.  Lead pursuit tends to bleed more energy, pure less,
 and lag even less.

ANGLES FIGHTING

        Angles fighting is based on the relative, sustained turning ability
 of the planes.  It is characterized by high gee turns and manuevers, right
 on the edge of stalling or blacking out.  To quote Robert Shaw, top gun
 instructor,"...the angles tactician has essentially two choices:  He can
 turn harder or he can turn smarter.  Although the primary objective for the
 angles fighter is to achieve a position advantage, energy considerations
 cannot be ignored with impunity.  An angles fighter that races around the
 sky with its pilot pulling on the pole as hard as he can, normally will
lose energy in the process.  Since potential energy (altitude) is limited,
this energy loss eventually will mean loss of speed.  If the angles fighter
 becomes too slow, its manueverability suffers, so that eventually it reaches
 a point where it has insufficient performance remaining to gain further
 position advantage, or even to maintain previous gains.  The prudent angles
 tactician must, therefore, achieve his angular gains as efficiently as
 possible, so that he can defeat his opponent befor his own a/c reaches the
 point of critical manueverability loss."  It is usually characterized by
 flat turns that place a premium on turning ability.  As Shaw stated,
 continued energy loss results in planes that are hanging on the edge of a
 slow speed stall, trying to improve position, hence the name stall fighting.
 The angles fighter attempts to gain angles (put his nose closer to or on the
 opponent's position.  He is usually in lead pursuit, i.e. having the
 opponent in a position forward of the midline of the canopy.
        Angles tactics are usually aggressive and if your plane has superior
 turning performance, results in quicker kills.  The drawbacks are if you
 don't have superior turn performance you are dead.  Also it tends to leave
 you at the conclusion of a victorious engagement, low and slow, which is
 meat on the table if someone else shows up.

ENERGY TACTICS

        Energy tactics are almost the diametric opposite of angles tactics.
 Energy can either be potential=altitude or kinetic=speed. Energy tactics are
 characterized by low gee manuevers and most of them happen in the vertical
 (i.e. anything but the horizontal plane) plane.  The E tactician attempts to
 generate sufficient seperation between himself and opponent, and ideally the
 seperation is from a position of altitude that allows him to pull down on
 the enemy's 6 without he himself being threatened. It tends to be less
 aggressive (i.e. more patient) and generally is the result of whittling down
 the opponent's advantages until you can overwhelm him with a 6 shot or a
 series of snapshot opportunities.  It usually requires that you have either
 a superior climb performance, initial alt advantage, or initial energy
 advantage.  It helps too if the plane your flying has great guns, as this
 style does not usually initiate long tracking shots, but rather, short snap
 shot opportunities.
        Speed and gee control is essential, E fighting is characterized by
 low gee turns and speeds above 200+, though again what is important is the
 RELATIVE e advantage.  The e fighter tries to maintain vertical manuevering
 speed, i.e. sufficient speed to pull up into the vertical to beyond guns
 range without stalling.
        The most useful manuevers for the e tactician are the loops,
 especially low gee, high speed loops, the hi yo yo (this is the bread and
 butter of e fighting as will allow a plane with poorer turn performance to
cut inside a better turning plane's turn), immelmans either single or
double, vertical climbs or dives, climbing spirals, & horizontal turns of
less than 90 degrees in duration.  The e tactician takes advantage of the
fact that as a plane slows in a climb, its turning radius tightens (all
other things being equal, slower planes turn tighter).  This is how the hi
yo yo or loop cuts inside the opponent's turn.  The flight path is egg
shaped, tighter at the top, broader at the bottom where your flight path
intersects the flat turning opponent.
        The E fighter comes in with hopefully gobs of E, but really even a
 slight E advantage can work, and then whittles away on the opponent, using
 the manuevers mentioned above, working on a series of snap shots, NEVER
 turning horizontally more than 90 degrees at a time.  You can turn more than
 90 degrees only in a climbing spiral where you have a superior climbing
 fighter and are out of gun range.  If he loses the E advantage, he bugs out,
 as the opponent will eat him up.  When safe he climbs out, regains the e
 advantage and then can choose to reengage or look for a less sharp opponent
 :).
        Advantages are you maintain enough speed throughout the engagement
 to bug out safely if unwanted enema buddies show up.  It generally safer for
 you, you take less risk of being hit.  Disadvantages are engaging better
 turning plane co-e, you will generally lose, so don't engage!  This also
 means that E tactics are difficult to initiate while on the deck so it is a
 good idea to try and maintain some air space below you :).

        Make sure to try some of these things out before class and then be
 ready to talk about it on Friday.  Lookin forward to seein you folks!


@=={--RAPIER---

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