Dicta WT - a gamer's take on Boelke's Air Combat Fundamentals

Game Discussion Simulator Battle
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Hi folks!

Many know the Dicta Boelke, a list of fundamental aerial maneuvers by German fighter ace Oswald Boelcke.

While a lot of those fundamentals still apply today, more than 100 years later, and with modern military aviation technology, some aspects have lost significance or have changed. And also in sims like War Thunder, those fundamentals apply, but may also be adapted to fit “our” world better.

So here I collected my own set of guidelines, calling it the “Dicta WT” for now:

Don’t announce yourself to the enemy unnecessarily.

As in all warfare, the one who strikes the first blow, has the better chance of winning. Doing so without the enemy knowing you are going to strike is the biggest advantage you can have - and create.

Learn to use your eyes and your other passive sensors, learn to limit your use of active sensors. Be mindful of landscape, weather, light…

Keep telltale signs of your presence to a minimum (afterburner, vapour, smoke, countermeasures, but also camouflage/skins), and watch out for those telltale signs from your adversary.

Only commit to a fight if you are confident you can win.

Biting off more than one can chew is dangerous, but of course possible and rewarding if the situation is right.

Judge well.

If you don’t get the kill in three rounds, knock it off.

Prolonged dogfights indicate a situation where one is in an equal or even worse situation than the opponent.

Such situations tend to deteriorate quickly, taking that chance means taking a great risk.

So if you Engage, get into a two circle fight, and pass your adversary twice after your first pass, get out of the dogfight to either retreat or reposition.

Fight the enemy, not yourself.

Death often strikes in the form of an unrecoverable flight state, or an immovable obstacle like a mountain or the ground in general.

Never get into a situation where you lose complete control over your aircraft.

Always be sure of your target.

Only shoot at contacts that are positively identified as enemies to prevent Team Kill.

Don’t assume it’s a Red, only fire if you know.

Never lose the awareness for your surroundings.

Don’t get fixated on that one target or opponent that you are engaging, or defending yourself from. The more dangerous threat may well be the one you’ve not noticed yet.

Don’t.
Be.
Greedy.

One often finds oneself in a difficult situation just because one didn’t “Knock it off” when one still had a chance.

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Good one.

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Well written.
I really have to work on the last point 😄

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These are the top 3 dictums in my opinion (for combat in general, not just Sim):

  1. Awareness

And then, second, but could be considered equally important:
2. Awareness

And finally, last, but not least:
3. Awareness

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This one should be a permanent tooltip in game

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…basically the summary of all those points, ideed! = )

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And a little note: Yesterday in a Sim EC match I think I violated almost all of those points at least once, and paid for it…

= /

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So true,

I stopped counting the number of kills I got on players relying exclusively on their radar or RWR to find their target (and also the number of times I got killed for the same reasons)

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Yeah, my K/D ration on the F-5E FCU is for a big part based on the fact that it has a bad radar with no IFF, so I never even turn it on, at a BR where everybody flies blindly trusting their RWR’s…

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