Untrue. There are some things other than headons that you can do using a speed difference.
When climbing at shallow angles (in the average matchup, 10 m/s is a safe bet), you, in the faster plane, will gain more energy than the slower opponent (that follows you aggressively). Using that energy you accumulate over time, you can reset a fight.
By going fast and having a slower opponent follow you, you create separation. Since you have more kintetic energy, you can convert into more potential energy (= altitude). With the separation the opponent has to overcome, you create an energy trap. As you do passes, the opponent must bleed speed to dodge so you can keep attacking more.
You can combine both things to be even more effective.
Example: A plane with a top speed of 450 km/h follows a plane with 550 km/h top speed. The slower plane can convert to 795.3 m of altitude, whereas the faster plane can convert to 1188 m of altitude, a difference of 392.7 m. Considering the time it would take to overcome an initial separation, when the planes merge again, the faster plane will have more energy, which can be used to energy trap with.
The numbers I got for the example came from y = 0.0509*(v/3.6)^2, where v is velocity. Derived from Potential Energy = Kintetic Energy. This does represent a simplified view that ignores variables such as drag (works in favour of faster planes), and climb rate differences during the energy conversion process (works in favour of slower planes).
Yes, the better climbing plane can just climb hard to not fall for such tactics, but it faces the exact same issue the faster planes have with “you can’t run forever”. Climbing hard is the exact same running away but vertically rather than horizontally. The climbing plane will have to eventually do something, and attack. This is where you bait such a plane into fast maneuvers and chases, which allows you to do the tactics I described earlier. It’s all about how well you know how to bait people to follow you.
To practice these skills, I recommend using the He-100 (against biplanes), A-36 (against low tier monoplanes), and He-162 (against props).
Makes sense, I agree with a lot of points here.
Just seeing a wall of texts makes me want to disagree for no reason, it could be said for anyone.
I first appreciate you for reading my post thoroughly, it’s not an easy thing to do when you already know the contents.
Your point is to have higher speed as a means to hold energy, so that you can just zoom better out of a long extension.
The problem I see here is, a vertical climb and an efficient sustainable climb are completely different things. Good for jets, it doesn’t work for props. Sure, He-100 can pull it off since it’s fighting against biplanes mostly, and it has like a top speed of 4.7.
The reason it doesn’t work for props, is that prop efficiency is better when the speed is low. Below the top speed, planes are always increasing the speed out of the thrust. It’s this reason that jets are good at this, while props won’t do good doing this method as much. The enemy can just climb harder at lower speed to atleast stay near the same altitude. Or even going for a different direction while doing so, to make it easier to counter attack at the attack’s exit.
P-51 can do this against A6M, sure it can do. But against other fighters, I really doubt. It’s the most ideal scenario, it can solo, maybe. Even then it requires teammates to interrupt the enemy movements. Even if it’s not planned to begin with, we are in a random match. Having a minimal coordination with teammates, even though they are not actual friends nor communicated with. How much of our kills are actually done alone? I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, actually suggesting the opposite of it.
This tactics equalizes the initial energy advantage, like if you extend too long after the dive. Only thing you are left with is nothing more than the horizontal distance, which is not very useful in initiating an ideal attack again. Not like we can choice the better engagement in the very first, though.
Shallow climb actually doesn’t add enough energy to have at least 800m distance between you and the enemy when going vertical suddenly. Otherwise the enemy can just stop following the climb. shallow dive combined with a sudden pitch up can be used to temporarily shorten the distance between, for the enemies it’s a really useful maneuver. Smart opponents can cheese it if not dumb enough.
I’m not opposing your general idea, actually, my replies are always filled with letters. Otherwise, what I’m not repeating nor accusing against are all agreed upon. Repeating things I found relatable would make this reply too long so. I just don’t think the horizontal distance to be that useful against the opponents other than denying the chance of hit. And I don’t think the horizontal movement speed difference between the 2 planes can make a good difference when both of them are zooming. Also, in that scenario, the chasing side can follow up with a shallower climb, which is slightly more energy efficient.
The reply above is written within the idea that what you are doing is to come on top of the enemy by eventually making a vertical loop while avoiding the enemy fire by the means of the distance. If the distance itself is not very important, it must have been more practical doing it. As the fight enters the classic energy trap maneuver.
It might work if you are making a circular energy trap, it requires you to dodge the enemy bullet when you start turning. But you might come on top of the enemy that way, if you keep the energy. I’m pretty you can’t just make a vertical loop to get into the firing position unless it’s a headon. If you bait enemy into a sudden vertical climb and the enemy miss for once, you can literally squeeze the enemy’s energy into negatable amount. That could be done. I’m pretty sure that requires you to dodge once, the attack is from a very risky angle for both sides. But sure, it can be done against most aircraft. I don’t play in that way usually, so I didn’t think of that. If you meant it, my apology.
…you give a clear sign that you don’t care about 140+ posts before as they are not worth your time.
By degrading other opinions as worthless you simply kick yourself out of any serious debate - your whole goal is trying to look smarter than you actually are.
I could just provide server replays to demonstrate what I mean. When I get an appropriate game with the concept on display, I’ll post it here.
Edit: while I’m looking for an appropriate game in the P-51C (vs a better climbing, slower opponent), you can take a look at this older server replay I have in the F8F-1. Make sure to sometimes use sensor view to see energy states, and player camera view (cam 2 on the top UI) to see how people think. replay link
@ 6:44 a Ki-44 and Bf-109 start chasing me. I energy trap them with speed and separation. After going up, by the moment I and the Ki-44 had the same TAS, I was 1.3 km above him.
@ 11:41 another Ki-44 starts chasing me, with some B7A2s coming to the fight later on. Same speed + separation tactic.
@ 15:39 a B7A2 gets very close to my six. Same tactic once again, but he ends up turning away.
@ 17:59 same B7A2 returns for a chase. He doesn’t dare to go up.
Edit 2: Here’s a replay of me in a P-51C vs higher La-5F. As a result of encouraging a high speed chase, I ended up with energy advantage. replay link
Fight starts at 15:08 but I was trying to encourage him to attack me even before that. He needed to feel safe and above me so I gave him the opportunity.
Cool, It’s showing what you said exactly, the F8F fighting against G-2 and Ki-44-ii was really cool.
Though it sounds like I’m against you for something, but just a clarification. F8F is 100kph faster at the same altitude compared to the fighters it faces, it climbs at the staggering 31 meters per second at the ground level. Slightly greater than the 27 to 28 meter per second of the Ki-44-ii. G-2 having the exact same climb rate as F-4 at lower speed ( dunno about the shallow climb.) This is completely off topic but F8F’s 2350hp goes way beyond that due to the ram air in supercharger-less settings, I think it was treated as gear 1. Wasn’t it like a goat-horn something, the physical trumpet shape of the super charger intake duct behind the engine. Otherwise the gear 2 configuration caps the horsepower at 2370hp, So it actually doesn’t have 2850hp like the X-ray suggests, atleast in usual plays. I think the plane reaches like 680kph at the deck. Whereas, most fighters of the era could reach 600kph or not, Tempest is 612 to 620kph, and that’s what I believe is the next fastest prop plane at the deck. This could be wrong, as for anything.
Now I realized I can’t see other’s pre-edited comments, I’ll make it clear that my edits are right after the initial posting, I fixed the F8F’s climb rate to 31 from 34, after my testing. And Changed Ki-44-ii’s 27 to “27 to 28”. And added the last one third of my comments. The horse power and speed values are untouched.
My accusation, is that the enemy is dumb enough to follow the shallow climb, otherwise the enemies could have just climb at way steeper angle to overcome the vertical reach issue. The distance would be made but at least they could keep up in the altitude, maybe they can fly toward different directions, that could have been more tactical for them. Tough, they just followed you in a straight line and it’s an unchangeable truth. So it seems to be 100% legit way to fight back. It’s just my coulda shoulda, again. Anyway.
I’d say I’m impressed by your plays. Very intriguing way of playing the commonly misunderstood planes, I’mma learn few things to imitate that. Both F8F and Ki-44-ii settles around 25 meters per second at mid altitude. F8F having it 2 or 3 mps higher. F8F is definitely better at shallow climb, both keeping the speed and climb rate at lower angle. I’m assuming it’s due to the wing loading and the wing tip drag at various AoA, but it could be from other factors too. I see the point in extending away.
Any comments about the P-51C vs La-5F replay? It somewhat addresses your hypothetical opponent that climbs over the faster plane, as can be seen in the first encounter with the La-5F.
I will try finding a Pyorremyrsky opponent next, which would be a perfect example.
In the mean time, here are high speed examples with Yak-3 vs Zeros: replay link
Yak-3 feels kinda lame for this purpose, but it could be my inexperience.
Engagements at 9:44, 12:43, and 22:06.
Also, you may be interested in this:
Spoiler
This is speed of planes across various climb rates. All data points taken at the deck, or close to it. The general trend is that faster planes gain energy better than slower planes at shallower climb angles.
La-5f’s power output is 1650hp at deck, 1500hp at 3000m, 1430hp at 3500m, 1270hp at 4500m. The continuous climbing really did a number on that enemy La-5f. The highest point of that energy trap maneuver is happened to be 4700m. It seems like a really thought out tactic to me. Since I have nothing against it, all I could say is nice. It seemed like La-5 Tried keeping the nose up instead of regaining the speed to properly put the nose up again, after the first vertical zoom. I’m assuming that P-51 can do similar thing by making a long slightly descending horizontal turn to make a fake headon, then zooming after a very short horizontal flight, while the enemy tries to do a 180. The enemy’s energy must be low right after the enemy does 180, it would be a nice opportunity. I think it’s dangerous but I’ll experiment with that myself, when I would be able to boot up the game next time.
The D-9 kill was really precise in the Yak-3 vs D-9 demo you handed us.
All these replays are interesting and makes me learn tactics that are new to me.
Also, I realized that the A6M5 was deploying the flaps during the flight, even though the A6M5 was chasing you in a direct line. I think it’s an oversight, but until then he was equal in the speed. The enemy flopped a big time.
Zoom climb or at least steep climb where it trades most of its speed for altitude, which can leave it vulnerable if sufficient separation was achieved during the shallow climb (ergo: if the slow plane does not realize what’s happening until too late). Low speed is not just a vulnerability for running away, but also maneuverability
If they do react in time and go for a steep climb and break off before falling for the trap… well, they’re no longer pressuring you in the faster plane allowing you to do whatever you like.
And there’s also a third thing RXDimA didn’t mention:
Some planes turn better slow and get pretty stiff while fast, while planes that are normally expected to be boats become quite nimble provided they have speed.
I’ve had a quite handy demonstration of this in a P-51-D-5 (maneuvers nicely at 450-550 IAS) vs Bf109K4 (gets stiff above 450 IAS).
Combat between the 2 planes, broken down:
P-51D-5 with 480 km/h IAS @ 4.4km altitude engages Bf109K4
P-51D-5 sacrifices a lot of speed in a loop to gain controlling position of Bf109K4 (slows down to 370 IAS but altitude is increase to 4.8 km)
Bf109K4 sacrifices a lot of speed sharply turning into the P-51D-5
P-51D-5 sacrifices altitude to maintain speed to keep position over Bf109K4 (370 IAS, 3.7 km altitude)
Bf109K4 pulls out all stops and manages to almost pivot in place.
P-51D-5 does not keep turning, instead shallow dives away to gain separation & speed 430 km/h at 3.6 km and then merges again.
In the head-on that ensues neither gets a hit in.
P-51D-5 disengages again. After some separation, climbs some while turning around (330 km/h, 4km altitude)
Notices Bf109K4 start steep/zoom climbing, so P-51D-5 dives to gain speed (450 km/h, 3.7 km altitude)
P-51D-5 gains position on the Bf109K4 who starts diving away to escape
Spiralling descent ensues where P-51D-5 maintains 500 km/h speed in a relaxed lag pursuit.
Bf109K4 tries to pull out of the dive, P-51D-5 follows.
Both of them stall on top of each other and P-51D-5 maintains position.
They dive down to 1km altitude and turn at 550 km/h.
Bf109K4 cannot out turn the P-51D-5 due to flying much faster than control stiffening permits while the P-51D-5 remains perfectly controllable.
Bf109K4 goes down to P-51D-5 at 900 meter altitude with a final speed of 406 km/h
Second fight I lost. My mistake? Didn’t dive away when I lost contact and got slow and greedy thinking that if I climbed over the clouds I could ambush him and then when he showed up, rather than dive to regain speed I climbed which sealed my fate - I served myself on a silver platter flying at 350 km/h IAS. Might have been saveable, but right wing damage made flying it too hard
I already addressed climbing planes. When they just go up, it’s the same exact equivalent of a fast plane going fast and extending. Just because you’re above someone doesn’t mean you win.
That you havn’t actually tried out the aircraft you complain about in either RB or SB?
The nice thing about non-premium props until rank 4 is that if a plane keeps beating you… it’s not a lot of effort to unlock it and fly it yourself to see its weaknesses and limitations. Rank 4 the grind gets a bit stupid for getting a plane on a flick of a wrist.
