Skall

The article is rather nebulous but I think it cleared one thing up for me: all this time it sounded like energy fighting was an alternative to TnB and BnZ. Apparently it is not. It's more of a methodology than an exact tactic. Given that the AI apparently cheats when it comes to energy, is it realistically possible to practice basic energy management against the AI to the point where good energy management on your behalf would beat the AI in a guns-only fight? Does it depend on the difficulty of the AI? (I don't really know how the higher difficulty settings affect AI in DCS). Regarding your flat scissors comment, is rate referring to roll rate, turn rate or both?

Just came across this article. While it leaves me with more questions than answers, is it generally true about energy fighters? http://trainers.hitechcreations.com/efight/efight.htm

No need to apologize. You are and have been a huge help to this community. First thing I do when I have a question like this is look up any posts you might have on the subject. Though I feel you sometimes overestimate how little some of us know and underestimate how much you know. To you, answers are nuanced and situational, which is the mark of an experienced person. To someone like me, those nuances are barely conceivable. It's the curse that befalls an experienced teacher. How do you take something that is complex and gradually transfer that knowledge to someone without overwhelming them. I'm willing to learn one step at a time, even if it means having to review and revise what I thought was "right" in the face of new information.

Thanks. Now I know I need to hunt down some info on this elusive energy fighting business. Silly question: what does TC stand for?

Yes. It's a 1v1 and he needs to go down because of an off-hand comment he made about my mom. There's no other way to resolve this than through a contrived simulated A2A duel. I appreciate the help GG, but I feel details like "make him run out of fuel" belong in the realm of the details that separate great pilots from good pilots. I'm not even good yet. All I'm looking for is a basic framework to build off of. I feel like I have that for BVR but not for what comes after if it comes to that.

Good question which I share as well. When I hear the Eagle is an energy fighter I think zoom and boom. Yet when I say zoom and boom I get told that WW2 fighter tactics don't apply to modern jets. So what are the general tactics/approach to dogfighting of an "energy fighter" like the F-15?

Thanks. A few more things to digest and factor into my approach. It's general information like this that I'm looking for to help me deal with my opponent and understand my own situation as the fight transitions from BVR to WVR to the merge.

Thank you. A million times thank you. So now I know that being stuck with only heaters against an opponent 8-10 miles out is a sticky proposition, even if he's low and cold but aware. It is as risky as my experience has indicated. I can now trace my mistake back to the beginning of the engagement where I need to decide if I'm willing to press to the merge as part of the BVR dance or not. If I am, I need to make sure I get there as part of the engagement. If I'm not willing to commit to the merge, I need to draw the line where I bail if things are not going my way in BVR. Will this apply to all scenarios? No. But it gives me something to work with.

Thanks for the advice everyone. GGTharos is right, I'm not asking the right questions. That means there are some basic fundamentals I haven't yet grasped (see what happens when you jump to conclusions without proper instruction :D). Maybe I'm too all over the place. Just want to try to get an inkling some of those "it depends" variables. Maybe I'm thinking too much like a software developer but for any given problem there are always a small set of variables that, when solved or accounted for, get you half-way if not closer to a solution. As you layer in more variables and the true complexity of the problem is apparent, you find that each set of variables gets you a bit closer to the answer at the cost of considerably more complexity. At some point you draw the line as to how much complexity you are willing to deal with. This is both a function of mental capacity and experience. I don't need to know all of the variables. In these early stages of learning I can neither appreciate nor keep track of them in a fight. But I would like to know the primary variables that make up the core of the problem and factor those in my decisions. I guess what I'm looking for is some structure to begin learning WVR combat. I felt like building a basic approach to BVR on which to build on was pretty straight forward. Not saying I'm good at it, though. Being able to fairly consistently beat the AI in high/excellent is not much of an accomplishment but it beats always losing to it (which was what was happening to me before understanding the basics and developing an approach). While this approach probably does not cover all of the variables and is probably only marginally effective in MP (if at all), it gives me a foundation to work with and mold as I learn more. I feel I have no such foundation for WVR combat nor do I know where to begin setting up such a foundation. Most of the times I lose against the AI are when I get WVR. This usually happens on fights where all of my radar missiles are decoyed or defeated (some crazy lofting on some of them) and I'm left with a pair of sidewinders and a million questions. We are still 8-12 miles apart. Sure I can go for a sidewinder shot but he has enough time to rate his nose on me even if he's low and cold at the time we get to WVR. This has often lead to mutual destruction as he gets a shot off moments before my missile impacts. At this point, have I lost and just not realized it? If my objective is to kill the other guy and this is what it's come to, did I lose? Is there nothing I can do at this point except pack my bags and go home? Or is there something basic in my approach leading up to WVR and/or execution of the sidewinder shot that I'm not considering which can make the difference between victory and mutual destruction? Or should I just pack 8 120s and stay in BVR or become a mud torpedo? When do most of you find yourselves WVR of you opponent? If the number one goal of every fighter pilot is to get the jump on unsuspecting enemies, assuming VID is not required, is WVR combat a function of two groups of enemies running into each other unexpectedly (since neither side detected the other at range and positioned themselves for a good BVR volley?). Or is there merit to sneaking up on a target WVR (I'm guessing maybe so you don't give yourself away via the opponents RWR)? Do you find BVR combat against an equally skilled pilot to transition to WVR as both of you expend your long and medium range missiles in the BVR dance? Or do you avoid that transition and altogether and try to exit the fight past a certain point if neither of you are getting any good shots in?

Hmm, your chart tells me exactly the opposite. There are massive performance differences every 10k feet. Knowing how the performance of F-15 stacks against the other planes at those same intervals could prove useful.

I know where you are coming from but I would still like some basic guidance on WVR combat both with and without seeker missiles before I just try doing stuff at random and develop bad habits. I feel there's plenty of theory out there on BVR that I was able to put together some basic missions to practice with and noticeably improve over the course of a few hours of playing them and analyzing them in Tacview. Don't feel quite the same about WVR combat. For example, there's much more to BVR then sprinting, climbing, shooting and cranking but at least those terms and general sequence gave me a starting point to research and practice. This led to firing and anticipating spoiler shots. Dealing with shots fired at you led to notching, jinking, dragging and beaming+orthogonal rolls as possible options each with their own pros, cons and risks. Then came use of countermeasures/ECM and their impact on ability to fire first. Then came HOJ. And the list goes on. It's like every step leads to another layer or dimension of complexity to include and practice. And this is all one-on-one. Haven't even gotten to having an allied wingman and dealing with an enemy wingman. With WVR, all I know is that there are two types of merges: one-circle and two-circle fights, which apparently have completely different outcomes and consequences depending on whether or not you or your opponents have missiles but no one seems to elaborate on what those consequences are or where to go from there. Oh, and pull towards your opponent and "use the vertical" (whatever that means outside of a high yo-yo). I realize that even my newbie understanding of what to keep track of in BVR is pathetically limited but I'd rather have a basic list of things to do/watch for than none at all. But I'll tank it out with Tacview if that is what it comes down to. I figured I'd start with basic performance data across allied and enemy planes to start putting together some conclusions/ideas myself which is why I'm asking these specific questions in my original post. Still curious about what other people think/know. Instead of focusing on specific maneuvers, I'd like to know what general conditions (speed, altitude) and overall approach to WVR combat favor the F-15 when dealing with other non-F-15 planes so that I can start putting together a picture/game plan in my head. Thanks for the tip. I'll check out the F-15C manual for performance data. Too bad I have nothing to compare it against :cry:

Hi everyone. I have a few questions related to dogfighting in the F-15 that came about from a couple of different sources and I could use some guidance here. If you don't care to read the entire thing (it is a bit lengthy), you can just jump to my highlighted questions in bold. Thank you for your time. Let me preface this by saying that I'm pretty new to A2A combat in general. My understanding is that the F-15 is ok in a turning dogfight but was not really made for it and I should try to exploit its advantages in BVR. As a consequence, I've been focusing on the BVR side of things though would like to get decent in a turning fight in case it came to it. Even though I own FC2, I never really played it. Life got in the way and I just never got around to it. Ended up purchasing FC3 and I finally got to playing it. While browsing through the FC2 mission folders today I noticed a folder called F-15 DACT. In there are some very basic missions for BVR, heat seeker only, and guns only skirmishes in one-on-one and XvX setups. In the guns only variants, the missions can be flown vs a MiG-23, a MiG-29S and an Su-27. Silly question but, in the Eagle, is it harder to do a turning fight against a MiG-29 or Su-27? My (probably flawed) understanding is that, while the Su-27 gets all the glory, the 29 is actually the better turning plane out of the two as it is more like the F-16 (a nimble close-in fighter) than the F-15. In my quest to attempt to answer this question on my own, I went to the interwebs and started digging around. I eventually came across this article in simHQ http://www.simhq.com/_air/air_097d.html. Immediately a few things baffled me about it: 1. The article talks about corner velocity as being a sustained velocity and accompanied rate of turn. It lists the F-15 as having a corner of 620Km/h. I thought corner velocity was unsustainable since it is instantaneous and that for the Eagle, that speed is closer to 830Km/h (~450knots). Is corner velocity instantaneous or sustainable? 2. The article then compares the turning circle of four aircraft and the F-15 is only second to the Su-27 and ahead of the MiG-29 and Su-33. Assuming that the article is mistaking sustained for instantaneous turning velocity, does the F-15 have a better sustained turning velocity than the MiG-29 and Su-33 but not as good as the Su-27 at sea level? 3. Tying what is explained in this article with the aforementioned F-15 DACT missions, if you had to rate the following aircraft from easiest to hardest to take on in a guns-only head-on duel from the cockpit of an F-15, in what order would you put them? The planes are MiG-23, MiG-29, Su-27 and Su-33. 4. A lot of the performance charts out there are always based on sea level altitude. I'm trying to dig up performance numbers at varying altitudes for the fighter aircraft I would normally encounter in this sim. My understanding is that, in general, the Russian planes are better performing at low altitudes while the F-15 wants to stay at high altitudes. Other than for BVR shots, does the Eagle want to stay high because it has a hard time competing down below or because its thrust actually gives it a turning advantage (or at least lessen the gap) at high altitudes? If it actually performs better than its rivals at altitude, how high are we talking here? If it doesn't perform better than its rivals at altitude, does that mean BVR is all it has going for it? 5. Most of the performance charts I'm digging up always refer to performance at sea level. I generally want to avoid flying next to the trees. Is there anywhere I can find performance numbers (top speed, rate of turn, turn radius, etc) at varying altitudes for the aircraft modelled in this sim?

I watched this maybe a month or so ago. Definitely helps a newbie fast mover pilot like me. Could use a bit more detail in explaining certain things but still well worth watching.

Just to add a bit more detail to what was said: 1. AIM-120 timers are on the bottom left of the HUD in the format TXX MXX where T is the time to pitbull and M is the time to target. So T12 M31 means 12 seconds until the missile gets to pitbull and doesn't need your support with 31 seconds until impact. 2. Once the missile goes pitbull the timer changes to just MXX. If you launch a 120 and the timer immediately says MXX then that means you shot at a close enough range that the missile immediately went active. 3. If you fire multiple 120s, the timer on the bottom right only shows time for the last missile fired. I do not believe there is a way to "cycle" the timer across all missiles in flight to see their progress. 4. The bottom right timer on the HUD can be mistaken for the missile timer but actually has nothing to do with the missile. It indicates range to locked target in nautical miles and your plane's time to reach the target if flying an intercept course and there are no changes speeds and direction. 5. Most of these timers can be off by +/- a handful of seconds.

Yeah, those green Xs took me by surprise the first time I saw them.

Are you talking about a DCS F-35 or the real one? Cuz as far as I can tell the F-35 is a complete financial and execution disaster. Its been scaled back considerably from its original goals while already being well over budget. And even if that pig ever flies, it will probably have so many confidential systems in it that, if ED were to model it, we'd be left with nothing but a stick and some pulleys.

BRB, I need to change my pants.

Agreed. On the P-51 I let it roll down the runway as long as it wants and only apply a tiny bit of brakes if I see the runway is almost over and I'm not at a good taxi speed. It helps tremendously to map your brakes to an axis so that you can apply just a tiny amount when necessary instead of pressing a key for full on/off and having to pump the brakes.

I was under the impression that turning on anti-skid allowed for you to fully depress the brakes on landing and you won't skid, go nose over, pop a tire, etc. When I land with the hog, after the nose comes down, I just press and hold full brakes on my pedal. Stops fine every time with plenty of runway left.

Thanks. I'll live with it for now. This feature has so much potential. Honestly, I would be in heaven if I could start/stop and adjust each warehouse's period, size and speed through LUA. I wouldn't even care that there are no physical trucks. This functionality would allow us to simulate deliveries with actual physical convoys via simple trigger zones. By limit, I meant allowing the player to only choose from a pool of specific weapons so that they don't abuse the "best" weapons. I got a decent implementation with the RMS by having airports stock ~100 of each of the weapons I want to allow and connecting them to hidden warehouses that can infinitely supply them. I don't want the player to run out of weapons, just limit the types of weapons they can load.

Not sure. The best balance I've found is to put Russia and Israel as one coalition and all the other countries in the other coalition. This gives both sides all of the planes and helicopters except for the A-10A. Only USA seems to have access to it.

Nothing, huh? I'll be happy just knowing how to turn off the warehouse shipping/receiving messages.

Been messing around with the warehouses/RMS and was wondering if there was a way to turn off the top-left messages that show up when a warehouse has shipped or received something? Secondly, anyway to deactivate a warehouse so that it temporarily stops shipping? Finally, without using warehouses, is there a way to limit the load out a player can choose during multiplayer? Seems a bit convoluted but I was thinking I can setup the starting airport with a few of each weapon I want to allow and then have a nearby hidden warehouse with fast travel times and low period (1) so that the airport stays stocked but won't allow players to use weapons that are not allowed. Any better way of doing this?

Would you mind if I host it periodically?

Great response as usual. Makes sense to just pull for the given altitude/speed that will not make you lose speed. Hadn't heard the term sliceback so I just looked it up. The knowledge grows a smidgeon at a time.