How to win at BFM in the Mighty F-4E Phantom

[lee1hy]

I've never had a difficult dcs airplane before, but I think the Phantom is the first difficult one. 

[Kalasnkova74]

2 hours ago, Tophatter14 said:

Bottom line upfront. Don’t go pure Vertical, but use 45°.

 

That’s one side of the equation. The other is the energy state of your bandit, especially the MiG-19 which has superior acceleration to the F-4E in some parameters. If you’re up against a MiG with high energy , going vertical won’t necessarily save you. 
 

The name of that game is staying fast while baiting the MiG into bleeding energy. It’s harder than it seems , especially if the MiG driver knows what they’re doing.

[=475FG= Dawger]

It doesn’t matter if the AI “cheats”, uses different physics, casts spells or engages warp drive. 
 

You fight the bandit you have, not the one you wish you had. 
 

It remains that the DCS AI isn’t a significant challenge for those who truly understand and can apply Basic BFM. 

I know that probably hurts the feelings of those who would rather believe they are in possession of heroic levels of BFM proficiency and the AI has to be magical to win. 
 

It just ain’t so. 

[Phantom12]

3 hours ago, Elf1606688794 said:

I'm not sure what that is? I know what thrust is, but what about the rest?

It's my understanding that you can't search for various Discords in order to find them, instead you need a link. Could you provide one please?

It came up when I googled it but try this one https://discord.com/invite/dogfighters

 

Ps is specific excess thrust. It is a measure of an airplanes ability to increase its energy state, either by climbing or accellerating (or both).

[Phantom12]

Of course the AI can be beaten by cheesing it when they give up or tricking it into doing some weird move that gives up all its advantage. But theres not much to be learned there, and it really doesnt mean much of anything if one can do that. Nor is it helpful to train tactics for fighting one particular airplane against another that behaves entirely differently, where different tactics are valid or necessary. Im not sure what coming in here and telling everyone its easy and we all suck really contributes either...

 

Anyway, as for the 45° topic. Theres generally no magic to be found in vertical maneuvers. If you don't have a Ps advantage you wont find any gains just by doing the same turn you would horizontally but in the vertical. Going up or down makes a difference that is worth understanding, but its not that simple. The angle chosen can also be a matter of which weapons are involved as well, as a pure zoom climb can make a nice target for heat seeking missiles. Robert Shaw's book "Fighter Combat" explains all the details better than I ever could so I wont try to explain more here.

[Tophatter14]

I bought Fighter Combat in Pensacola as a flight student and read it as a Tomcat RAG student.  I re-read it when I was squadron CO.  

Situations (energy, altitude, SA) will always dictate immediate post merge gameplan decisions, no question.  When you’ve bought the merge, you have the rest of your life to figure out how to win or survive.  
 

But there are simple hard and fast rules -that were learned the hard way -which should be followed when possible.  You fight your best fight, not your adversary’s.   It’s what I learned and what I taught over multiple tours as a flight instructor and Adversary Tactics instructor at NAWDC.   The F-4 has a well documented history of what did and didn’t work against 19’s and 21’s.  
 

So for the OP- keep practicing with egg energy management and always be fangs out.  You lead the dance and make your opponent react to your tactics at every instance.   Don’t ever get sucked into their playground.  Keep at it.  

And I’m not going to bother about the egos/imaginary skill levels of video game “fighter pilots” nor video game flight models.  

[diego999]

Set up a dogfight between an AI MiG-21 and something else with you as an observer and watch it pull 9G sustained turns without losing speed. Yes, you can beat it but there's nothing to be learned with that.

The tragedy is the "real" flight model of the plane already exists: it's the one the game uses when you are the one flying it.

If you want to dogfight against MiGs, use a 19 or a 23. Their performance is more in line with reality.

 

[Elf1606688794]

4 hours ago, Phantom12 said:

It came up when I googled it but try this one https://discord.com/invite/dogfighters

 

Ps is specific excess thrust. It is a measure of an airplanes ability to increase its energy state, either by climbing or accellerating (or both).

Thanks, I really appreciate the response.

[mattag08]

22 hours ago, skywalker22 said:

AI planes are those who need the 2nd touch.

For me its just impossible to gun kill AI Fishbed with the Phantom. Mig-21 has such an incredible turn rate, and its speed seems not to be dropping as much, as I would expect at those rates. Its kind of incredible for the 60s plane. I wonder what the ED (concerning AI) and the developers of Mig-21 and other planes will do now when the Phantom is out, which clearly set the bar very high in practically any standard there is.

 

Absolutely nothing. There is no money in it for them if they update those AI. I mean there is in the sense that DCS would be a better sim, but they don't view things that way. They only care about short term cash infusions from new modules.

[Qcumber]

11 hours ago, lee1hy said:

I've never had a difficult dcs airplane before, but I think the Phantom is the first difficult one. 

Compared to what other aircraft? 

[some1]

16 hours ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

I hear the claim that AI has different physics but I don’t see that. What they do have is perfect SA and the ability to fly very precisely. 

You can try this little challenge to verify that. Just load the mig21 mission and stay on his tail in another mig21. 

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/326798-ai-turn-performance-impossible-for-a-human-aircraft/#comment-5226532

How "flying very precisely" allows AI to sustain 7g at 1000 km/h is anyone's guess.

 

[DD_Fenrir]

4 hours ago, mattag08 said:

Absolutely nothing. There is no money in it for them if they update those AI. I mean there is in the sense that DCS would be a better sim, but they don't view things that way. They only care about short term cash infusions from new modules.

New pilot models, updating legacy 3d models of assets, re-compiling the game engine to leverage multi-threading technology, recompiling to use Vulcan, ongoing development of a dynamic campaign engine, upgrade of Fc3 aircraft textures and the ongoing development of the new GFM to improve AI flight dynamics.

All the above would rather prove you wrong.

[Phantom12]

6 hours ago, Tophatter14 said:

I bought Fighter Combat in Pensacola as a flight student and read it as a Tomcat RAG student.  I re-read it when I was squadron CO.  

Situations (energy, altitude, SA) will always dictate immediate post merge gameplan decisions, no question.  When you’ve bought the merge, you have the rest of your life to figure out how to win or survive.  
 

But there are simple hard and fast rules -that were learned the hard way -which should be followed when possible.  You fight your best fight, not your adversary’s.   It’s what I learned and what I taught over multiple tours as a flight instructor and Adversary Tactics instructor at NAWDC.   The F-4 has a well documented history of what did and didn’t work against 19’s and 21’s.  
 

So for the OP- keep practicing with egg energy management and always be fangs out.  You lead the dance and make your opponent react to your tactics at every instance.   Don’t ever get sucked into their playground.  Keep at it.  

And I’m not going to bother about the egos/imaginary skill levels of video game “fighter pilots” nor video game flight models.  

Ill be the first to admit Im no expert, not even on paper. Im always happy to be corrected or take advice from people whove been there and done it for real like Victory and yourself. My intent wasnt to lecture anybody and I hope thats not how it came across.

Most of us lack alot of the fundamentals required to understand and implement the quick and dirty advice one usually finds online. I know Ive been trying since I was 10-15 years old to make Phantom tactics learned on the history channel work against MiGs in various simulators, and usually met with fiery failure. Just wanted to add that, unless Ive misunderstood something, from a pure Energy perspective flying the same turns with the nose up doesnt gain you more than it would horizontally.

 

If the F-4 shifts to flying in a way that it can exploit superior T/W then its definitely worthwhile. If I read the charts I mentioned earlier correctly I believe 3-5G climbing turns should over time give an F-4 an energy advantage vs the MiG-19. A 6-7G climbing turn probably would not.

[MBot]

Here is what I don't get. People always talk about utilizing the Phantom's superior thrust. But the MiG-21bis actually has excellent thrust too. Depending on the specific weights involved, it might even have the T/W advantage.

[Phantom12]

7 minutes ago, MBot said:

Here is what I don't get. People always talk about utilizing the Phantom's superior thrust. But the MiG-21bis actually has excellent thrust too. Depending on the specific weights involved, it might even have the T/W advantage.

Depends which MiG-21. The Bis in DCS has better thrust than most of the ones from Vietnam. Our F-4 seems to still have a slight advantage in many situations though.

[some1]

Usually when you hear such statements in real life, people don't say it in comparison to the 21bis, but older aircraft. 21bis is the latest version of the Fishbed, it only began service in 1972 and it wasn't an adversary for the F-4 in real conflicts for most of its career. The bis was delivered to other countries like Iraq or Syria only in the late 70's and early '80s. 

Edited May 25, 2024 by some1

[MBot]

But the MiG-21bis is obviously the only variant relevant for us in DCS.

Edited May 25, 2024 by MBot

[Grimleo]

4 minutes ago, some1 said:

Usually when you hear such statements in real life, people don't say it in comparison to the 21bis, but older aircraft. 21bis is the latest version of the Fishbed, it only began service in 1972 and it wasn't an adversary for the F-4 in real conflicts for most of it's career, being delivered to other countries only in the late 70's and early '80s. 

<trolling>Remember 'our' F-4E is a 70's bird. The second Heatblur variant is an 80's bird.</trolling>

Edited May 25, 2024 by Grimleo

[some1]

Keyword: in real life. Anyway, the Phantom doesn't get much more thrust from being 70's variant, on the other hand it may have more drag and weight than earlier models.

Edited May 25, 2024 by some1

[MBot]

52 minutes ago, some1 said:

Keyword: in real life

Exactly, as our 70s Phantom variant and the MiG-21bis are the natural pair, ether in the 70s/early 80s in central Europe or the Iran-Iraq war.

So either historical or in DCS, the MiG-21bis is the variant we need to talk about.

[some1]

Isn't that what we're doing in this thread already?

[Grimleo]

Sorry. Posting Bipolar.

[MBot]

2 minutes ago, some1 said:

Isn't that what we're doing in this thread already?

Frankly I am not sure. I see plenty of people suggesting to use the vertical. Now I am no expert on this but to me that seems a questionable advice considering the MiG-21bis most likely has a superior T/W ratio (depending on each ones fuel and weapon state).

[some1]

In the context of the game, you have some advantage, but not enough to mindlessly lit the burners and extend in every situation. That's what I get from people posting in this thread.

In the context of real world comparisons, they usually don't talk about MiG-21bis in particular.

[irisono]

vor 59 Minuten schrieb MBot:

Exactly, as our 70s Phantom variant and the MiG-21bis are the natural pair, ether in the 70s/early 80s in central Europe or the Iran-Iraq war.

So either historical or in DCS, the MiG-21bis is the variant we need to talk about.

Please note in all your discussions that the AI Mig-21Bis in DCS does not behave in terms of performance like the corresponding aircraft did. It does not represent a Mig-21Bis but more a kind of a Mig-21UFO. All these debates are therefore purly hypothetical.