Loss of pilot

[Bullethead 12]

The problem I have with the three ways to fight as listed in your post is that it does not allow for the energy fighter who KNOWS how to turn and pivot in the horizontal while keeping track of his energy. .... I find Shaw's definition of energy fighting to be much too narrow when talking about the Great War fighter aircraft.

 

I agree. A good fighter pilot needs to know both styles of fighting, because you need to use whichever style works best for the situation you're in. Most of my flightsim experience is MMO with WW2 planes and no restrictions on which makes and models you could fly. Thus, it was not uncommon for a fight to have both guys in, say, a P-47. Normally, you'd be crazy to turnfight ANYTHING in a Jug, but against another Jug, you NEED to :).

 

Shaw wrote the book without naming names of planes. Instead, he has hypothetical fighters which he calls the LWL (low wing-loaded, ie turnfighter) and HWL (high wing-loaded, ie E-fighter) machines. He doesn't give them absolute performance specs, but instead makes them just significantly different, relative to each other. One turns much better than the other, the other zooms much better than the first, to the point that trying to play the other guy's game isn't a good idea at all. So he has the HWL machine doing E-tactics and the LWL machine doing turnfighting. The diagrams in the book have real airplanes in them, chosen apparently to underscore this. For example, an F-104 vs. a MiG-17 in 1 picture, or a P-51 vs. an Me-262 in another.

 

By basing the tactics on relative performance between the particular planes involved, Shaw is making the point that you need to know whether you're the LWL or HWL guy in that situation, and act accordingly. For example, the P-51 is the LWL plane vs. the Me-262 but the HWL plane vs. a Zeke.

 

This model is a harder fit for WW1, however, because the performance of the majority of planes is pretty similar. Sure, some are faster, some zoom better, some turn better, but the differences between most of them aren't anywhere near as big as they became say by WW2. Plus, very few of them can really zoom that well at all. This all means that the vast majority of the time you're engaged while in OFF, you're within effective guns range of the enemy, even if you're using E-tactics. This REALLY changes how you have to apply E-tactics, compared to how Shaw wrote them.

 

But that's why the book is still quite useful for WW1. You need to understand the theory in order to develop effective tactics to fit your situation. It's harder to do this for WW1, for the reasons outlined above, but it can be done.

[RAF_Louvert 101]

Very good BH, that I can agree with. And I am not knocking Shaw's points at all, "Fighter Combat" is one of the definitive works on the subject written by a master. But the lines between LWL and HWL combat planes and the styles of fighting dictated by each do become rather blurred with the WW1 aircraft. Still, Shaw's tactics are rock solid and will apply even in these planes, as long as one remembers that blurriness.

 

Cheers!

 

Lou