Lexx_Luthor

Tor:: Increasing separation is a basic fighting tactic -- think "smart" F-4 vs MiG-17 -- and is what Me-262 should have tried to do with their speed advantage, hence the attempts at psycho spray in case some 262 pilots fell for it, and turned hard, and threw away their separation and acceleration. I-16 pilots loved head on, I suppose mainly they were personally protected by that cyclone, and otherwise didn't have the performance (post 22 June) to get tail on as often as they would have liked. Germans had alot of free range hunting duty available, while the Soviet pilots were like, escort and protect, or get arrested. Forced to close protect bombers, a core VVS escort tactic was to turn and fire across the path of Luft fighters trying to attack bombers, for distraction and/or fear purpose, although the occasional hit was certainly enjoyed; another example of psycho air warfare.

Yes, not all pilots knew, but interestingly, notice that the psycho spray was useful no matter the shell size, P-47s and 0.50s with tracers that escaping Me-262 pilots can see and then panic into turning, or giant 37mm the Soviets used since they knew Bf-109 pilots feared that shell.

Tor:: The Star of Africa. Spraying at long range has some use for the better pilots, in that fire can change behavior in an enemy. Tricking newbie Me-262 pilots into turning instead of jetting away, VVS P-39 pilots starting head on engagements firing the heavy cannon far out of range to scare Luft pilots into turning too early. Air combat, like any man~vs~man combat I suppose, is not just mechanical, but also a psyco thing. The better pilots figured out psyco air warfare. Also comes to mind, the downing of yalu honcho Harold Fischer, zipping low over a Chinese base while an invisible (not silver) MiG comes down and fluffs him. Han Decai (sp?) is generally credited, although Russians dispute this. Decai was brand new, out of training, his first kill, but no deflection shot needed. As usual, an unseen kill, no legendary F-86 agility for miles around, cos legendary Fischer wasn't being agile, nor watchful. They met up in China sometime in the 1990s.

Gep:: We were creative, we were. Gep, +, etc, about collision, I'm looking at F3D2 Skyknight. Neither US nor Russian sources give a Skyknight kill in combat, they agree although the Russian sources don't explicitly state this like US sources....except one odd loss where it looks like a Skynight and MiG-15 collided with a vertical vector component, at night, busting out the Skynight canopy and I suppose the 2 crew.

streak, 0.50 is fine. Nobody is saying it wasn't. Although there's an interesting story about Vandenberg coming to Okw after the Namsi raid, asking B-29 tail gunners if they wanted cannon. Of course the idea was forgotten as soon as Van left the base. The stunt was a morale building thing I suppose. Anyways, 0.50s were not the problem there, cos 0.50s are fine. Lets start again with the cannon vs agile fighter: If you don't see the other fella coming, the other fella gets a chance at a good, close range shot, bb gun or 16 inch it doesn't matter. Most of these kills came unseen. No F-86 evasion ... no F-86 agility. --- -- - Here's one for the 0.50!! One Sabre guy freaked everybody in his squadron by consistently downing non-manuevering MiGs at (maybe) 2 miles, cos he alone realized at 30000ft there is no air to slow down his bullets. The other guys didn't think of that, according to the story. That reminds me of the story of the early astronauts wanting to rendevous flying "upright" but only one astronaut called them out on that -- cos they weren't *flying* - there is no up. The other nauts didn't see it. haha .. I forgot which naut that was. streak, don't get bent out of shape over kill scores. Its not worth it. If I read correctly, there was a hushed up scandal of honcho F-86 pilots -- the yalu type maybe -- continuosly bouncing and downing F-86s, cos all the honchos saw was silver swept wings and a MiG score. I wonder what that did to the kill ratios lol. One thing to consider, is USAF went out of its way to classify destroyed aircraft as accidents, well technically you could do that. This is why kill scores and ratios simply don't matter. The Japanese had the best idea early in WW2 of not worrying about kill scores, although its not a popular idea obviously.

streak:: Maybe because most downed F-86s were not *being* evasive against their attackers, and at best, were caught while manuevering for position for something else when they were taken. I think most fighter-vs-fighter kills, from WW1 and after, came on unseen by the victim. No evasion. For decades I have always guessed about 3:1 -- kinda an average I figured. What was important to me is that USAF and NAVY were generally able to operate interdiction without interference, so... lala About the airfields: we made a Deal, you know, a Deal deal, with the Reds, business is business. They didn't bomb US airfields, we didn't bomb theirs. At one point, the Chinese front line commanders were planning on it, but were stopped at the last minute by Beijing, literally as the mission started, because Beijing knew all their airbase north of the Yalu and elsewhere belong to USAF if they tried it.

Cap, I was silently agreeing with you for the last day or two, until the night of 20 June 2014. Nightwatch For the night of 20 June 2014:: I never would have guessed. Lots more in the link.

hrc, if you play The StrikeFighters, you can download that stuff you saw way up there, down here, only at The CombatAce. Contrails for Strategic Air Warfare ~> http://combatace.com/files/file/7046-siberian-sky-contrails-for-strategic-air-warfare/

MAKO:: Coalition of Iran, Hezbollah, against the extremists. well....um... It took time to figure out, but standing up and fighting for what they have is what the Sunnis in the north are doing, using ISIS as a spearhead, and ISIS using Sunni support. Its likely a temporary alliance, the Sunnis having embraced then kicked out ISI in the past. I'm wondering, do they stop when they have gained freedoms in their own areas, or go beyond and attack shia areas and risk losing what they gained? I figure "the north" blew it when ISIS (reportedly) threatened destruction of shia shrines south of Bagdhad. But that's ISIS so...lol... It was just after that when Iran started talking of intervening and Sistani called shia militia to arms. According to Nightwatch 13 June 2014; The last time the Shiite militias went to war, there was a blood-bath of Sunnis. I've seen comments around that so far Obama is playing this very cool, just for this reason, the shia earning a bit of blowback from their treatment of sunnis, who earned blowback for treatment of shia under Saddam. They need their own states maybe... Shiaq Sunnaq Kurdaq

bbc.co.uk:: Well, yea, except the last few years we were finding them in Syria. That's one reason I find this so interesting to follow. I can see this... Iraq formally asks US for air strikes against rebels. In other news, Rebels formally ask US for airstrikes against Syria.

This one is pretty funny. The War Nerd: Here’s everything you need to know about “too extreme for Al Qaeda” I.S.I.S.

mac, I had forgotten your assumption here: real history, only adding 262, like the 109 as you said, which was used by a good number of air forces after the war, while adding postwar development. I had never thought of 262 used like this. Interesting indeed. JD, yeap, here I'm thinking as aircraft become ever larger and stronger built, the 0.50 becomes the "new" 0.303, 20mm the "new" 0.50, etc... :) Granted the M61 has its unrivaled rate of fire which makes up for small shell, but also needed a burst limiter to (kinda, sorta) cut the rate of fire.

When Easter Island went to war with itself, not long before the euros first landed, they decided to divide themselves into Long Ears vs Short Ears. They built a pretty advanced civilization for an isolated polynesian island, 2000 miles from any other, and stripped the place bare. War was all they had left I guess. Anybody see the movie Rapa Nui?

w, how much data are you talking about? It matters. It fits on your computer now, so I'm guessing 10TB upper limit, but probably waaaay much less.

...they don't force others to see their face,... uh...well, back in the Spanich Sivil War... Famous among the German Ladies, secretly admired by Nazi super men, for his gallant inpit selfies. TheSims developers modelling Pilot Legs in a SCW sim/game also come to mind here. Would they do it, even in a SCW "light sim game?" mmm TK? Oleg?

How long does your scenario last? Think Aden and DEFA MG213K derivatives. The initial 213K seemed to have a slow muzzle velocity, later greatly increased by the British and French for all their jet fighters. Does your story have time for Mauser to improve this for Germany? For attacking bombers, you want 30mm. B-29 crews in Korea most feared the 37mm shell despite its low muzzle velocity and rate of fire because they saw it blowing gigantic holes in their airplanes.

What about the Mk103 30mm cannon? If you are gonna increase thrust, you may get away with increasing the weight of the cannons, and if needed, reducing the number of cannons as well. Also can you fit Mk103s at about double the length?

Horse:: Maybe add Hezbollah fighters to that? Very surreal this same ISIS was kept hush-hush while they were engaging Assad in Syria, but now they blitz Iraq, ISIS moves front page. We wanted to believe, we got what we wanted.

Col. Pat Lang on these Baathist Iraqi officers. The Douris and the Naqshbandi army

Wow. That's why I like high altitude so much. Thanks.

* Media over reaction Alert * ...and Iran reaction alert. Just being contrarian to the always lying mainstream media (US and Iran both). Maybe its not so bad folks. The shias asked for this by dumping on the sunnis very badly. By the SAME REASON, if AQ goes nuts, the sunnis will eliminate AQ, as they have before. Granted *that* assumes AQ does not become too entrenched. Apparently, AQ is being led by a large number of old Saddam's officers and generals, which helps explain their rapid success -- and is a good reason we should havev kept them employed in the new regime instead of eliminating them. I don't think these guys are very AQ~esque, and they are very smart and well trained. Look for Iraq to split into Sunni, Kurd, and Shia partial states. If AQ goes nuts, it should be self-defeating, as the Sunnis won't tolerate that, and, the body count for AQ will skyrocket if they push far into Shia and Kurd areas. Also, this assumes we don't get "involved" on one side against the other and mess things up again. Iran and Saud as well, for that matter. Like men around llamas, its hard to keep hands off. The best poast ever about this I saw on another forum....Hope some AQ leader brags that "The road to Mecca runs through Bagdad." Then watch the sauds, our ally, and creator of AQ, panick big time lol.

crazyhorse, lol. Mumar Gaddafi same, so he had to go too.

Yough Wrench, that 20,000 lbs is for 25,000 feet in MKSheppard's s.a.c. pdf site I figure, double that payload, and you have to double the air density, and you get down to 10,000 feet, or so. Better accuracy too, but less range also. Point blank range for heavy flak too.

Wow! Jet Age Man: SAC B-47 and B-52 Operations in the Early Cold War by Earl McGill Well, just very Wow. Need to let this one sink in. Its quite deep. Author flew B-29s in Korea, then RB-47s and B-52s hi and lo, and BUF Ops arclight, and instructed them. A few things -- what one accidental sidewinder can do for a B-52 made crews at the time wonder about surviving a penetration. The most deep description I've seen of what happened in that accident. Never break up air crews that work, and spend their ground lives together. Never exceed 60 degrees bank in a BUF, which was a skinny plane, the fat put on later for PC reasons. Aurora are a *huge* part of flying high altitude on long nights near the pole. I already figured that out. I didn't know the rapidly shifting colours and patterns created serious disorientation and messed with staying on a tanker, even for a man (McGill) who was known as one of the better pilots at staying on tankers. This is the best book out there right now. Get it. He could write another ten volumes on this same subject. I wish this was only Volume 1.

Its the old version, so steamers may discover Old SF, hear about New SF, and then goto thudwire. 2006 always worked on Win~7 for me from the start.