This is the first in what I hope will become a regular column on tactics in Air Superiority and Air Strike. One of the advantages of being a playtest group leader is the opportunity to try out new rules and help in the design process and along the way to play a lot of one of my favorite games. With all this experience in pushing cardboard around the skies, I have a pretty good grasp of what it takes to succeed in die game, even if it may not correspond to real life.
On the other hand, I have found that real tactics, as espoused in books like Fighter Combat by Shaw, frequently work in some more or less modified form in Air Sup. It's a tribute to the quality of the design that this holds true.
When you read books on air combat maneuvering (hereafter referred to as ACM - you might as well learn the jargon somewhere), you'll find a lot of references to "keeping your energy up". In fact, this point is made so frequently and with such force that you might believe that its all you have to do to kill the bad guy. Just flying around with your energy up is not going to win many fights, though, and there are plenty of situations where it's actually dangerous.
I want to start off this column with something simple, so this seems to be a good place to begin. If you're an experienced air combat gamer, you might already know all of this stuff. On the other hand, if I run into you at ORIGINS and smoke you, you have no excuse!
Energy, quite simply, comes from your speed and altitude. If you are faster and higher than your opponent, you have more energy than he does. If you are lower and slower, you have less. The interesting question comes about when you are higher but slower (or lower but faster). Who has the most energy then? In the real world, this is a simple question of physics but for the Air Sup gamer, it depends on things like the engine power and climb rate of each aircraft. Basically, you should ask yourself how much speed you would lose going up to the opponent's altitude. If you think you'd end up there with less speed than him, then you have less energy.
Why is your energy such a big deal, then? Because an aircraft with extra energy is more maneuverable. If you have a speed advantage you can do more aggressive turns, make more rolls, zoom higher and in general just fly fancier than your opponent. An aircraft which is level at speed 3.0 has a hard time making a climbing vertical roll - it's likely to stan before it can complete the maneuver. The same aircraft starting at speed 6.0 can do that vertical roll easily, and that means he can face pretty much wherever he wants and gain an Advantage over a slow plane that can't follow. More obviously, aircraft can only execute ET turns when they are 1.5 FP above their stall speed (BTs require 1.0 excess FP, and HTs require 0.5 excess FP) so the faster aircraft may be able to turn tighter than his slow opponent by pulling higher g's!
So how do you keep your energy up?
Well, any maneuver you perform costs energy - that's what decel points are all about. One way to keep your energy high is to avoid maneuvering, but that can get you killed, of course. Another way is to get into an aircraft with a big engine like a MiG-29. With 5.5 accel points on full A/B, it doesn't run out of energy too often. This advice is useless to you if you're trapped in a MiG-17, however.
So what can you do?
First of all, you can use maneuvers which cost less energy to achieve the same effect. Suppose, for instance, that you've just caught sight of bad guys at about 10 hexes away at 9 o'clock. Starting at speed 6.0 and LO band, you initiate a "break" into the godless foes and your move looks like: (2H, L, 2H, L, 2H, L). You will turn 90 degrees toward the bogeys and you'll pay about 4+1+1=6 decel points for a "typical" aircraft (in this case, I'm using a half-dirty F-4F as an example) A more "refined" player might move like this: [snap L, 2H, L, 2H, L, H). This costs 2 (snap) + 4 + I = 7 decel, but has an advantage in that the aircraft is now wings level and can snap again at the start of the next turn.
A better alternative from an energy standpoint, however, is this move: ( H (prep), lag R, H (prep), lag R, H (prep), lag R). Note that the aircraft has now faced 90 degrees, just as before, but the decel cost is only I + 1.5 + 1.5 = 4. In fact, I might move as follows: [snap L, H (prep), lag R, H (prep), lag R, H1 which costs 2 (snap) + 1 + 1.5 = 4.5 decel, but I have finished wings level and haven't rolled with my last FP, so I can fire a missile now - and I love to shoot first.
The "rolling" maneuvers are not the issue, though. The idea is to come up with maneuvers which accomplish the objective (in terms of facing and position) with a minimum of decel. The idea behind the classic "yo-yo" (as depicted in the AIR POWER masthead) is to tighten a turn radius by climbing. When you climb, you don't lose (much) energy. You trade speed for altitude. At the lower speed, your aircraft turns better and since you can turn using VFPs just the same as with HFPs, your aircraft turns in a smaller circle as seen on the map. You can get your speed back by diving and "cashing in" the altitude.
In general, it's a good idea to maintain your energy as much as possible. You should not use a tighter turn rate if a lesser one will do. You should think about climbing to drop your speed, rather than using speedbrakes. You should remember that rolling can often be more economical for facing changes than level turns. But you can carry this too far. There are times when energy doesn't mean diddly and trying to keep your energy up is a surefire method to insure a live test of the Martin-Baker you're perched on.
When you're in a modern dogfight with all-angle missiles, your primary concern must be beating at least one opponent as quickly as possible. The AIM-9L and 9M, AA-11, AIM120, and others of their ilk are exceedingly dangerous foes. If one of these missiles is fired at you, there is a significant chance that you will be hit and killed.
Decoys are less effective against their sophisticated circuitry and they turn like bats which makes dodging them an iffy proposition. Your best bet against them is: never let them get a shot at you. There are two methods for this, run and hide, or, shoot first. I like the second alternative. I will do anything necessary to get my nose on my opponent and shoot first, even a bad shot. While he's dodging my wonder missile, I can get position for the kill. Energy becomes important after the initial volley, and I'd much rather be slow, 2v1, than fast, 1v2.
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© Copyright 1990 by J.D. Webster
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