OGN

DOGFIGHTING 101

Okay when dogfighting there are two phases. Attacking and Defending. We will start with DEFENDING, because it doesn’t matter how good your attack techniques are if your not alive to use them.

I’m going to try and use general tactics that apply to all aircraft. Some of these techniques may need to be adapted for different aircraft in order to compensate for things such as the amount of G-Force a plane can withstand. That being said lets get started.

MISSILE EVASION

Evading missiles can be tricky at first for any pilot not flying an F-22A, and F-22A pilots soon discover that the Raptor can outrun most medium-range missiles. However, outrunning missiles is not only the WRONG strategy, it’s the WORST strategy. Want to know why? Here is why..

1.) Running from missiles turns your tail towards the enemy this is always a bad idea.

2.) A lot of people will fire missiles at you hoping that you will run away so they can fly right past you. Which is especially bad if your trying to do something like protect your base in Arena Mode.

If your currently outrunning missiles stop now. Okay, now that we’ve got that out of the way lets get to work on the real stuff.

Missile Attacks come in all different types so each attach is classified by 4 different catagories.

Missile Type / Range / Direction / Altitude

The different parts of these catagories are as follows.
Missile Type:

Infrared / Radar

Range:

Long / Medium / Short

Direction:

Front / Back / Side

Altitude:

High / Even / Low

Okay now that you know what your dealing with lets look at specific situations. The first 4 steps of missile evasion are the same NO MATTER WHAT.

1.) Determine the Type of Missile

2.) Determine the Direction of the Attack

3.) Start Blowing Chaff and Flares

4.) START CLIMBING!

Altitude is best ally in dodging missiles. REMEMBER THIS: A missile that is below you or even with you is always easier to dodge than a missile coming at you from above.

Also keep in mind that part of Missile Evasion is INSTINCT no two evasions are exactly the same and over time you will learn the minor adjustments that will keep you alive.

*By the way replace all the LEFT with RIGHT if you feel more comfortable like that

Radar / Long or Medium / Front / Low or Even

Okay if you’ve followed the directions correctly you should be climbing right now. Since the missile is coming from infront of you (That means it in your vision cone.) Your first step is to turn towards the missile so that it is coming directly at the front of your plane. Now you may need to act fast depending on Range so here is what you need to do.

STOP PULLING UP once the missile reaches about 5 Miles out. INVERT Your plane (that means turn upside down) and Level out so the horizon is even with your nose. The Missile should still be coming DIRECTLY at the front of your plane. Stay head on with the missile and wait for it to get to about 2.5 Miles out.

Depending on the plane you are using whether it is agile or sluggish you will break at either 2 Miles out or 1 Mile out.

WHEN you make your brake you wull pull HARD BACK on the stick causing you to DIVE straight towards the ground (remember you should still be flying upside down). Almost as soon as your nose is pointed past the 75 angle you need to do the following all at ONCE.

ROLL + YAW + PULL UP.

This means that your going to roll your plane to the LEFT while pulling on the LEFT trigger for YAW while pulling BACK on the joystick.

If you have dodged all the missiles coming at you by the time you level out again then you can reacquire your target (Which should be infront of you and slightly to your left) and continue your fight.

IF YOU HAVE NOT dodged all the missiles coming at you then continue the maneuver by doing the following.

Once you have Pulled up to the point where you are once again level with the horizin you need to roll your plane hard LEFT and use YAW to pull a hard turn to the LEFT. *WARNING* DO NOT PULL THIS MANEUVER PAST 180 Degrees.

If you have dodged all the missiles coming at you by the time you level out again then you can reacquire your target (Which should be slightly behind you and to your right) and continue your fight.

If you have not then you need to level out as soon as your turn reachines 180 degrees and PULL hard back into a half-loop (immelman). When you exit this maneuver you should be facing roughly the same direction as you were when you started dodging missiles. Plus you should have decent altitude and be inverted, so if there are still MISSILES coming at you then it’s time to rinse and repeat.

Radar / Long or Medium / Front / High

Missiles from above are death incarnate for a pilot. They don’t use as much fuel, they go faster, and you can’t break away from them as easily (since breaking down is much harder).
If you’ve followed the rules up to this point your climbing. Acquire the missile and angle yourself so that the missile is just barely visibile on the LEFT SIDE of your forward view (That is that you don’t need to turn your head to see it). Adjust your climb so that your climbing to a point just below the altitude of the missile. IF AT ANY POINT YOU MANAGE TO CLIMB ABOVE OR TO EVEN ALTITUDE WITH THE MISSILE SWITCH TO THE RULES FOR DODGING EVEN/LOW MISSILES.

Keep a close eye on your radar and when the missile gets within 2.5 miles you need to break.

ROLL LEFT + YAW LEFT + PULL UP

Thats right your going to cross directly infront of the missile. *WARNING DO NOT PULL THIS MANEUVER PAST 120 Degrees.

Once you hit 120 Degrees on the turn immediately invert and pull hard towards the ground. Once you’re at 75 degrees down do the following again.

ROLL LEFT + YAW LEFT + PULL UP

Pull up until you are even with the horizon and level out. Now you should be facing roughly the same direction as you where before you started dodging. If there are no more missiles to evade reaquire your target and continue your attack.

If there are more missiles IMMEDIATELY pull hard up to an 80 Degree climb and hold for 2 seconds. INVERT and pull hard back until you are once again level with the horizon.

By now if you have not evaded the incoming missiles your going to need to switch to another section of this guide as the missiles are now probably coming at you from another angle.

RADAR / Long or Medium / Side or Rear / Low, Even or High

This is probably the only generalized evasion strategy. Missiles coming from the rear or the side from Medium or Long range are generally pretty easy to evade. If your target is infront of you when the missiles are fired and you have no reason to go in the direction that the missile is coming from then this is about the only time “Outrunning” missiles is okay. Technically it’s not missile evasion if the missile isn’t a threat.

However, what about when the missile is too close, or you are engaged with the person who fired it. Here is what you do.

First off you should be climbing, if your not and you die, then it was your screwup. Keep your present heading, and keep an eye on the missile. Remember that a missile that is coming at your rear or side will close slower because it has to catch you. Depending on the plane you are flying you need to make your break as early as 1.5 Miles out.

When you BREAK your going to turn HARD (towards the missile if it’s coming at your side or to which ever side is more comfortable if it was coming from your rear, keep in mind what direction the missile originally came from because thats where you want to break.

As you turn pull the corresponding YAW button (left for left, right for right) so that you are actually losing altitude as you turn (this will give you a tighter turn radius). If the missile is still following you past the 180 degree point change tactics so that you are pulling slightly up as you turn.

If at any time you enter a situation where the missile is no longer coming at your rear or side switch to the corresponding tactic.

Infrared / Medium – Short / Front / Low, Even or High

Okay here it is, worst case scenario time. A heatseaker coming straight at your face from about 5 to 7 miles out. You either react fast, or you die.

Since your already climbing don’t bother trying to level out because it will take too much time. You need to pull a hard turn to the side (turn to the side that the missile is closest to, ie: If the missile is coming front left turn to the left, if it’s coming front right turn to the right.)

As you turn to the left or right use your yaw and try to level out so that you are actually losing a bit of altitude as you turn. You probably don’t have a lot of time so the next part needs to be done quickly.

Once the missile is at 2.5 miles and closing you need to quickly roll over and turn hard in the opposite direction (ie: if you were turning left, you need to go right, and vice versa.)

IF AT ANY POINT THE MISSILE GETS WITHIN 2000 Feet do the following as you CONTINUE YOUR TURN.

Throttle Down for 1 second then immediately throttle back up to afterburners. Try hard to time this with a flare, but don’t worry if you can’t.

If you haven’t evaded the missile by this point cut throttle completely, break, and pull hard up.

I won’t lie to you, if you dodge a head-on heatseaker 40% of the time your doing better than 99.99% of the pilots out there.

Infrared / Medium – Short / Rear or Side / Low, Even or High

There is a common mistake that people make when they try to dodge Infrared Missiles. That is that they cut their engines right away. IR Missiles usually carry very little fuel and have very short range. When an IR Missile is coming at your rear keep that in mind. The more distance the missile has to cover to get to you mean the more fuel that it’s going to use up, and the harder it will be for it to follow you through your break. Also a missile uses more fuel going up so don’t stop climbing just for the sake of putting distance between you and the missile.

Eventually though, that heatseaker is going to get close enough that your going to have to break. Here is how you evade it.

First off, go away from the missile until it is about 5 miles away from you, then turn to the left or right so that the missile is coming at your quarterpanel (That would be a 45 Degree angle behind and to the left or right of your plane).

Once the Missile reaches 2.5 miles you need to break. Turn hard with yaw towards the missile and angle yourself towards the ground as you do. *WARNING DO NOT TURN PAST 270 Degrees.

Once you reach 270 Degrees pull hard up and into a loop.

IF AT ANY POINT THE MISSILE GETS WITHIN 1000 Feet do the following as you CONTINUE YOUR TURN.

Throttle Down for 1 second then immediately throttle back up to afterburners. Try hard to time this with a flare, but don’t worry if you can’t.

If you haven’t evaded the missile by this point cut throttle completely, brake, and pull hard up.

If your doing this right your going to dodge these missiles 60 to 70% of the time. If you have good instincts that percentage might even go up.

Well that concludes Missile Evasion…

Remember you won’t dodge every missile, the point is to give yourself a fightinng change by using the right maneuvers.

ATTACKING

Shooting someone down with missiles is all about being FIRST, SECOND, LAST, and FIRST again.

FIRST to Fire

SECOND to Evade

LAST to Fire

FIRST to Finish Evading.

There are several different methods to Attack, and they are divided into several catagories. Those are as follows.

Position / Range / Altitude / Facing

They are broken down into the following Parts.

Position:

Front / Behind

Range:

Short / Medium / Long

Altitude:

Above / Even / Below

Facing:

Towards / Away

Front / Medium or Long / Above, Even, or Below / Towards

This is the most common type of engagement. You are both flying directly at one another at range. Altitude is not really that much of an issue since either of you can climb to meet the other in combat at these ranges.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF HEAD TO HEAD COMBAT IS WHO SHOOTS FIRST.

You need to fire a missile as soon as you have a lock on the enemy (That doesn’t mean the SHOOT! sign appears it means when you get the little green box).

This is going to set the pace for the rest of the dogfight, and if you fire first there is a good chance that you’ll win the fight.

After you fire your first missile wait until you have SHOOT! before you fire again, You will then fire 2 or 3 more missiles (depending on your payload) At 4 to 7 second intervals (3 missiles at 4 seconds apart, 2 missiles at 7 seconds apart). Staggering your missiles like this will keep the other person from dodging everything with one move.

After you have fired you salvo you should begin your head to head missile evasion. Once you are inverted and facing the opponent directly you should arm your Short Range Infrared Missiles and go directly towards the opponent. FIRE off ONE MISSILE right before you make your break to evade.

If you got the first missile off in the engagement then you should be in the following position. The enemy should have had to start evading before you, giving you the opportunity to launch the last missile. That means you should be finished evading before your opponent.

At this point you should focus on closing the gap as quickly as possible and putting a missile right up your targets tailpipe.

If, however, you did not get the first missile off in the engagement you should expect that your opponent will finish dodging before you. And you should also expect that there will be a Heatseaking Chaser to the Radar missiles that your currently dodging.

If you manage to successfully dodge the missiles that are tracking you immediately reacquire your target and fire again.

If your opponent finishes dodging before you there is a good chance your going to die.

Front / Long, Medium, or Short / Above, Even, or Below / Away

Believe it or not this is the situation most people mess up on the most. Your target is directly ahead of you, at medium or long range, and he’s moving away. You would think this is a great position, however, in reality it’s only somewhat good. What you need to do is get him in Short Range, as Medium to Long range combat with the rear of plane is almost useless.

Before you do anything else ask yourself a question. “Do I NEED to shoot this person down?” If then answer is no then stop your pursuit immediately, and break towards a better target. Chasing someone down from behind at medium or long range is a huge waste of time and ammmo.

If your answer is yes then here is how to go about doing it. First try and close the gap as quickly as possible without firing missiles. Switch to NAV if you want (info: Hold down (Y) for a few seconds) and use Visual tracking to keep on his tail. This will keep you from locking onto him and also keep him from knowing exactly how far away you are.

From here multiple things can happen, he could turn around to engage you. If that is the case revert to the tactics for Head to Head dogfighting, and remember that you have a huge advantage. Turning around is going to cost him lots of Airspeed.

He could continue to run and allow you to get extremely close to him. If this happens fire off a heatseaker at him and see how he reacts. If he begins to turn towards you dive so that you are angled TOWARDS and BELOW him. Every Plane has a blindspot directly below and infront. The last thing you want to have happen is for him to turn around while evading and fire a missile off at you point blank when your going too fast to effectively dodge.

If he happens to dodge your first missile fire a second one off immediately. I know that goes without saying but I have seen people try to regain optimal position before they fire again. The fact is the enemy will be going slowest immediately after evading a missile, and that is the best time to kill him.

Rear / Any / Any / Towards

Ask yourself. “Do I need to shoot this person down?” If no run, if yes, proceed below. (yes includes if they are too close to you to run)

The idea here is simple, use your evasion tactics to put yourself into a Head to Head battle. Start turning immediately, Looping up high will give you better position but takes longer so if he’s close your going to need to bank left or right.

Fire as soon as you acquire lock, let him know that the terms of the battle have changed Your best chance at survival is to get him evading. If he’s short range with you don’t panic and spam missiles, try and space them out. A large group of missiles at short range is easy to dodge with one move, but a small group spaced out over 10 seconds is nearly impossible.

If you can loop around and he’s still at medium to long range, revert to the dogfighting tactics for Head-to-Head combat.

Front / Long, Medium, or Short / Above, Even, or Below / Away

Believe it or not this is the situation most people mess up on the most. Your target is directly ahead of you, at medium or long range, and he’s moving away. You would think this is a great position, however, in reality it’s only somewhat good. What you need to do is get him in Short Range, as Medium to Long range combat with the rear of plane is almost useless.

Before you do anything else ask yourself a question. “Do I NEED to shoot this person down?” If then answer is no then stop your pursuit immediately, and break towards a better target. Chasing someone down from behind at medium or long range is a huge waste of time and ammmo.

If your answer is yes then here is how to go about doing it. First try and close the gap as quickly as possible without firing missiles. Switch to NAV if you want (info: Hold down (Y) for a few seconds) and use Visual tracking to keep on his tail. This will keep you from locking onto him and also keep him from knowing exactly how far away you are.

From here multiple things can happen, he could turn around to engage you. If that is the case revert to the tactics for Head to Head dogfighting, and remember that you have a huge advantage. Turning around is going to cost him lots of Airspeed.

He could continue to run and allow you to get extremely close to him. If this happens fire off a heatseaker at him and see how he reacts. If he begins to turn towards you dive so that you are angled TOWARDS and BELOW him. Every Plane has a blindspot directly below and infront. The last thing you want to have happen is for him to turn around while evading and fire a missile off at you point blank when your going too fast to effectively dodge.

If he happens to dodge your first missile fire a second one off immediately. I know that goes without saying but I have seen people try to regain optimal position before they fire again. The fact is the enemy will be going slowest immediately after evading a missile, and that is the best time to kill him.

Rear / Any / Any / Towards

Ask yourself. “Do I need to shoot this person down?” If no run, if yes, proceed below. (yes includes if they are too close to you to run)

The idea here is simple, use your evasion tactics to put yourself into a Head to Head battle. Start turning immediately, Looping up high will give you better position but takes longer so if he’s close your going to need to bank left or right.

Fire as soon as you acquire lock, let him know that the terms of the battle have changed Your best chance at survival is to get him evading. If he’s short range with you don’t panic and spam missiles, try and space them out. A large group of missiles at short range is easy to dodge with one move, but a small group spaced out over 10 seconds is nearly impossible.

If you can loop around and he’s still at medium to long range, revert to the dogfighting tactics for Head-to-Head combat.

Rear / Medium or Long / Any / Away

Don’t even attempt this unless you have lots of fuel and Ammo. By the time you turn around he’s going to be going twice as fast away from you and accellerating.

If you decide it’s neccessary (last person in a Versus Match), then use the rules for attacking someone who is running from you.

Rear / Short / Any / Away

This usually happens if you and another pilot were flying at one another and you happened to fly past eachother while evading. To get the advantage here is what you do.

Immediately switch to weapons safe (Hold (Y)). Pull a hard tight loop upwards.

This will accomplish two things. First it will keep him from pinpointing you by lock. (ie: you won’t stay locked onto him with missiles so he won’t see you behind him on radar.) Second it’ll give you a higher angle on him.

Once you reaquire your target, if he is not at a sufficient distance from you do NOT FIRE MISSILES. It is nearly impossible to hit someone with missiles when you are circling eachother. Instead switch to guns and try to stay on his tail. If he happens to fire at you just keep turning with him. If at any point you get behind him THEN FIRE.

If you find that all you are doing is circling eachother then wait for the moment that you are closest to being behind him (usually right after the apex of your turn) and break quickly the other way and down. As you turn to face him he will have a hard time finding you as you will be below him and you should have a solid firing solution at his belly.

Well thats it for dogfighting techniques, These aren’t foolproof and there are a ton of different strategies out there. Don’t be afraid to experiment for yourself. And also don’t be afraid to add your own theories and best practices to this thread.

Brought to you by pilot Alex Star