Back in the water!

[Toonces]

I don't know if it's classified, but I think it's fair to say that in any load of buoys there are likely to be a couple that fail for one reason or another.  They're definitely not 100% reliable.

[MarkShot]

I had a good rewarding duel in a Seawolf with a Seawolf, DW/LWAMI, yesterday.  What made it so rewarding was that I moved quickly to get the first shot off along with terminal TMA.  I am learning to estimate sub contact distances mainly based on the nature of the contact held as opposed to using the TMA approach.  Once I get a spread of three torps off, I did a very good job with DEMON, BB ITA, and incremental TMA to keep three torps wire guided to their target.  I made about four adjustments to wire guide the torps after a maneuvering target and the torps getting pulled off target by CMs.  For the most part, my terminal TMA was on the money.

That was DW/LWAMI, I fired up SC/SCXIIc for a similar duel.  It seems clear to me that with DW/LWAMI you really need to wire guide to kill a sub with standard torpedoes.  The main issue isn't so much sub evasion, but that the DW/LWAMI CMs seem much more effective in drawing off homing torpedoes.  With DW/LWAMI, if the CM is between the homing torpedo and the target the torpedo will turn.  Given the approach path of the torpedoes and the offset evasion of the target, even when the torpedoes get past the CMs, their chances of reacquisition is greatly diminished.

In summation, I would say that SC/SCXIIc is more heavily weighted towards offense, but DW/LWAMI is more heavily weighted to defense.  This means that with SC/SCXIIc getting off the first shot without wire guiding is much more likely to achieve a kill.  With DW/LWAMI, it is unlikely without wire guiding and terminal TMA.  This also means that being shot at in DW/LWAMI, you have a much better chance of surviving.

Nefaro, do you have any observations on this?  (mine are, of course, based on limited exposure)

---

BTW, I loaded up AOD and SHCE, but I realized that it has been so long since I played that I forgot the UI.  I suppose I'll just stick with DW/LWAMI given the couple of weeks I have before I box my desktop.

[LongBlade]

Wow. Great contrast between game systems, Mark!

[Bison]

Mark is the brillant game reviewer who never got offically published.

[LongBlade]

Mark is the brillant game reviewer who never got offically published.

Well, I'll publish him.

[MarkShot]

Actually, my gaming guides have traveled far and wide:

STK/F3 - Shoot to Kill/Falcon3 was my first and widely downloaded on Compuserve and AOL.

STK/EAW - Shoot to Kill/European Air War was first hosted by www.combatsim.com and later www.simhq.com.  It still circulates among the prop head community.

HTTR & COTA Guides - They are still up on the Matrix Forums and available for PDF download.  Quite a bit of my work was included in Matrix's Official HTTR Strategy Guide which is I think included now as part of the expansion pack for BFTB.

1830PC Guide - The material done at www.wargamer.com was turned into PDFs and is now hosted by Westpark Gamers (a German board gaming Web site).

It is true that I have never attempted to write a formal game review.  Most of the above writing was informal.  But I think that is part of what made it fun for me.  Having to deliver something conforming to a standardized paradigm would seem too much like work as opposed to fun and games.

Lastly, although many have benefited from the above, perhaps it was I who benefited the most.  In order to teach someone something, you must be able to break down and elucidate the concepts.  Once you have done that, you have a better understanding of what works and why.  At that point, you can further tweak your processes to improve the results.  This is true in all human endeavors; not just games.

So, contrary to the popular belief among online flyers that sharing technique and teaching was virtual suicide, taking on and teaching students only made me that much better.  Also, by divulging everything I knew to my students, I was forced to continuously innovate and improve.  This kept me in the top 10% for F3 and EAW during my virtual careers with these games.

[MarkShot]

An example from my earlier work, but a number of the key principles would apply in other flight sims.  This illustrates break down, concepts, and tweaking the process.  Forgive the poor formatting resulting from MS Word cut&paste.

Topic:   A Detailed Look at the Scissors on 08/23/05

The last update to STK/EAW was 4 ½ years ago.  This will be the final update to STK/EAW.  The material for this topic was written in mid-2001 and posted as part of a discourse I was trying to encourage among the online flying community to analyze various maneuvers.  It was worthy of inclusion in STK/EAW, but only as I now close the guide has it finally made it to these pages.

{Please excuse the fact that the formatting is a little inconsistent as this material was pulled out from the HTML which I saved.}

##### SCISSORS 101 #####

INTRODUCTION

I was at 500' and in a hard flat turn doing 160mph with my flaps down. Over my right shoulder, I saw the bandit baring down on me. He was a 150' above me and 1,000' back pulling hard towards me doing 210mph. I could clearly see his nose coming around as he began to haul back on the stick to set up the tracking shot. His nose angle was becoming more and more acute as he transitioned from lag pursuit to lead pursuit.
We were in the end game; his end game. In the next 15 seconds, my plane would be shredded by his guns. I wanted to ask myself, "Why had it come to this?". "What did I do wrong?". But I thought better of it and realized that I still had a chance; I would have eternity to ponder my mistakes if it came to that.
I snap rolled to the left with full stick and rudder. I eased out of the roll before my wings were perpendicular with the ground and pulled as much back stick as I could without stalling. I watched the bandit behind me as his nose rapidly crossed my flight path, but somewhat out of plane. His guns spewing tracers and smoke, but I survived the first cross; he did not get me lined up.
Having had his kill snatched from him, he rolled to the left hard after me. I watch over my left shoulder for him to just about complete his roll. Again I snap rolled off to the right. This time he did not attempt a shot. I was now above him by 100' and quite slow doing 120mph. He was still doing a healthy 147mph. As my speed dropped off, I gradually reversed in the other direction as he attempted to get back in phase with my turn. This process repeated itself another two times.
It seemed that I was barely flying anymore. My speed had dropped to 105mph. I wasn't so much crossing anymore as performing very slow rolls right and left. He was no longer behind and off to one side. He was now somewhat below me still and we were crossing from side to side. Each cross brought us almost close enough to collide as he would pass so close that I could see where my bullets had previously impacted his plane.
I had been at this desperate struggle for 45 seconds. I now began to time my reversals to be slightly ahead of his. I was slowly beginning to gain ground as I began to see more and more of the back of his plane through each roll cycle. There it was; another four rolls and 40 seconds later, and I was now behind him.
He made one final reversal and entered into a flat turn. I let down from what little altitude advantage I had and just managed to get enough lead without stalling to take the shot. Squeeze. Bam! His tail blew into pieces. The fight was over! It would be a little longer before I got to ponder eternity.

BACKGROUND

By now if you have not guessed it, this posting is about the scissors. To be precise, I will discuss the horizontal scissors. As presented in the introduction, the scissors can be a strategy that can snatch you from the jaws of defeat.

ASSUMPTIONS

This presentation is made assuming dueling Spit9s. However, it can be applied to all planes and dissimilar engagements. However, the specific speeds and distances may vary. Also, if you think your measurements in metric, then my apologies for any difficulty you have in following this.

SCISSOR PRECONDITIONS

When should you scissor?
The scissor is best employed when the following two conditions have been met:
(1) Your opponent is within your turning circle by 50%. So, for example, given a Spit9, he would be 1,000-2,000' of your tail.
(2) He has a mild to moderate energy advantage. So, for example, given a Spit9, you are at 180mph and he is at 200-240mph.
Scissors may occur in a fight without a conscious effort to initiate them. This will generally happen in a two circle fight where the slower speed plane reverses its turn on each forward quarter pass.
Also, some players with very strong skills in scissors skill may intentionally put an opponent behind them and satisfy conditions #1 and #2, simply to get setup for the maneuver. (Of course, I would tend to eschew that as being too risk prone.)
What are some examples of poor choices to scissor?
(1) You have an a non-trivial energy advantage over your opponent. For example, suppose you are 100mph faster than your opponent who is behind you. You should just simply take the fight into the vertical where you will hold and advantage.
(2) You and your opponent are both maneuvering at high speed; 300mph or better. As we will see later, the essence of a good scissors involves being slow. If you are fast, than look to turn with your opponent and see if you can get him to make some basic E mistakes such that you can end up with a workable E advantage.

SOME BASIC CONCEPTS

Many players are familiar with the term corner speed. However, there are those whose understanding of its meaning is not sufficiently precise. It is often thought that corner speed is the speed at which your plane makes its best turn. We should realize that corner speed is the speed that your plane achieve its best turn rate (degrees/second). Corner speed is not the speed at which your plane performs its tightest turn (smallest radius).
Scissors are all about tight turns and it is important to not confuse corner speed with turn radius.
The tightest turn radius of a plane is always achieved at the lowest air speed that the plane can hold a turn without falling out of the air.
So, a Spit9 may be at corner speed at 200mph, but see its best turn radius at 120mph.
In a level one circle fight, the plane closest to corner speed will bring its nose around fastest and therefore out turn the other plane. If both planes are already below corner speed, than the faster plane depending on its advantage and position may well be able to set up a tracking shot for a kill. So, in general, one circle fights will favor the plane with an energy advantage.
In a level two circle fight, the plane with the tightest turn radius will generally achieve nose on first during forward quarter passes. The tightest turn generally gives the plane making it a tangent intersecting the other plane's circle at an earlier point in time. That tangent is a guns solution. So, in general, two circle fights will favor the plane with an energy disadvantage (the slower plane). Many players miss this important fact. This is why two circle fights may often precipitate a scissors, since the slower plane will keep reversing his turn.
Now, there are times in a one circle fight when the plane with the E advantage is approaching the tail of the E disadvantage plane with too sharp an angle to get a tracking shot (known as an overshoot). Thus, to take advantage of a superior turn rate it is also necessary to have adequate separation (room to turn). However, in a one circle fight, this is easily rectified by going up and opening separation between yourself and the other plane.

WHAT A SCISSORS DOES

Let's look at what a scissors accomplishes.
(1) A scissors denies your opponent the separation which he requires in order to capitalize on his superior turn rate. But unlike a simple break turn where the problem lasts for 3-7 seconds, in a scissors, the lack of satisfactory separation becomes a continuous and critical problem for the attacker.
I like to say that a scissors "jams up" the attacker. This mean that he ends up pressed so close to the defender that he cannot get space to move his nose for the shot. This is particularly true in the first few cycles.
(2) A scissors uses your opponent's speed (E) advantage against him. Unlike a break turn which may create a short-term overshoot, the scissors creates the potential for the faster plane to overshoot fractionally on every cycle. It is this fractional overshoot which has a cummulative effect on your opponent. Slowly you begin to reduce your angular disadvantage and move towards an angular advantage. You can often accomplish this with an opponent who is too savy to be caught by simple overshoot airshow techniques.
(3) A scissors initiates a very slow motion ballet. The opponent who will scissor with you must also become slow if he has any hope of staying with you. As such, a scissors that proceeds for more than 60 seconds will become a game of "slow chicken". (Meaning both players will struggle to see who can fly the slowest and without departing their plane.) This is, of course, ideal for those who have very good slow speed flying skills. A scissoring fight is often won when one of the players goes into a spin.
(4) The extreme slowness of the scissoring fight (this happens in the middle to late stages) makes it very hard for the attacker to have sufficient air speed to move his nose the few degrees he needs to line up a shot. There just isn't enough speed left to pull back on the stick for a shot. However, good players will learn how to compensate by letting their nose head in the right direction through anticipation as opposed to reactive corrective steering.
(5) Again related to the extreme slowness of a scissoring fight, the two players become locked into a deadly embrace. This means that they reach a situation which if either player exits the cycle of maneuvers, he will instantly loose position and become a target. Thus, the defender who has superior execution skill at scissors will have created a situation where the attacker is trapped into a gradually degrading situation which he cannot escape. (By the way, this is the basic premise behind most stall fighting techniques.)

WHAT MAKES A GOOD SCISSORS

As stated already, your opponent should be inside your turning circle with a moderate E advantage and you both should be flying at speeds below or around corner.
* Initiation *
You should initiate the scissors at the point that your opponent has the maximum angle off your tail in the one circle fight. Meaning you are making your tightest turn possible and have achieved your maximum displacement from his gun path. Any further delay will make the results of the first cross less abrupt and problematic for him than it could be.
A common mistake is to initiate the first roll/reversal when you have persisted in one circle fight for too long. This often results in you rolling your plane right in his gun path. You need to initiate scissors with some margin of safety before he has already achieved his tracking shot solution.
Another common mistake is to wait until you have hardly no turning circle left (he is 300' behind you). When he is so close behind, your initial criss cross will not be able to develop maximal displacement and angular problems for him.
Of course, initiating the scissors too soon when he is barely within your turning circle is another mistake (3000'). Despite his higher speed, he still has plenty of room to turn in and you will often be providing him with a very nice large cross section shot to take.
* Snap Roll *
The first few cycles will use snap rolls. From a flat turn in one direction, release back pressure on the stick. Then, apply full stick and rudder to the opposite side. This should give you a quick roll.
* Getting Slow *
As indicated, good scissors are slow. The preferred method to getting slow is by climbing. You can throttle chop, but remember that your goal is not simply to shake the other guy. You want a reversal by which you can kill him. Since he is starting with an E advantage, you are going to need every mph of E if you are going to be able to reverse and kill him.
Thus, your snap roll should not roll you 180 degrees. It should roll you 130-170 degrees. So, when you pull back on the stick you will be climbing. (Many are quite suprised to realize that despite the slowness of a scissor's fight that it is actually climbing.) Coming out of your roll, you will be in a gentle climb and slowing. Future rolls should give you a enough vertical component to remain relatively slow (90-115mph).
* Do Not Reverse Flat *
There is another reason to add some vertical component to your scissors. You don't want to simply roll and reverse flat. Reversing flat in the beginning of the scissoring fight will bring you directly across your opponent's nose. This opens you up to a snap shot opportunity. This is another common mistake player's make in scissoring fights which get them killed. The rule is do not pass in plane (geometric plane) with your opponent.
* More Slow Roll / Less Zig Zag *
As the scissor fight progresses into the mid and later stages, you will need to spend less time crossing and more time gently rolling your plane at a very slow speed. This is usually the time when your opponent is below and beginning to loose angles rapidly, or he has come up and gotten very slow with you waiting to see who will fall out of the sky. If your opponent is below and faster, than you are in exceedingly good shape by this point. Part of what it takes to perform a slow roll with a slight cross and stay above your opponent involves some counter intuitive use or your stick. After you come out of your roll, you may at times apply slight opposite stick while applying back stick. This will help keep your wings angled up and prevent you from sinking.
* Snap Forward View *
Use the snap forward view while making your rolls. This way can get the perfect amount of rotation. You will get reversed, but leave yourself with a little pitch up at the end of each roll.
* Timing *
Every time you see your opponent about to get in phase with you (one circle), you roll off in the opposite direction. As the fight progresses, you will begin to gain position and be slower. You stop flying reactively and instead proactively. This means that you will begin to beat him to the jump on roles. When that happens, you are close to the end of the scissoring fight. You will soon have achieved a reversal.
* Throttle Chopping (an alternative approach) *
As was seen, you need a speed (E) differential to initiate a scissors. Generally, things just happen to be like that. Otherwise, how did the other guy get to where he was in the first place? However, if your opponent is co-E with you and behind you, then you can create a speed (E) differential by chopping your throttle.
Generally, it is a good idea to run the scissors through a couple of cycles and get him focused on keeping in step with you before you chop the throttle. If you chop the throttle right from the start, it is often pretty obvious. So, first, get him too distracted trying to maneuver to notice the dropping of your air speed.

HOW TO PRACTICE

I often teach scissors and help others practice by doing the following drill.
* Set Up *
Do not merge at the launch of the game.
The target drops to 3,000' and cruises at 180-200mph.
The trainee approaches from his six and is allowed to close on his six.
The fight is on when the trainee breaks 1500' from the target's tail or opens fire; whichever comes first.
The target then initiates a scissoring fight.
The trainee should use guns and do his best to kill.
The target should achieve a scissoring reversal and then can simply break off and restart the exercise.
* Limitations *
This exercise is somewhat artificial.
- Scissoring fights rarely begin with the attacker being directly behind you.
- Scissoring fights rarely begin with the attacker creeping up your six with 3mph closure.
As such, it often happens that the target may need to throttle chop in order to generate some E differential.
However, those I have done this drill with have seemingly learned a lot about the principals behind scissors. This is the best way to learn anything. See it repetitively so that you see enough to draw conclusions and try things.

SCISSOR COUNTERS

Like all overshoot situations, the correct response to a scissors if you have an E advantage is to go up.
Throttle chopping is a very big mistake. At best, you may avoid a reversal and get caught into a one circle fight where you are stuck in lag pursuit. Thus, you went from having a tracking shot to pointlessly chasing the other guy around the sky. At worst, the other guy will get a reversal relatively quickly.
The correct approach is simply to go up and scissor above your opponent. Going up will get you to the slow speeds you need in order to match his tight turn radius. It will conserve your energy advantage. It will maintain separation so that you can continue to look for chances to turn your nose and get a shot. Also, you limit your vulnerability because you are too high for the other guy to raise his nose for a shot; remember you have the E advantage.
You will note that this section on countering is very short and one would think that to counter a scissors is trivial. It is not, since I have only seen a handful of players who are very good at neutralizing a well performed scissors.

CONCLUSION

As noted in another thread, a scissors is a progressive defensive maneuver. There need not be any element of surprise. One simply needs to perform it with superior execution in order to achieve the desired affect. The superior execution only needs to be incrementally better and not better by an order of magnitude. As long as your execution is better, you will ultimately prevail. Also, previously noted, the barrel roll also falls into this class of maneuver.

[MarkShot]

The implications of yesterday's SCXIIc vs LWAMI realization are reverberating.

Here is another one.  Snapshot counter fire with a spread in SCXIIc has greater chance of killing the sub that fired on you with SCXIIc.  With LWAMI, at best, it is more likely to give him something better to do than take a second shot while you run for your life.  (It should be noted that with standard DW 1.04, torps explode when they meet CMs.  As recommended by LWAMI, I've turned that off in the INI.  But you can imagine how much more effective CMs would be, since not only would they get duped, but they would also self destruct.)

I think with three fish in the water, you can get an idea when a CM is in play.  If they all suddenly turn hard towards something, it is a CM.  Why?  First, a sub they were tracking doesn't suddenly materialize.  Second, the most dangerous subs are going to be running at 40KTS.  A CM doesn't move.  Therefore, the rate of closure on CM is about 3X that of a target sub, and this produces a much harder turn in by the torpedoes.

---

Why sub duel?  It teachers fast detection, shooting, terminal TMA, and defense skills.  The sub is supposed to be in the game and in real life your most dangerous opponent.

---

There was rule in dogfights.  "Never fly straight and level for more than 30 seconds in the combat area" attributed to RAF pilot, "Sailor" Malan.

I think the DW equivalent is never maintain a steady speed for more than 10 minutes in water where a shooting enemy may be lurking.  The AI shoots based on TMA.  Turns and speed changes mess up his TMA.  However, turns also mess up your TMA and detection with the TA.  Speed changes are a good compromise.  They achieve the same result while aiding your situational awareness.

Like in a dogfight without a wing man, you cannot easily clear your six.  So, you never want anyone to simply saddle you up for a shot.  In the sub battle space, you never know if you have been detected, tracked, and a solution is being worked on.  Like having 50 cal rounds rip through your cockpit, "Conn|SONAR|Torpedo in the water bearing XXX" is how you will find out.  You may not be able to prevent the attack, but you can spoil its accuracy.

[Nefaro]

In summation, I would say that SC/SCXIIc is more heavily weighted towards offense, but DW/LWAMI is more heavily weighted to defense.  This means that with SC/SCXIIc getting off the first shot without wire guiding is much more likely to achieve a kill.  With DW/LWAMI, it is unlikely without wire guiding and terminal TMA.  This also means that being shot at in DW/LWAMI, you have a much better chance of surviving.

Nefaro, do you have any observations on this?  (mine are, of course, based on limited exposure)

The countermeasure modelling is the difference.   The LWAMI mod actually lowered the countermeasure effectiveness a fair amount, from stock DW.   Hell, the countermeasures in stock DW could even cause the torpedo to explode quite often when it came near them.  Which is more Hollywood style.   But like I said LWAMI nerfed the cm effectiveness so what you were seeing isn't near as crazy as vanilla.

The thing is... that terminal turn-away by the torpedo that is approaching the target (whether it's a vessel or countermeasure it's after) is likely a counter-cm move.  I've seen that terminal attack move a lot in DW, and I think it's so that it'll do a little loop out to the side of whatever it was homing on and come back in so that it can reacquire the first thing it pings on when it turns back toward the target.  If you visualize that loop around, you can see that if the original target vessel dropped a decoy, and the torpedo was actually homing on that CM, then the loop out and reacquire should first find the sub that's now ahead of it's decoy a short distance and thus negate that decoy.    That torpedo loop also helps it attempt to get a side attack to help get it closer to a midship keel explosion for a kill too and I know that's definitely one reason for the torpedo maneuvering on attack.

In those "Loop Around" attacks, it also makes the decision on which way to go after dropping a CM even more difficult since the torpedo will sweep it's sonar like that when on final approach.  :D

So, yes, decoys are much more effective in DW.  I quite enjoy that, actually, as it makes the knife fights very interesting (and tough!).  But there is also evidentally torpedo counter-cm logic now too.   SC's torpedo attacks were like golden bullets for the most part, and I've enjoyed the change;  it's provided more fun IMO.

[MarkShot]

Nefaro,

You realize that you'll have to keep posting here in a few weeks when I pack up ... to keep subs alive at Grogheads.  Or maybe I should bequeath this thread to Herman whose genome overlaps greatly with bubble heads.

[MarkShot]

I've been playing sub hunt now for 3.5 simulated hours and cannot find an enemy, but I have detected quite a few neutrals.

Sometimes, it's like looking for a sub in a hay stack!

[Nefaro]

Nefaro,

You realize that you'll have to keep posting here in a few weeks when I pack up ... to keep subs alive at Grogheads.  Or maybe I should bequeath this thread to Herman whose genome overlaps greatly with bubble heads.

I dunno, I think there's only a small handful of us who talk about it these days, and you're analysis of playing DW just brought out some of my old interests in modern sub-simming.  Unfortunately there isn't much in the way to be had in that category, and I've not even played DW in a few years.   That's not to say that I won't, of course, but I've not had much urge for awhile.  :-\

Always here to answer Q's, however.  :)

[LongBlade]

Nefaro,

You realize that you'll have to keep posting here in a few weeks when I pack up ... to keep subs alive at Grogheads.  Or maybe I should bequeath this thread to Herman whose genome overlaps greatly with bubble heads.

Where are you going?

[MarkShot]

Relocating to Taiwan.

[Staggerwing]

He's only been talking about it for months!  :D