First fight in a 109

[JG5_emil]

Think you guys are missing the point. The OP asked "The turning, or rather the lack of turning, will take some getting used to. What are your strategies, blue pilots? "

I'm just giving my strategies and mine are to do everything possible to maintain energy in the form of speed or altitude or both and to never (unless I have screwed up) to perform manoeuvres that scrub off my energy unless I am in a position to remain higher and or faster than my opponent. At no point am I saying this never happens to me because it does, usually because I get kill hungry or take silly risks and when it does happen I would much prefer to escape in order to fight another day. If I've ended up in a turn/scissor fight the odds are against the aircraft. A better pilot can win but then again if you are also up against a good pilot in an aircraft more suited to that kind of fight you are most likely going to lose.

Dogfight servers are good for practice and/or just having fun. I have nothing against them but I do prefer COOPs and team tactics over low altitude fights to the death. The LW knew their strengths and weaknesses and I doubt many real pilots would fly that way, many of the ones that did probably ended up at the bottom of the channel. The pilots that used the strengths of the aircraft surely survived much longer.

So in short I think getting in to a situation where you are low with co alt or have a worse energy state is a bad thing but if you enjoy doing it then that's up to you. Our emphasis in JG5 is to fly as a team using tactics that suit the aircraft and we don't like flying with people that are reckless chasing an enemy to the deck which then puts the entire rotte at risk. They deplete the numbers of effective aircraft we wield and in our experience then expect us to come down and bail them out of their predicament...that isn't working as a team. Most of this experience comes from flying IL2 as we're still awaiting CLOD to get fixed but our principles would remain the same, we respect the team player who doesn't feel the need to chase a damaged enemy aircraft to the deck for their own glory and who then puts the rest of us at risk.