Flying Tempest high over a snow covered ground behind enemy lines looking for
targets we notice a contrail to our north west higher than us coming our way.
We turn into the bogey trying to set up a bracket me to the right Witch to the
left, the bogey decides to dive down in-between us, big mistake to make ;).
We close in the bracket and begin the pursuit downwards as the bogey now to be
known to be a bandit runs for Venlo airfield a protected enemy airfield.
This is going to lead to a classic double attack on a bandit with Witch
starting as leader to engage the enemy fighter first. I go slightly lower than
Witch and it is my job as a wingman to respond after the bandit has reacted to
my leaders engagement. The enemy sees us still on his tail and does the classic
bunt down(they always do it) followed by a hard break to the right. Now this
might have worked if there was only one of us, but unfortunately for him there
was two flying as a team.
Witch as the engaged fighter follows the hard turn only so slightly for about
10 degrees gets a snap shot off straightens his wings and then goes vertical to
become the disengaged fighter and allows me to become the engaged fighter.
Notice Witch did not try to match the bandits turn as he knew could not stay
with the bandit, so disengaged and became the wingman. This is now the next
phase of the fight which has gone from double attack to loose deuce.
As the wingman in the double attack phase I have more time to see how the enemy
is going to reacted to my leaders attack. So I see the bunt down and the break
to the right, as soon as I see his wings rolling to the right for a right bank,
I start banking to the right to cut the angle as I have the time to do so.
Now here is a classic part the bandit reverses his turn(they always do that;)),
this allows me now as the engaged fighter to engage him. I make it easier with
a lag roll to his flat turn, this also allows me to carry my speed, and close
the distance even more. I miss with my first shot and the bandit is trying to
start a rolling scissors, which I am not really interested in as I am faster.
As he reverses for the second time I will take a shot if I hit then great, if
not then I will extend with my speed advantage. Now I can afford to do this
because all the time I have stayed as the engaged fighter Witch as the
disengaged fighter has been keeping his energy and positioned himself ready to
reengage when I disengage.
You need to look at the way Witch has done this, he is also in position for if
I had missed the shot and the enemy reversed his turn to come back to me to
engage the enemy and shoot him down. As it was I got good hits on the enemy
aircraft, Witch then followed the aircraft and finished him off.
Afterwards the enemy pilot asked in chat "How can a Tempest out dive a D9?" of
course we did not bother to answer, do you know the answer?
This was a classic 2vs1 scenario and we did not have to take chances no rush to
shoot the bandit or put ourselves into a position that the enemy can get guns
on us.
What do you think, would you have done the engagement differently?
Would you have done things differently as the D9 pilot, did he do anything
wrong?
Tacview attached.
Colin
Attachment:
Tempest_vs_D9.acmi
Description: Binary data
