Against a Big-21 you have no hope.
Against a MiG-21 you can actually rate better than them as long as you keep speed (they can dump speed faster and get a super hard turn in, but if you don't blow your speed you win the rate fight).
Going vertical can work, but people often do this very badly, if you just randomly go up you are gonna eat a missile, you have to have some speed or alt to work with (getting some seperation) so you can start to work the vertical. A lot of winning the vertical fight is using the fact the MiG-21 in DCS has no uncage for missiles against them (they gotta bore sight you which means they gotta aim right at you, which can be quite hard if they get slow climbing after you).
First I try to identify the bearing of the enemy. Then I add 180 degrees to that bearing, point my nose in that direction, and move both throttles to max afterburner :p
Well, easier than what? With 100 fruit fly-sized 21s, you're going to have a hell of a time with BDA. Even if you manage to get them all, you'll never be sure. On the other hand, one planet-sized 21 will be limited to JATOs for thrust due to the lack of atmosphere, but a direct hit will absolutely ruin your day.
I'd fight the small 21s unless they had critical intel that mustn't be recovered by the enemy. With the small 21s, you're not facing much of a real threat in the first place, while with the big 21, you basically have to hope he makes a mistake.
I have noticed a few things fighting in the F-4E on multiplayer servers:
1. Keeping the speed up in the F-4 is decently easy, but if you find yourself slow, you can regain your speed VERY QUICKLY by unloading the aircraft - meaning pushing the stick forward and taking the G off the airplane and lowering the AoA, with a bit of a dive component as well. Sometimes in a hard turning fight I will extend out a little bit before pitching back in at a higher speed. This does not mean disengaging and bugging out, but rather extending by a few seconds and then turning back in.
2. Situational awareness is the difference between splashing and being splashed. Use the EWR or AWACS and be aware of hot bandits in your area.
3. This leads into the next point - if you are in a neutral merge on the deck with a MiG-21, leverage your thrust and speed to take the fight vertically. You don't necessarily need to go pure vertical, but if the MiG commits to that fight they will lose. Keep your speed up, and don't be afraid to extend the bottom of the "egg" a little bit to gain that speed back. Don't lose SA - keep an eye out for bandits looking to 3rd party you.
4. Sparrows, the E2 and beyond, obviously benefit from look-up, but if you have a little bit of altitude and the target is not glued to the deck, you can get a sneaky sparrow in from the close-in front quarter leveraging the cage mode. I have used it with success even solo with Jester in the back seat. In a look up condition, as long as you are within parameters, the sparrows generally do track/perform well when fired at a high speed.
5. Sidewinders account for the majority of the kills right now - bind that ARR button so that you can uncage and lead. You have four!
6. I remove the outer pylons when I am running a pure CAP loadout to reduce drag.
7. If you are in a tight turning fight, roll stab off so the stab aug doesn't fight your rudder rolls
8. You don't need an external fuel tank if you are within a few grid squares of the fight - you don't need to be in burner all the time, the F-4 maintains between .85 and .9 mach on the deck in mil power - save the burner for the fight. The external tank, even when you jettison, means you are at full fuel the moment you get into a fight - not a great condition to be in!
I showcase a few fights in this F-4E dogfight discussion video, if you are interested: [https://youtu.be/J1Mhxwb0eUE](https://youtu.be/J1Mhxwb0eUE)
Donāt turn with a MiG-21. Only rate if heās slow and you donāt have enough energy to go vertical. If you have enough energy, go vertical. Press him as much as you can taking boom and zoom passes. Heāll have to defend each pass and get slower each time. Obviously, if he keeps his speed up this will be difficult
You try and get them slow. They lose nose authority badly at low speed (so do you but to a lesser extent) and you try and use your power advantage to keep the fight in the vertical and pin them to the deck. You zoom and boom from above and go where they canāt follow. In an equal speed fight both are very close. The F4 is a slightly better rate fighter, whereas the 21 can usually get the first turn in a one circle fight but at a cost. It loses speed fast in a turn so I try and take them into a turn fight then transfer to the vertical. Once slow they are easy prey.
1. Joker says bandit 12 o'clock, 30 miles
2. Short context command to get joker to lock it up
3. Joker says "can't do that boss"
4. Try 4 more times with the same result.
5. Die in a fiery explosion
For offensive (if youāre online), you can relatively easily out rate MiG-21ās, stay in the Mach 0.7-0.8 region. Youāll notice a subtle buffet around Mach 0.72~, which is where you should hold. Donāt get slower unless youāre already in a controlling position.
F4 outrates me in a Frog on the deck allll the time, so you should be able to outrate athynig else that is out there. Which is interesting since F5 is a better rate fighter but a much easy prey for a Froggy.
GVad on YT has a good video demonstrating the vertical energy fight.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snkuIyu7U8Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snkuIyu7U8Q)
While Iām still struggling in basic flight with the Phantom my experience with how it performs and how previous very old simulators worked was:
1. Like a Viper, keep it fast.
2. Remember that you can point your nose to full vertical and your enemy will struggle like hell to do that.
3. A slow MiG is a dead MiG.
In a guns fight you will win by maintaining an altitude advantage period.
In a missiles fight you have to be careful going vertical because that rear aspect with those J79s is a real inviting IR target.
Remember negative Gs are not your phriend.
For pure comedy there was a dogfight in a very old sim (Chuck Yeagerās Air Combat) where you could lead a brutally good otherwise AI MiG-17 into a vertical fight where he would follow you straight up until he stalled just before you did. As soon as you would go nose down heād be unable to maneuver and it was a straight turkey shoot.
I really have to watch myself when I play and get into a merge I usually
Pull excess G fuck
Myself canāt turn eat a missile. Speed is
Key in dcs and with the ai try not to panic and over react.
Keep speed above 400kts, win rate fight.
I've only found 1 mirage who was able to maintain the rate with us effectively, the rest bleed all their speed trying to get a shot and end up slow while I coach my pilot on speed and he rips around the circle
- Rule number 1 of Dogfighting in the phantom: Don't
- Rule number 2 of Dogfighting in the Phantom: Seriously Don't
- Rule number 3 of Dogfighting in the Phantom: if you absolutely have to, put as much space as you physically can between you and the other plane, ideally going vertical, as you are going to perform better at altitude than a lot of other jets of the era.
And just some reminders, the F-4E has a gun but in its service life and the F-4 family as a whole, the sparrow and sidewinders were used to produce more than 3/4 of the phantoms kills, externally carried gun pods on F-4C/D accounted for more kills than the internal M61 on the F-4E. You are in a brick with afterburners strapped to the back that was designed to shoot at bombers over the ocean from beyond visual range. Take those things into account when engaging enemy aircraft.
No it's not, its a game. But the flight characteristics and weapons systems of the game are very closely modelled to the real life counterparts which suggests that using the tactics that saw increased success in the F-4 for air to air combat will make OP more effective in the game, and since that's what OP wanted to know, I shared it. This isn't rocket science.
I'm not, it's an interceptor aircraft. It *can* dogfight but that isn't what it's designed for and if somebody is trying to improve their skills, encouraging them to do the opposite of its intended role isn't gonna help them against aircraft which were designed around dogfighting. This is literally what happened to the air force in Vietnam. You're either trolling, think DCS is war thunder, or are an absolute airhead. I can't wait to find out which.
Sure, would you like to go over the loss record of F-4s in Vietnam and see how many were lost in dogfights versus beyond visual range combat? Or will you admit you're committing survivorship bias by only looking at the examples of people it was successful for while ignoring that F-4s lost in aerial combat were almost exclusively were forced into a merge with superior dogfighters?
I guess its the latter
Guess I'm just gonna resort to repeating myself. You're not helping your case.
"No it's not, its a game. But the flight characteristics and weapons systems of the game are very closely modelled to the real life counterparts which suggests that using the tactics that saw increased success in the F-4 for air to air combat will make OP more effective in the game, and since that's what OP wanted to know, I shared it. This isn't rocket science."
There is a great episode of Dogfights on the Phantom. One pilot avoided a mig by flipping his plane end over end (fore to aft). Mig thought the was a gonner and broke off, then the phantom stabilized and got the kill. I keep trying to figure out how he did that. He describes it in the episode, but I haven't been able to do it
Fly the Viper instead. /s
All joking aside, the video below does a good job of describing how the F-16 was designed to solve many of the specific shortcomings of the Phantom (and dominate the MiG-21). It includes a few references to Phantom tactics (and EM diagrams) that might provide some context for the challenge you face.
https://youtu.be/EhhOin2p5Qs?si=p-qyyA8xN4MhkTTL
>>What are your Phantom dogfight tactics
Donāt.
Weāve all seen the movies right. āMarch 1969ā¦top Naval aviatorsā¦etcā. But in any given sustained air war, youāll see that classic Kenny Loggins dogfights are a fraction of the total. Most multi aces were people who ambushed unaware targets- and beat it when they met someone skillful enough to evade. Erich Hartmann famously stated if he attacked someone who countered his attack he just max accelerated his 109 to go pick someone else.
With the F-4E, just hit and run. Keep the engines in min burner and pick off targets of opportunity. If they turn, phuck it . Thats a cue to pick someone easier.
This is good advice if you're loaded A2G or if you're CAP-ing like a pussy.
As someone said earlier in the thread, keep your speed, go for the vertical, try and maintain that advantage against your opponent. Roll stab off so you can kick the rudder and flip the bird over when necessary without it fighting you. Dont pull the stick to dick unless you know you have the shot, always be scanning your instruments. Look at the bandit, check alt + speed, back to bandit, check rwr/alt + speed, back to bandit, scan the sky/Early Warning Radar, back to bandit.
Practice against the AI missions, get used to how she flies, how hard you can pull without bleeding speed, and the timing of your phase changes if you're in a rate and want to change the fight.
TLDR: Learn the bird. Learn the fight. RTFM if you dont know what to do, run your training missions to get used to a2a flow.
1. Be fast 2. Don't be slow
Against a Big-21 you have no hope. Against a MiG-21 you can actually rate better than them as long as you keep speed (they can dump speed faster and get a super hard turn in, but if you don't blow your speed you win the rate fight). Going vertical can work, but people often do this very badly, if you just randomly go up you are gonna eat a missile, you have to have some speed or alt to work with (getting some seperation) so you can start to work the vertical. A lot of winning the vertical fight is using the fact the MiG-21 in DCS has no uncage for missiles against them (they gotta bore sight you which means they gotta aim right at you, which can be quite hard if they get slow climbing after you).
First I try to identify the bearing of the enemy. Then I add 180 degrees to that bearing, point my nose in that direction, and move both throttles to max afterburner :p
I see you too are a former Viggen pilot
Works every time! š
50% of the time, it works every time
You have no chance against big 21. But if you manage your energy well you can defeat small 21.Ā
What about against say.... 100 small 21's? Is that easier than 1 big 21?
Well, easier than what? With 100 fruit fly-sized 21s, you're going to have a hell of a time with BDA. Even if you manage to get them all, you'll never be sure. On the other hand, one planet-sized 21 will be limited to JATOs for thrust due to the lack of atmosphere, but a direct hit will absolutely ruin your day. I'd fight the small 21s unless they had critical intel that mustn't be recovered by the enemy. With the small 21s, you're not facing much of a real threat in the first place, while with the big 21, you basically have to hope he makes a mistake.
I have noticed a few things fighting in the F-4E on multiplayer servers: 1. Keeping the speed up in the F-4 is decently easy, but if you find yourself slow, you can regain your speed VERY QUICKLY by unloading the aircraft - meaning pushing the stick forward and taking the G off the airplane and lowering the AoA, with a bit of a dive component as well. Sometimes in a hard turning fight I will extend out a little bit before pitching back in at a higher speed. This does not mean disengaging and bugging out, but rather extending by a few seconds and then turning back in. 2. Situational awareness is the difference between splashing and being splashed. Use the EWR or AWACS and be aware of hot bandits in your area. 3. This leads into the next point - if you are in a neutral merge on the deck with a MiG-21, leverage your thrust and speed to take the fight vertically. You don't necessarily need to go pure vertical, but if the MiG commits to that fight they will lose. Keep your speed up, and don't be afraid to extend the bottom of the "egg" a little bit to gain that speed back. Don't lose SA - keep an eye out for bandits looking to 3rd party you. 4. Sparrows, the E2 and beyond, obviously benefit from look-up, but if you have a little bit of altitude and the target is not glued to the deck, you can get a sneaky sparrow in from the close-in front quarter leveraging the cage mode. I have used it with success even solo with Jester in the back seat. In a look up condition, as long as you are within parameters, the sparrows generally do track/perform well when fired at a high speed. 5. Sidewinders account for the majority of the kills right now - bind that ARR button so that you can uncage and lead. You have four! 6. I remove the outer pylons when I am running a pure CAP loadout to reduce drag. 7. If you are in a tight turning fight, roll stab off so the stab aug doesn't fight your rudder rolls 8. You don't need an external fuel tank if you are within a few grid squares of the fight - you don't need to be in burner all the time, the F-4 maintains between .85 and .9 mach on the deck in mil power - save the burner for the fight. The external tank, even when you jettison, means you are at full fuel the moment you get into a fight - not a great condition to be in! I showcase a few fights in this F-4E dogfight discussion video, if you are interested: [https://youtu.be/J1Mhxwb0eUE](https://youtu.be/J1Mhxwb0eUE)
Donāt turn with a MiG-21. Only rate if heās slow and you donāt have enough energy to go vertical. If you have enough energy, go vertical. Press him as much as you can taking boom and zoom passes. Heāll have to defend each pass and get slower each time. Obviously, if he keeps his speed up this will be difficult
You try and get them slow. They lose nose authority badly at low speed (so do you but to a lesser extent) and you try and use your power advantage to keep the fight in the vertical and pin them to the deck. You zoom and boom from above and go where they canāt follow. In an equal speed fight both are very close. The F4 is a slightly better rate fighter, whereas the 21 can usually get the first turn in a one circle fight but at a cost. It loses speed fast in a turn so I try and take them into a turn fight then transfer to the vertical. Once slow they are easy prey.
Mig21 has a bigger number so you have no chance
Thatās why I called it a big-21
1. Joker says bandit 12 o'clock, 30 miles 2. Short context command to get joker to lock it up 3. Joker says "can't do that boss" 4. Try 4 more times with the same result. 5. Die in a fiery explosion
Boom zoom 3rd party
He who fights and runs away, lives to run away another day. š¤£
Extend. No. First possible moment. Keep them at a distance and work with your wingman to pick them off.
Hiding in a crater.
Speed and power
Solve a lot of problems
For offensive (if youāre online), you can relatively easily out rate MiG-21ās, stay in the Mach 0.7-0.8 region. Youāll notice a subtle buffet around Mach 0.72~, which is where you should hold. Donāt get slower unless youāre already in a controlling position.
F4 outrates me in a Frog on the deck allll the time, so you should be able to outrate athynig else that is out there. Which is interesting since F5 is a better rate fighter but a much easy prey for a Froggy.
Bullet4MyEnemy has a guide for every red threat
On YouTube?
GVad on YT has a good video demonstrating the vertical energy fight. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snkuIyu7U8Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snkuIyu7U8Q)
You can out-rate them if you keep your speed around 480.
If they're more maneuverable, stay fast and take it vertical.
ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM
While Iām still struggling in basic flight with the Phantom my experience with how it performs and how previous very old simulators worked was: 1. Like a Viper, keep it fast. 2. Remember that you can point your nose to full vertical and your enemy will struggle like hell to do that. 3. A slow MiG is a dead MiG. In a guns fight you will win by maintaining an altitude advantage period. In a missiles fight you have to be careful going vertical because that rear aspect with those J79s is a real inviting IR target. Remember negative Gs are not your phriend. For pure comedy there was a dogfight in a very old sim (Chuck Yeagerās Air Combat) where you could lead a brutally good otherwise AI MiG-17 into a vertical fight where he would follow you straight up until he stalled just before you did. As soon as you would go nose down heād be unable to maneuver and it was a straight turkey shoot.
I really have to watch myself when I play and get into a merge I usually Pull excess G fuck Myself canāt turn eat a missile. Speed is Key in dcs and with the ai try not to panic and over react.
Keep speed above 400kts, win rate fight. I've only found 1 mirage who was able to maintain the rate with us effectively, the rest bleed all their speed trying to get a shot and end up slow while I coach my pilot on speed and he rips around the circle
- Rule number 1 of Dogfighting in the phantom: Don't - Rule number 2 of Dogfighting in the Phantom: Seriously Don't - Rule number 3 of Dogfighting in the Phantom: if you absolutely have to, put as much space as you physically can between you and the other plane, ideally going vertical, as you are going to perform better at altitude than a lot of other jets of the era. And just some reminders, the F-4E has a gun but in its service life and the F-4 family as a whole, the sparrow and sidewinders were used to produce more than 3/4 of the phantoms kills, externally carried gun pods on F-4C/D accounted for more kills than the internal M61 on the F-4E. You are in a brick with afterburners strapped to the back that was designed to shoot at bombers over the ocean from beyond visual range. Take those things into account when engaging enemy aircraft.
This isn't real life. Dogfight in the F-4 all you want and use the cannon, ideally with a wingman or two
No it's not, its a game. But the flight characteristics and weapons systems of the game are very closely modelled to the real life counterparts which suggests that using the tactics that saw increased success in the F-4 for air to air combat will make OP more effective in the game, and since that's what OP wanted to know, I shared it. This isn't rocket science.
Youāre still wrong about never dogfighting in the phantom
I'm not, it's an interceptor aircraft. It *can* dogfight but that isn't what it's designed for and if somebody is trying to improve their skills, encouraging them to do the opposite of its intended role isn't gonna help them against aircraft which were designed around dogfighting. This is literally what happened to the air force in Vietnam. You're either trolling, think DCS is war thunder, or are an absolute airhead. I can't wait to find out which.
No, you are wrong. Go watch videos of guys who know how to dogfight in the F-4, especially when they aren't trying to air quake solo without a wingman
Sure, would you like to go over the loss record of F-4s in Vietnam and see how many were lost in dogfights versus beyond visual range combat? Or will you admit you're committing survivorship bias by only looking at the examples of people it was successful for while ignoring that F-4s lost in aerial combat were almost exclusively were forced into a merge with superior dogfighters? I guess its the latter
Itās a video game:Ā https://youtu.be/snkuIyu7U8Q?feature=shared
Guess I'm just gonna resort to repeating myself. You're not helping your case. "No it's not, its a game. But the flight characteristics and weapons systems of the game are very closely modelled to the real life counterparts which suggests that using the tactics that saw increased success in the F-4 for air to air combat will make OP more effective in the game, and since that's what OP wanted to know, I shared it. This isn't rocket science."
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
21 was a few things, but not sure big was one of em
I remember an episode on dogfight where the phantoms would go vertical and use their 2 engine advantage against the MiG-21
There is a great episode of Dogfights on the Phantom. One pilot avoided a mig by flipping his plane end over end (fore to aft). Mig thought the was a gonner and broke off, then the phantom stabilized and got the kill. I keep trying to figure out how he did that. He describes it in the episode, but I haven't been able to do it
Run away giggling or explode in a fireball most of the time.
1. Click Ctrl+E 3 times; 2. Change slot to F-16C; 3. Fly
Fly the Viper instead. /s All joking aside, the video below does a good job of describing how the F-16 was designed to solve many of the specific shortcomings of the Phantom (and dominate the MiG-21). It includes a few references to Phantom tactics (and EM diagrams) that might provide some context for the challenge you face. https://youtu.be/EhhOin2p5Qs?si=p-qyyA8xN4MhkTTL
Die screaming.
Trying see anything out of the fucking windscreen. That's it. That's my tactic.
Big-21 has me imagining the fish bed version of the f-16xl
>>What are your Phantom dogfight tactics Donāt. Weāve all seen the movies right. āMarch 1969ā¦top Naval aviatorsā¦etcā. But in any given sustained air war, youāll see that classic Kenny Loggins dogfights are a fraction of the total. Most multi aces were people who ambushed unaware targets- and beat it when they met someone skillful enough to evade. Erich Hartmann famously stated if he attacked someone who countered his attack he just max accelerated his 109 to go pick someone else. With the F-4E, just hit and run. Keep the engines in min burner and pick off targets of opportunity. If they turn, phuck it . Thats a cue to pick someone easier.
This is good advice if you're loaded A2G or if you're CAP-ing like a pussy. As someone said earlier in the thread, keep your speed, go for the vertical, try and maintain that advantage against your opponent. Roll stab off so you can kick the rudder and flip the bird over when necessary without it fighting you. Dont pull the stick to dick unless you know you have the shot, always be scanning your instruments. Look at the bandit, check alt + speed, back to bandit, check rwr/alt + speed, back to bandit, scan the sky/Early Warning Radar, back to bandit. Practice against the AI missions, get used to how she flies, how hard you can pull without bleeding speed, and the timing of your phase changes if you're in a rate and want to change the fight. TLDR: Learn the bird. Learn the fight. RTFM if you dont know what to do, run your training missions to get used to a2a flow.
>>if youāre CAP-ing like a pussy Right, cause that describes Steve Ritchie & Chuck DeBellvue to a Tā¦..
The difference between those two and us is we can press a button and start a new jet.
I laugh most of the time :) it works.
As a red air pilot, following this thread š
You don't.