Suggestions for improving ACM Skills

Apart from practise, practise, practise can anyone recommend any good resources for improving ACM skills?

Any good books out there?

Apart from practise, practise, practise can anyone recommend any good resources for improving ACM skills?

 

Any good books out there?

Lots of good books out there. They've been listed before. Those that know them off the top of their head hopefully will post the title names. There are also some unclassified tactics manuals out there for some various aircraft that discuss BFM moves and such. They can be helpful if your google fu is good enough. The platform is fairly irrelevant - for instance if you're flying a Hornet in DCS but find an F-16 tactics manual on line - the BFM basics are the same.

But not only practice, practice, practice - but have a scripted focus for the practice. And work up to actual ACM in baby steps like air forces do IRL. Starting off with random entry ACM will likely build negative habit patterns. If you are practicing the wrong thing and get lucky once in a while, you will go backwards.

The key skill you should be thinking about is not ACM but rather BFM. The key word being "basic". Use the mission editor to set up an offensive BFM engagement where you are directly behind the bandit at say 3000 feet (~ 1/2 mile) and use IR and gun only. Learn how to recognize and enter the turn circle, get good at the HOTAS until selecting the correct radar Acq mode and missile or gun becomes 2nd nature. Do this over and over until you master it. Then move the bandit out to 6000 feet (~1 mile) and do the same exercises. Then do it at 9k (~1.5nm).

Repeat this all again with the bandit directly behind you and learn to survive at various ranges (3/6/9K). This is called Defensive BFM. Once you get good at this and not losing sight of the bandit behind you and surviving until at least you get to the floor or can go offensive - then you can move to ACM.

Again, using ME - set up the bandit on the nose co-altitude at something like 5 miles. At the merge, practice 1 turn and 2 turn fights to see how your particular aircraft performs with either. Your turn performance and the bandits turn performance dictate the type of turn fight it will be. Of course the last person to turn sets the fight. later on, If you have HMCS and AIM-9x - try to take shots across the circle. Again, being super proficient with your HOTAS is the key here as well as NEVER losing sight. When you get decent at 1v1 ACM, then add a wingman to work on cooperative ACM. 2v1 ACM is some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

The old adage is: Lose sight, lose the fight! good luck.

Adding to what Notso said: You gotta practice right.

For Videos theres the Art of the Kill:

In terms of books theres no way around "Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering" By Robert L. Shaw if you wanna take a deep dive into the world of air combat.

Adding to what Notso said: You gotta practice right.

 

For Videos theres the Art of the Kill:

 

 

In terms of books theres no way around "Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering" By Robert L. Shaw if you wanna take a deep dive into the world of air combat.

Correct. And you'll never be truly good at BFM unless you grow a mustache like the dude in the video. :lol:

Lots of good books out there. They've been listed before. Those that know them off the top of their head hopefully will post the title names. There are also some unclassified tactics manuals out there for some various aircraft that discuss BFM moves and such. They can be helpful if your google fu is good enough. The platform is fairly irrelevant - for instance if you're flying a Hornet in DCS but find an F-16 tactics manual on line - the BFM basics are the same.

 

But not only practice, practice, practice - but have a scripted focus for the practice. And work up to actual ACM in baby steps like air forces do IRL. Starting off with random entry ACM will likely build negative habit patterns. If you are practicing the wrong thing and get lucky once in a while, you will go backwards.

 

The key skill you should be thinking about is not ACM but rather BFM. The key word being "basic". Use the mission editor to set up an offensive BFM engagement where you are directly behind the bandit at say 3000 feet (~ 1/2 mile) and use IR and gun only. Learn how to recognize and enter the turn circle, get good at the HOTAS until selecting the correct radar Acq mode and missile or gun becomes 2nd nature. Do this over and over until you master it. Then move the bandit out to 6000 feet (~1 mile) and do the same exercises. Then do it at 9k (~1.5nm).

 

Repeat this all again with the bandit directly behind you and learn to survive at various ranges (3/6/9K). This is called Defensive BFM. Once you get good at this and not losing sight of the bandit behind you and surviving until at least you get to the floor or can go offensive - then you can move to ACM.

 

Again, using ME - set up the bandit on the nose co-altitude at something like 5 miles. At the merge, practice 1 turn and 2 turn fights to see how your particular aircraft performs with either. Your turn performance and the bandits turn performance dictate the type of turn fight it will be. Of course the last person to turn sets the fight. later on, If you have HMCS and AIM-9x - try to take shots across the circle. Again, being super proficient with your HOTAS is the key here as well as NEVER losing sight. When you get decent at 1v1 ACM, then add a wingman to work on cooperative ACM. 2v1 ACM is some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

 

The old adage is: Lose sight, lose the fight! good luck.

Mainly flying the Viper BTW

Correct. And you'll never be truly good at BFM unless you grow a mustache like the dude in the video.

Adding to what Notso said: You gotta practice right.

 

 

 

For Videos theres the Art of the Kill:

 

 

 

 

 

 

In terms of books theres no way around "Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering" By Robert L. Shaw if you wanna take a deep dive into the world of air combat.

Basic fighter manuevers By Robert Shaw. Is a excellent book in this forum there is a link to a electronic version...

Basic fighter manuevers By Robert Shaw. Is a excellent book in this forum there is a link to a electronic version...

http://falcon.blu3wolf.com/Docs/Fighter%20Combat-Tactics%20and%20Maneuvering.pdf

https://kupdf.net/download/art-of-the-kill_59e18e6108bbc58f48e653f4_pdf

So I took my own advice and set up a bunch of quick ME missions to do Offensive BFM at various setup ranges and later 1v1 and 2v1 High aspect ACM (HACM) against an AI Mig-29. I am getting back into the Hornet after spending most of my time in the F-16 recently and it was really enlightening to figure out how to best manage energy and when to cash in energy for a quick gun shot or AIM-9 shot.

A couple of observations.... The AI Mig-29 model somewhat sucks. It flies a constant vertical loop and I don't think it's ability to go vertical over and over is accurate. I might try some other AI models. Probably what would be more helpful is to have a similar airframe like making a Hornet as the red air and fight like for like so the energy states are the same before going to dissimilar fights. I'll report back on how that goes.

Another tip is to set yourself as Invulnerable so you don't blow up all the time while you learn. Especially on the high aspect ACM fights, the bandit will always pop you in the nose with an Archer or Aphid before the merge. The whole point is to get to the merge and turn and take post merge shots. If you get shot, you can see and hear the missile bounce off you, so you know you F*#ked up but you can continue to fight and learn.

Later on - I tried to set up some 2v1 ACM with an AI bandit and an AI wingman. It worked OK if I set the bandit on my nose and merged with him. The AI wingman was OK sometimes engaging the bandit and getting the kill and other times just flew around being stupid. I then tried to set the bandit off the wingman's nose so I could turn to engage him quickly while the bandit was turning with my #2. Unfortunately, #2 almost always died pre-merge from the before mentioned Archer in the face from the bandit. So that was less of a valuable exercise.

The whole thing though was a lot of fun and a great way to kill a day in isolation. If you set the scenarios up correctly, you can run them over and over very quickly once the DLO is achieved.

The best way to fight in the Hornet is to just bomb stuff and have Viper escorts.