Combat: A lesson from history

[roryscarlett]

Having played the Alpha for a couple of days, it has become clear to me that combat within Elite: Dangerous has remarkable parallels to combat from the earliest days of aviation.

I believe there is a great deal a budding new Commander can learn from some of the ‘Fathers’ of aerial combat.

Nearly 100 years ago brave men fought over France and Belgium in flimsy, unreliable and frankly dangerous aircraft.

We are all probably aware of some of these brave men. Max Immelmann (15 victories) was the first German ace. Possibly the most famous (in Britain anyway as he had the highest number of combat victories, 80) was Manfred Von Richthofen, known to the British during WWI as ‘The Red Baron’ due to over-painting his aircraft with red paint.

Some brave British flyers were James McCudden (57 victories and a VC winner) and Albert Ball (44 victories and a VC winner).

But perhaps the most influential man of the time was another German pilot, Oswald Boelcke.
Boelcke constructed a list of combat tactics which he called ‘Dicta Boelcke’. These became a set of rules that Boelcke followed and I believe can also be applied to combat in Elite: Dangerous.

Dicta Boelcke…

1. Try to secure the upper hand before attacking. If possible, keep the sun behind you
2. Always continue with an attack you have begun
3. Open fire only at close range, and then only when the opponent is squarely in your sights
4. You should always try to keep your eye on your opponent, and never let yourself be deceived by ruses
5. In any type of attack, it is essential to assail your opponent from behind
6. If your opponent dives on you, do not try to get around his attack, but fly to meet it
7. When over the enemy's lines, always remember your own line of retreat
8. Tip for Squadrons: In principle, it is better to attack in groups of four or six. Avoid two aircraft attacking the same opponent

Obviously there is no substitute for skill, bravery and a good knowledge of your craft’s abilities. But if we were to keep Dicta Boelcke in the backs of our minds, we would have a clear advantage over our adversaries!

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

Wise words. Boelcke's wisdom will be relevant in Elite no doubt.

I can't imagine what those men went through 100 years ago. Brave beyond belief knowing the average life expectancy was 11 days.

Back to gaming, I've been a big flight sim fan from the very early days of gaming but my favorite era was always WW1 and flying those rickety old crates. I played Battle of Britain, IL-2 and all the modern jet sims too, but I think my favorite was always Red Baron from the early 90's. Loved that game :smilie:

 

[roryscarlett]

Yep couldn't agree more.

The best WWI sim I've found recently is Rise of Flight. Free to download too! Enjoy.

 

[Kroy]

Nice link and nice sentiment. However:

I can't get behind either the following:

3. Open fire only at close range, and then only when the opponent is squarely in your sights


8. Tip for Squadrons: In principle, it is better to attack in groups of four or six. Avoid two aircraft attacking the same opponent

Range is important in Elite, from what we have learned so far. If victory is what you desire, then staying out of range of your enemy whilst you still have range is a valid tactic

Also, focus fire is essential, and whichever squad manages to focus fire will be effective.

 

[Commander Waterhouse]

I'm a fan of Rise of Flight and that sim simulates WW1 combat really well, specially when flying online on realistic server settings.

One of the most important things to manage is energy and for WW1 this always means altitude since (max) speeds are so low. I don't know how this transfers to space combat!

Gunnery experience will help though! I have seen one Alpha livestream where someone took 15 mins to destroy the enemy ship and mostly shooting holes in space!! But maybe he was using a mouse

 

[Yaffle]

Nice link and nice sentiment. However:
Also, focus fire is essential, and whichever squad manages to focus fire will be effective.

I am not in the alpha, and have only seen footage, but would be inclined to agree. It seems where you have allies that defeating multiple foes in detail is highly effective.

If this will hold true in PvP I have no idea.

 

[Rattatay]

If you consider the Anaconda mission, which is over as soon as you eliminate the cargo vessel, focused fire on a single target is indeed an important factor.

Conversely, if there are two opposing groups of players with equal amount of ships, where one group's mission is to destroy a base, and the second group to defend it, focused fire on the base would render the attacking forces open to pickings from the defending forces. Thus, taking out the defending forces might be the tactic to go for.

 

[starry]

There's probably a break even point. With a very low HP/DPS ratio, it's better for everyone to go 1v1 and start the fight with the advantage of surprise and/or range. It's more common to see high HP/DPS ratios, in which case focused fire is better.

I feel an analysis coming on...

 

[Shoklar]

Once players have fully learned and mastered all the abilities of the controls, it's going to lead on to some amazing pvp fights and video recordings of great skill of flight and fight.
Shok.

 

[Komemiute]

As far as I have seen managing temperature and emitted signature could be the translation in Elite for energy conservation and altitude management.
I just can't wait fot 1st beta...

 

[Stewart Forgie]

Adolph Malan's ten rules for combat.

1.Wait until you see the whites of his eyes. Fire short bursts of 1 to 2 seconds and only when your sights are definitely 'ON'.
2.Whilst shooting think of nothing else, brace the whole of the body, have both hands on the stick, concentrate on your ring sight.
3.Always keep a sharp lookout. "Keep your finger out!"
4.Height gives You the initiative.
5.Always turn and face the attack.
6.Make your decisions promptly. It is better to act quickly even though your tactics are not the best.
7.Never fly straight and level for more than 30 seconds in the combat area.
8.When diving to attack always leave a proportion of your formation above to act as top guard.
9.INITIATIVE, AGGRESSION, AIR DISCIPLINE, and TEAM WORK are the words that MEAN something in Air Fighting.
10.Go in quickly - Punch hard - Get out!

Number 7 would be particularly apt I think.

 

[roryscarlett]

So. Having played the Alpha's for a couple of months now, do people think Boelcke's Dicta hold up? (in my original post)

Personally I think they do.

Now that we have played scenarios with numerous enemy targets (as well as large single targets), I can clearly see what he was getting at!!!

 

[stephen_usher]

I wonder what rules he would have given for flying in reverse, as you can in E: D...?

 

[metatheurgist]

Nice link and nice sentiment. However:
I can't get behind either the following:

3. Open fire only at close range, and then only when the opponent is squarely in your sights

Range is important in Elite, from what we have learned so far. If victory is what you desire, then staying out of range of your enemy whilst you still have range is a valid tactic

That definitely sounds like it comes from a time when they only had 6 seconds of really slow ammo. Energy weapons have their advantages.

 

[Zarkon]

A lot of the same tactics for the original Elite still apply, and holds true to most of Boelcke's rules.

1) Players can't look behind currently so this tactic doesn't really apply. However, I have seen NPCs fly into the sun while their shields are recharging, which makes them a harder target to focus on.
2) Breaking off an attack, especially because someone else is shooting at me, has always lead to a no-kill for me.
3) Close range is always better for attacking, but with ED, as with the old WWI weapons, the multi-cannon is best up close. Like the shotgun in many FPS games.
4) Kind of goes along with rule #2; stay focus and follow through.
5) Attacking from behind is always best in these sorts of battles. More so in Elite I think.
6) As with rule #3, the best option is to meet your opponent head on, instead of trying to dance around the incoming fire.
7) This doesn't apply in the Alpha, tho I have often killed an NPC, then moved back away from large clusters of enemies so I'm not surrounded.
8) I was chasing an NPC down and blasting it with a beam lazor when suddenly another commander cut directly in front of me, attacking the same opponent. I burned him hard I'm sure, but I changed my tactics by strafing to the right as I made my assault. This kept the other commander out of harms way and allow both of us to vaporize the foe. So there is a good reason not to have two pilots attacking the same target at the same time unless you know what each other is doing.

 

[deej]

While your waiting for elite, you can put all these rules into practice in the F2P steam game warthunder

 

[Patrick_68000]

And being away, and simply pull homing missiles and long-range

 

[Chock]

Possibly the most famous (in Britain anyway as he had the highest number of combat victories, 80) was Manfred Von Richthofen, known to the British during WWI as ‘The Red Baron’ due to over-painting his aircraft with red paint.

Manfred Von Richthofen's number of victories is open to debate, particularly because of the difference in the way victories were tallied between the two sides; German victories were quite often granted to the flight leader, whereas the Allies tended to split the kill between those who did the shooting. This wasn't always true, but it was a sort of general rule. It was also the case that some victory claims were not confirmed unless wreckage was found. Occasionally the pilot's word was taken for truth, particularly if other witnesses corroborated the report, but this was fairly rare. This meant that German victories were far more likely to be confirmed for both tactical and meteorological reasons, because the prevailing wind on the Western Front meant that most fights tended to drift over the German lines, and the German scout pilots were often ordered not to cross the lines (a situation which led many Allied flyers to erroneously imagine that German scout flyers were timid). Both these factors meant that far more wreckage sites could be confirmed for the claims of German pilots (see below for how this relates to the top Allied claimant).

Much was done to facilitate the propaganda value of Von Richthofen, for understandable reasons; many German aces were the 'pin ups' of their day, with Sanke postcards featuring them proving big sellers, particularly in Berlin where Willi Sanke was based. The Allies, conversely, were slow to realise the value of such propaganda.

To be fair, most of the Baron's victory claims are fairly well documented, but it was nevertheless often the case that if another pilot claimed the same kill, it would invariably be attributed to Von Richthofen for the aforementioned propaganda reasons. Having said that, this does cut both ways; before Von Richthofen was especially famous, many of his claims were not confirmed, so if they were added to his confirmed ones, that puts his tally at over 100. This is true for a lot of German flyers, particularly near the war's end, where pilots well into double figures were not especially singled out for fame.

However, this also opens up the debate about who genuinely was the highest-scoring fighter pilot in WW1, and there are a lot of other contenders besides Richthofen. Frenchman René Fonck is officially the highest scoring Allied pilot, with 75 confirmed victories, but he also claimed a further 52 victories, which were not confirmed officially because they occurred over the enemy side of the lines. If these are even remotely true, then he would be by far the highest scoring fighter pilot of WW1.

Propaganda in relation to fighter pilot scores played a part on the Allied side too on occasion, notably with William Avery Bishop. Bishop is officially the second highest-scoring pilot on the Allied side, but many of his claims are quite clearly bogus, not even coming close to matching the rather meticulous records the Germans kept, which post-war researchers can now check. Nevertheless, such claims by Bishop were often confirmed because of the propaganda value to the Allies of a Canadian hero (and one who had friends in high places too, who on occasions pulled strings for him), which would obviously help when it came to recruiting volunteers in the British Empire. That is not to say that Bishop was completely false in his claims, but there is clearly some doubt over much of his record.

An Allied pilot with a particularly good claim to being the highest scorer in WW1, would be Edward 'Mick' Mannock. Officially, he is credited with 61 victories (his personal claims that he submitted put the figure nearer to 80). But regardless of the official tally, it is well documented that Mannock scored very many victories which he did not bother to file a report on at all, because he was officially not supposed to be flying at the time he scored them (having been ordered to rest), and he was known to be far more interested in winning the war than in winning personal fame. He is also known to have taken out many flyers new to his squadron for 'a first look over the lines', shot up enemy aeroplanes until they were all but finished, and then waved the new flyer up to have a shot. Afterwards he would claim that he missed and credit the new squadron member with the victory, in order to boost their confidence. This act of rather magnanimous leadership and generosity allegedly occurred numerous times, thus he is almost certainly the only WW1 ace to have been generous when it came to letting others claim his own victories. Whatever the truth of Mannock's real victory tally, that he was an extraordinary pilot is beyond doubt, as he is one of only a few WW1 flyers to have downed four enemy aircraft in a single day, a feat which earned him the DSO (which he already had been awarded once at that time). He was again awarded the DSO a third time just a few weeks later, one of very few people ever to have achieved that, and this in addition to having been awarded the MC twice and the VC.