Am I correct in thinking that a dogfight in the real world is nothing like the slow motion experience depicted on a lot of TV shows?
Dogfight or similar experience needed
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Do TV shows actually have dog fighting on them that often? I've seem fights break out between my own dogs, but they're very fast moving and they're over quickly. But if a dog is really going for a kill (like a larger dog grabbing a smaller one as prey), it can be over in one shake.
Or are you talking about the illegal sport of dog fighting? I understand that the breeds used there are bred and trained to latch on. So the fights may not be as fast or as loud as the ones one might see at a dog park or something. But it might be hard to find anyone here with experience with that, as it's illegal and really socially unacceptable. I'm guessing people who do it probably post videos anonymously on the web, but it would be really awful to watch.
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Do you mean dogfights between dogs or dogfights between aeroplanes? (Or dogfights between dogs in aeroplanes
)
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Lol, now that I think of it, the OP probably means airplanes. As my avatar probably reveals, when I see the word dog, I tend to think of the kind with fur.
If it's the airplane kind, I'm guessing they slow things down in movies because they want the viewer to catch what's happening. We live near a one-time air base, and they still have air shows there a couple times a year. When those Silver Thunderbirds, Canadian Snowbirds, or Blue Angels fly over my house, those planes are going FAST (and they are LOUD).
WWI biplanes were/are much slower of course.
If it's the airplane kind, I'm guessing they slow things down in movies because they want the viewer to catch what's happening. We live near a one-time air base, and they still have air shows there a couple times a year. When those Silver Thunderbirds, Canadian Snowbirds, or Blue Angels fly over my house, those planes are going FAST (and they are LOUD).
WWI biplanes were/are much slower of course.
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Otoh, people here are more likely to have experience of canine dogfights, rather than aerial ones. But I dunno. AW has a varied membership.
Sorry, it legitimately never occurred to me that the term could be mistaken for dogs fighting. (I'm sure an embarrassed smiley goes here, but the smiley menu is hurting my eyes).
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Hahaha. I'm probably weird for assuming you meant dogs fighting, but since I've got three dogs, that's where my mind goes. I was scratching my head about the TV thing, but I was thinking, "Movies like Old Yeller or TV shows like Game of Thrones?" After I posted, I thought, oh, maybe he means airplane dogfights, like with Top Gun?
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Good point. I've seen dog fights referred to as "dogfights" most often when they're talking about the illegal sport or airplanes diving at one another.
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In my experience, dogs go for the face of the opponent first. Basically beating each other up with their muzzles. But what exactly do you mean? What do those TV fights look like?
One thing worth noting is, the louder the fight, the less bloodshed - not always, but often true. After all, when you're trying to take a chunk out of the opponent, you got your mouth too full to make noise. When you watch one of those awful pit bull fights, you'll notice they tend to be eerily quiet. When my Frenchie attacks my Akita, there is a lot of snarling and a lot of general scary noise, but no blood.
One thing worth noting is, the louder the fight, the less bloodshed - not always, but often true. After all, when you're trying to take a chunk out of the opponent, you got your mouth too full to make noise. When you watch one of those awful pit bull fights, you'll notice they tend to be eerily quiet. When my Frenchie attacks my Akita, there is a lot of snarling and a lot of general scary noise, but no blood.
Now that we have that cleared up....
What era are we talking about? There's a vast difference between Hurricanes vs Bf109s and F15s vs MIG28s.
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Talk about bringing a plane to a dog fight.
Or if it's an F-35, bringing a dog to a plane fight. Lol.
Or if it's an F-35, bringing a dog to a plane fight. Lol.
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There's this whole series called "Dogfight" on the History Channel that's available on several streaming services. It's actual combat veterans narrating their experiences with CGI showing recreations of their dogfights. It's a good walkthrough -- I'm guessing as I have no actual experience trying to kill another guy with an airplane -- for what air combat is actually like. It's available on a couple of streaming services. The other resource I'd recommend is "To Fly and Fight," a memoir by Bud Anderson, one of America's triple aces during World War II.
Okay, the OP's question:
In real life, dog fights between jet fighters of current or recent vintage don't happen. When a fighter can shoot down another fighter at 20+ miles, controlled entirely by electronic guidance systems, it's even rare that combatants would even see each other. Besides, there aren't that many air forces around to be able to fight.
Less recent vintage, as in Vietnam era, dog fights were a bit more common but still somewhat rare. Again, air to air missiles take the place of guns and have a much longer range. But at least planes would be maneuvering for a shot since the guidance was less capable. At 600 MPH, you don't get time to see the face of the enemy.
Pre-jet, and for some early jet fighters through about the Korean war era, dog fights were slower and more common. Things were still fast and many pilots were shot down due to tunnel vision, focusing on a single target, but still nowhere near slow motion. You could, and often did, get close enough to make it more personal.
Pre WWII, as in Red Baron and Snoopy days (see, animal dogs, I'm still on the topic...), speeds were under 100 MPH and you easily saw the enemy. Especially since you had to be within a few hundred yards to hit anything with enough precision to get a kill. Combatants often escorted downed enemy planes until they crashed, landed or the pilot killed themselves. Yep, you heard me. Pilots carried revolvers so they could shoot themselves rather than go down in a burning plane and many simply jumped. Parachutes didn't exist.
So, what do you really need for your story?
Jeff
In real life, dog fights between jet fighters of current or recent vintage don't happen. When a fighter can shoot down another fighter at 20+ miles, controlled entirely by electronic guidance systems, it's even rare that combatants would even see each other. Besides, there aren't that many air forces around to be able to fight.
Less recent vintage, as in Vietnam era, dog fights were a bit more common but still somewhat rare. Again, air to air missiles take the place of guns and have a much longer range. But at least planes would be maneuvering for a shot since the guidance was less capable. At 600 MPH, you don't get time to see the face of the enemy.
Pre-jet, and for some early jet fighters through about the Korean war era, dog fights were slower and more common. Things were still fast and many pilots were shot down due to tunnel vision, focusing on a single target, but still nowhere near slow motion. You could, and often did, get close enough to make it more personal.
Pre WWII, as in Red Baron and Snoopy days (see, animal dogs, I'm still on the topic...), speeds were under 100 MPH and you easily saw the enemy. Especially since you had to be within a few hundred yards to hit anything with enough precision to get a kill. Combatants often escorted downed enemy planes until they crashed, landed or the pilot killed themselves. Yep, you heard me. Pilots carried revolvers so they could shoot themselves rather than go down in a burning plane and many simply jumped. Parachutes didn't exist.
So, what do you really need for your story?
Jeff
What Jeff said. What time period/war are you researching? There's a huge difference between a World War I dogfight and a WWII dogfight and even more for Korea, Vietnam, etc.
This is actually one of my areas of interest so I should be able to help but rather than talk about all eras, what era did you need info on?
Well, since the premise is based on something that doesn't exist, real-world experiences will be somewhat limited. It now comes down to what you need for your story.
Modern jet fighters shooting at giant robots wouldn't be dogfighting, they'd simply stand off and fire precision munitions to take out the robots. But that doesn't play well in a movie or TV show so jets come in ridiculously close and shoot Godzilla with missiles from about eleven feet away. Or "experienced" pilots attacking giant space ships keep saying "Fox Three" which basically means they fired the same missile several times.
So, since you're out of the realm of reality, decide what you need and then find a reason for it to happen. Need the fighters to pull in close and fire? Make the robots untargetable by current technology so the pilots have to close in and fire blind to get the best chance of a hit. Modern fighters no longer have guns, so if you need gunfire, use an A-10 Warthog or similar that's designed for close air support instead of a fighter.
The choices are still infinite, but don't choose one and write your story into a hole because of your choice.
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F-15e, F-16, F-22, and F-35 all carry guns, FWIW. I know the first two aren't exactly "modern (the Eagle design in 40+ years old), but the Raptor and Lightning II are sort of modern.
One small quibble: The U.S. "Fox 1", "Fox 2," and "Fox 3" calls are used to designate what TYPE of missile has been fired. So, if a jet had multiple types of the same missile on it's load, the pilot could make the same call multiple times as he fired the same type of missile more than once.
Now, you can make an argument that maybe only one AIM 120 or AMRRAAM would be loaded, but that's a slightly different argument.
(And yes the "Jets attacking the spaceships" at the end of ID4 was full of all kinds of fail, as was the whole movie in various ways.)
From Wiki:
"Fox One - Indicates launch of a semi-active radar-guided missile (such as the AIM-7 Sparrow). Fox Two - Indicates launch of an infrared-guided missile (such as the AIM-9 Sidewinder). Fox Three - Indicates launch of an active radar-guided missile (such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM and AIM-54 Phoenix).
The key thing in an air-to-air dogfight is spatial awareness and being 'ahead of' the plane - knowing what needs doing before it needs to be done - all at the sort of ludicrous speed where a fraction of a second is the difference between a glorious victory and crashing into the terrain. As technology has advanced the speed has gone up, as has the range at which you engage.
The key thing in a giant robot fight is that it's probably not going to be at ludicrous speed, or start and be finished by something that happened twenty miles ago. Spatial awareness now includes what different bits of each robot are moving where rather than just having to think about your craft as a single set of dimensions, because the aircraft's wing is either right where it was last time you looked or you've got bigger problems.
Aeroplanes on giant robot? Either launch from a distance and stay at a distance, or something slower up close. There is such a thing as moving too fast relative to your target if you want to do serious damage to it.
The key thing in a giant robot fight is that it's probably not going to be at ludicrous speed, or start and be finished by something that happened twenty miles ago. Spatial awareness now includes what different bits of each robot are moving where rather than just having to think about your craft as a single set of dimensions, because the aircraft's wing is either right where it was last time you looked or you've got bigger problems.
Aeroplanes on giant robot? Either launch from a distance and stay at a distance, or something slower up close. There is such a thing as moving too fast relative to your target if you want to do serious damage to it.
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Plus, in today's world there would be unmanned drones, as well as land and sea based platforms (missile installations and ships/submarines) shooting missiles from long distances, including "over the horizon". So if you really want this to be "dogfight", metal King Kong kind of scenario, you'll need reasons for those not to work. That said, it's your story, your world. Rock on!
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