Furball Tactics
by Brooke P. Anderson

A furball is a large dogfight, involving many allies and enemies. The safest way to attack in a furball is with B&Z tactics; the second safest is with energy tactics; and the most unsafe is angles tactics (but, hey, it's fun).

I'll start with angles tactics first. With angles tactics, you are in the furball -- you are one of the pieces of hair that makes up the fur -- and it's difficult to employ the neat set of strategies that are useful in a one-on-one fight. The most important difference is that you have to VERY frequently check your six. Check every few seconds. Check before or as you slack off on the g's you are pulling. Check before or as you reverse the direction of your turn. If someone is coming in for the shot, you have to pull g's to evade, even if it means you have to abandon a shot on the guy you're following. If one enemy is too difficult to kill, go for someone else (who might be giving you a nice shot as he goes after somebody). Be careful when you change targets, though -- the guy you were after (if he is any good) will keep an eye on you and perhaps come around on your tail as you go after another target. If you get in trouble, pull some g's. Nose-low turns are good if you don't have much energy. Split S's are useful. Anything that allows you to pull lots of g's to get the hell out of the way is useful. Don't get very slow in a furball (like at or below stall speed), as you won't be able to get out of the way if you have to. Of course, if you are in a stallfight next to the ground, you have no choice but to keep turning at stall speed (until you are dead, someone bails you out, you kill your opponent, or your opponent breaks off). If you are in deep trouble, head for friendlies. Head for a crowd. Furballs are confusing places, and whoever is on you hard might lose sight of you or find an easier target. If you do get way too slow and if someone is coming in for the shot, go into a spin (if you have the altitude) -- it's better than just hanging there.

For energy tactics, you can circle around near the top of the furball, looking for people who come up at you but don't quite have the energy to do it. Or you can circle and look for low-energy targets lower down in the furball, upon whom you can swoop down for a quick shot. Watch your six as you prowl. Keep your speed up. If you get into trouble, you can dive down through the furball, pulling some high-g evasives -- maybe your pursuer will go after an easier, less-maneuverable target. If you get clear, you can zoom back up to the top of the furball and look around again. Watch out for people following you back up --watch your six.

For B&Z tactics, you basically come zooming through the furball at very high speed. Coming through level or in a very shallow dive is best. Pick out a target that is involved in a turning fight and that happens to be turning his tail toward you as you close. Fire at him. If you can't find something like that, fire at the best target you see -- but be careful of allies. After you pass through the furball, go into a shallow, slightly turning climb to one side or the other (not just a straight climb --remember that it's harder to target someone who isn't in a purely vertical or horizontal plane). When you reach a range of about 1600-2000 yards from the aircraft on the outside of the furball, do a lazy (3 g) Immelman, dive back down, level out, and zoom through the furball again. You can also watch for aircraft that have zoomed through the furball and are climbing up but that don't have the speed you do. You can fly up on their tails and shoot them as they climb. Watch that this doesn't happen to you. You can also employ the "vertical yo-yo" maneuver on furballs --see the section by that name. If you do, beware losing altitude with each yo-yo and ending up within the furball without any speed.

Whatever tactics you are using, one way to try to shake an enemy who is on you is to go into as dense a cloud of planes as possible and to do a high-g turn to a new direction 90 degrees from where you were headed -- or maybe a high-g split S (watch the ground, though). That way, you don't bleed off all of your speed in the high-g maneuver, but you end up at a radically different heading. Hopefully, the enemy will lose sight of you or go for someone who isn't maneuvering as hard. If you are going fast, and an enemy is hot on your tail, diving under a cloud of friendlies can allow some friendlies to split S onto the enemy. Or you can dive into the cloud of friendlies and turn hard, and keep turning hard until your speed and the enemy's speed are low enough for the other friendlies to engage.