This thread will hopefully serve as a central point for writers hung up on action sequences or battle scenes. Visitors are encouraged to ask and answer questions, share and ask for advice. All manner of action scenes, warfare-related questions, or combat will, ideally, be handled here. If we can't answer your question directly, we should be able to point you to somewhere that can. In addition to answering factual questions and the like, our goal is to be able to offer advice and help with the occasionally-tricky task of writing everything from single combat to full-scale war at the international level.

In addition, the following links may be helpful.

• How to Fight Write is a Tumblr for basic fact-checking when it comes to combat.
• I, Clausewitz is your go-to site for writing medieval and ancient warfare. The author does not appear to be updating the blog, but what he's written is already wonderful, wonderful advice. Like all great studies of war, I, Clausewitz delves into the sociological and logistical aspects of war as well as the operational questions.
• For aerial combat of all flavors, the Sky-High Aviation Thread in Yack Fest is wonderful. They should be able to help even with fantasy scenarios, given the depth of knowledge with real-life flight physics, capabilities, tactics, and strategy.
• The Military Thread in OTC is another helpful place to pose a question. A number of tropers there are veterans of various armed forces.
• Don't forget all the warfare-related tropes on the wiki. Make sure to read how they happen or are portrayed in various media and in real life as well. Make especially sure to check out our Useful Notes pages on military and warfare.
• Finally, because it's too awesome not to share, Clausewitz For Kids. One of the seminal works on military theory, now in convenient, illustrated, and easy-to-understand format, all taught by Hare Clausewitz himself, courtesy of the talented Caitlin Fitz Gerald. (Unfortunately, it's only partway finished.)

Finally, the universal piece of advice: read critically. When you happen across any kind of battle or war in any kind of media—particularly prose—see how the author does it; see what works and what doesn't. History, too, is an amazing guide; as one of humanity's oldest professions war has always been a far more complex topic than it appears at first glance. Portraying that is a real challenge, but, ultimately, I think, a rewarding one.

Go wild; ask away.

edited 27th Jan '14 7:53:39 AM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Underneath are a few mini-essays on writing battles and wars in general. Feel free to skip over, discuss, argue, submit your own views, all of that.

---

General advice: circumstances of a battle

As the writer, you have the advantage of essentially playing God. You are in position to know how a battle starts, develops, and ends. The trouble may be flowing logically between those steps.

Your characters, however, are not in that position. The "fog of war" sets in: no matter single combat or World War III, it's practically certain that at least one side does not possess all the information about the facts, and that in fact neither side has complete information. By its nature, combat is much closer to a game of poker than it is to chess. Level playing fields are very rare, and in fact mostly avoided unless there is absolutely no choice. (Clausewitz explained it as a "fascinating trinity" of influences at work: war is simultaneously a blaze of violence, hatred, and enmity; the playground of fickle chance and probability; and an instrument of rational policy/politics^note the German word Politik can be translated either way. Note that this is where the Chessmaster trope falls apart where combat is concerned: chance and information asymmetry both line up to ensure that battles rarely ever unfold as completely planned, and in fact the Battle of Midway was a key example of what happens when an overelaborate paper plan runs into the real world. In the words of Ike, plans are useless, but planning is essential.)

This means that what happens before the battle is at least as key to the battle as what happens in it. You might have a set-piece that you want to feature in the combat. Then, ask yourself: why would the characters/factions/countries fight under these circumstances? "To look cool so I can write the scene", incidentally, is not a valid answer. Could it be that they think it's the best set of circumstances they can get, and that the alternatives are all worse? Or could it be that the engagement happens in a fashion that neither side anticipated? (In land combat terminology, this is called a meeting engagement, when two mobile forces essentially run into each other. This is usually where fast thinking beats out elaborate plans.) What if one side or the other simply declined the engagement and walked away—or, failing that, fought a retreating battle with the objective of inducing his opponent to break off pursuit? Is that an option? Essentially, in answering those questions, you are trying to forget your own omniscience, climbing out of your own mind, and into those of your characters—and from the ground level, the picture might look very different than it does from the author's lofty perch.

Similarly from the ground view, keep in mind that fights are rarely ever done without goals. The "typical" battle in lots of stories is fought whereby the opposing sides try to annihilate or force the surrender of their respective opponents, with a "rout" option to substitute for surrender; this applies for single combat as well as for mass combat. Yet modern battles are rarely ever head-on slugging matches. It's entirely plausible that one side is trying to husband their strength, or recognizes that accepting battle under current circumstances is suicidal, and hence simply has "keep my fighting strength intact" as a goal. In which case, withdrawal after withdrawal from combat, versus their opponent's goal to bring them to combat and force a decision, would be a perfectly valid setup. Or else, "grab that key piece of territory". Differing goals for different sides can produce really dynamic, interesting battles. To return to Midway as an example, the Imperial Japanese Navy had a number of different goals for the battle: "secure Midway Island as part of the island perimeter", "lure out the American carriers for a decisive battle", "grab the Aleutian Islands as targets of opportunity". Hence, the vast, overelaborate plan that saw the Japanese fleets strung out over thousands of miles of ocean. In contrast, the American plan was nice and simple, ensuring that the American fleet was concentrated to achieve its one goal: "find and ambush the Japanese carriers". It worked; the Americans hit and sank the four Japanese carriers, and then got the hell out before the Japanese surface force could do the same to them.

Between asymmetric information (some of it mistaken) and asymmetric goals (some of them badly thought-through), you can have the potential to set up some really interesting battles that aren't mirror-image chess games. I'd encourage it, in fact. Real battles are rarely ever even slugging matches.

---

The Decisive Battle: A Pacific War History

A word on the One Big Final Battle. A common trope in all manners of work is the idea of the "decisive battle". This is it: one final roll of the dice that will decide everything. One titanic clash, one Waterloo, and it's all over.

Except...it's not always true. The destruction of a field army does not have to decide the war; neither, for that matter, does capturing the capital. Is that army or that capital truly the Center of Gravity? In many cases it is; Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo ended a quarter-century of warfare (or more, if you count the on-and-off struggles between the European powers in the 1700s.) And yet: again we return to Midway and the Pacific War. The Japanese military mindset was by this point totally addicted to the doctrine of the Decisive Battle. There would be one tremendous clash with the United States Navy, and that would decide the war; all their strategy, tactics, and equipment designs were built for that clash, and until it took place the Japanese battlefleet was to be preserved. The USN, on the other hand, adopted another doctrine entirely: conserve force, strike back when able, grind down the Japanese via attrition, until the USN is fully built up. Avoid the Decisive Battle. This doctrine was informed by the US's massive industrial superiority and its secure bases, and it worked. By the end of 1942, both Japan and the US were losing aircraft and aircrew at horrific rates over the Solomon Islands; neither side had enough functioning carriers to send out. Yet the US could replace airmen and aircraft, build new carriers and repair their old ones, at an astounding rate. The Japanese could not, and by the end of 1943, the US went on the offensive, one that would take them right up to Okinawa and the shores of Japan.

The upshot of the history lesson is this: there was never a Decisive Battle to decide the greatest naval war in history. At no point was there a gigantic clash that would knock the defeated side out of the war at one fell swoop. As much as the IJN would have wanted one, it never was in position to force the USN to fight on favorable terms. Note that Midway, albeit being a turning point in the war, was not the Decisive Battle the Japanese were looking for, since even if the IJN had won decisively at Midway, the sheer rate at which the US was putting carriers into the water ensured that it would remain in the fight no matter what; for that matter, no matter what losses the Japanese battlefleet suffered, the Imperial Japanese government never surrendered until the combined privations of starvation, strategic bombing, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria got it to do so (and even then, much of the government did not want to). The Pacific War was never in position to be decided by a single battle, even though the Japanese desperately wanted it as their only hope of victory.

Keep that in mind when you write a war! A cataclysmic victory or defeat can certainly turn the tide of a campaign—but will it necessarily turn the war around? You'll find that, in too many historical cases to list, the answer is "no". As dramatic as the Decisive Battle may sound, step back from drama and think it through: will victory or defeat really end the war then and there? In older societies, it might; but given the massive production capabilities of a modern nation-state, it probably will not. It might signal that the days are numbered for one side or the other—but that's very different from insta-peace. War is, more often than not, decided by factors other than simply who wins or loses the battle, no matter how tempting it is to make it the end-all and be-all.

---

Air Combat 101

This essay explaining the basics of air combat comes courtesy of Flanker.

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Writing a Sniper

Luminosity and Flanker chime in with notes about Friendly Sniper/Cold Sniper and the art of observation. Maddy with a visual thingy after Luminosity's post.

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Sieges and Medieval Combat

Lord Gacek on medieval combat and the centrality of the siege as the main action. Few guts-and-glory charges here, by the way.

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War in the 1700s

In response to Kesar's question, I briefly explore the art of war as it evolved during the late 1600s and early 1700s.

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Chemical Warfare

Night briefly goes over the basics of chemical warfare and terrorism.

edited 12th Oct '15 10:27:30 PM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Yes, I have a couple questions:

1) Why are you so awesome?

2) As someone who has never been in army before(and tries to avoid it at all cost, because reasons) what are the basic and common misconseptions I likely belive?

As a corollary to the Decisive Battle, keep in mind that a national army has not been destroyed in the field since the Battles of Jena and Auerstedt in the Napoleonic Wars. Some very talented officers would search in vain for a similar victory through the American Civil War, and the idea of ending the war in a day would remain a cherished one until a couple of years into World War I.

The moments that had the chance to truly end the war during World War II were vast affairs. The Western Allies nearly destroyed the German Army in the West in the Falaise Pocket, starting with Operation Cobra from July 25th and ending on the 21st of August when they finally sealed the Pocket. The Soviet Union destroyed Army Group Center in Operation Bagration from June 22nd to August 19th in 1944. Between them well over five hundred thousand men and a huge amount of war material was lost. Germany still had the means to continue offering credible resistance even after a disaster of that magnitude.

Nous restons ici.

Something else that I would append is that war is chaotic and most of all, confusing. Units may receive conflicting reports (or indeed no reports at all) and others might disappear off the map entirely with no apparent rhyme or reason (your hypothetical commander might wonder, "Has the unit been rendered combat ineffective? Or have I just lost communication?"). They might erroneously engage a friendly force simply because they don't know what's going on or why.

To follow through on this (and to answer Luminosity's query), not everything in warfare is down to 100% skill. For example, your cavalry might stumble upon the enemy's flank by complete accident, or your fleet's cruiser might end up gutting the enemy battleship simply because it got a lucky round into the battleship's magazine, or a sharpshooter from one side might end up sniping an enemy general and changing the course of history as a result. Or the general might be elderly and end up falling deathly ill, and as his entourage take him away to be shipped back home they are ambushed, resulting in him dying of a heart attack.

In short, freak accidents can result in fortuitous (or not so fortuitous) turns of the tide of battle, turning what might have been a crushing defeat into a stalemate^* Speaking of which, in a fictional battle a stalemate is an option; not every conflict can be split evenly between wins and losses or even a total victory. Though since this is fiction, you won't want this to happen too often: it's a pleasant surprise the first time, and still probably works the second or even third time, but beyond that it turns into a convenient "out" for the writer.

Locking you up on radar since '09

Given some of my novels - even though they involve supernatural stuff and magic - involve actual militaristic style battles, I suppose I have a few questions to pose, but I am not sure if this is the right thread for that kind of thing.

Sign on for this After The End Fantasy RP.

Yes. It is.

Nous restons ici.

I want to add on the confusing reports thing. If your setting is pre-radio and your commander doesn't have supernatural means of communication(telepathy, teleport, etc), their orders had to be sent through a messenger. And all sorts of things can happen to a messenger. Getting lost, dying to various hazards, dying to enemy and getting replaced with a fake to throw your troops off, etc...

edited 10th Dec '13 4:47:56 PM by Luminosity

I kind of have an idea of what the answer is going to be, but I just want to be sure: when using assault rifles, soldiers generally stick to the semi-automatic setting, right? For better accuracy. Going fully automatic is not only inaccurate, but wastes ammo.

This is exactly the right thread for questions of that nature. Ask away.

Let's see, now.

re: messengers and the like: for that reason, pre-modern battlefields tended to be relatively small, not much more than a few miles to a side. Any more than that and the commander loses the ability to coordinate effectively. The frontal width at Waterloo was only 2.5mi or so.

re: semi-auto: that's what they're trained to do, yes. Mind you, inexperienced soldiers will still have issues with fire discipline.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Here's a question for everyone: what is your favorite epic battle scene set before the firearm era? Which authors get it right?

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Okay, a few questions then:

• If a large group of teenagers are fighting back against an armed group like a PMC, and fighting well - as in, winning the first and second battle - what kind of procedures would be undertaken? The exact scenario is basically that the Masquerade went down, and now the Magic and Mundane Worlds are joined. The teens are basically making use of powered armor and some sort of "Experience Link" to Matthew to make them naturally develop insanely fast.
  • Given the scenario developed due to a quarantine of the town to get rid of a very dangerous, supposedly extremely infectious magical plague later revealed to be entirely fictitious and created by the Big Bad to make this exact scenario, would there be call to investigate the PMC's, or what is going on in Sanfield?
  • About how much would it take to convince the United States that these "magic kids" were dangerous?
  • What kind of equipment would be okayed to use with the PMC groups overseeing the quarantine?
  • How much oversight would the United States Government place on this event?

• The second question largely deals with how battles would be fought with all these odd abilities. And whether there would realistically be restrictions on what kinds of spells are "acceptable", in the same way as the Geneva Convention regulates weaponry and such.
  • For example; Matthew, The Hero, makes use of magic that basically lets him shoot highly destructive beams from a conjured sword and move extremely quickly.
  • See the New Dawn thread in Worldbuilding for other magic types. The only thing I can really think of is that the government might invest in Defense Runes out the wazoo to put in places like the Pentagon or the new WTC. Obviously a teleporter would be very valued, for being able to get reports around extremely quickly, and Shin's Core that let him get a full view of the battlefield from an overhead perspective would definitely be wanted.

edited 10th Dec '13 8:38:13 PM by NickTheSwing

Sign on for this After The End Fantasy RP.

Even prior to the automatic firearm, after World War I the situations where people would have pushed for rate of fire were relatively rare. At relatively long ranges and against dispersed targets it's more important to be able to maintain fire for a long period to suppress the enemy and make them stay down while you maneuver for an attack, or force them to go to ground so they can't close.

There are situations where people would want it, however, most of them involving close quarters.

Nous restons ici.

re: demarquis: Hmm. My brain's a little fuzzy right now (sleep deprivation), but I'd have to say John Keegan's recounting of Agincourt in The Face of Battle was particularly excellent. I believe Bernard Cornwell based his eponymous novel on that description and a few others; although the novel's got its flaws, it described the combat scenes quite well.

re: Nick the Swing: you realize, a gunfight of any size in the country is automatically going to draw huge amounts of Federal attention, right? Magitech power armor or not, the authorities are going to investigate everybody and everything involved in the scenario. Unless you're going to heavily change the US government, PMCs would never be used for a situation like this one. This is something to be left to local, state, and federal authorities, backed up by National Guard and regular army if Congress invokes Posse Comitatus; also, the regular military, under Operation Garden Plot. Niccolo Machiavelli's words about mercenaries are as true today as they were back then: never use them when you don't have to.

Just what kinds of changes would be invested in tech and society depend on what they entail, of course, but keep in mind that the Defense Department is routinely the among quickest adopters of new technology, especially if it has military applications. International law tends to be extremely slow to catch up, though. For all intents and purposes, if existing law doesn't cover it, you can ignore it.

Instant overhead view may not be so useful in urban terrain, forested terrain, mountains, fog, cloudy day, or nighttime conditions. Unless it's augmented by telescopic focus, thermal imaging, or all that fun stuff. And even then, you'd need a competent battle staff to keep track of everything so you know what you're looking at. "There's a bunch of dudes over there" isn't very helpful, but it's all you can see. You're also thinking way too small with the teleporter. Link it to a sensor network and you've essentially invented look-to-kill: attach the teleporter to a bomb, find your target, dial in the coordinates, send it off, and watch for the pretty lights. That's nothing short of a strategic revolution.

Of course, all of that implies nothing short of a technological and social revolution anyway, which is beyond the scope of even this thread to deal with.

edited 10th Dec '13 9:35:58 PM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Well, there's my questions out the window.

Clarification: it'd be interesting to discuss some of the short-term implications, so long as they're relevant to how they'd affect the war, the society, et cetera. (Given how inextricably war is bound up with those aspects, they should be fair game.) Long-term, though, is right out. This is on the level of Industrial Revolution-huge, and that's...probably best left for his thread.

edited 10th Dec '13 9:45:43 PM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

I have a question as to the viability of a certain tactic. I'm aware that it's a tactic of snipers to do things like hide in a tree or other concealed position, deliberately let the enemy frontline pass them, and then strike at it from behind. I'm wondering if it would be an advantageous strategy for special forces to do the same. Hide in a basement or something and then when the enemy has overrun their position in pursuit of the withdrawing force they were a part of, emerge and begin to run interference operations. Sabotage, raiding supply lines, assassinating command personnel and hitting other targets of opportunity, all in preparation for a counter-attack by the force that appeared to be running scared just a few minutes ago.

My idea behind this strategy is that due to the special forces running roughshod through the enemy's backlines, their frontline will collapse. Is this sound?

edited 16th Jan '14 5:19:30 PM by gault

yey

Some rifles had been shipped without setting switchers, stuck in semi-auto precisely so everybody would stick to the more practical setting. Like the M14 rifle.

Certainly, up to an extent. This is what Soviet-backed partisan groups did to the Germans in WWII. It has to be qualified, though: the special forces troops will need their own sources of resupply and reinforcement to sustain the campaign. For that reason, most SF troops would focus on supplying, training, and advising indigenous guerrillas, who would in turn carry out direct-action missions, since guerrillas can, to some extent, generate their own manpower and supply by recruiting from the local population.

The Iranian Qods Force and Revolutionary Guards, and the North Vietnamese "advisors" sent down South^note before the Tet Offensive and the PAVN giving up the pretense that the VC was anything but their puppet, were both examples of this. At any given moment, they didn't do much fighting, since there weren't many of them. But by training and advising Iraqi insurgents and Viet Cong respectively to carry out a guerrilla war against US/Iraqi national/South Vietnamese troops, they were able to achieve very successful results.

Note that on their own, commandos can occasionally achieve spectacular tactical successes. But when you get down to it, they're well-trained light infantry, not Rambo. If their presence alone can strain the enemy logistics network so badly that the frontline collapses, then the enemy campaign must have been running on a badly flawed plan from the start, since a successful logistics operation has a lot of "slack" so that losing a supply base or a convoy won't cripple everything all at once. And frontline units can fight undersupplied when they have to—they won't be as effective, obviously, but attrition due to lack of supply adds up over time, not instantaneously. (This is, naturally, assuming a well-trained frontline force with a competent officer corps.)

edited 11th Dec '13 3:46:02 AM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Thank you. That was a very thorough response.

I have a second question.

In the Witcher 2, there's an outfit called the Blue Stripes. They're described as being King Foltest's special forces. This struck me as odd, as I'm aware that special forces are a very recent military concept. The Witcher series in general does a fair bit of this, anachronistic concepts for the Medieval time period. For example, the world of the Witcher is one that has a working knowledge of evolutionary theory.

My work deals a lot with a similar kind of anachronism. It's set in a period of transition where the world is changing from medieval history into modernity. Basically my question is, what utility would the concept of a designated special forces unit have in the realm of medieval warfare? Does the example from Witcher 2 make sense at all or is it complete nonsense?

yey

Ooh. Good question. I'm provisionally tilting toward "that doesn't seem workable" for sociopolitical reasons, but as always others are free to chime in.

The main problem I'd see is that Medieval rulers tended to eschew standing armies except for armed retinues, which would be the heavy armored forces; the standing army came back into vogue after the feudal system broke down and the centralized nation-state came back into existence. That'd put a crimp into the idea of a special forces corps.

That said, though, rulers would certainly not be averse to hiring or training spies and assassins; combine that with some combat training and you end up with something not too far from a special forces corps that in wartime could be used for unconventional tasks like stirring up revolts, spying on enemies, scouting the enemy force, or direct-action assassinations. The capital-A Assassins were reputedly well-known for this. Of course, that's a pretty expensive proposition for an era where kingdoms tended to be on the poor side, and it'd have political costs associated with it (vassals and other rulers would hate the idea; most assassins, then as always, tended to be thugs and desperadoes hired on an as-needed basis and disavowed when needed). This might end up being closer to a covert-action program handled by the spymaster than to a military project per se, especially given the lack of a professional officer corps (nobles don't count).

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Well, the Total War series managed to implement spies and assassins into every era. But the way it's done there and the way I think is best - is to have them as anti-city weapons.

Cities were incredibly tough pieces of rock. In ancient times, seiging one was pretty much a lifetime commitment(Illiad), and even with siege weapons it was incredibly tough to just storm it. You can argue the few guys inside the original Trojan Horse opening the gates for everyone else were ancient Greek special forces.

So I see it as something like a spy sneaks up into a city, finds some disappointed desperate person or some other likely to betray their own, and makes them poison the well/set fire to food supply/etc for promises of whatever they want. Then escapes, and his agent is properly buttfucked as a traitor, but the damage is already done. Is my scenario plausable?

Of course, it depends on exact setting. In a Japanese setting it's not a problem at all - just have ninjas do all your medieval spec ops work.

This is true. In fact, poor communication sealed the fate of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. Seeing that the Russians were pulling back (and potentially abandoning their cannons), the British commander ordered the Light Brigade to move forward to seize them. Unfortunately, due to being vague when pointing out the cannons, the Light Brigade proceeded to charge into the jaws of a different enemy artillery battery - one that was extremely well prepared with good fields of fire - with predictable results. Fun fact: the Light Brigade's counterpart, the Heavy Brigade, took their own targets superbly; however, this has been overshadowed by the famous Charge of the Light Brigade.

This one's already been answered, but correct. Fire discipline is much easier to maintain if you're not tempted to dump a magazine into the nearest target. Of course, automatic settings do have their advantages.

They're good for taking out enemies at close range in a hurry, where accuracy isn't so important. Similarly, suppressive fire relies upon chucking great weights of fire down range so that the enemy is unable to take action (or at least thinks he is unable to take action; making him think he'll lose his head if he sticks it above the parapet is just as good as actually taking off his head).

Ouch, that's one I'm afraid I can't answer. 99.9% of my reading that have battles in it involve WWII onwards. Sorry!

@gault:

What you're describing are essentially stay behind units; NATO's Gladio units would have carried out a similar role had Europe been overrun by the Warsaw Pact. They would likely have co-ordinated with local resistance movements and partisans. However, as Sabre's Edge said, commando units aren't flawless supermen; someone's going to make a mistake eventually and if the stay behind units haven't been structured properly it may lead to the compromising (and subsequent destruction) of the entire group.

On a smaller scale (as in individuals), it might be an idea to keep your characters' personalities and skillset in mind. Your highly trained spec ops soldiers will not, for example, react to an ambush in the same way your inexperienced farmboy (or girl) would, and they will probably have different weapons, equipment, and approaches to the situation. To continue on from the example I posed, your hypothetical soldiers will attempt to either get out of the kill zone immediately or try to suppress the enemy whilst getting support in place if possible. Your farmboy/girl, meanwhile, might freeze or simply panic, having never been exposed to a real live firefight before^* Of course, since this is fiction this is far less likely than in real life. Just remember that although they might be braver than their RL counterparts, they're not necessarily going to be kicking ass left and right at first.

As a side-note, would anyone be interested in a mini-essay covering aviation combat? Any areas that people would like to see covered?

Locking you up on radar since '09

Hells yes, Flanker. I remember you typing up such essays for Sky-High and Military; it'd help to have a version to "showcase", as it were.

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

Thanks! I think that I might make a seperate mini-essay for bombing and close air support, even though I will touch on those subjects lightly in this one.

Also, just a word of warning: this will contain a lot of history, but that's mostly to explain why aerial combat was carried out one way or the other. Similarly, this will probably be a bit hodge-podge with some areas receiving more work than others or topics being dropped entirely; this is because I'm writing it on the fly rather than doing it over several days. I don't much feel like working on this for too long.

However, feel free to point out omissions, things you'd like added, etc.

Feel free to read this in the voices of Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. I know I am.

---

Air Combat: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Plane

Of all the theatres of warfare, the air is likely the most mercurial and quite possibly the most unforgiving of all. A split second decision made in the heat of the moment can have significant implications for not just the next minute or two, but quite possibly the outcome of the battle, which in turn might influence the fate of an army or a fleet at sea.

Aerial combat can be seen roughly as three eras, each defined by the major conflicts that dominated the period: WWI, WWII, and the Cold War/Modern Period. Each is markedly different from the others, and although certain basic principles remain the same radical changes in technology have made it necessary to adapt.

WWI: Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

It might be surprising to learn, but initially military aircraft were unarmed. They were seen mostly as a means of reconaissance and directing artillery on to targets (though the pilots had to be careful; the rickety biplanes that were their steeds might be pulverised by an artillery shell they had the misfortune of getting in the way of, or destabilised by the wake of the shells as they flew past). This mindset could be seen in the way that the predecessor to the Royal Air Force was the Royal Flying Corps - as though it was a subset of the army - and the United States Air Force was initially the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps.

Thus, if two opposing aircraft happened to meet each over the trenches, the reality of air combat was much different to the "knights of the sky" image popularised later. Men would fire at each other with revolvers, pistols, and use anything to hand, including nets in an attempt to tangle up propellers. One particularly notable incident involved a pilot throwing a brick at his rival! Of course, this eventually gave way to the first fighters, whom had machine guns (such as the Lewis gun) mounted to their upper wings.

Aircraft at this stage were in their infancy; they could not fly very fast, far, or high at all, and an engine failure was almost an inevitability rather than an emergency. In fact, in order to descend toward the runway a pilot would use a blip switch to temporarily starve the engine of fuel, making it cut out (care was taken to avoid holding the blip switch down for too long, otherwise the engine really would stop). All sorts of configurations were tried for engines, ranging from tractors (the normal configuration that you see on prop powered planes today) to pushers (the engine was mounted behind the pilot, allowing him a free arc of fire in front). One of the most enduring issues was that the pilot could not fire through the propeller unless his idea of fun was to shred the blades. Thus, the gun was often mounted on the top of the first wing in order to clear the prop (though this was tricky to reload and operate) or mounted on the nose in pusher aircraft. The biplane was by far the most common set up for aircraft, though there was the occasional monoplane like the Eindecker.

The breakthrough came with the interrupter gear, which worked by interrupting the gun's firing when a blade passed in front of the muzzle. Naturally this was rather complicated... but a revolution in combat aircraft technology. No longer would the machine gun have to be awkwardly perched on the upper wing of your biplane, nor would you have to shove the engine to the back like an unloved stepchild. Now you could just aim your aeroplane's nose at the target and pull the trigger, simple as that. Unfortunately for the RFC and friends, the (neutral) aircraft carrying the first interrupter gear had to make a forced landing in Germany, where they proceeded to copy it and slap it on to a fighter manufactured by Fokker.

The resulting massacre of aircraft was known as the Fokker Scourge, which should give you an idea of just how significant an invention the interrupter gear was.

Technical details aside, the first fighter tactics were devised in the First World War. For obvious reasons attacks were made against the rear of the enemy aircraft, as they couldn't effectively respond aside from maneuvering away from your gunfire. Various aces (pilots who had scored 5 kills) would share their wisdom with their colleagues, but by far the most famous set of advice is the Dicta Boelcke, devised by the ace Oswald Boelcke. His advice is still relevant even today. In short, his advice was as follows:

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.

These common sense rules do not need much of an explanation, though if necessary I would be perfectly happy to discuss them further. You may notice that a lot of these rules might be considered a product of the technology available at the time; the main weapon was the rifle calibre machine gun, and the pilot had to rely on the Mark I eyeball. As mentioned above, though, these rules are essentially timeless, and although they are not to be followed doggedly they probably did improve the chances of survival for many pilots.

A general piece of advice that pilots strived to meet was to try to be both higher and faster than the opponent; this allows you to dictate the fight and its flow, as the enemy can neither catch up to you nor climb up to meet you, and you can convert height to speed and vice-versa.

WWII: The Eagle spreads its Wings

This is where the technologies and techinques forged in the previous world war were refined and matured. The all-metal monoplane was the order of the day, replete with a set of machine guns and cannons set both in the nose and the wings. Superchargers and turbochargers allowed aircraft to fly at higher speeds and altitudes than ever before, and onboard oxygen for the crew and a better understanding of aerodynamics allowed them to stay there. Emergency power settings allowed the pilot to squeeze more thrust out of their mount's engines at the cost of potentially damaging it, such as through overheating.

The basics of dogfighting were the same, but maneuvers became more complex as the aircraft became better able to cope with high g loads and the stresses of combat. For example, a fight might transition from a turning fight into the vertical and then back into the horizontal again as pilots jockeyed for position. A key thing to remember is that dogfights are not like chess; you don't select one maneuver and then wait for your opponent to make a countermove. Air combat is much too fluid for that. Rather, everything is seamless, as each pilot reacts in real time to what their enemy is doing and their opponent does likewise. Furthermore, there is no "one maneuver to rule them all", and anyone who suggests otherwise is either ignorant or being wilfully misleading.

Something interesting to note is that a slow aircraft will be more agile than a fast one. "Flanker, you berk," I can hear you say, perhaps with a pensive expression as you wonder why you've suddenly started talking like you come from England. "How on Earth does that work? Surely a fast plane will turn better than a slow one?"

Not so. Imagine two aircraft in a turn, each describing a circle in the sky (if it helps, imagine the path each has taken as a black line behind them). The faster aircraft will have covered more distance "forward" relative to the plane's nose in the same time that it takes the slower plane to turn, making the former's turning radius wider and flatter; as the slow plane doesn't "drift" as far in a turn, it has a tighter turning radius and hence is able to turn inside the fast aircraft. Thus, a faster aeroplane isn't always better - you should play to your craft's advantages and minimise its weaknesses.

A proliferation of different bullets appeared as well; now there were incendiary and high explosive rounds in addition to classic armour piercing rounds. During the Battle of Britain, apparently a favourite tactic was to riddle a German bomber's fuel tanks with bullets, wait a bit for the fuel to expand and fill the gaps, and then open fire again, blowing the unfortunate crew to kingdom come.

Another favourite tactic when dealing with bombers was to approach from head-on, which was risky but had its rewards. You could kill the flight crew in a single pass, leaving the bomber crippled. However, a lot of bombers had forward and rearward facing armament, meaning the pilot would be flying right into a storm of enemy gunfire. Safer was to attack from the rear or the side; the bomber was more vulnerable there.

Escorting fighters would usually wait at a higher altitude, ready to pounce on marauding interceptors as they swooped in to attack. Sometimes escorts could only be available on part of the route, making the bombers' job far more dangerous. Radar was beginning to be developed around this time, and the "Battle of the Beams" between Britain and Germany's radar as well as the creation of chaff (codenamed Window initially) were examples of its impact. British Chain Home radars allowed British fighters to be up in the air as enemy formations approached, making it seem to the Germans as though RAF interceptors had miraculously materialised out of thin air.

Night fighters also utilised radar, such as the BF-110 night fighter variant. Seaplanes were popular, though carrier based aircraft such as the Supermarine Seafire and the Grumman Wildcat/Hellcat signposted the future of naval aviation.

AAA (Anti-Aircraft Artillery) became more of a nuisance, as rapidly firing machine guns suplimented the slower but larger flak guns that could hit a bomber at high altitude. Smart flying (such as never flying in a straight line without changing speed, course, etc.) minimised its lethality, though the murderous barrages that characterised the daylight and night bombing campaigns claimed many victims.

Two types of aeroengine dominated the war; the inline water cooled engine (as seen on the Spitfire) and the air cooled radial engine (as seen on the P-47). The latter were larger and heavier, but more reliable, whilst the opposite was true of the inline engine. But, of course, one very special aeroengine came into existence in WWII, thanks to a certain Mr. Frank Whittle:

The jet engine.

The Gloster Meteor was the first operational jet fighter on the Allied side, whilst the Axis had the Me-262 Schwalbe ("Swallow"). Despite their blistering speeds, jet engines were temperamental beasts in those days; rapid power changes had a nasty tendency to make the engines catch fire. As a result, P-51s and other piston engined fighters would often attempt to bounce Me-262s as they landed, putting the pilot in an impossible position: either they slammed on the power and had their engines catch fire, attempted to land anyway and hope the AAA at the airfield would ward off the fighters, or tried to gently put on thrust with enemy fighters breathing down their neck.

After the war German scientists were spirited away by both the West and a strengthened USSR, and an iron curtain fell with ominous finality over Eastern Europe.

The Cold War had begun.

Cold War/Modern Period: Fox 2!

Early Cold War jets were not much different to their WWII piston engine driven forebears; they used cannons to attack their enemy, and aside from a few novelties like radar gunsights (which predicted where your shells would land, and hence showed you where to put the target so that your rounds would fall on to it) combat was much the same, just faster.

Things really only started to change with the introduction of air to air missile technology. These devices had the potential to let a pilot reach out and touch his foe with ease, destroying them with the pull of a trigger. There was only one problem...

Early missiles were awful. The AIM-9B Sidewinder, for example, could only lock on to the heat source of an aircraft from behind. And it was just as likely to attempt to shoot down the sun or hare off after its reflected IR signature from the earth as it was to actually track (assuming it didn't lose its lock after a few seconds). This was true of all early a-a missiles, which were invariably infrared guided aside from the odd radar guided missile like the AIM-4 Falcon and AIM-7 Sparrow (both of which were still absolute rubbish). The Sidewinder's most unique feature (and one that persists to this day) is the fact that it growls into the pilot's headset, letting him know that the seeker head is actively searching for IR signatures. When a signature is found, it growls at a higher pitch; the higher the pitch the better the lock.

In fact, it was a defective Sidewinder that assisted Russian efforts to make their own air to air missile. A Taiwanese aircraft fired a Sidewinder at a Chinese MiG-15 Fagot, and due to its utterly abysmal reliability the Sidewinder simply lodged in the MiG's tail pipe rather than detonating as intended. The Chinese pilot managed to make it back to base, where the Sidewinder was removed and sent off to the USSR (though the seeker head had to be bargained for seperately since Sino-Soviet relations weren't exactly chummy). Not too long afterwards, the suspiciously similar looking AA-2 Adder emerged. Luckily for Western pilots, however, it was just as crap as the early missile that had spawned it.

Bizarrely, looking at the performance of these missiles, a fellow at McDonnell-Douglas simply pursed his lips and went "Hm. These are the wave of the future!" and proceeded to make it so that the F-4 Phantom that the company was working on at the time could carry missiles only^* One variant of the MiG-21 Fishbed made the same boneheaded mistake, so such idiocy was not restricted to one side or the other. Unsurprisingly, this meant that over Vietnam all the Vietnamese MiGs had to do was either get so close that the missiles wouldn't be able to arm or simply wait for the Phantom to waste all its missiles trying to murder celestial bodies and become combat ineffective.

The top brass, naturally, weren't best pleased by this and asked that the next variant of the Phantom had a gunpod to correct this glaring oversight. The Phantom II, affectionately known as the "Double Ugly", was a great improvement over its predecessors.

At this time, American fighters were sort of like muscle cars: big, heavy, and great at going in a straight line, but you would have more luck trying to push aside a mountain than trying to turn in them - after all, another remark regarding the Phantom was that it was the triumph of thrust over aerodynamics. Russian aircraft tended to be both quick and agile. This shall provide me with a handy method of explaining energy and angle fighting.

Energy is a concept that emerged around the late Cold War that encapsulates the idea of height and speed from earlier eras. An aircraft with high energy is one that's got plenty of speed and/or height. An aircraft with low energy doesn't have much of either. Generally you want to keep as much energy as you can whilst bleeding your opponent of energy.

Energy fighting favours aircraft that have big, powerful engines but aren't necessarily any good at turning - like the Phantom. The short version is that you have a "perch" at a high altitude from which you dive down on to targets from and then climb back up to once you've made an attack. The idea is to keep yourself safe from retaliation, as the enemy can't match your energy state.

Angles fighting favours the perhaps slower but more agile aeroplane - such as the MiG-19] ''Farmer'' and its predecessors. You get into a turning fight with your foe, and since you have a sharper turning radius than he does you'll be able to turn inside him and get on his tail. You'll want to tempt your opponent into turning with you as much as possible. Hence the name; you use ''angles'' to fight. Speaking of which, every aeroplane has an ideal airspeed for maneuvering; any faster and you widen the turning radius. Any slower and you again widen the turning radius. Fighter pilots have this figure drummed into their head; it's all well and good firewalling the throttle, but if that means a bandit manages to slip in behind you when he shouldn't have been able to then there will be hell to pay. Of course, missile technology eventually stopped sucking, and with it came missiles that could lock on to the sides of an aircraft (side-aspect) and eventually all angles of an aircraft (all-aspect), along with improvements in radar such as look down (most radars prior to the invention of look down radars had something of a blindspot below them) and the Radar Warning Receiver, which passively detects radar emissions, warns the pilot of whether or not they're search or target acquisition radars, and prioritise the most dangerous radars/missile radars (they do ''not'' detect IR missile launches, however!), not to mention missile launches. Now an aircraft no longer had to tail its prey to shoot it down, especially with the invention of off-boresight targeting. The "boresight" is essentially straight ahead from the missile/radar's point of view; off-boresight targeting means that a target can be, say, 70 degrees off the boresight and can still be locked up and fired upon. Missiles can engage threats at short range (Sidewinder), medium range (AMRAAM), or long range (Meteor). Indeed, Beyond Visual Range shots are something trained for in modern air combat, and the [=AIM-9L Sidewinder was known in the Falklands Conflict as the "Wish Me" since all you had to do was supposedly "wish" the target dead.

Electronic Warfare has played an ever greater part in an aircraft's defences, including jamming, particularly as AAA has been mostly replaced by deadly Surface to Air Missile (SAM) systems that use fiendish techniques and technologies of their own to ensnare unwary aircraft. Some hybrid AAA-SAM systems do exist, though, such as the SA-22 Greyhound. One cunning tactic is to use a SAM to force an aeroplane down to a lower altitude where AAA or groundfire can hit it; the plane is essentially trapped as if it climbs higher it will enter the SAM engagement envelope and vice-versa. Terrain masking - using the terrain to conceal yourself from radar - and stealth technology have thus risen to prominence.

What do you do if you're locked up by a radar and you hear the shrill tones indicating a missile launch?

The answer is simple. You try to get the enemy radar/missile between your 3-9 o' clock line^* Imagine the jet superimposed on a giant clock face, nose at 12 o' clock. The 3-9 line is between 3 and 9 o' clock on this imaginary clock face, as this will force the missile to travel the furthest distance to reach you. Assuming you can see the missile (or even if you can't), you then turn hard into the threat at full power, diving as you do so. This should describe something of a corkscrew pattern in the sky. As you dive you will also be pumping out chaff and flares (which distract IR systems - remember, you cannot be sure that you're only being engaged by a radar guided system) and ensuring that your Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) suite is active. If the missile/radar should lose lock, then you're probably safe.

Supermaneuverability is a concept that has emerged relatively recently; an unstable aircraft is an agile aircraft for obvious reasons. Therefore, a fighter must be as unstable as possible to maximise performance. After a certain point, though, only a bank of onboard computers using fly-by-wire (which is what it sounds like - using electronic components to control the jet rather than cables or hydraulics) can prevent the aeroplane from rapidly leaving controlled flight. This is especially problematic in an age of aircraft that can punch through mach 2 or enter mach 1 without afterburner (a capability known as "supercruise").

When you push the control stick right in a supermaneuverable aircraft, you're not really making the aircraft go right. Instead, you're sending a command to three flight computers, which "vote" on the best way to carry out the command. If one should disagree (an extremely rare event), it is outvoted the pilot is alerted to a flight computer disagreement.

There will doubtless be further developments and changes, such as the disappearance of the seaplane and flying boat as military aircraft. However, the technology changes at such a frightening pace that it's difficult to tell what will persist and what will become the next dodo.

"Now just hang on a minute, I came here to learn how to write about air combat, not get a bloody history lesson!" This is what some of you might exclaim at this point, settling back into your leather armchair with a 'harrumph'. To you I would say this: in order to understand how your fictional air battles will go, you must understand the forces that shaped air combat in real life.

That aside, I'll try to boil down the salient points for you:

• Aircraft are not as fragile as commonly believed. Redundant systems and armour plating (not to mention self-sealing fuel tanks) mean that combat aircraft can take quite a beating before being brought down.

• Remember that air combat is not necessarily sporting. Most pilots were shot down by someone they never saw coming; your protagonist is probably going to be seen as something of a fool if they sportingly let the enemy flight climb to their altitude rather than using their energy advantage to pounce upon them whilst they flounder below. This is, of course, more acceptable in stories set in WWI-like settings.

• In modern air combat you are just as likely to use your missiles as you would guns. Sure, it might be more dramatic having your protagonist go in for a gun kill, but you can get just as much drama out of a missile shot if you play it right - for example, what if technical gremlins knock out your IR missile's cooling system and so you only have one or two minutes at most to set up a shot before the missile can't see anything?

• Threats lurk at ground level too. MAN Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS), SAMs, AAA - all of these can ruin a would-be Chuck Yeager's day if he is unwary, and a cunning foe might try to lure prey towards their side's Integrated Air Defence Systems (IADS).

• Give your fictional aircraft faults. Yes, even if it's the Super Prototype or Ace Custom. It's far more interesting that way, trust me.

• As well, if this is a setting where you've got biological fliers vs. artificial heavier-than-air flight, remember that the aircraft is probably going to be at least slightly better than its flesh-and-blood counterpart, depending on the rate of technological development. At the absolute minimum it will be able to weather greater damage.

• Remember that the laws of aerodynamics still apply to your protagonists! Barring some sort of super engine or unobtanium, your hero's plane should not be able to remain in a vertical climb all day without running out of speed, stalling, and then dropping back down again. Rule of Cool be damned!

• Don't be afraid to have your heroes' aircraft get crippled, though keep in mind the likely consequences of the damage. For example, if oil splatters across the windshield, that probably means that your plane's engine is not long for this world, and thus continuing a fight is probably the last thing on the pilot's mind.

There's more I could help you out with, but without specific questions it is challenging to say much more.

Hope this helps!

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Fictional Aircraft Question Sheet

Here are some questions to ask yourself when making a fictional plane.

• What is it called? Why? Who manufactures it?
• What is its role? Why?
• Give a description.
• Is it a variant of an existing plane? If so, what are the differences?
• Are there any unusual aspects to it? Why is this the case? Will later versions continue this quirk?
• What does it excel at? Why?
• What does it not do very well? Why?
• What's its reputation among its pilots (and the wider aviation community)?
• What does the enemy think of it?
• What's its armament? I.E. Is it an all-missile loadout since the flavour of the month is all missiles all the time or is it a gunfighter of some description? Or is it perhaps a mixture of both?
• How many of them are there? Are they still in production?
• Where are they most likely to be found?

Etc. etc.

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...So yeah. I know it isn't exactly amazing, and I likely left out a lot, but it should hopefully make a good primer or starting point for a budding Biggles-esque writer.

edited 11th Dec '13 10:43:03 AM by Flanker66

Locking you up on radar since '09