Anyone Watching??


I caught the latest episode yesterday, and it was poretty sweet!! I was really impressed with one of the pilots that was able to take on so many MIGs on his own, and actually lived to survive it. The most incredible part was the fact that he was actually heading home, but decided to get back into the battle after seeing these MIGs coming up behind him! It's just incredible to see the animation...it really makes you feel like you are right there with them!

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Dogfights is great entertainment with pretty cool computer re-enactments of actual WWII/Vietnam/etc. dogfights. I love this show! I'm recording all the episodes!

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Nice! I have been recording all of the episodes also! I am hoping that they even come out with like a box-set of all the episodes eventually bc it would be a fantastic gift for the men in my life! When I told my brother in law about the show, he was like sign me up...it was too funny!

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[deleted]

http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=76995

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this link is a virus, Do Not click on!

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I seriously doubt it was a virus... you're computer may have THOUGHT that, but the A&E site is gone. In it's place is The History Channel store.

This is the new page: http://shop.history.com/?v=history_show_dog-fights&SESSID=b4c7c20e f999ac6617df04455e4e565d

You probably got a false positive. Good luck!

Shoot him, cut out his tongue, then shoot his tongue.

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I seriously doubt it was a virus... you're computer may have THOUGHT that, but the A&E site is gone. In it's place is The History Channel store.

This is the new page: http://shop.history.com/?v=history_show_dog-fights&SESSID=b4c7c20e f999ac6617df04455e4e565d

You probably got a false positive. Good luck!

Shoot him, cut out his tongue, then shoot his tongue.

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Well, they DO say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Thanks... I think.

Shoot him, cut out his tongue, then shoot his tongue.

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Well, they DO say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Thanks... I think. 😋

Shoot him, cut out his tongue, then shoot his tongue.

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I love thos show, always been interested in fighter planes. Loved the episode about the Hellcat, the Zero killer.

What's the deal with the F-4 Phantom? Whose bright idea was it to make a fighter plane without any guns on it???

"Action is how men express romance on film." --Kurt Wimmer

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[deleted]

The "know it all" bureaucrats and generals who thought at the time that guns were obsolete. They thought missiles were these new miracle 'no fail' weapons that could dominate intercepts and dogfights.


I got that from watching the show, but the missiles were notorious for missing (irony?). And what happens when you're out of missiles? I just feel bad for any pilots that were shot down that might not have been had the plane had guns on it to begin with.

At least they learned from their mistake.

"Action is how men express romance on film." --Kurt Wimmer

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> the missiles were notorious for missing (irony?). [...]

I understand we had some similar issues with our torpedoes going into WW2. It must have been heartbreaking for a sub captain to get a perfect firing solution only to see the dud bounce off of the target's hull. (Not that they could really see it, but...)

To make matters worse the problems were blamed on the sub crews for a long time... nobody wanted to admit being responsible for building unreliable torpedoes. So the captains learned to fire about three times as many torps as would have otherwise been needed.

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The same thing happen to our torpedoes being launch from our torpedo planes. From I had read about World War II British torpedoes, they were slower than ours; however, they were much more reliable when it came to exploding on contact. The German U-boat fleet also suffer from torpedo defects during the early part of the war. U-Boat Admiral Karl Doenitz wrote about it in his memoirs. The Germans and the Americans should have force their business people to pay back the money for selling them faulty torpedoes and putting the CEOs in prison.

With regards to that Israelis fighter pilot sending his superiors off in the other direction, I couldn't blame him if everytime he was in a dogfight, and he was about to shoot down an enemy aircraft, his superiors immediately told him to step aside. I would hate for someone to constantly keeping pulling rank on me just so he/she keeps getting the laurels, promotions, and the medals. On the other hand, if he was fighting the Japanese during World War II, the guy would probably would have been dead because Japanese fighter pilots had a reputation for being super aggressive against Allied fighter pilots flying alone with no wingman to back them up.

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Bullets can only go so fast. Once they are "shot", they start slowing down. The fighter plane is going at or near the speed of sound (roughly 750 mph, or 1100 feet per second). There would be a a chance the plane would run into the rounds it just shot off. A missile keeps accelerating after it leaves the plane, sometimes to 3 - 4 times the speed of sound. Also, a missile can lock onto the target and home in on it for a kill. Bullets just fall to the ground. Missiles are much more likely to make a kill (if you don't get a dud, of course.) Hope that helps.

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I understand that, which is why I feel that the pilots of the F-4 Phantom still should've had the choice of using a missile OR guns. Just by watching Dogfights, I know there have been times the fighters were too close to their targets to use missiles (where guns would have done the job) and times when they can't get a good missile lock, or the missle locks onto bogus heat signatures. When missiles fale, you should have the option of guns.

Thankfully the powers that be got the message eventually, but it just makes sense a dogfighter should have both.

Make A Movie At http://www.thatmoviegame.com/

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Well, fortunately your theory is incorrect. Bullets fired from a moving object are already traveling at the speed of the moving object, so their muzzle velocity is *in addition to* the speed of the firing object. That's why the impact of bullets fired in a dive hit at a much higher velocity than those fired when the plane is in a climb.

Your theory for missiles is mostly correct, however missiles need a bit of distance to be effective. They need the time to lock on and track (at least the heatseekers do). Just as torpedoes did back in WWII. Guns are useful in close up engagements. That's why modern jetfighters have them. Because you never know how a dogfight may go. That's what happened in Vietnam with the F-4 Phantoms. The Vietnamese with their MiGs didn't have missiles therefore they had to get close, which in turn was inside the engagement range of the F-4s and their missiles. It's the same thing with getting below the gun depression angle when attacking ships back in WWII.

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As for the F-4 without any guns, it was believed that in the future age dogfighting guns were replaced by missiles, but this was later re thought about and guns are onboard all jet fighters today.

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Bharper003 ever heard of a warning-spoiler alert. I was freakin watching the episode right now. Also the Mig Alley episode should be made into a movie. That was nuts, cause it was real.

Maybe in your next life, you'll believe the Zodiac when it tells you to cut the red wire.

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[deleted]

I understand your opinion and unusually I'm the same thing, but in this case I would need it if I was filming the dogfights. I don't know if the speeds on the animation was the actual speed or maybe it was altered, but it would be just like those.

Maybe in your next life, you'll believe the Zodiac when it tells you to cut the red wire.

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Excellent program.Great documentation and the graphics are almost realistic.

"If you ain't first,you're last!" -Ricky Bobby

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This is a great show! While the animation is superb, my favorite parts are the contemporaneous interviews with the pilots who flew those missions.

It's amazing to hear how the battle went from the words of the heros who were actually in the cockpit.

Though as I note in the subject heading, that Israeli pilot on the six-day-war episode, was very disillusioning. Most of the pilots dogfights previously interviewed acted like proper soldiers, displaying a mix of both humility and competence in their tales. I couldn't believe my ears when that Israeli pilot was bragging about not only disobeying orders but misdirecting his OWN planes so that he could take the glory for himself. Unbelievable.

I guess Israel was really starved for fighter aces if they were forced to put up with that kind of insubordinance. Especially seeing how they made him a General.

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It would seem the IAF prizes personal initiative over cooperation, so long as the mission or fellow pilots are not imperiled.

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I disagree that just because he was successful this time he did not "imperil" the mission. Deliberately feeding wrong information to your fellow pilots while disobeying direct orders would be a disaster if that type of behavior was ever widely encouraged in other military structures. It looks like Israel got lucky that it didn't lose any personnel (that we know of) by allowing this nut to keep flying.

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I agree that the IAF pilot was really moronic to misdirect his flight lead. It could have turned out worse if he was bounced by 2 more Mig 15 s. It was lucky for him that the Mig pilots were of lesser caliber , and they were low on gun ammo from strafing the IDF ground forces.

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I would think that fighter pilots in general are cocky so I dont know that the other pilots were being completely honest or have become more humble.

The guy was obviously good since he was flying the mirage and I dont think Isreal had a lot of choices being in the middle of a war and with their limited population, plus he could have lied to his speriors about what he did.

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This is the best show to come on in a long time. I love it.

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"I guess Israel was really starved for fighter aces...."

Israel has one of the highest washout rates for training pilots which is why they are the best in the world. However, if they did get into a prolong war like the Germans and Japanese did, they could not keep putting out fighter pilots in quality if the Arab pilots were getting better at their jobs at killing off the elite of the Israeli air force. The Finnish fighter pilots lost only 6 to 10 of its aces to the Russians during World War II; however, I wonder how long would it be before they started to suffer losses if they were up against the Allied Air Forces of 1944-45 period of World War II.

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I have been watching since the first episode and it is too cool to see the air combat tactics in 3D. does anyone know if there are more to come like from german, russian,and Japanese pilots and allied pilots (non American) encounters? Night fighters would be the thing to see also.

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