How does Sacchi Scissors tactics reverse Gan Kun in air combat?

How does Sacchi Scissors tactics reverse Gan Kun in air combat?

The appearance of aircraft in World War I greatly improved the military's operational advantage. Its advantage stems not only from its height, but also from its speed. In the air, there is no need to be hindered by various roads and terrain like ground vehicles, and the power of the engine can be completely converted into maneuvering speed after overcoming air resistance. This high maneuverability enables the aircraft to quickly break through the enemy's defense lines without being threatened by conventional fire on the ground. Before anti-aircraft guns and missiles appeared, aircraft had unparalleled natural defense advantages for ground fire. But at this time, the plane is not invulnerable, and its main threat comes from enemy planes.

This brings a question: if the other fighter plane is faster, how to strengthen the defense mechanism to offset the speed advantage of the other side?

Let's look at a case first. In the Pacific War between the United States and Japan, the Japanese Zero Fighter used a special aluminum alloy, which was called 50 Wind Metal and developed by Sumitomo Metal Industry Corporation of Japan.

This kind of aluminum alloy is harder than ordinary steel and can be made into a very thin aircraft frame, which can greatly reduce the weight of the aircraft on the premise of ensuring the strength of the fighter. This makes up for the lack of engine power and ensures great endurance.

The self-weight is reduced, thus greatly improving the maneuvering speed, endurance and air combat capability. In contrast, American wildcat fighters are slow and inflexible, and always lose in one-on-one air combat. In order to solve this problem, Major Saatchi, the squadron leader of the American aircraft carrier "York City", invented a new tactic called "Thach Weave".

The specific operation is: two wildcats in the same formation fly in parallel outside the turning radius distance, and then turn to the inside at the same time. At this point, both planes can check whether there is an enemy plane following the tail of the other side; After the two machines meet and open the distance, they turn to the inside again, forming a series of scissors-like trajectories; If Zero fighters try to bite one of the planes, when they fly to the intersection, another wild cat can fire at Zero from the side; If Zero insists on tracking the original target, it will shoot from the side at every intersection; If you turn zero to the wildcat that is firing, it will attack the wildcat head-on first.

When it continues to pester, the role changes, and the wildcat that was first followed will open fire on it at the next meeting. This process can be repeated many times until the rear is safe.

This is similar to fishing, that is, the front machine is used as bait and the back machine is used as hook. When the enemy plane bites the bait, the rear plane waits for an opportunity to shoot it down, and the role of the bait hook can be interchanged.

Sacchi Scissors can also be played between two biplane formations or even two quadlane formations. As long as Japanese planes jump into this trap, it will be difficult to take advantage. In the naval battle of midway on June 4th, 1942/KLOC-0, Saatchi and his teammates adopted this new tactic, and successively shot down four Zero fighters, which achieved great success.

Through this example, we can find that the solution to the relative shortage of maneuver speed is the combination of "maneuver" and "loop" Specifically, when a single plane encounters an enemy plane with higher speed in the process of maneuvering, UFIDA covers its side and rear, and their identities are exchanged alternately, thus combining defense and attack into a new defense mechanism.

This is not a traditional "circular defense", but it can be regarded as a deformation of "circular defense", that is, the defense direction of the hemisphere with less threat from enemy situation in circular defense is adjusted from back to face, and the two defense hemispheres can alternate cyclically. This defense mechanism combines the advantages of static "circular defense" and dynamic "mobile defense", and solves the problem of lateral and rear defense when the mobile speed is slow, which is called "dynamic circular defense". The umbrella formation of infantry on the ground, the cooperation between infantry and tanks, the alternating charge of attacking troops and even the alternating cover retreat of defending troops are all "dynamic circular defense" in essence.

After in-depth study, the Japanese army found that the weakness of the "Saatchi scissors" tactic was that it was necessary to combine the continuous sharp turn with the cooperation of two planes, which consumed a lot of energy for the planes. If the Zero fighter stays behind the wildcat and is not in a hurry to attack, it will force the wildcat to cross the flight inspection tail. In the end, the wildcats either give up the "Saatchi scissors" or enter a state where they can't move and be slaughtered.

However, this method takes a long time and looks negative, which violates the offensive spirit advocated by the Japanese navy and has never been implemented. Another way to crack it is to attack two wildcats from the outside with two zeros, and then break away from the outside when the wildcats fly to the outside turning point. However, this tactic requires high coordination accuracy, and the communication signal of Zero fighter is poor, so it cannot be implemented.

In the Pacific War, Japan never found an effective way to crack the "Sacchi Scissors". In the later period, the Japanese army did not need to consider this issue, because the American army invented a new fighter with better speed and climb.

Nowadays, there are very few scenes where the "Saatchi scissors" can be applied, because modern air combat emphasizes "over-the-horizon attack" characterized by "four firsts", that is, the first enemy finds, the first enemy locks, the first enemy fires and the first enemy leaves. "Over-the-horizon attack" requires higher and higher situational awareness and stealth performance of fighters, but this does not mean that maneuverability is not important. At the critical moment, the dynamic ring defense based on super maneuver and supersonic cruise is still an effective combat defense mechanism.