A dogfight , or dog fight , is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft that is conducted at close range. Modern terminology for air-to-air combat is air combat manoeuvring ACM , which refers to tactical situations requiring the use of individual basic fighter maneuvers BFM to attack or evade one or more opponents. This differs from aerial warfare , which deals with the strategy involved in planning and executing various missions.
Dogfighting first occurred during the Mexican Revolution in , shortly after the invention of the airplane. It was a component of every major war after that, though with steadily declining frequency, until the end of the Cold War in the early s.
Since then, longer-range weapons such as beyond-visual-range missiles have made dogfighting largely obsolete. The term dogfight has been used for centuries to describe a melee : a fierce, fast-paced battle at close quarters between two or more opponents. The term gained popularity during World War II, although its first use in reference to air combat can be traced to the latter years of World War I.
Ten of the enemy dived to attack our men. A regular dogfight ensued for half a minute. The first supposed instance of plane on plane combat and the first instance of one plane intercepting another during an aerial conflict apparently occurred during the Mexican Revolution on November 30, , between two American mercenaries fighting for opposing sides, Dean Ivan Lamb and Phil Rader.
The story comes from Lamb himself. According to his own statements in an interview two decades later, both men had orders to kill, but neither pilot wanted to harm the other, so they exchanged multiple volleys of pistol fire, intentionally missing before exhausting their supply of ammunition. Dogfighting became widespread in World War I. Aircraft were initially used as mobile observation vehicles, and early pilots gave little thought to aerial combat.
