moonglum01 wrote:
I don't know the particulars here, but to play devil's advocate, it is the responsibility of the person who has fallen behind on points to be the aggressor. This is particularly difficult when you are flying a 'dancer'. The advantage of the points lead is that you can choose to do attacks that are failrly safe while the one behind on points has to take far greater risk.
While I agree with your basic concept here, we should note that it is not that hard for a faster aircraft to negate the aggressive efforts of another single, slower, enemy aircraft. That is what appears to me to have happened here. Looking at the game history, I would think that teramaze was reasonably aggressive, getting three shots at Stonewall. Yet, the moment Stonewall got a point lead, all shooting stops. By far the most likely reason for that, especially given the small board size and the high maneuverability of a Siemens-Schuckert D.III, is that Stonewall was actively avoiding combat. It is one thing for a faster and more maneuverable aircraft to use its speed advantage to get good shots; it is something completely different for it to use the advantages to avoid combat so as to win a game by points. One wonders about the level of derision which Stonewall would have received from his squadron mates if one of them had witnessed such seemingly cowardly behavior in a real fight.
GREAT answer (especially the last sentance)