Shooting position

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In the military sense, firing position means a position of two military vehicles to each other, which enables one of them to optimally develop its weapon effect.

In the sporting sense (especially in ball sports with goals or similar goals) shooting position means that a player on a team is in an optimal position to the target. The shooter has the best prerequisites for scoring a point, because he sees the target in full size, which he does not have from another angle. These positions are mostly before the goal. Depending on the sport, the distance to the goal can vary greatly.

Nautical

In the case of ships, the line formation is of particular importance. The ships of a formation move one behind the other and can thus broadside another fleet moving parallel to it (hence also a ship of the line ).

Avionic

In aircraft with forward-pointing guns, the rear has the option of shooting at the front. An approach from above / below results in a larger attack surface on the target and thus an increased hit probability.

From this follows the necessity of an evasive maneuver in which the pursued aircraft tries to evade the other by turning. The pilot flies medium-fast but tight turns (cornering) with which he usually achieves two goals:

  1. the respective time window for successfully bombarding his aircraft is very small
  2. in this short time, the attacker usually cannot hit spontaneously successfully, since he has to hit a moving target from a non-horizontal position. A reflection sight can show him the probable hit location with some degree of reliability.

The only choice left for the attacker is to draw even closer circles and to find a useful lead point by yawing . Then his own bow obscures the view of the enemy, which gives him the opportunity to roll away / dive. The attacker can now (should the enemy not be able to evade due to inertia) reduce the speed of his aircraft or extend the radius and fire at the moment he expects the enemy.

This results in two possible shooting positions:

  1. the tangent position: the pursuer first flies a larger radius and then swings in on the enemy with the help of the elevator (which can protect him from the fire of the rear gunner of a light bomber)
  2. the secant position: the pursuer flies tighter circles than his opponent from the start and then fires in front of the bow of the pursued person (the most common method for fighter planes)