[TinyTim]

TinyTim. Thanks for your answer. Yes that's it exactly.I feel that if I could cut the amount of ammunition the planes are carrying, then maybe they would just take a few passes at each other before breaking off ( or getting a kill of course). This is how it was I believe in real dogfights, not aircaft slugging it out for ages until one or the other was shot down.
Regards.

That also wouldn't be completely unhistorical! Many german fighters flew with less than full ammoload towards the end of the war due to ammo shortage, that's what I read at least... I recall reading somewhere that La7s in the last days of war flew with only 40 rounds per gun, because they had such enormous numerical superiority. 10 vs 1 it still ment 800 rounds fired at a single german plane, if all La7s exhausted 40 rpg each.

by changing fuel loads you can also govern when they break off and head for home.

that feature already exists in game

Yeah, that's true. Steps of 25% in QMB are quite large, but you can set the fuel accourately to 1% in the full mission builder.