what would dogfights be like now if jets and missiles had not been invented

[Panzergranate]

The British were still flying piston and turbo prop fighters...... A Royal Navy pilot managed to shoot down a Mig-15 in a dogfight with a Hawker Fury, the Mig-15 being, like all jets, not as agile or maneuverable as a prop job.

The Fury was one of the pinacle of the evolution of propellor fighter aircraft and able to pull 650 MPH in a dive safely, just like its Hawker Tempest forebearer.

It was pointed out, on TV, that a modern jet fighter would find it impossible to win a dogfight with a WW2 fighter as air-to-air missiles wouldn't recognise it as a valid target and the tighter turning circles of WW2 fighters would factor against jets. Also the modern jet's stalling speeds just happen to be in the optimum dogfighting speeds of WW2 fighters. Also jet are unarmoured and so are more vulnerable to terminal damage from machine guns and cannon fire than something like a well armoured P-47, etc. A machine gun bullet or cannon shell entering a jet engine will see it tear apart.

As for pusher props, read the book "The World's 50 Worst Aircraft" to see why these were always found to be a seriously bad concept. The Curtis P-55, like all pusher prop "Ass Ender" could seize its engine after just 4 minutes of taxiing..... all pusher props, whether the Japanese "Shinden", through the "Saab" to the B-36 "Peacemaker" bomber all notoriously suffered from engine overheating problems even in flight. "Tractor" prop engines have a air blast constanly played on them, with the exception of the P-39, which strangely enough, also had cooling problems. Probally why the US were happy to give the whole lot to the Russians.

As for mini-guns, possible but the consumption versus ammo carried would make for a heavy aircraft, unless only a couple of seconds worth of fire were carried.

Maybe computer controlled turrets, rather like a modern version of the WW2 British turret fighters like the Boulton-Paul Defiant, Hawler Hotspur and Blackburn Roc would be interesting concepts. Imaging flying over an ebemy fighter and a automatic belly chain gun blasting away. The Germans successfully used ventral "Diagonal Music" automatic RADAR activated guns against bombers during WW2, so if homing missiles weren't invented, why not have this concept developed further.

If anyone remembers the late 1980's Sci-Fi series "Space Above And Beyond", Human space fighters had computer controlled top and bottom swivelling twin chain gun turrets which continually fired on a target despite dogfight maneuvers.