The Combat Tactics of Dragons

Against other Dragons

Dragon against dragon combat is well documented, both by the dragons themselves and by mortals.
Most of the time, when dragons fight one another with intent to kill, it is through ambushes. The vast majority of the time, these ambushes take place in the air, seeking to take flying dragons off guard. Smaller dragons will often attack larger ones from high above, dive bombing them and aiming for their wings, heads, or necks at incredible speeds to knock them off balance or outright stun them, aiming to drop them out of the sky. Larger dragons may ambush from the ground, particularly if they have good acceleration speed, to do the same from below, most often aiming for the throat. Once a target has been hit and caught by surprise, the attacker will most often swoop from below to get a grab on their enemy's throat and neck, kicking and clawing at their less armored underbellies, usually with intent to gut them, while attacking their face. During this time, both dragons are almost always in a free fall, even if they try to maintain flight, due to their combined weight and likely many injuries to their wings sustained during the attack. As both dragons fall, it becomes a struggle for one to get on top of the other, seeking to use their enemy as a cushion to break their fall, or crush them under their own weight when they land.
Should the ambush fail, or one of the dragons breaks free before falling to earth, oftentimes the battle continues on the ground. In the air, dragons are quite vulnerable from all sides, but on the ground, can better defend themselves and their vitals by keeping their wings tightly folded and heads low. Ground fights between dragons are almost always won by whichever of them is the bulkiest, or if in the same weight range, least injured. Large dragons often seek to break the necks or spines of their enemies by grappling them with their mouths and tugging and kicking with their other limbs, much like large cats. Ground fights without the intent to kill, such as territorial skirmishes, often end when one dragon has grabbed the other by the face or neck and pushed their opponent's head to the ground, which is one of the most clear cut signs of dominance among dragons that one has clearly won over the other.
No matter the battlefield, dragons rarely use their breath to attack or kill one another. If they have a clear shot at their enemy's face, they may use it to blind them and damage their eyes, but outside of this, it is incredibly rare due to their oily coats on their scales that give them some degree of fire-proofing. It isn't worth trying to kill a dragon with flame, as even when this fire-proofing runs out, most will fight through severe burns with brute force and attempt to kill their target anyways.

Against Humanoids

In the past

Unlike when against other dragons, dragons would readily use their flames against humanoid targets. Ambushes often would see dragons striking from above without landing, breathing flame down upon humanoids until they were roasted alive in sweeping runs, seeking to completely cut off escape and use their environment against them. Most conflicts in this manner ended incredibly quickly, with very little in ways of defense. Even when forced to the ground, little can withstand the heat of dragonfire. The practice of using dragonfire against humanoids has been outlawed since the Bangladesh Ethics of War Commission passed the Draconic Warfare Act in 11,892, which was quickly adopted worldwide, noting the act as a war crime.
Another past tactic that has fallen out of practice is the use of ash and charcoal in draconic combat. Dragons are not stealthy in the daytime, and night raids often presented an issue of the moonlight reflecting off of most dragons' scales, making them still rather easy to pick out of the night sky by an observant guard or watchman. To combat this, during The War of Black Ash, dragons would often roll themselves in the dense volcanic ashfall present in many regions or ground charcoal, to not only make their scales darker but prevent reflection from giving away their positions. The tactic also saw plenty of use against other dragons and flights, however was mainly used against humanoids, especially as heat-seeking armaments and infrared became much less widespread. It's primarily thought that the tactic largely stopped being used not due to any issue of its effectiveness, but rather due to the global lull in volcanism events, making charcoals and ashes needed much harder to acquire in large quantities to most. This tactic still remains in use to this day by some flights, such as the Kindal Dragonflight, and those living in wildfire prone regions.

In the present

Due to dragonfire use against humanoids being outlawed, most combat against humanoids has shifted to using magic and physical attacks. Sweeping runs using magic are still incredibly common, most often using utilizing fire, earth, or air magics, much to similar effect as previous uses of dragonfire. Dragons sweeping over mortal ground forces will use flame and earth to make the terrain unviable for combat, often destroying large swaths of forces in the process. Wind magics are more common against typical aircraft, used to force them into spins and dives if not crash them outright.
Among the Lunar Dragonflight, illusion magic is still widely used in combat against humanoids, despite being classified as torture in most regions. illusions are most commonly used to disguise draconic troops and hide their positions for ambushes and sneak attacks, although can still often be used in order to confuse and disorient troops into attacking one another. Much less common is the use of illusion and mind control magics to directly control enemies, forcing them to kill on another, but not unheard of. It has also risen in popularity as a tactic against the divine.

Against Gods

In the past

Past conflicts with the pantheon saw many of the same tactics as against humanoids, with rapid development of new tactics and strategies. While early conflicts mostly involved dragonfire, the intelligence and organization of the gods saw that most would begin to utilize the environment to counter the tactics of dragons. Humanoid structures in particular were often used as shelter to take the brunt of flames or avoid them entirely, leading to most dragons having to land in order to pursue their targets. Hiding and sheltered gods were often dug out of their shelters and burrows and dispatched with tooth and claw. As many gods began to armor themselves with armor that was incredibly painful to attack and laced with poisons to still harm their enemies even if they themselves were killed, dragons once again changed tactics- Instead of direct assaults, they began to hunt out potential burrows and shelters to destroy them in advance, smoking out those hiding within or collapsing them on the hiding gods to force the divine out into the open. Armoring and poisons still posed an issue for most dragons, leading to the primary tactic against gods' forces to be grabbing them once in the open and dropping them from unsurvivable heights, often onto their own kin.

In the present

Due to that most of the pantheon has not been in open conflict with dragons for thousands of years, many of the tactics used by the gods have been long forgotten, and dragons have largely stuck to the same- Sweeping runs across the gods' forces and grabbing as many of them as they can to drop them from a great height remains one of the primary tactics used by them. Many dragons often will dispatch the divine while still airborne, using their greater size to break their necks or crush their skulls with their jaws.
Against larger gods, such as those too large to take flight with in their talons, the dragons often still make use of sweeping runs in order to overwhelm them, repeatedly striking and exhausting their enemies. Often dragons will kick, bite, and claw at the divine during these runs, many even making use of their tails to knock the pantheon to the ground, and once grounded or sufficiently exhausted, dragons will dive at them again. Smaller dragons may engage in ground combat against them, while most larger dragons seek to finish the god off by divine on top of them, pinning them to the ground, and breaking the neck or crushing the skull should they survive the initial pinning.