I'm young enough that 60s railway carriages were significantly out of use before I became a regular train rider, and it jarred with me too. It looked wrong and I suspect it would be seen as looking wrong by many people without direct experience of 1940s or 1960s trains.
It looked to have the same issue as Top Gun in that some of those engagements were very close for a very long time without significant exchange of fire. Also, the maneuvers executed by the aircraft involved seemed very gentle and undemanding, compared to real world gun camera footage of the time.
That may be an instance of
reality being unrealistic, but as a lay observer I'd echo the comments about this given above. Wouldn't those aircraft have been more or less wings-vertical, pulling like hell? Is this a limit on what you can reasonably do with eighty-year-old aircraft?
P