Originally posted by Widewing
Bf 109 pilots, especially those flying the G-6 and G-10 can find their hands very full meeting a light A-20 flown by someone looking for trouble. It will out-turn the G-6 and G-10 with little trouble. Even more shocking for G-10 drivers is the A-20's remarkable dive acceleration and zoom climb ability.
Early this tour I was flying a sortie in the Havoc near a fairly large furball. It was nearly dark and I was just below 8k (ground elevation was around 2K). I spot a 109 heading my way, about 1k higher. I was slightly nose-up when we passed on the merge, speed around 300 mph. We both reversed, but I got around much faster and the 109 went nose-low to avoid the coming deflection shot. I turned onto his 6 about 1.1k behind, accelerating rapidly nose-down. I had 425 mph in a heartbeat. Clearly surprised to see my A-20 actually closing, the 109 did what most of them do, he went vertical. So did I. Still the range came down. I was at just 700 yards back when he pulled thru and headed down again. It's here that I can finally identify the 109 as a G-10. As before, I followed, and once again he could not open the gap. Up he goes into a loop, the big Havoc eating distance and getting ever closer. This time he stays in the dive longer. I ease into a far less steep dive headed for where I figure he'll be when he finally pulls out. Rolling inverted I watch him as he eases out and runs along just above the ground. The angle of my dive was just about perfect and he crosses under my nose at 300 yards. One short burst pulverizes the 109.
We had a brief conversation on channel 1. He was absolutely incredulous that an A-20 ran him down in a dive. What he failed to realize is that I worked the angles against him. There's no way you can follow any fighter in a prolonged vertical dive without breaking the A-20. The absolute maximum speed where you can maneuver at all is 425 mph, and you better not pull more than 3 g or you will lose the elevators. You absolutely MUST pull power off to idle anytime you push the nose down more than 10-15 degrees. If the dive is greater than 45 degrees, you MUST use rudder to regulate your speed, and that only buys you about 5 seconds before it starts groaning like mad.
Fly the A-20 a lot and you will develop the feel required to never again break the wings off of a fighter. It will also teach new players how to manage their energy.
I did some simple off-line testing of the A-20's dive acceleration and zoom climb abilities. My criteria was this; climb to 15k, level at 200 mph. Go to full throttle while rolling inverted, pull through into vertical dive (a simple spit-S). Record the time required to get to 450 mph. This not only gauges dive acceleration but initial roll rate as well. Go throttle-up and begin roll when clock starts. I tested the La-7, Bf 109G-10, P-51D, Fw 190D-9, P-47D-30 and Tempest. Of these, the Tempest was the fastest by a very small margin, followed by the P-47D-30 and La-7 neck and neck. The other three were only fractions of a second behind. There is not enough difference to change the outcome should any one of them be chasing the any other of the group and already be in gun range. That done, I tried the A-20. Guess what? Despite its poor rate of roll, it beat all the fighters to 450 mph, by more than the entire spread between the whole group. As some have discovered to their great shock, you cannot escape out of gun range by diving from the A-20. It will run you down and kill you before you can generate enough speed to force the A-20 to back off. Let me repeat that, because I've heard a lot of whining and accusations of cheating over channel 1; It will run you down and kill you before you can generate enough speed to force the A-20 to back off.
I also used the same group to test zoom climb. This time, each aircraft was flown to 300 mph, level at 100 ft. Once the speed was stable, the throttle was chopped to idle and auto-climb engaged at the same time (for me, that means pushing a button on the throttle when the lever hits the aft stop). I added the Mosquito to the group for this test. The objective is to determine what aircraft gains the most altitude based solely upon its momentum.
All of the single engine fighters gained about 1,100 ft before nosing over, except the P-47D-30 which gained a tad more than 1,200 ft. The Mossie gained about 50 feet more than the Jug. However, the A-20 zoomed up past 1,700 ft, for a gain slightly over 1,600 feet! So what does that mean in combat? It means don't maneuver in the vertical with a Co-E A-20 unless you can out-turn it or are well out of gun range.
Between 200 and 300 mph, the A-20 is a very capable and dangerous aircraft in the hands of someone who knows how to exploit it.
I suspect others are beginning to catch on to the A-20, I've been seeing more of them in furballs.
My regards,
Widewing
My biggest problem with the A-20 is that I never get the sense of speed that I do with the other planes. I've learned to cut the throttle as soon as I go nose down into a dive, and that helped with the wing-rippage problem. I've also learned to drop a notch of flaps before commencing my dive-bomb attack. I use the sound of them retracting as my overspeed alert. My bombing isn't as precise as it should be, particularly against small moving targets like tanks and I end up bracketing with multiple bomb drops.
But I do so much love the ammo load. Oh yah - spitting lead, baby, in a close cluster from nose to d1.1 is powerful stuff. In strafing towns, I can't help but wonder if the .50s in the A-20's nose are packing different bullets than the .50s in a Mustang or Corsair because the buildings seem to detonate with a shorter burst from an A-20 than it does in the other American planes.
And the F3 external view is pretty good for acquiring enemy aircraft and building situation awareness.
