Most overrated Flight charicteristics

[Crumpp]

Anyway, under those circumstances, the turning ability is anything but overrated.....

Simply check out the bottom of page two and page three.  You can see the results of mock combats.  The zeke was NEVER able to gain the intitiative and spent every fight being defensive.  You might get lucky and win a few dogfights with a great turning but slow fighter. You will NEVER win air superiority.  

What is more, the fighter which can maintain an energy advantage and the intitiative will win the dogfight more often than not.

As one Spitfire pilot said when his commander told him to use the Spitfires strength against the FW-190 "Turning does not win Air Battles!".

That is not Aces High, that is actual Air Combat.

Crumpp

[Nashwan]

Bear in mind this is a Zeke, which was slower than the Spit V, and up against 1944 US fighters, which were for the most part much faster than the early 190As the Spit V faced.

[Kweassa]

Our AH aircraft are safe from accidents or structural problems at least upto 550~600mph, but one can't help but think that it would have been a risky business to push a fighter into such a dive in real life.

 Perhaps the differences in "diving capability of planes", are actually not about how fast it dives, but how much the pilot feels safe when its subjected to a dive..?

[Angus]

Turning does not win air battles, but it sure can get you out of trouble. (dead pilots don't win air battles either).   Had the Zeke been able to roll nicely, the setup would have been a lot more dangerous for the US pilots.
As for this:
"As one Spitfire pilot said when his commander told him to use the Spitfires strength against the FW-190 "Turning does not win Air Battles!". "
When the 190 entered the fray, it was a shock to the Spit pilots. It would come in fast, it was well armed and responsive, and could roll like mad at very high speeds. However, they soon found out that it could NOT turn with them. So, turning was not useless, it was actually at the time the only valid escape maneuver.....

[Crumpp]

Turning does not win air battles, but it sure can get you out of trouble. (dead pilots don't win air battles either).

 

However, they soon found out that it could NOT turn with them. So, turning was not useless, it was actually at the time the only valid escape maneuver.....

Absolutely true.  

Crumpp

[Crumpp]

If you read the results of these test's . The "most overrated flight characteristics" stand out as the most important.  

Any US fighter tested gained an Energy advantage rather quickly over the Zeke from a co-energy state.  EVEN with a substantial ALTITUDE and POSITIONAL advantage the Zeke ends up pulling tight defensive turns and unable to gain the initiative.


By focusing on a few parts of the test it is easy to miss the overall results and conclusions.  

Crumpp

[Angus]

What surprized me was how slowly the US fighters pulled away.
In most fields apart from turn they outperform the Zero (climb, speed, accel, dive, roll, guns), however I never realized how slow getting away could be. Given a better roll rate the Zeke would have been a very much more dangerous foe.
Looking at all this with all the data in hand is of course also not exactly the boots the WW2 pilots had on. They did not know about the limits of their foe. Hence the 190 shock, - the Spit riders later discovered that they could out-climb it in some alt bands, their roll rate was also being worked on, and at the debut of the Spit IX, clipped IX LF and VIII the 190's the Spits sometimes had most things in their favour.
What makes a good fighter? Lots of things I guess...

[Crumpp]

What surprized me was how slowly the US fighters pulled away.

Yeah I agree.

One thing though you have to consider is the unrealistic gunnery we have in AH.  150 yards is a good distance to shoot a rifle on a flat range.  It's even a longer distance when you are talking Aerial Gunnery.
      The RLM did a study in 1943 on fighter pilot gunnery.  They found it took only a few rounds of 20mm to down a B17.  However less than 2 percent of their pilots could land the required number of hits even though the FW-190 carried almost 20 times the amount of 20 mm needed and had 14 seconds of firing time.  This is the reason it was dictated to the Geschwaders to assign 2 pilots to every bomber.
      A bomber is much larger than a fighter and is not manuvering as violently.  

So in order to compensate for the unrealistic gunnery AH has to increase the rate and distance planes manuver relative to one another IF they are going to correctly simulate the fights between A/C as they occurred in WWII.  

  I personally would like to see AH adopt both a more realistic pilot physiology model and a realistic gunnery model.  I thik though too that if AH was inact these changes there would be quite a commotion.  The Whine's would be incessant.

and at the debut of the Spit IX, clipped IX LF and VIII the 190's the Spits sometimes had most things in their favour.

All of the Merlin powered spit models at best leveled the playing field with the 190A.  The RAF did experiment extensively trying to  reduce the threat and with the MkIX brought the contest to the level of pilot skill.  The first Spitfire that could dogfight a 190A with confidence was the Griffon powered Spit's.  Even then it was only a few months gap between the introduction of the Spit IVX and the 190D9.

Crumpp

[Angus]

Ummm:
"The first Spitfire that could dogfight a 190A with confidence was the Griffon powered Spit's. Even then it was only a few months gap between the introduction of the Spit IVX and the 190D9. "

The Spit VIII/IXLF with up to 25 boost introduced....in 42/43 would frequently outperform the 190 A series at the time in almost anything apart from firepower and roll rate. I'd say those were pretty good terms for the Spitty. And how common were the 109D's??
Compare the med, 190A whatever with a wicked Spit VIII.....
Anyway, meeting up high in the skies, the pilots would not always know what they were dealing with. The RAF pilots truly respected the 190 with much more awe then the 109 more or less.....
I wonder how much the acceleration tweak actually is in AH then. If it is somethingto count, I must say that maybe it is nececcary to be able to keep AH from being anything else than a T&B game.....

[Crumpp]

The Spit VIII/IXLF with up to 25 boost introduced....in 42/43 would frequently outperform the 190 A series at the time in almost anything apart from firepower and roll rate. I'd say those were pretty good terms for the Spitty. And how common were the 109D's??

Actually if you study the 190A series and Merlin Spitfire development the planes were very well matched with the exception of the Spit V which was clearly outmatched.  The 190A series retained it's advantages in zoom climb, Level speed, acceleration and maneuverability throughout it's life cycle.  The Merlin powered spits were able to close the performance gap and at some altitudes eliminate them BUT each A/C only retained commanding performance gaps over the other in one area each.  The 190 always retained the option to dive away to lower altitudes where it's advantages where even greater.    

You have to remember, if you compare the 190A3 to the 190A8, the 190A8 is in fact the better fighter.  I will post the weights when I get my 190 pilots manuals back so you can confirm this.  Both the Merlin and the BMW-801D2 were continuously upgraded in performance.  The 190A8 increased in weight over the 190A3.  It also increased in power to weight and the 190A8 had a significantly better P/W ratio with 1.65ata at 2700 U/min than the 190A-3 at 1.42ata at 2700 U/min.

Even that weight increase though has become greatly exaggerated over the postwar years.  Most of the references I have seen are up to 900 KG OFF on the loaded weight of a fighter version of the 190A8 and put it in the neighborhood of 4800-4900Kg.  A fully loaded 190A3 is weighed in at 3850Kg.  A fully loaded fighter version of the 190A8 is 4100kg.  Most of this is in the outer wing MG151's and ammo.  The Armour on the fighter version of the 190A8 is the exact same as the 190A4.  In fact they carry the same part number.  Only difference between it and the 190A3 is the pilots head armour was thicken from 9mm to 12 mm and widened a few inches.

Crumpp

[Crumpp]

Sorry bro,

I forgot to give you an answer on the Doras.  There were around 1700 Doras produced.  The Dora also increased in power from it's introduction to the final version with boost increases and the installation of MW50. The Majority of the Jagdwaffe 190 Gruppen had converted to 190D9's by the end of Hostilites.  The ground attack units still retained the 190A/F/G series.

Crumpp

[F4UDOA]

Vodoo, Gripen, Nashwan, ETC.

Thanks!

If there is one flight characteristic that is over-rated in WWII planes, it has to be turning circle.

Crumpp,

I would really disagree. It only become irrelevant when turning circle is at the expense of speed. I this case the Zero was hopelessly outclassed by 1943. However the Ki-84 and Spit XIV have a marked advantage because of turning circle. In AH I luv the F4U because I can outturn what can outrun me and outrun what can outurn me (For the most part).

Besides the reason zoom and dive acceleration are overblown IMHO is because of reasons that have not much to do with the Zero. Despite the obvious drawbacks of the Zero it was on par with the most modern, fastest fighters the US had in those two catagories. And if I would have said that this was true without the proof in the report nobody would have believed me. I would not have belived it myself until reading the report.

The important items however are how the American A/C compare with each other and what we all think is true based on annecdote or otherwise.

Things that stand out to me.

1. The P-47 zoom climb was only marginally superior to the P-51D and P-38J.

2. The P-38J is supposed to accelerate better than all American fighters but when put to the test it was last of three. Granted it was from 200MPH IAS however the P-47 was the best intial accelerator after one minute and the P-51D was best after two minutes. The P-38 was last despite it's vaunted power loading. So much for that theory.

3. Speed results

AAF
10,000FT
A6M5-313MPH
P-51D-393MPH
P-47D-30-383MPH
P-38J-373MPH

25,000FT
A6M5-320MPH
P-51D-415MPH
P-47D-30-410MPH
P-38J-405MPH

Navy
A6M5
13,000FT approx<--Calculated based on given speeds +/- 2MPH.
A6M5-330MPH
F4U-1D-394MPH
F6F-5-388MPH
FM-2-321MPH Actual speed tested.

20,000FT approx.
A6M5-335MPH
F4U-1D-413MPH (20,400FT actual)
F6F-5-409MPH (21,600FT actual)
FM-2- 306MPH

So based on this the AAF fighter were all approximately 10MPH slow at 25K. The P-38 and P-47 were slighter better at 10K with the P-51D being much slower than listed speeds.

The Naval AC were as fast if not faster than the AAF counter parts at all alts. The F4U was almost exact to the charts all the way while the F6F was much faster than advertised the whole way up although it shows a very strange speed curve at low alt.

The A6M5 the navy had was at least 10MPH faster than the AAF Model but still slower than listed performance.

[Crumpp]

Simply check out the bottom of page two and page three. You can see the results of mock combats. The zeke was NEVER able to gain the intitiative and spent every fight being defensive. You might get lucky and win a few dogfights with a great turning but slow fighter. You will NEVER win air superiority.

What is more, the fighter which can maintain an energy advantage and the intitiative will win the dogfight more often than not.
Crumpp

[Crumpp]

The P-38 was last despite it's vaunted power loading.

Powerloading is the dominate factor in accelleration.  However there are other characteristics which can effect it.  I am sure if you dig into the P38 you will find out why.

Take accelleration of the 190A, only because I am most familiar with it.  Dive accelleration is a function of level accelleration.  The 190 outaccellerates the P47D in level flight.  In a dive the 190 leaves the P47 behind in the first 3000 feet, after that the weight of the Jug takes over and it rapidly overtakes the 190.  
A 190A outaccellerates a P51B in level flight BUT in a dive the P51B will stay right with the 190 niether gaining nor losing.  Why?  Because the P51 was a much cleaner A/C aerodynamically and was fairly heavy.  This compensated in a dive for it's accelleration.  

Crumpp

[gripen]

F4UDOA,
The AAF report lists WEP manifold pressure of the P-51D at 10k as 62,5" but most other sources claim 67" (high speed FTH at 67" with RAM for 1st SC gear of the V-1650-7 should be more than  10k at least according to charts in the AHT). That might partially explain slower speed of the P-51D.

Regarding acceleration, the P-38 might have done relatively better if the level acceleration test had started from slower speed, say 160mph IAS. Above certain speed the faster plane will allways accelerate better.

gripen