Originally posted by Widewing
Yeah, the P-47s are very good with the flaps out, but most of the American fighters and all of the Japanese fighters will abuse it in a low-speed brawl. As for the Spits and Hurricanes.... Well, we know what that result will be.
In a stall fight, two factors dominate. Turn radius and ability to get the nose high. Flaps add tremendous drag. Planes like the P-47D-11 and F4U-1 simply lack the ability to get their nose up high enough with that much drag. REDD and I tested the F4U-1 against the F6F-5. The Corsair offers better initial turn. However, once the flaps are out, the F6F can get the nose up and climb where the F4U simply wallows. Eventually, the Hellcat will win. Likewise, any P-38 will dominate the P-47D-11 in a stall fight... easily in fact.
You can win against inferior pilots, you can win by surprising someone who didn't expect the Jug to maneuver at 150 mph. You can beat the guy with little experience. However, meeting your equal in a plane more suited to low-speed fighting will likely mean getting shot down.
I'd reserve stall fighting for those occasions when you have no other choice and there's no other bad guys nearby.
My regards,
Widewing
The D-11 is actually very capable of getting it's nose up when slow. Much much more so then the other two jugs, and more so then most other fighters in the game. What it lacks when nose up it makes up for by having the best nose down performance around.
Very few planes are more suited to low-speed fighting then the d11. This plane can maneuver pretty well around 100mph, and if you're smart about picking your nose down turns at the right time you can trade a little alt for a lot of turn. That gets you a good position to stall it in for a snapshot or saddle.
Stall fighting is always a last ditch approach. When you've got E the 400mph flaps, massive rudder, and E bleed turns make this a beast on the attack. Trying to make one of these overshoot properly can be nearly impossible, more so then the other jugs.
When you're low E this plane is solid on the reversals. It gets slow faster then a 38, and it rolls a little better. This allows it to be pretty daring on getting in position on the overshoot to have those 8 50s aimed fast enough for the appropriate convergence. The typical throttle cut reversal counters can be very dangerous because of this too.
Co-E this plane needs to, and often will, win the merge. Despite the KI-84 I still think of this plane as the best 38 killer when the fight is 5k or higher. The turn radius in the d11 is very very good, so good I underestimate it every time. This is especially true while bleeding E early in the fight. You have to be smart about E states and position, however. Look at the old-school spit merges to find snapshots in the d11. Try to be nose down using your flap turn when your opponent is nose up to get around a little faster, but be sure to pull up into persuit before he starts to stall to prevent the flop-shot. You dont win the stall with your verticle performance, you win it with your E bleed flap turn.
Anyway, I'm just ranting here. I have a bit of a concussion and my focus is a little off.
-p.
