Mosquito Buffs! Your help needed!

[Reynolds]

Well, its that time of the month again. No, im not a girl, not THAT kind. Once a month I get this uncontrolable, inexplicable obsession with RAF aircraft, and I have again fallen in love with the Mosquito. But, before I get back to my non-twisty stick and do some serious flying, I thought I would consult the great AH gods on just how they should be used. So, at what roles does she excel?

Also, in the fast attack role, did they fly in the hundreds of feet, thousands, or ten-thousands of feet AGL?

[Ball]

Originally posted by Reynolds
So, at what roles does she excel?

Everything - the Mosquito was brilliant at everything.  The only WW2 aircraft that could rival the Mosquito in terms of versatility is the Ju-88.

Originally posted by Reynolds
Also, in the fast attack role, did they fly in the hundreds of feet, thousands, or ten-thousands of feet AGL?

All altitudes.

Example of pinpoint accuracy at ultra low level: -

http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/amiens.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jericho

http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/aarhus.html

http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/shell.html

Mosquito B.35 - could bomb germany from 35,000 feet with a 4k bomb at 435 mph.

[Reynolds]

Brilliant. Thank you. But for our particular model, with no bombsight, would it fly low and attack level? or fly at around 5k and dive in?

And, should I use it to TnB, BnZ, Angles?

[OOZ662]

The mossy has a horrible problem where it is very very easy to spin at slow speeds or high-Gs. Sometimes it will even flip inverted and fall straight down with the nose level in an uncontrollable lead rock imitation. This is caused by the center of gravity being in the wrong place on our model (a coding error).

Unless they fixed it.

[Ball]

Originally posted by Reynolds
Brilliant. Thank you. But for our particular model, with no bombsight, would it fly low and attack level? or fly at around 5k and dive in?

The FB versions did it all Reynolds, NOE level bombing - pretty much flying the bomb into the target and getting out at the last second, dive bombing, strafing, day and night.

Originally posted by Reynolds
And, should I use it to TnB, BnZ, Angles?

Can use a combination of all if you want.  Start off BnZ.  The Mossie is fast, but the CG bug really is a killer at any speed.  Be careful using the rudder too much or you will enter a BS cartwheel style spin which is pretty hard to get out of.  If you do, i found that i can get out of it by stopping the opposite engine and powering out with the other one.

Check out this Reynolds: -

5 parts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuQ6pMb1Jsc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvMu4SAcfj4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dukazlhkg7o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dFoKZYlD5o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3TwWTUCIPE

Airshow footage (sadly none flying at the moment)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZLnOlaFGac

The only thing better than the sound of a Merlin... is two Merlins

Thread i put up ages ago:

http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101934

[Apeking]

"So, at what roles does she excel?"

In the game? The Mosquito does not excel at anything in the game. It does not have a role in the game other than as a periodic indulgence. It is not as fast and does not climb as well as a fighter; it carries no higher bombload than a P51 or Corsair, albeit that it carries more actual bombs; it does not strafe as well as a 110G2; it carries a smaller bombload than the P47 or G2. The bombload is such that you have to open the bombbay whenever you drop a bomb, because the ammo counter does not tell you if you have selected the internal or external 500lbers.

It does not have a bombsight, and so you have to divebomb, but you can do that just as well in a P51 or Corsair or Typhoon or P38 or P47 or G2, and you will have more chance of surviving the sortie and perhaps scoring some fighter kills as well. In terms of overall performance the game's Mosquito is only just faster than a 110G2 until 20k, at which point the G2 is faster. The Mosquito has trouble in a dive and it tends to attract pilot wounds.

Once you have divebombed the target you are in trouble, because you are a large target, everybody wants to kill you, and almost all the other fighters climb better than you, including for example the FM2, the Fw190A8, and the 110C4.

In terms of raw speed the game's Mosquito is impressive for something so large; it has sweet spots at 7k and 15k. At 9k it is faster than a 109G6 and G14 if they do not use WEP, and beneath about 14k a 109G6 probably won't catch it in a straight chase.

In its current form in the game, as in real life, the Mosquito is dead once it slows down or gets low, which it has to do in order to drop its bombs, and there are many other planes that give you more options.

[Ball]

Originally posted by Apeking
In its current form in the game, as in real life, the Mosquito is dead once it slows down or gets low

Must be why they avoided all those low altitude raids in the Mossie then? or why it had the lowest loss rate of any allied combat aircraft in the ETO?

[thrila]

Mossie!!



The mossie is great fun, i wish i had the net at home.  I wont be able to play AH until the summer.  The mossie isn't too great at bnz because of it's heavy E bleed and poor acceleration.  IMO it's more effective to burn E to gain angles,  I prefer to fly it aggressively.  It can be a handleful when slow, but it's not say that without practive you can't fly it at low speeds.  In turnfights i generally drop a notch or two of flaps in the turns and raise them asap afterwards.

I'll see if i can find some old AH films, any newer ones will be PC @ uni.

P.S fruby is teh gay

[Bruv119]

Originally posted by Apeking
"So, at what roles does she excel?"

In the game? The Mosquito does not excel at anything in the game.

Coming from someone who obviously hasnt fought thrila in it  


Bruv
~S~

[Ball]

Originally posted by thrila
P.S fruby is teh gay

you wish... you poo stabber.

[Apeking]

"Must be why they avoided all those low altitude raids in the Mossie then? or why it had the lowest loss rate of any allied combat aircraft in the ETO?"

You are writing a parallel thread about the Mosquito's real-life performance and history. I am writing about the Mosquito's performance in Aces High. I admire the real-life Mosquito, but the version we have in the game is neither here nor there. In its current form in the game, the Mosquito does not excel at anything - I can envisage it being a handy bomber interceptor, but you'd need to be patient and sanguine.

In the current tour the Mosquito looks to have had fewer fighter kills than the Ki-61. The F6F looks to have had more Panzer IV and Ostwind kills than the Mosquito has had ground kills of all types including PT boats. The A20 has three times as many Panzer IV kills as the Mosquito. NB this does not account for damage to infrastructure, and it is not necessarily a measure of the Mosquito's competencies - however, it is a measure of how little the many veterans who play this game think of the Mosquito. They might praise its qualities in an abstract sense, but when push comes to shove they fly something else.

EDIT: I will add however that it makes for a handy "goalkeeper" if you are patient. It has the endurance to loiter at altitude around friendly bases, and it has the maneuverability and firepower to take out bombers from a slightly greater range than the 110G2, and it has the speed to keep away from distant fighter escorts provided that they are not hell-bent on getting you.

[Ball]

Originally posted by Apeking
I am writing about the Mosquito's performance in Aces High.

I mistook this as meaning "in aces high, just like the real life Mosquito."

Originally posted by Apeking
In its current form in the game, as in real life, the Mosquito is dead once it slows down or gets low

[bozon]

The mosquito is a beauty. A work of art and in my mind, the most interesting plane ever built. It could have had a much greater impact on the war if british bomber command were more imaginative and realized what they had earlier.

In the game it falls between the seats. There is not need for its range. You'll never need to load more than 50% fuel or carry DT. In some cases 25%+DT is a useful loadout. It carries a good loadout in MWA, but in LWA almost all jabos carry more. It is fast in MWA, but too slow in LWA to be meaningful. It cannot sustain high speed dives without falling apart.

The handling is probably the worst of all the planest. The tail feels heavy and accelerated stall is just nasty and will lead to immediate spin. Stall it with nose high and you may enter a deep stall, where you can't bring the nose below the horizon to recover (lots of rudder to flip it on the side is the solution). It also tends to "fish-tail" with every stick input.

Damage model is shared with the Zero. Prone to catching fire and pilot              wounds. Not very durable parts either.

Some nice features it does have:

Good climb! yes it climbs great and it climbs fast. Do not believe the AH graphs as they are with 100% fuel which is A LOT, and you normally never have more than 50%. It will outclimb a light jug while it carries 4*500 lbs bombs 50% fuel. When light it really can climb well. Also, try climbing at ~200 mph while making your way to the target instead of the default 150 mph. You loose only little climb rate but gain much more ground in the process and are already at maneuvering speed.

Good dive acceleration and zoom climb. All that mass and low drag does come in handy.

Super guns. When on the offense, one of the most dangerous planes. Compensates some for being terrible on defense.

And most important - the elusive "coolness factor" is off the scale

I did a tour in it a while ago and had a blast, but it can get frustrating sometimes, especially since I like to fight from a disadvantage. Evading BnZ is difficult. I suggest taking it for some aerobatics practice to get the feel for the quirks and how to avoid them. If you can take it safely to the edge it turns out to be even a decent dogfighter.

[Reynolds]

Thrila, I LOVE that poem in your signature.

I want to thank you all for all of this. And I am stil trying to find that BULLS**** mossie pilot who, after I cut off his tail, with his nose pointed straight down, and me already 1k away managed to put one lucky cannon round through my engine... HOW THE **** DID HE MANAGE THAT SHOT?!? but yeah, as I have seen the Mossie is a brilliant plane. He guns feel even more effective than the 110G2.

[Scherf]

My experience is that lots of late war guys think it's a useless slug and get lazy around it. As thrila says, get some angles.

Choose your fights - as mentioned above, in a furball it's a magnet for bad guys. Your friends will thank you for flying it as a red conga-line develops behind you, so try to use the radar to find some 1 v 1s.