A5 vs Dora...

[bozon]

190A5 is a really fun plane. It is more able in a knife fight than people give it credit for.

The Dora is just a cherry picker extra ordiner, a total sissy, but that is exactly what wins large fights. Try it in FSO and you'll see what I mean.

[Nilsen]

D9 is fast and boring, havent bothered to up one more than once since i came back

F8 is great for killing GVs. Those rockets kills tanks with ease.

A5 is great fun and easy to fly as a turnfighter and BZ.

A8 is the most fun for me as it is more challenging.

[Stampf]

In 19 months in AH2, I have never flown anything but 109 and 190's for fighter planes.  (except 262's and Komets of course)

IMHO,

Avoid turning at all costs, even in the A5.  Use the strengths of the 190 against your foemen, Speed, roll rate, firepower.  A5 is fun but offers no real advantage in Late war.

The Dora is more than just a cherry picker, but remember this, ALL 190's are TEAM PLANES.  They excell in squad tactical situations.

I prefer the A8 over all of them.  Most challanging to fly, and as you are correct about it feeling slow and heavy, if you are flying a focke wulf than you are boom and zooming anyway.  Why not take 4 20mm along for the shredding.  It also discourages those in the know from blatent head on attacks.

F8 is awesome ground attacker.

If I could offer the single best piece of advise I have learned from my experience it would be this:  IMHO people learning the 190 and B and Z tactic, fail to extend the zoom far enough before re-engaging.  After you attack, level off and EXTEND.  Pursurers will break off 9 times out of 10 as they fail to reel you in.  Proper extention distance allows you to then reclimb, bank energy and attack again with the same advantages you held in first pass.

Rinse, repeat, and have fun flying one of the greatest planes of all time.

[fockewulf8]

thanks for your info  i have often wondered about the length of extension actually.  step climb up and dive or extend out and climb, etc.  I will try that strat u described as i continue to try n develop my a5 technique.  thanks again

[PanzerIV]

All that info will come in handy, ive been flying the Fw190A5 but i may try and become proficient in the Dora as I have read on what is needed for succes in the Fw190s.
And i always go ligt in the Fw190s, two 20mm is enough and with the 13mm it isnt going to let anybody go home in 1 peice.
Anyway, all the that has been stated above will really help!

[Vudak]

FW's can dogfight (and *gasp!* even TURN!!!) just fine.  You just need to have some alt to work with, and balls.  Luckily, FW pilots usually have the former in spades, but you don't meet so many with the latter.

When people say "don't turn" what they really mean (well, I hope, anyway), is "don't get into a lufberry."

Unfortunately, this is often misinterpreted as "don't do anything but BnZ," which is why that's exactly what the vast majority of 190s do in this game.

With 10k to work with you can have a close-in knife fight with a bunch of planes.  Even ones you really might be suprised to do well against.  Give it some practice, try new things, and see if you can't pull it off.

Good luck - it is a very tough plane to fly aggressively

[Vudak]

Originally posted by Stampf

If I could offer the single best piece of advise I have learned from my experience it would be this:  IMHO people learning the 190 and B and Z tactic, fail to extend the zoom far enough before re-engaging.  After you attack, level off and EXTEND.  Pursurers will break off 9 times out of 10 as they fail to reel you in.  Proper extention distance allows you to then reclimb, bank energy and attack again with the same advantages you held in first pass.

If I could offer the single best piece of advice I have learned from my experience, it would be, ignore the above paragraph unless you plan on making all your kills against people who are either preoccupied or unaware of your existence.

"Proper extension distance," as Stampf calls it, only works if the other guy is busy.  Otherwise, don't you think he might try banking some energy of his own?  In a BnZ, you're trying to bleed the other guy's E down to the point where he can't easily evade your slashing attacks.  If you go do what Stampf said, and he's not busy or incompetent, you're almost *never* going to kill him.

[Krusty]

Well, since panzer resurrected a 2-month-old-thread, I'll post a related link for any new readers.

If you're interested in the differences between 190s, please read this:

http://forums.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=197645

It's a weight list for the different 190s.

[toonces3]

Last tour I made a bit of a study in the FW-190.

Kills in:
Spit 16:  29
FW190 A5: 20
FW190 D9:  8

Died in:
Spit 16:  8
FW190 A5: 6
FW190 D9: 4

Killed:  A sampler platter of kills, highest fighters were-
P51: 5
C205: 4
Bf110: 3

and then about 1-2 of every other plane.

Killed by:
Spit 16: 5
Hurri 2c:  4

And then a sampler platter of 1's.

K/D ratio:
Spit 16: 3.16
A5: 3.33
D9: 2.0

I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from this.  I prefered the A5 to the D9 for most of the aforementioned discussion, ie, I felt that D9 felt 'heavier' and alot less nimble.  Also, I think the speed gave me a false sense of security that I could run from trouble, while with the A5 I felt I needed to fight my way out more often.

[Krusty]

I think those numbers are too low to draw any conclusions.

Check out my numbers for tour 90. That's in only 15-16 hours (a very low amount of flight time for an entire month!).

Most of those were against Lancasters, La7s, Spit8s, and P51Ds. I was doing more dogfighting than bomber hunting (which surprises me, now that I look back on it)

[BaldEagl]

toonces,  Be careful analyzing numbers like that for one tour.  

I track those stats on myself for every plane on a spreadsheet for the past 3 months plus the current camp.  I can have good camps and bad camps in any given plane.  I've had camps where I've had 6/1 K/D rates in a plane, then 0.5/1 in the same plane the next camp.   Circumstances and situations play big role.  What happens over time is more reliable.

Also, don't forget sampling size.  A few flights won't give you an accurate view, even if they did happen over an extended period.  For me, since I'm tracking about 60 planes I've flown, 20 kills plus deaths is the minimum sample that has any meaning but that number can change depending on how many sorties you fly overall.

[EDIT]  Also be realistic with yourself.  Did you go buff hunting in one plane and furballing in another?  Play base defense with one while vulching in the other?  Big differences in how you get the numbers here.

[toonces3]

I absolutely agree with you guys.

I haven't been playing that long (4 months or so?), and my scores are all over the place, so it's hard to draw any conclusions from the numbers.

In my opinion from last tour though, I remember that I preferred the A5 to the D9 for the reasons I stated before, namely that I felt that the A5 was more nimble than the D9.  The D9 feels heavy.  

Also, I knew that I'd given up the D9's huge speed advantage, so I tended to stick with situations that I got myself into more with the A5 than I did with the D9.

Having said all that, I'm by no means any sort of expert in either, obviously, and really am just scratching the surface on how to fly the planes to their potential.

[waystin2]

I did some narrowing down of several planes, and found the A-5 attributes to be unique.  I tried a few flights in the D-9 and it does turn like a dumptruck.  Mind you the A-5 also turns horrible at low speeds.  At mid to high speeds ithe A-5 turns great.  Just make sure you finesse the turns(don't want to hear the stall buzzer during turns).  The trick is to get the incredible roll rate the A-5 has to work for you.  Scissors both straight and rolling can force overshoots and snapshot opportunities.  It is pretty much a defensive weapon, but it can be used for quick gun positioning.  The other thing is speed, she loves speed and likes to dive!  Just remember to roll out out at the end of your dive.  Good choice on the A-5, I am going to be spending most of my stick time in an A-5.

[Krusty]

Just for general comparison:

http://www.gonzoville.com/ahcharts/index.php?p1=190a5&p2=190a8&p3=190d9&p4=ta152h

[PanzerIV]

Just to make it clear, Fw190s of all variants are not turn fighters.
A6M2 and A6M5b are the turn fighters.