To Shane; I added 3 pages of rules, with a new much more fun firing table, to modify EXISTING rules, and on top of that there are four pages of the most important rules clarified in "plain" language, with extra rule details, and an errata at the end about the H-loop rule. You DO need the original Avalon Hill or Battleline rules...
Each of these cards is a titanic struggle to make sense of the mess of incomplete data that is out there, and there are actually few WWII aircrafts that could be made into an accurate, well-rounded Data Card, so incomplete is the available data. Excluding variants, British and Russian aircrafts, and staying in the late-war arena only, only the F4U and F6F come to mind as being even possible, without just guessing the whole thing, which I already did for much of the Me-163B... The F6F is the only undone aircraft that I REALLY like that could be done accurately. (Note that all but one of the 1/144 scale profiles are done by me, as no accurate thick-line profiles could be found, and this is a lot of work in itself... If I saw a lot of interest, I would do an F6F, and for fun would 70% guess a Ki-84 Frank.)
To Karnak; +25 lbs Spit IX top speed is 1-3 MPH higher than lower power Mk IXs, IF that... Of course, speed was increased +15-20 MPH at lower altitudes. Still, is it not VERY significant that no MK IX ever went beyond about 405 MPH TAS, when the same-engine P-51B, or the MK XIV with little more power, did 440?... Why confuse the issue with what speed the Mk IX gained at SOME altitudes? Putting it another way, excluding the Japanese Military Power vs WEP debacle, show me a SLOWER top speed for a light weight fighter with 2000 HP... (Light weight excluding the Hellcat/Corsair etc...)
To Saurdakar; at 2000-2700 fps of bullet/shell speed, the added speed of an unrealistically high 200 MPH overtake is minuscule. The issue is repeatedly ajusting the aim in a short time; most gun-cam footage show a very tepid overtake... Which is why the damage is more spectacular! And thus the footage is better-known...
Murdr; "What is relevant to the discussion is that it is G-limited".
Hightec; "Your statement that any plane in WWII had its tightest turning radius at 400 MPH is just simply insane."
Well, I didn't quite realize that this was not an accepted fact... If you want the very first clue I had of this, it was a single post by Skychimp, a well-known simmer(discoverer of NACA 868!), 6-7 years ago where he posted two turning radiuses, both at 400 MPH TAS;
Spit XIV; 625 ft.
P-51D (probably metal elevators?); 450 ft. (!!!!)
To put it in perspective, the lowest turning radius I have read for an EARLY A6M2 Zero is 650 ft. at 250 MPH, but I think even an early, lighter-variety A6M5 might do a little better at a lower 200 MPH, say maybe 500-550 ft., or maybe even 450 ft. for the A6M2 ONLY, but that is REALLY pushing it...
So I had just learned that a P-51D at 400 MPH TAS could DEFINITELY out-turn ALL Zeroes at 250 MPH TAS. The world had fallen in...
How come we don't hear of Mustangs beating the Zero's turn as they zoom by it? Well, if you remember my argument above about closure rates and gun effectiveness, especially in a confusing turn like this...
I'm sure Skychimp can be contacted as to where he got the data. I am not making an obscure reference here...
But there's plenty of other clues about this. We even have an extended series of tests done in the 1990s, for Pete's sake!
THEY found out, to their surprise, that the tightest turns were made at or near 400 MPH for the P-47D and P-51D. I'm sure THEY can be looked-up. I don't think there would be that many WWII aircrafts dogfights tests done in the 1990s... The F4U and F6F were there also.
And then, ironically enough, we have a genuine WWII Zero ace, Saburo Sakai, flying a P-51D (in the '70s!), expounding on these amazing turns he did at 500 MPH TAS (because of the speed, I am sure those were done with post-war metal-skinned elevators)... He then said, shortly after mentioning the turns; "Now I know I can place the Mustang in company of the Zero, as the two greatest fighters of WWII!".
Let's examine now how this can be possible, and why the reference to G-forces and CV is ok for pushed-from-behind jet speeds, but COMPLETELY misleading for pulled-from-the-front WWII fighters.
To begin with, this P-51 turn radius of 450 ft., at 400 MPH TAS, is probably not a perfect semi-circle, but more likely a somewhat elongated ellipse, which would "soften" the G-forces on the pilot with some sideways sinking of the aircraft, a-la-FW-190, but probably comparatively more shot-lived.
Then, and probably even more important, is the fact that the Mustang is pulled from the FRONT, NOT pushed from the REAR, while being somewhat posterior-heavy as is well-known. This allows the aircraft to "pivot" around the prop (hence "hanging on the prop"), immensely relieving the pilot of the G-forces because this rotation is achieved by a pivot center close to him or directly on him. In addition, this makes the transfer of blood not constantly uni-directional but rotating/changing, and also more front-to back on the body instead of top-down all the way (especially in the second half of the 180°), softening the blow even more.
You could even theoretically have a radius of turn of o ft. (with lateral mini-rockets as in Battlestar Galactica). The aircraft would then pivot on itself, the pilot as the point of pivot, decelerate BACKWARDS, then accelerate forward again with NO excessive gs on the pilot; 0 ft. 180° turn radius!
Then you have to add that the P-51D also had the first G-suits...
It IS quite shocking that this is true, but it does shows that the entire notion of using jet-era formulas in the prop age is a recipe for confusion. Jets operate in an unforgiving, cement-like air that is like another world from the prop era, and the fact that they are propulsed instead of tracted has a huge influence on how they can pivot on themselves to alleviate the pilot even at medium-low speeds. That the famous Cobra maneuver is seen as a major novelty shows just how uniform jets usually are in maneuvers most of the time, compared to the rambunctious bunch of weirdoes WWII fighters are... Also compare the handling of a front-wheel drive car to a rear propulsion car; quite a difference...
When Kurt Tank said the FW-190 at high speeds could pull x gs per ONE Kilo of pull on the stick, either it was an internal document for a specific use, or the gs were very short-lived, or he was trying to impress an audience by using G-forces as a factor of confusion; it fooled me a long time into thinking the 190 was a tight turner at high speeds... But a SINKING aircraft CAN pull a LOT of gs, and with those types of machines, that doesn't mean it's NOT going down... I hope all those pancaking 190s were not thinking; "hey, with all those gs, I should be ok!..." For sure it was MUCH better, and slower, than hitting nose first like a frozen-stick Zero...
Unlike the jet era, where a given amount Gs WILL match a given rate of turn (although maybe not always so at the very lower range of speeds; ie; the Cobra), in WWII, Gs are little more than a factor of confusion, because they don't tell you exactly what the prop-driven contraption is actually doing... For turn/loops, I always hope to find maneuver DIMENSIONS (more valuable than turn times), and these are not often available. Then I turn to psycho-analysing combat pilot anecdotes... Gulp!
Gaston.
