A paper plane discussion, exercise in practical performance prediction from theoretical specs and performance figures. All hinged on and oriented to the assertion that the 410 is a "jack of all trades", but especially on the A2A dogfighting "trade" which is arguably the dominant one of the two major "trades" in the AH MAs.
This started as a tangent, was taken here to end other thread hijack. Quotes below are edited, edits in bold. My quotes unquoted for readability.
0) the jack of all trades, the Me410
0) The 410 is no jack of the A2A trade, except for destroying slow targets.
I disagree.
1) Look at a 190a8 compared to the charts of a 110G2.
2) They look rather similar, no? But the end results are quite different.
3) You look at them vs a P-38 and you'll also see some similarities, but again very different.
4) I think it'd be a big step up from the 110 in overal effectiveness, but I don't think it would be uber.
5) More than capable of engaging cons just as a 190 would, a typhie would, a p-51d would.
1)The A8's about 25mph faster at most altitudes, 33 on the deck.
It accelerates faster.
17 seconds less to 300 mph at SL;
and then it keeps going to about 34 mph beyond what the 410 and 110 do.
It's
30% wider in a flat turn with no flaps,
40% wider with full flaps. That's the
difference between being
the worst sustained turner in the game, and something that can usefully
hang with spits for long enough to get a solution.
2) They don't. So it's no surprise that the two planes are different in practice. On top of that the rest of the
context to this comparison: the A8 is single engined. It very seriously relies on its better attributes for what little success it manages: roll rate, above average top speed, guns, durability. The 410
won't have that roll rate, nor that top speed. So at this point we're comparing, for the sake of arguing that the 410 is a jack of the A2A trade, the 410 to an "
A8" with slow roll rate (assume equal to 110's, roughly) and 30mph less top speed, along with everything else the 410 would be: a larger target area than the infamous P-38, and worse powerloading(i) IE projected acceleration (on par with the P-47D-11, P-51D, and Me 110). The only similarity is wingloading: the 410 would have worse wingloading than pretty much everything, worse than the A8, the D9. And that's with the "light" 2x13mm+2x20mm configuration. Go to 6x20mm or MK103 loadouts and you have worse wingloading than ..
3) ..the P-38 (how does that fly without fowler flaps out, or even just 1 notch of fowlers?), along with correspondingly even worse powerloading (what does the P-38 maneuver like throttled back to 80% power?). The P-38 charts don't look like the 410's either. The 38 is in another class on the deck and from there on keeps going further out of reach. Adding practical context: the 410 doesn't have fowler flaps, doesn't (
...) have anything like the P-38's powerloading, has wingloading at best only a little worse, doesn't have counter-rotating engines. The 410's dive flaps, glass cockpit, and huge guns (and huge weight with those) aren't enough to bridge the gap.
I don't think that all makes for a good comparison for A2A proficiency, and even for argument's sake if it were, it wouldn't be favorable to calling such an Me 410 a jack of the A2A trade as found in the MAs.
4) What exactly is the step up from 110 to 410?
Speed-wise: The 410 has 500 more HP but is slower than the 110 on the deck, and only catches up at ~7.5kft. Eventually 20mph faster, up in the 20s, and the difference is marginal till about 15k.
The data crunching that WMaker did in his recent thread shows there's something up with the 410 that keeps it slow.. So if it's going to be faster than the 110 in practice, it'll probably be when you lug that weight at the ground. Powerloading wise it is the same, and top speed wise it is barely different, so there's no evidence to support assertion that the 410 would accelerate faster than the 110 to their no-different top speeds.
Agility-wise: The 410 has the same powerloading (that excess thrust that makes planes like the P38 plow on thru high AoA & inertia by sheer power), and more wingloading. It has leading edge flaps but so does the 110. So the only difference that could offset the
much worse wingloading is the aerodynamic character of its wing shape, in practice, IE how manageable its underpowered heft is thanks to its overall handling character. So let's be optimistic and say it has comparable handling character to the Mossie (see footnote for relative weight, power, powerloading, wingloading figures): the result would be a mossie with slightly more thrust, but wingloading like the P-38's rather than like the 110's. And the same 410 performance otherwise: slower. That would take a Mossie weighing roughly 3,000 lbs more:
454 sq.ft carrying 21,500 lbs = 47.4 lbs/sq.ft : a dogfight-ready Me 410 (2x13+2x20mm) does about 47 lbs/sqft.
Wingloading-wise that's equivalent to a Mossie with 100% fuel and 3x500 bombs. What does that kind of wingloading feel like? And this is all assuming optimistically that the 410's wing shape gives handling as good as the Mossie's.
Guns-wise: the 410 is clearly better for A2A: the MK103 are going to hit pretty much as hard as anything the game has or will ever have, as easily as .50's do (same muzzle velocity). The BK5 will make confetti of bombers (about the same muzzle velocity there), nevermind if the BK5 round gets the same "infinite" lifetime that other tank rounds got instead of the 1.5K limit. But for A2G the 410 is no better than the 110: it carries enough hitting power to destroy no more buildings than the 110. And the only way to carry that much total hitting power is to weigh the 410 down so that it's easily less survivable than the 110. So that's what the majority of AH players will be faced with as a choice: just as much potential toolshedding for much worse survivability.
So
what would the step up in overall effectiveness be? It would be about as fast, have identical or similar acceleration, and be less maneuverable than the 110. The only clear step up is the MK103 and BK5 packages, and how would that work out? Probably the same way it works out for the 110's monster gun package now: people just step out of the way till the 110 is out of maneuvering mojo. And the 410's numbers say it'll run out even quicker. What do you base this "Step up" on?
