beating a LW monster in a plane that "shouldn't" have a chance, playing to my opponents strengths instead of my own, etc., etc., etc.
This is interesting...
As the war progressed, the general trend was to increase horsepower and firepower, resulting in plane that had more speed, climb, dive, etc, and could kill more easily. But often these increases in performance and lethality inevitably meant increases in wing-loading, resulting poorer-turning aircraft that were arguably worse in the 1v1 dogfight than their earlier counterparts. Of course in real air combat speed+firepower>individual dogfighting attributes like turn rate, we all know this, but still...
A SpitIX is clearly Midwar, a Fw-190 D9 is definitely a late-war monster, yet how easy is it to fight a SpitIX in one, especially co-e?