AKDejaVu said:
If you're going to discuss it.. you might as well use current numbers:
That's pretty much in line with the December TD. As of 31 Dec, the fighters accounting for the most kills of fighters were: spit9 (10.7%), N1 (9.7%), 51D (8.7%), La7 (8.3%), spit5 (6.6%), and F6F (5.7%). There are 37 fighters counting all subtypes, so here we have 16% of the available planes doing 50% of the damage and, by implication, getting about 50% of the sorties. And of these few planes, the top 4 (spit9, N1, 51D, and La7) clearly dominate with little difference between them. That's 11% of the planes doing 37% of the damage.
I'm a bit puzzled by this. I've only just come back from several months of ReaLife Hell. When I left, the uberNiki was filling the skies. Now, while I still see them every night, they sure don't seem common. My impression is of a thundering herd of spits and La7s, with a leavening of 51s and the odd 38. Near a CV, it's mostly F4Us, F6Fs, and zekes. I note others in this thread also report a big drop in N1 sightings.
So where are all the N1s? For all the damage they do, you'd think we'd see them nearly as much as spits. Sure, spits have a K/D below 1.0, so there's even more of them than their kill totals imply, but the N1's K/D isn't so much above 1.0 that it makes much difference.
My impressions of the relative absence of N1s compared to spits and La7s is of course totally subjective. But so far this camp I haven't even engaged the few I've seen. I can only speculate that N1s must be more common at times when I don't fly. Maybe the Asians and Euros fly it more than those in the US?