The Brewster

[Wmaker]

I think a Lancaster has good control at speed compared to the spitfires and hurricanes with fabric covered control surfaces...

What is your point?

[FLOTSOM]

I guess that the source of this type of thinking is that people constantly have to explain away the poor performance of... well, primarily, the P51 and the P47 at low altitudes, as that's not where these aircraft fought. Or that, in a broader sense, the primary source of our romanticism of air combat is the escort of the bomber streams in 44/45 at 25,000' over Germany. The thing is... the ETO, or the Western Front, or whatever your perspective forces you into the habit of calling it, was not World War II... it was a singular theater with a set of characteristics that, along with the other theaters, were unique to what the circumstances dictated. Aerial combat was not the same over western Europe as it was over Africa as it was over Russia, as it even was over the Pacific... even though you may be led to believe that they all were identical as the classic 'USAAF vs. Luftwaffe' air war is to an extent almost all that's discussed on these boards. However, even in the case of that microcosm, fighting in the weeds did happen. Nap of earth, rolling or flat scissors, lufberries, etc. weren't terms invented here, you know... they were invented by the airmen who used those tactics, primarily invented during the Second World War, and used by airmen of all countries in all theaters.

The thing is, in this discussion, we're not even talking about the 'western' war. We're talking about Russia. 30,000' should not even be in your vocabulary. This war was not focused around strategic air forces in this war that could get up to that altitude, drop their loads and fly home safely. The Eastern war was down and dirty, both the Luftwaffe and the VVS focused on close ground support with divebombers and guns to achieve tactical success. Escorting divebombers that have to get within hundreds of yards of their targets pushes operations down... thousands and thousands of feet. Using fighter aircraft from fighter units to strafe troops (something all sides did) pushes it down further. Sometimes (oftentimes even) aircraft on these missions met others and the result was tree dodging at 120 mph. Yes, it really happened, and above Karelia, or Ukraine, or Eastern Prussia, it happened a lot.

i did not mean to imply that those events "never" happened, just that they were rare as opposed to what we do in game. i almost never get above 12,000 feet, just to impatient to take the dull trip to gain alt.

thus in game we have had the ability to learn things that those real life pilots did not. they did not train for them, those that learned them learned the hard way and most would die in the process ending the experience, a fate we need not fear. do you think that Lancasters performed multiple lanc-stuka moves just to see if it could be done? in game they do it not because of a failure of the modeling, but because we can do fail re-do fail again and continue to re-do until we figure out the right way to accomplish what we are trying to do. 

[MK-84]

I dont know about how it's modeled, but it's one of the easiest kills in the game.  Just dont enter a turning fight with it.  Whatever you have for a plane, its going to be superior in almost every other aspect to a brewster.
    
     Further, the way we often fight in AH has little to do with how it was done historically.  The result being that you can not compare.

[Motherland]

i did not mean to imply that those events "never" happened, just that they were rare as opposed to what we do in game. i almost never get above 12,000 feet, just to impatient to take the dull trip to gain alt.

thus in game we have had the ability to learn things that those real life pilots did not. they did not train for them, those that learned them learned the hard way and most would die in the process ending the experience, a fate we need not fear. do you think that Lancasters performed multiple lanc-stuka moves just to see if it could be done? in game they do it not because of a failure of the modeling, but because we can do fail re-do fail again and continue to re-do until we figure out the right way to accomplish what we are trying to do. 

They were not as rare as you think... there's a reason Soviet combat aircraft had performance peaks around 10k.

[LilMak]

I just try to relate the Brew to other planes in the game. They seem to pull off feats that no other plane seems to be able to do in the MA and it has something to do with E retention or acceleration or both.

[FLOTSOM]

They were not as rare as you think... there's a reason Soviet combat aircraft had performance peaks around 10k.

and this may be why the brew was so effective in that theater of the war......

[PR3D4TOR]

The air war was generally fought below 15k in all theaters except western Europe.

[Reaper90]

I dont know about how it's modeled, but it's one of the easiest kills in the game.  Just dont enter a turning fight with it.  Whatever you have for a plane, its going to be superior in almost every other aspect to a brewster.
    
     Further, the way we often fight in AH has little to do with how it was done historically.  The result being that you can not compare.

Agreed. People who fly LW birds and die to a Brewster are people who fought the Brewster's fight, not their own.

That being said, I love the little thing.... 

[Stoney]

Of prop fighters, only the P-51 shares this trait.

P-47?  I don't find the Brewster's maneuverability, even at high speeds, to be very surprising.  Read America's 100,000 and it seems as though it was a capable plane (for an interwar design) before the realities of the WWII air battlefield forced the Navy to drop all the extra weight on it.  Obviously the Finnish success with it at its near-original weight supports that.

[Reaper90]

P-47?  I don't find the Brewster's maneuverability, even at high speeds, to be very surprising.  Read America's 100,000 and it seems as though it was a capable plane (for an interwar design) before the realities of the WWII air battlefield forced the Navy to drop all the extra weight on it.  Obviously the Finnish success with it at its near-original weight supports that.

I remember reading a quote from an interview with Pappy Boyington, discussing among other things the Brewster Buffalo. To paraphrase, he said it was a "%$^# fine airplane, and would turn around inside a phone booth, before they loaded it down with all that &*$@ weight."

[AWwrgwy]

The air war was generally fought below 15k in all theaters except western Europe.

Strange how P-39s couldn't climb to the 30K Bettys over Guadalcanal.

Of course, they were below 15K, so you're right.

 



wrongway

[Widewing]

Strange how P-39s couldn't climb to the 30K Bettys over Guadalcanal.

Of course, they were below 15K, so you're right.

 



wrongway

It wasn't that the P-39D couldn't climb to high enough altitude to get to the Bettys, most of the P-39s and P-400s were not fitted with oxygen systems. Those that were simply did not have the time to climb high enough (typically around 22k) before the G4Ms were long gone. Once at altitude, they didn't have enough fuel for a tail chase... And then, there were those pesky Zero escorts.....

[PR3D4TOR]

Strange how P-39s couldn't climb to the 30K Bettys over Guadalcanal.

Of course, they were below 15K, so you're right.

 



wrongway

gen·er·al·ly  (jnr--l)
adv.
1. Popularly; widely: generally known.
2. a. As a rule; usually: The child generally has little to say.
    b. For the most part: a generally boring speech.
3. Without reference to particular instances or details; not specifically: generally speaking.

[Babalonian]

Just wait untill WMaker sees this... He won't be pleased with you saying something negative about his Brewster lol

IBtFinn?

[Ack-Ack]

Just wait untill WMaker sees this... He won't be pleased with you saying something negative about his Brewster lol

When the negative things being said are nothing more than thinly veiled whines and not one person has been able to show the Finnish Brewster is incorrectly modeled, are you not surprised that Wmaker may become frustrated by all the B.S?

ack-ack