Flaps usage in real combat

[GScholz]

If anything, in times of critical danger, (contrary to popular belief) most people really can't think "outside the box" and would not be able to try anything crazy in the first place.

And in WWII "most people" like that became a little swastika painted on the side of a fuselage, or a line on a rudder.




“You’ve got to be able to shoot from any position.  From left or right turns, out of a roll, on your back, whenever… a series of unpredictable movements and actions, never the same, always stemming from the situation at hand.  Only then can you plunge into the middle of an enemy swarm and blow it up from the inside.”

- Hans-Joachim Marseille

[BuckShot]

And after all that, poor Hans smashed into his rudder, not in battle.

[GScholz]

After another 100+ victories, yes...

Sometimes fate is an ironic SOB.

[Karnak]

Didn't he claim 17 kills in a single day when the RAF lost fewer aircraft than that?

[Guppy35]

Yes, it just sounded like the account was being put forward as a historic justification for the type of low altitude fully deployed flap, gear, bomb bay, low energy "ACM" we so often see in AH.  I so I wanted to point out that the 60' degree comment sounded more like the deflection angle than a flap setting to me, and therefore was in no way a historic justification for the usage we so often see in the video games.  Does the p38 flap even deploy to 60 degrees?

Just wanted to clarify my response.

How many different combat reports would be enough to support the use of flaps.  Understand the guy I quoted and many others were flying ground attack and if they ran into enemy aircraft they were being bounced.  They were not in an adventagous position so using everything they could was part of surviving that.

Again, we have this same discussion every year or two.  Use the search function.  Read the 5th Fighter Command book put together during the war where the vet 5th AF pilots experience was gathered to pass on to the newbies.  More than one talks about being in a situation where you do anything to lose the guy on your six, including dropping flaps.

Did Spitfire pilots use flaps?  Nope. Two position flaps didn't do the trick.  But were there birds that did?  Absolutely.  Combat flaps are still flaps, unless somehow that doesn't count now.  Was it an offensive move?  No.  But if you were in a turning fight and trying to get inside the other guy, if you had combat flaps, they'd get used.  Track down some of the Mustang driver combat reports posted over the years.  Why would they make it up?

[Guppy35]

More from the 38 drivers of the 370th FG

Dan/CorkyJr
Lt.Richard Berry  370th Combat report  June 14, 1944

“I was leading Yellow flight and we had completed our mission and were returning home at 3000 feet.  We had lost our flight leader in clouds and haze after an identification pass at friendly A/C.  We had just gone on instruments and were about to enter the overcast when we were bounced from 4 O’Clock by four Me 109s which had just broken out of the overcast.  Yellow 2 called for me to break right into the E/A.  The entire flight broke and I found myself after a half-turn of a Lufberry, turning inside the lead E/A.  I fired a four second burst from 200 yards at approximately 20 degrees deflection and observed strikes on the engine.  The E/A started to smoke and leveled off.  I fell into trail behind him and fired a 6-second burst at 0 Degrees deflection and again observed strikes, this time on the fuselage and right wing root.  Fire broke out and enveloped the entire right wing root as the E/A disappeared into cloud.  I did not follow him because I was low on fuel.  The other E/A disappeared into the clouds after the initial break.  We all used our maneuver flaps and had no difficulty in out turning the E/A.  I saw no one bail out from the plane I hit and in my opinion the pilot was hit and at least wounded on my first burst because he leveled off and flew at a very slight climb.”


Captain Paul Sabo, 370th FG  July 31, 1944

“I was leading Blue Flight circling the target area giving Red Flight Top Cover as they were dive bombing the target.  Circling above us at about 12,000 feet were 12 Me 109s.  I kept watching them; then 8 of them half rolled and got behind my flight.  I gave the order to jettison our bombs and break. I dropped flaps and started in a tight Lufberry.  When I had completed one turn I was alone, and at that time I saw an Me 109 in a vertical turn coming in front of me so I started firing at him at a 90 degree deflection shot.  He flew right into the pattern and I saw strikes on him from nose to tail.  The plane seemed to shudder and slow down.  I was about 200 yards when I started to fire.  The Me 109 then made a 90 degree turn to the left and started to climb as if he was going to loop.  I followed him, closing to about 100 yards, fired and saw strikes all over his canopy, fuselage and tail surfaces.  As he was about at the top of his loop and almost on his back, I saw what looked like his canopy come off, as the plane seemed to hang there.  It looked like I had wounded the pilot during the first 90 degree deflection shot and he was rolling it over on his back to jettison his canopy and bail out.

About that time I looked in my rear view mirror and saw an Me 109 on my tail. I dropped flaps and turned into him.  He half rolled and went down.  As I rolled out I saw an Me 109 coming down in front of me.  I opened up again and gave him a 90-degree deflection shot.    He ran into my pattern and I saw strikes all over the plane.  I followed him and kept firing from directly behind him, seeing strikes on his tail surfaces.  Then he proceeded to go down in a wild dive from about 5000 feet.  I looked back in my mirror again, because all during this time I was still alone.  My flight had left me.  I saw another Me 109 coming in on my tail. I dropped flaps, leveled out and turned into him.  He automatically went into a steep climb and I lost him in the sun.  When I looked I saw no more enemy and called my Flight to join me.”

[Guppy35]

Search, then cut and paste saves me typing this again

Another 38 driver

Quoting Lt. Robert Blandin

"The 109 was in front of me now and still in a pretty steep climb.   I had him in range and was firing.  I could see my tracers looping behind his tail but I didn't have enough speed to pull the lead I needed to  hit him.  To get it, I cracked some combat flaps which gave me added lift and let me bring the nose up without stalling.  The next time I fired I hit him aft of the cockpit...."

[Guppy35]

Yep, we do this discussion all the time.  Another one I typed in the past regarding a 4th FG P51 pilot combat report.

Search is working well.

 A quote from a combat report of 4th FG pilot Willard Millikan in his combat report of April 22,1944, flying a P51B:

"The Hun kept up his attack and turned steeply to come in on my number 4's tail, so I pushed everything forward and dropped flaps to turn inside him.  Through the early stages of the turn he outturned me, but I pulled up and corkscrewed inside him and laid off a deflection shot which hit him hard enough to cause him to flick out of his turn.  He started to split-ess but my shots forced him to turn back the other way.  Immediately I managed to get a few strikes and he began to skid and slow up and prepare to bale out.  I was closing very rapidly so I dropped full flaps and throttled back completely....."

[GScholz]

Didn't he claim 17 kills in a single day when the RAF lost fewer aircraft than that?

Yeah, but IIRC that was a case of faulty research. Marseilles flew three sorties that day, and most of his adversaries were not RAF. Specifically No. 1, 2 and 5 Squadron SAAF, No. 92, 213 and 238 Squadron RAF, and 57th Fighter Group USAAF. Several of Marseille's victories that day have been identified: Lieutenant Bailey (SAAF), Major P. R. C. Metelerkamp (SAAF), Flying Officer I. W. Matthews (RAF), Pilot Officer Bradley-Smith (RAF), Sergeant A. Garrod (RAF), Lieutenant Stearns (USAAF), Lieutenant Morrison (USAAF), Lieutenant W. L. O. Moon (USAAF), and Lieutenant G. B. Jack (USAAF).  Source: The Star of Africa: The Story of Hans Marseille, the Rogue Luftwaffe Ace Who Dominated the WWII Skies by Walter J. Boyne, Albert H. Wunsch III, Colin D. Heaton and Anne-Marie Lewis (12 Nov 2012).

The majority of these kills were P-40s and Hurricanes. Metelerkamp managed to nurse his ride back to base.

[Guppy35]

From "Twelve to One" the 5th AF Fighter pilot's 'bible"

Allen Hill, pilot of "Hills Angels" in the 80th FS

"In cases where you are really latched, it doesn't matter much what you do, but do something and do it violently"

Cy Homer of the 80th

"When caught just above the tree tops or water at slow speed, you can only hope to throw his aim off by jerking and skidding, at the same time striving for altitude. Drop full flaps if necessary--anything to make him overshoot."

"If you find your tail is dirty, then it is time to get violent at the controls"

[Ardy123]

"If you find your tail is dirty, then it is time to get violent at the controls"

I do that anyway... fluffluff'n 'don't move your controls so rapidly' BS...

[Brent Haliday]

Slamming on the brakes with full flaps is not what you were putting forward historically before guppy.  Nobody disputes the use of flaps in combat.  The way they are used in AH is what is in dispute.  ACM with full flaps out all the while, is what tends to bother people. That and the some can and some can't deploy the same flap systems aspect of the video game.

  However your posts do point out quite plainly that even unprepared and panicked flap deployments did not seem to be a big dealto those pikots, and points to how suspect the flap deployment restrictions are in AH.  I would bet with all your research You have never ever run across an instance of overspeed flap damage in a fighter in ww2, not surprising considering the sturdy construction requirements and the "margin of safety" factors.  Flap restrictions should probably go away if the game is to mirror real world capabilities, then maybe the 109 guys could match your flap maneuvers just like the affor mentioned HJM did in the real world.

[Brooke]

MA is a lot of fighting on the deck at low speed.  In that environment, using lots of flaps is a good tool.  Scenario fighting is much less of that and a lot more higher alt and higher speed fighting, usually also many on many.  The style of fighting then is different and tends to be more historical in nature.

As for flap restrictions, they are very likely based on documentation for that aircraft (such as pilot's manual or flight-test data).  Some planes could deploy flaps at much higher speeds than others.  Ones you are reading about are P-51's and P-38's, which could deploy flaps at high speed.  Some 109's would have had a very hard time deploying flaps in combat because it took lots of turns on a wheel to get a little bit of flaps out -- it would take forever to get them out and back in again.  (I'm not sure if Marseille used flaps in combat -- could be wrong, but don't remember reading that he did.)  Nevertheless, there are 109's in the game that use flaps all the time once they are scrambling around on the deck.

Complaining about some planes having better flaps or flaps that are deployable at higher speeds is like complaining that the Zero is slower than F4U's, and because of an account here or there (like Boyington being shot down from behind by a Zero), all planes should be given about the same top speed.

[icepac]

I don't need to be a real life pilot to know when someone is talking nothing but BS...

ack-ack

Yeah but it surely helps as does having walked up to and seen the actuation of flaps on many warbirds in person and discussing it with guys like howard wolko as you are watching the surfaces actuate.

Me and Nels Wolko, his son, used to get lectures from howard on how the various control surfaces worked on the RC airplanes we built in his workshop.

Flaps allow more lift at slower speeds but with a substantial penalty of drag and do not allow higher angle of attack.

Slats allow more lift at slower speeds by allowing more angle of attack to be utilized.

My argument is that the flaps in aces high are allowing more angle of attack instead of simply increasing lift and lowering stall speed while the slats don't offer any more useful angle of attack than the flaps do yet they also add greatly to the drag even at zero angle of attack.

In real life, you don't pull  more angle of attack when using flaps but rather use the additional lift to get around more quickly when in a high G banked turn at the same angle of attack.

My point is that I know how they work, have discussed it with people who regularly fly planes with slats and flaps, and have flown a pretty good variety of planes myself.....thought most of them did not have slats.

I just think a few things could use a little adjustment for the sake of reality but HTC has to walk a fine line between full realism and having a sim where the extreme realism brings on enough difficulty that people decide they don't enjoy flying it.

This is why you don't see spins as easily entered by pulling hard Gs with controls crossed as you did in warbirds before version 3.

A sim is no good if nobody want's fl fly it.

I don't have the exact numbers but neither does anybody else on this thread.

The experienced may not need the exact numbers because experience here and in the real world would indicate flaps and slats don't quite act as they should..........close, but some inaccuracies that could be closer.

[Drano]

Slamming on the brakes with full flaps is not what you were putting forward historically before guppy.  Nobody disputes the use of flaps in combat.  The way they are used in AH is what is in dispute.  ACM with full flaps out all the while, is what tends to bother people. That and the some can and some can't deploy the same flap systems aspect of the video game.

  However your posts do point out quite plainly that even unprepared and panicked flap deployments did not seem to be a big dealto those pikots, and points to how suspect the flap deployment restrictions are in AH.  I would bet with all your research You have never ever run across an instance of overspeed flap damage in a fighter in ww2, not surprising considering the sturdy construction requirements and the "margin of safety" factors.  Flap restrictions should probably go away if the game is to mirror real world capabilities, then maybe the 109 guys could match your flap maneuvers just like the affor mentioned HJM did in the real world.

So, for clarity on your "suspect flap deployment restrictions" thing, are you proposing unlimited use of flaps at any speed in any plane? That makes sense?


 I'd add that you must not fight many good 109 pilots here. The ones I do are most defintely using flaps and when they do are able to turn quite nicely.