Bf-110 is THE fighter

[lbuchele]

It´s a new beast compared to Il2 in my opinion.
If used with B&Z tatics you can eat spitfires and hurricanes for lunch.
The visuals in this game are so incredible too,I was catching a Spitfire with diffficulty, almost in tree top height,with no hope to reach it,when decided to do a high yo-yo,and suddenly have a brief firing solution: give it a 2 sec burst and just saw one single hit in the left aileron when the spit was in a 90 degree turn.
It slowly turn even more to te left and crash to the ground exploding beautifully.
There are so many of this beautiful moments happening, but it´s really difficult to me to express in words because I´m not a native english speaking person...

[Ze-Jamz]

It´s a new beast compared to Il2 in my opinion.
If used with B&Z tatics you can eat spitfires and hurricanes for lunch.
The visuals in this game are so incredible too,I was catching a Spitfire with diffficulty, almost in tree top height,with no hope to reach it,when decided to do a high yo-yo,and suddenly have a brief firing solution: give it a 2 sec burst and just saw one single hit in the left aileron when the spit was in a 90 degree turn.
It slowly turn even more to te left and crash to the ground exploding beautifully.
There are so many of this beautiful moments happening, but it´s really difficult to me to express in words because I´m not a native english speaking person...

Lol its a beast in IL2 too..

exellent guns, loads of ammo, fast and in IL2 if you get on its tail that rear gunner will own you if it gets your engine, in a spit or hurri anyway

[lbuchele]

Yes, it´s like a german P38, but not so sexy, of course...

[bongodriver]

it didn't do so well in real life though, I think they withdrew it during the battle of britain and made it a night fighter because they lost so many.

[Anvilfolk]

it didn't do so well in real life though, I think they withdrew it during the battle of britain and made it a night fighter because they lost so many.

Read that too. Can't remember exactly why. Bad turning ability? Maybe speed (although with two engines that sounds strange).

Then they used it for low-level bombing experimentally, and it worked wonders. I don't think the technique was widely adopted though, for some reason.

[bongodriver]

Read that too. Can't remember exactly why. Bad turning ability? Maybe speed (although with two engines that sounds strange).


Yep...not very manouverable, and being quite large with 2 engines and quite heavy (not being made of wood a la mosquito) made it slow.

[JG3_Hartmann]

And you can build nearly two 109´s out of one 110. So I would stick to the smaller plane. ^^

The huge problem was that they used the wrong tactics. "Enger Geleitschutz" (the fighters staying near the bombers) instead of "Freie Jagd" (Search and Destroy)

[Rattlehead]

it didn't do so well in real life though, I think they withdrew it during the battle of britain and made it a night fighter because they lost so many.

That was because they were throttled back, by order, to escort the bombers. The 110 lacked the acceleration of the single-engined planes and was a sitting duck against enemy fighters as a result of the throttling back.

But when given license to roam they were quite formidable, at least against the Hurricane.

[bongodriver]

That was because they were throttled back, by order, to escort the bombers. The 110 lacked the acceleration of the single-engined planes and was a sitting duck against enemy fighters as a result of the throttling back.

But when given license to roam they were quite formidable, at least against the Hurricane.

not fully convinced by that, they would have all the free licence they wanted if being attacked, from what I read they just couldn't defend themselves let alone the bombers, an escort fighter doesn't just keep formation with the bombers, they break off and fight when the formations are attacked.

[Kurfürst]

it didn't do so well in real life though, I think they withdrew it during the battle of britain and made it a night fighter because they lost so many.

Actually, it gave a pretty good account of itself. Recent studies of actual kills vs. actual losses suggest that it did just as well if not better than 109s. But 110s were few in number compared to the numerous 109s (roughly 300 vs 1000+ 109s), and their losses (200 or so) compared to their number were severe for the heavy fighter arm. Every 110 that fell, it left a gaping hole; when a 109 was lost it was just one member of a big hive..

[David Hayward]

Actually, it gave a pretty good account of itself. Recent studies of actual kills vs. actual losses suggest that it did just as well if not better than 109s. But 110s were few in number compared to the numerous 109s (roughly 300 vs 1000+ 109s), and their losses (200 or so) compared to their number were severe for the heavy fighter arm. Every 110 that fell, it left a gaping hole; when a 109 was lost it was just one member of a big hive..

If the aircraft had a high loss ratio, then it was probably a pig. 200 lost out of 300 in service, if your stats are right, is a disaster.

[bongodriver]

of course it gave good account, many aircraft did, more testament to the crews abilities though, even the hurricane gave a good account of itself and we all know what a pig that is (highest scoring aircraft in the batttle of britain)

[Blue 5]

Actually, it gave a pretty good account of itself. Recent studies of actual kills vs. actual losses suggest that it did just as well if not better than 109s. But 110s were few in number compared to the numerous 109s (roughly 300 vs 1000+ 109s), and their losses (200 or so) compared to their number were severe for the heavy fighter arm. Every 110 that fell, it left a gaping hole; when a 109 was lost it was just one member of a big hive..

Oh, what clap-trap; you've taken the revisionist line to an absurd degree :)

It was a good aircraft that has been unfairly maligned by historians, certainly, and the BoB was probably the worst way it could have been used (stemming from Fink and Osterkamp's gentleman's agreement about escort vs free hunting). It also probably accounted for more RAF aircraft than is generally stated (heavy armament and good crews plus most RAF pilots would tend to assume a 109 got them), but the idea that it got more kills than the 109 is risible, think of the exchange rate that would have meant given the numbers involved! :grin:

Also, as has been pointed out, the loss rate vs total operational strength is pretty bad (especially given the larger fuel supply and 2 engines meant probably fewer losses of damaged examples in the Channel). 200 is not a 'gaping number compared to their numbers', it's a disaster which - given the smaller numbers of 110s involved - suggests it was simply more vulnerable than a 109.

It's a good design that's got short shrift, but that doesn't mean it didn't do pretty badly over England even if it was not all due to the aircraft itself.

[whoarmongar]

The Hurricane in 1940 was no pig. Many pilots prefered it, it was more rugged, a better gun platform and could turn inside a spitfire. By 1941 tho it certainly was outclassed and you have to feel sorry for the pilots who had to fly it.

[senseispcc]

it didn't do so well in real life though, I think they withdrew it during the battle of britain and made it a night fighter because they lost so many.

During the Battle of Britain very quickly they put some BF109 to escort the ME110, the only real defensive tactic of the Me 110 was to form a defensive circle and hope the enemy did not penetrate it. If a Me 110 can out maneuver a Spitfire or a Hurricane there is a mistake somewhere.

Have a nice simulation.
:evil:

[bongodriver]

I meant pig by comparison to its counterparts

[Friendly_flyer]

I am fairly confident the 110, used with the advantage of superior tactics born from hindsight, will be a very deadly opponent. The late war B&Z crowd will probably be able to do wonders with it against planes with limited operational hight.

[Romanator21]

If a Me 110 can out maneuver a Spitfire or a Hurricane there is a mistake somewhere.

Rookie pilots who did not know their aircraft could easily be out-turned by a Bf-109 or even Bf-110.

But besides range, I don't see what advantages a Bf-110 had over a Bf-109.

Question: does CoD model the cannon drum reload? Or does it behave like a belt-fed gun?

[Geronimo989]

Ive flown it for few hours after I saw this thread (thought it was pretty useless, like in IL-2).
I must say it exceeded my expectations by far, as I can score more kills with it than with BF-109. It has more ammo (3x60 rounds for each gun), the guns are centered, have higher ROF than 109, and is quite fast (faster than the Spit1). It cannot turn well and bleeds alot of airspeed, but when used in boom and zoom, it is in my hands the most effective plane in this game.

[Kurfürst]

If the aircraft had a high loss ratio, then it was probably a pig. 200 lost out of 300 in service, if your stats are right, is a disaster.

Loss ratio is only meaningful when pitted against the number of sorties flown; if you pick a long enough period, losses will sooner or later will be a very high percentage of the initial strenght.

Loss ratios are reflecting on the operations, not on the tactical performance of aircraft. The Battle of Britain was a light skirmish if you look at the casulties sustained, but a slaughter if you look at the odds for survival.

Fighter Command started out the Battle with some 900 fighters of all kinds on hand in July; by the end of October, it lost 1140 of them destroyed or written off and another 710 seriously damaged.. so if some 60% loss of the force in two months is 'disaster', how would you call loosing 120% of the initial force..?

[*Buzzsaw*]

Actually, it gave a pretty good account of itself. Recent studies of actual kills vs. actual losses suggest that it did just as well if not better than 109s. But 110s were few in number compared to the numerous 109s (roughly 300 vs 1000+ 109s), and their losses (200 or so) compared to their number were severe for the heavy fighter arm. Every 110 that fell, it left a gaping hole; when a 109 was lost it was just one member of a big hive..

Your argument the Me-110 gave a good account of itself is completely falacious, as proven by your own admittance the losses suffered by the Zerstorer Geschwader were in fact, unsustainable. As far as the claims of kills by 110 Geschwader, the actual losses by the RAF show there was an overclaim of at least 3-1.

In addition, Luftwaffe operational data shows the 110's were unable to fulfil their designed role as long range escorts for the bombers, and in fact, the Luftwaffe found it necessary to assign 109's to escort them. They were unable to operate over England alone in Free Hunt or Escort role without the protection of single engined fighters.

After the failure to act in the escort role, the 110's were then assigned the fighterbomber role, but again, did not succeed in achieving their task without serious losses.

The result was they were withdrawn from this role as well, and in the later stages of the daylight battle, it was the 109's who were assigned to the 'hit and run' fighterbomber missions against the southern English ports and factories, not the 110s.

As far as the 110's flight model in CLIFFS OF DOVER, it is clear they are overmodelled when compared to the Spitfire I and IA, even considering these aircraft are currently operating with the two pitch propellor arrangement.

For you to insist the current performance comparison is appropriate is clearly nonsense, especially considering your own site has the excerpt from the Luftwaffe's own August 8th 1940 comparison of a Me-110 with a two pitch Spitfire (+6 boost captured during the Dunkirk evacuation), which notes the Me-110 was inferior in speed and climb to the Spitfire except at sea level:

The plane Bf 110 C is speed-wise inferior to the Spitfire, superior to the Curtiss
and Hurricane. Regarding the climb performance is the Curtiss equal at ground level,
up to 4 km superior then inferior. Hurricane is inferior up to altitude 2 km, then
superior up to 6.5 km. Spitfire is equal at ground level, otherwise superior.


Kurfurst site page:

http://www.kurfurst.org/Tactical_trials/109E_vergleich110SpitHurCurtiss/109E_vergleichsflg_Aug1940.html

Obviously the game's aircraft Flight Model is in flux now, the Spitfire's, Hurricane's and 109's are clearly undermodelled as far as performance is concerned. The 110 may be the only aircraft modelled up to its historical level, and is thus showing an advantage.

Hopefully we will see the appropriate adjustments.

[Kurfürst]

I am fairly confident the 110, used with the advantage of superior tactics born from hindsight, will be a very deadly opponent. The late war B&Z crowd will probably be able to do wonders with it against planes with limited operational hight.

That's my take as well. I guess P-47/Tempest/P-51/190 veterans of the old Il-2 will be deadly with it..

[ATAG_Doc]

It´s a new beast compared to Il2 in my opinion.
If used with B&Z tatics you can eat spitfires and hurricanes for lunch.
The visuals in this game are so incredible too,I was catching a Spitfire with diffficulty, almost in tree top height,with no hope to reach it,when decided to do a high yo-yo,and suddenly have a brief firing solution: give it a 2 sec burst and just saw one single hit in the left aileron when the spit was in a 90 degree turn.
It slowly turn even more to te left and crash to the ground exploding beautifully.
There are so many of this beautiful moments happening, but it´s really difficult to me to express in words because I´m not a native english speaking person...

Thanks sounds cool! You're pissing me off since I cannot get it yet!

[Triggaaar]

If used with B&Z tatics you can eat spitfires and hurricanes for lunch.This doesn't sound good. As others have said, it wasn't good enough as a fighter, and that's not because it had to fly slowly next to the bombers, it just wasn't as good as the Spit or Hurricane.

And the Hurricane, a pig? Sounds like you've been playing too much IL2 without reading any facts.

[Kurfürst]

Your argument the Me-110 gave a good account of itself is completely falacious, as proven by your own admittance the losses suffered by the Zerstorer Geschwader were in fact, unsustainable.

Well that's the historical fact, wheter you like it or not. It was discussed in lenght on a non-kiddie board.

The blatant failure of the Bf 110 in air to air fighting in the BoB is often repeated in literature. Christer Bergström in his book ”Luftstrid över kanalen”(1), 2006, has analyzed the victory and loss statistics in the BoB and presents a different picture to the usually repeated "Bf 110 fighter BoB disaster" scenario.[/SIZE][/FONT]

The confirmed aerial victories achieved by Bf 109 units amounted to 815 while the Bf 110 units gathered 407 confirmed victories.
A comparison between confirmed victories and operational losses due to air battles gives at hand that in the period 8 August to end of October 1940:
Bf 109 units scored 815 victories to 489 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1
Bf 110 units scored 407 victories to 185 losses – a ratio of 2,2:1

In October the Bf 110 units even had a ratio of 3:1 while the Bf 109 units dropped to 1,4:1.

Christer Bergström continues to discuss the matter as well as comparing Spifire and Hurricane relative performances and some of the RAF unit’s performance, RAF Bomber command losses, coastal command and the Fleet Air Arm..
When finally comparing the scores by Bf 109 and Bf 110 units as mentioned above with the estimated true losses by each side for the period July-October 1940 it turns out that in approximate figures the authentic victories versus actual air battle losses where:

Spitfire 550 victories to 329 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1
Hurricane 750 victories to 603 losses – a ratio of 1,2:1
Bf 109 780 victories to 534 losses – a ratio of 1,5:1
Bf 110 340 victories to 196 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1

Bergström continues by discussing the validity of the data including the difficulties in identifying if a Bf 109 or 110 shot down a RAF fighter, however, the outcome is that minimum 25-30% of all British aircraft losses inflicted by Luftwaffe fighters were scored by Bf 110s.
The “Total failure of the Bf 110 as a fighter aircraft in the BoB” is perhaps another BoB Myth worth reassessing?

The fact is that on several occasions the Bf 110 units performed better than the Bf 109 units on a particular day. When deployed tactically correct using the advantages the Bf 110 offered the Bf 110 was still a lethal weapon in air-to-air fighting which I believe Christer Bergström is able to show.
When used as a high altitude escort, not being tied to close escort to the bomber force, it made effective diving attacks on RAF fighters using surprise, high speed and it’s heavy nose armament to score victories.
Long range and an extra pair of eyes was also helpful in air battle, the range enabling to wait for the right moment to strike and the extra pair of eyes increasing the situational awareness of the pilot in an air battle.

The rest of you post I don't care, its the usual blabbering and nonsense...

[David Hayward]

Loss ratio is only meaningful when pitted against the number of sorties flown; if you pick a long enough period, losses will sooner or later will be a very high percentage of the initial strenght.

Loss ratios are reflecting on the operations, not on the tactical performance of aircraft. The Battle of Britain was a light skirmish if you look at the casulties sustained, but a slaughter if you look at the odds for survival.

Fighter Command started out the Battle with some 900 fighters of all kinds on hand in July; by the end of October, it lost 1140 of them destroyed or written off and another 710 seriously damaged.. so if some 60% loss of the force in two months is 'disaster', how would you call loosing 120% of the initial force..?

I thought you meant that a total of 300 saw service in the battle. Obviously that is different from the number which started the battle.

In any case, the losses don't really matter. What was really important is whether the aircraft could do the job assigned to it. The answer is clearly NO. The 110 was so ineffective that, as stated by others, the Germans had to use 109s to escort their 110s. It takes a lot of lipstick to make that pig look good.

[bongodriver]

Hey don't get me wrong, I love the Hurri, but by comparison it was somewhat inferior....hence 'pig', I have had the chance to speak with a few contemporary warbird display pilots (Charlie Brown for example), and in his own words he described it as a 'pig' by comparison to the spit.

[David Hayward]

When used as a high altitude escort, not being tied to close escort to the bomber force, it made effective diving attacks on RAF fighters using surprise, high speed and it’s heavy nose armament to score victories.

Indeed, when given every possible advantage, including an escort of 109s, I'm sure the 110 could be quite effective.

[Blue 5]

The fact is that on several occasions the Bf 110 units performed better than the Bf 109 units on a particular day. When deployed tactically correct using the advantages the Bf 110 offered the Bf 110 was still a lethal weapon in air-to-air fighting which I believe Christer Bergström is able to show.
When used as a high altitude escort, not being tied to close escort to the bomber force, it made effective diving attacks on RAF fighters using surprise, high speed and it’s heavy nose armament to score victories.
Long range and an extra pair of eyes was also helpful in air battle, the range enabling to wait for the right moment to strike and the extra pair of eyes increasing the situational awareness of the pilot in an air battle.

That's a perfectly reasonable argument, the problem is that Kurfust seems to take x occurred with y frequency and turn it in to an indication of why x was the norm. Clearly, by all kill claim and loss data on both sides, the 110s had more bad days that good. Does not make it a bad aircraft, just mis-employed.

[Jatta Raso]

for all i know the 110 was faster than British fighters at top speed, but with low acceleration, and if caught up it had to stay and fight; under those conditions it was quite doomed as it bleeds energy fast during turning maneuvers, and had a wider turning radius than both Hurricanes and Spits. not much they could do with low speed except forming defensive circles or dropping all sorts of ordnance and hit the deck to make a run for it (against experient opponents that is).

true enough, soon they had to be escorted by 109s. i don't think they faced their best campaign scenario so they could show their best abilities though

[Doc_uk]

It´s a new beast compared to Il2 in my opinion.
If used with B&Z tatics you can eat spitfires and hurricanes for lunch.
The visuals in this game are so incredible too,I was catching a Spitfire with diffficulty, almost in tree top height,with no hope to reach it,when decided to do a high yo-yo,and suddenly have a brief firing solution: give it a 2 sec burst and just saw one single hit in the left aileron when the spit was in a 90 degree turn.
It slowly turn even more to te left and crash to the ground exploding beautifully.
There are so many of this beautiful moments happening, but it´s really difficult to me to express in words because I´m not a native english speaking person...
You proberly had everything set on easy:rolleyes:
And you dont eat spits for lunch, you might for breakfast, but not lunch:evil:
:)

[Strike]

Personally I think the 110 is more like using a 20 mm gun firing a single round against a flying sparrow.

If you set everything up just right, and add a little luck you might just hit it as it zooms by. And the result? Devastation! Ziel zerstört!!!

[123-Wulf-123]

The 110 in Il2 was a beast when flown with correct tactics and preferably in schwarm formations online, I was part of Oktoberfest's Circus on Warclouds and we were so effective at WHACKING Spitfairies :evil: and MyLittle Ponies :evil:, that the WC crowd changed the rules to knobble 110s flying together as teams.

I have no doubt it will be just as effective flown correctly in CoD, and in fact I am enjoying flying against squads of Spitfairies and Hurris, Ansons, Walrus etc and shooting them out of the sky :evil::evil::evil:

Poor Buzz...sorry to burst your little bubble :grin:

[*Buzzsaw*]

Well that's the historical fact, wheter you like it or not. It was discussed in lenght on a non-kiddie board.

Originally Posted by F19Gladiator View Post
The blatant failure of the Bf 110 in air to air fighting in the BoB is often repeated in literature. Christer Bergström in his book ”Luftstrid över kanalen”(1), 2006, has analyzed the victory and loss statistics in the BoB and presents a different picture to the usually repeated "Bf 110 fighter BoB disaster" scenario.[/SIZE][/FONT]

The confirmed aerial victories achieved by Bf 109 units amounted to 815 while the Bf 110 units gathered 407 confirmed victories.
A comparison between confirmed victories and operational losses due to air battles gives at hand that in the period 8 August to end of October 1940:
Bf 109 units scored 815 victories to 489 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1
Bf 110 units scored 407 victories to 185 losses – a ratio of 2,2:1

In October the Bf 110 units even had a ratio of 3:1 while the Bf 109 units dropped to 1,4:1.

Christer Bergström continues to discuss the matter as well as comparing Spifire and Hurricane relative performances and some of the RAF unit’s performance, RAF Bomber command losses, coastal command and the Fleet Air Arm..
When finally comparing the scores by Bf 109 and Bf 110 units as mentioned above with the estimated true losses by each side for the period July-October 1940 it turns out that in approximate figures the authentic victories versus actual air battle losses where:

Spitfire 550 victories to 329 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1
Hurricane 750 victories to 603 losses – a ratio of 1,2:1
Bf 109 780 victories to 534 losses – a ratio of 1,5:1
Bf 110 340 victories to 196 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1

Bergström continues by discussing the validity of the data including the difficulties in identifying if a Bf 109 or 110 shot down a RAF fighter, however, the outcome is that minimum 25-30% of all British aircraft losses inflicted by Luftwaffe fighters were scored by Bf 110s.
The “Total failure of the Bf 110 as a fighter aircraft in the BoB” is perhaps another BoB Myth worth reassessing?

The fact is that on several occasions the Bf 110 units performed better than the Bf 109 units on a particular day. When deployed tactically correct using the advantages the Bf 110 offered the Bf 110 was still a lethal weapon in air-to-air fighting which I believe Christer Bergström is able to show.
When used as a high altitude escort, not being tied to close escort to the bomber force, it made effective diving attacks on RAF fighters using surprise, high speed and it’s heavy nose armament to score victories.
Long range and an extra pair of eyes was also helpful in air battle, the range enabling to wait for the right moment to strike and the extra pair of eyes increasing the situational awareness of the pilot in an air battle.


The rest of you post I don't care, its the usual blabbering and nonsense...

If you want to suggest that when quoted the contents of your own board are blabbering and nonsense, then feel free... :D

You don't by the way, even quote directly from Bergstrom's book, we have 2nd hand account... typical.

In any case, Bergstrom's comments and facts are to be taken with a large grain of salt. There were 224 serviceable on strength 110's at the start of the Battle, the Germans lost 196... not a good ratio.

You point to the fact the British lost a higher percentage of their starting fighter force. There are some very good reasons for that, number one they were heavily outnumbered.

According to the official RAF Battle of Britain site there were the following serviceable daylight fighters available on August 10th:

Spitfire - 245
Hurricane - 382
Defiant - 22
Gladiator - 2

Total - 651

These aircraft were distributed all over Britain, they could not abandon the midlands or the north, only some 450 were based southern England ready to meet the Luftwaffe. Against them on August 10, according to the original Luftwaffe reports, there were serviceable aircraft amounting to:

109: 805

110: 224

Heinkel, Dornier, Ju-88: 998

Ju-87 - 261

Total: 2288 aircraft

The RAF was outnumbered by more than 4-1 in the main battle area. And the RAF's fighters main task was to shoot down German bombers, not fighters. This was not a case of fighter versus fighter matchup, it was a case of the heavily outnumbered RAF going for the bombers, while having to fight off greater numbers of German fighters.

What were the losses?

In total the British lost 1,023 fighters, including the two seater Defiants.

The Germans lost 873 fighters and 1,014 bombers destroyed in the daylight phase of the battle. 1887 aircraft. They also lost a number of coastal aircraft and recon.

In addition, the British lost 376 bombers and 148 aircraft from Coastal Command, but the bombers and coastal command aircraft were almost entirely lost at night during the strategic bombing of German industrial targets, and the bombing of the channel ports at night, not due to Luftwaffe dayfighter action. Conversely, when the Germans began their night bombing 'Blitz', which ran from Mid September '40 to May of '41, they lost approx. 600 bombers.

Total loss comparison was therefore 1.84 to 1 in favour of the British during the daylight battles, despite the fact they were heavily outnumbered.

If Kurfurst wants to try to set up loss ratios without taking into account the total loss figures and strength comparisons, he is welcome to do so, but his conclusions are not going to have any serious credibility.

[123-Wulf-123]

Here we go with the compulsive, obsessive, 12 page threads on why Spitfires were the best plane in the world ever, ever, and the nasty Messerschitts were the worst ever, ever, :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:


CHARTS!!!!

We need CHARTS!!!!!!!

Geez get a life.

[JG53Frankyboy]

As a sidenote, only TWO squadrons of all the units Bf110 were used as fighterbombers during the BOB, 1. & 2./ErpGrp210 (3. flew 109 fighterbombers till November )

and i hope 1C will change the 110C-4/-7 canons to MG-Ff/M soon.

[bongodriver]

Here we go with the compulsive, obsessive, 12 page threads on why Spitfires were the best plane in the world ever, ever, and the nasty Messerschitts were the worst ever, ever, :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:


CHARTS!!!!

We need CHARTS!!!!!!!

Geez get a life.

I don't think thats the case, just stating well documented 'facts', and in all fairness it is generally aknowledged that the 109 was the most superior and numerous aircraft overall adding to that the german pilots were also arguably superior too, considering they were more experienced and battle hardened....well they did start it after all :wink:

but despite that the Brits and foreign contingents somehow kicked 'arsch'

[Bewolf]

It´s a new beast compared to Il2 in my opinion.
If used with B&Z tatics you can eat spitfires and hurricanes for lunch.
The visuals in this game are so incredible too,I was catching a Spitfire with diffficulty, almost in tree top height,with no hope to reach it,when decided to do a high yo-yo,and suddenly have a brief firing solution: give it a 2 sec burst and just saw one single hit in the left aileron when the spit was in a 90 degree turn.
It slowly turn even more to te left and crash to the ground exploding beautifully.
There are so many of this beautiful moments happening, but it´s really difficult to me to express in words because I´m not a native english speaking person...

Anybody said "the" fighter?

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/542891019087326396/4551980E9FC5FC6C7151D5E3032AA106E0BBDD9E/

agreed.

[123-Wulf-123]

;)

It's a beast...........:cool:

[*Buzzsaw*]

Here we go with the compulsive, obsessive, 12 page threads on why Spitfires were the best plane in the world ever, ever, and the nasty Messerschitts were the worst ever, ever, :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:


CHARTS!!!!

We need CHARTS!!!!!!!

Geez get a life.

Actually what we are seeing from your comments is a 'gamer' congratulating himself on getting an aircraft with an unrealistic advantage, and then whining when the true facts are presented.

For those of us who prefer to think CLIFFS OF DOVER is what was promised, ie. a "SIMULATION", pointing out instances where an aircraft has an ahistorical advantage is simply good feedback.

[julian265]

... the WC crowd changed the rules to knobble 110s flying together as teams.

What rules were changed to do that?

[123-Wulf-123]

The rule that didn't allow us to fly it.

Because we were rolling up the missions in no time flat.

And the bloody Spitfairies whined because we kept blasting them out of the sky becuase the clownasses kept attacking 110s and flying in front of them........:evil:

The rule that when they brought it in meant many WC veterans left WC..... THAT RULE.

Ask Oktoberfest.

[123-Wulf-123]

Actually what we are seeing from your comments is a 'gamer' congratulating himself on getting an aircraft with an unrealistic advantage, and then whining when the true facts are presented.

For those of us who prefer to think CLIFFS OF DOVER is what was promised, ie. a "SIMULATION", pointing out instances where an aircraft has an ahistorical advantage is simply good feedback.


Untwist yer knickers and get a life lol :-P:-P:-P

[lbuchele]

You proberly had everything set on easy:rolleyes:
And you dont eat spits for lunch, you might for breakfast, but not lunch:evil:
:)
I don't fly on easy,but I'm not using CEM,because a just don't have the time enough to learn it,yet...:(

[Lololopoulos]

now that i'm reading this post i can't wait to play this game. I need april 26 to come faster.

[Frequent_Flyer]

The majority of the Luftwaffe losses in WW II in both men and equipment were at the hands of the Western Allies. No matter the tactics or aircraft employeed by the Luftwaffe the losses became unsustainable and ultimately had no impact on the wars final outcome. In addition, the 109 and the Spitfire were both poor performers, both carried a thimbleful of fuel at could not land a knock out punch to it's advesary when the opportunity presented itself.
The squadron with the most victories for the RAF, in the battle of Britian, was the Polish pilots of 303,- 126 confirmed. They only were allowed to participate in the secnd half of the battle. The majority of these victories were scored in Hurricanes. In fact I beleive the majority of the total number of RAF victories in BOB were scored in the lowly Hurricane.
Supporting the argument , the pilot has much more of an impact on an egagement than the aircraft.

[lbuchele]

Yes,but the Hurricane was responsible for 60% or more the total number of english fighters too...

[addman]

Overmodeled LOL! Try some turn n' burn in it and then accelerate away, slow as a snail, just like all the accounts. It turns pretty good, bad roll rate, good speed, horrible acceleration and I love it!

[lbuchele]

This doesn't sound good. As others have said, it wasn't good enough as a fighter, and that's not because it had to fly slowly next to the bombers, it just wasn't as good as the Spit or Hurricane.

And the Hurricane, a pig? Sounds like you've been playing too much IL2 without reading any facts.
You can't,naturally,to fight in equal terms neither with the Spit or the Hurricane in a turn fight.
Not even dream about it.You have to maintain your speed at all costs and use cannons and MG fire in snapshots or better yet if you are a better deflection shooter than me...
Something I have noticed is that sometimes you CAN win a turn fight with a particular Spit.
It's like it had a real bad pilot inside, I don't know if is just a feeling that I had or somebody already experienced this ingame?

[adonys]

You guys throwing numbers against Luftwaffe and stating how badly were the brits outnumbered during BoB and how heroically were they doing forget your facts:
- actually, you can't be so stupid to count bombers in that comparison, I assume it was a mistake from your part
- Luftwaffe fighters had less than 10 (actually around 5) combat minutes over Britain due to the lack of fuel tanks (which actually counted as the major reason for the BoB's outcome)
- each bailing out Luftwaffe pilot was a loss (PoW), compared with the brit pilots who could fly the next day again
- brits fighters acting as free fighters, while german one were mostly forced to fly as escrots
- the local superiority achieved by the brits fighters due to the use of radar and Center Command operational management

You actually also forget that the brits were those starting the civil targets bombing campaign (the night raid on Berlin), which outraged Hitler who changed the strategical objectives of the BoB campaign in order to respond to the british outrageous behavior.

You also forget that there were the exact words of the british command leaders saying that the german campaign would have continued with the initial strategical targets, they would have been forced to admit defeat in less than 2 weeks, as they actually were right on the edge.

It's quite strange to see how history is modeled by the victors even in our media revolution times, and how easily people are forgetting the real facts of what happened right under their very eyes.

[Fjordmonkey]

Historical accuracy aside, if you underestimate a 110 ingame, you will be punished severely for it. And if flown by a competent human pilot, you better know how to fight it and exploit it's weaknesses. Or you'll be riding the silk elevator, if you even make it that far.

I think the 110 ingame is one of the more interesting aircraft to fly, since it takes real skill to employ it well. And where a burst of fire from a Hurricane or Spitfire can damage a 110, a burst from the 110 can shred the Hurri or the Spit. I've had people attack me when I'm in a 110 head on, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand the idiocy of such a manouver.

[Blue 5]

You also forget that there were the exact words of the british command leaders saying that the german campaign would have continued with the initial strategical targets, they would have been forced to admit defeat in less than 2 weeks, as they actually were right on the edge.

Umm, that's completely untrue; Parks talks about being in an 'uncomfortable situation'. He is very sanguine about the probability of winning, stating that given losses of aircraft and pilots vs output, the RAF will probably win in the end. Given he had more aircraft and pilots on strength in early September that he did at the end of July, and only Manston had been rendered unuseable as a full-time base, he was right.

Despite what was written in the 1960s, Fighter Command at the time were fairly optimistic based on the data they had. 1,030 vs 825 fighter losses on both sides by end of September (not that they had precise Luftwaffe loss rates) shows why they were right. The 'Narrow Margin' is a myth, like the 'useless 110'.

[adonys]

The brits were getting short of pilots, not aircrafts. And is their own people saying that during the last week of August/first week of september they were on the very edge of accepting defeat.

And besides, you know how brits talk, when one of them is saying they're in an "unconformable situation" you can bet your life on the fact hat he's actually neck-deep into the shit.

[BlackbusheFlyer]

Most wartime accounts of 110's from RAF pilots gave them little credence and both hurricane and spitfire pilots felt they were more than a match for the 110. GC Johnnie Johnson wrote in his book 'Wing Leader' an account in his early days from some Czech Hurricane pilots: (page 35)

"The 110 didn't give you any trouble. In fact it was slower than the hurricane and was of little account. As soon as they were bounced, the 110 pilots formed a defensive circle. But this was easy to break up, as long as the 109's weren't lurking above. The 109's! Yes, you soon knew when they were about!"

Personally rather than relying on theorists and statisticians, I prefer to trust the word of the guys who flew against them.

[Blue 5]

The brits were getting short of pilots, not aircrafts. And is their own people saying that during the last week of August/first week of september they were on the very edge of accepting defeat.

No they weren't, this is an oft-repeated myth. There were more aircraft and more pilots on strength in late August / early September than in July. No RDF stations had been out of commission for more than 24 hours, no airfields had been 'knocked out' (though Manston was becoming too difficult to use as a full time base owing to its proximity to the coast). There is simply no evidence that anyone involved thought that they were 'near the end' or close to 'accepting defeat'. The whole this is overly Romanticised via Churchill books and some poorly written histories. The facts are there in terms of numbers of pilot, aircraft, supplies and infrastructure and neither Dowding nor Park thought they were losing though they were worried about the ability to turn out enough pilots with sufficient hours to give them a fighting chance. This lead to the prioritisation approach of A, B and C squadron catagories to determine rotation rates between Groups.

And besides, you know how brits talk, when one of them is saying they're in an "unconformable situation" you can bet your life on the fact hat he's actually neck-deep into the shit.

a) Park was New Zealander

b) You can bet all you like but you're still wrong - that was about the most pessimistic remark he made. Much of his negative reporting during this period was about his frustration with Leigh-Malory for not getting 12 Group's arse in gear quicker to play its part in peeling the German onion :)

c) Trying to infer what might have been meant as an opposite of what was said is very dodgy historiography :)



Personally rather than relying on theorists and statisticians, I prefer to trust the word of the guys who flew against them.

That's laudable, but as many fighter pilots were hit by an unseen opponent their own accounts may not give a true picture; they are vulnerbale to 'group think' just like any other organisation. 110s may have accounted for more of Fighter Command than they are credited with; pilots accounts may not give an accurate picture of this.

[FlushMeister]

y'all buncha dad gum know-it-alls!! :D

[He111]

Can you change the armament in COD ?? I would like to see the rear gunner with a 20mm cannon, then lets see how vulnerable it is! :grin:

Actually Arm all the He111 with 20mm dorsal guns then 109s can do what they like! LOL!


He111.

[Friendly_flyer]

If we consider the CoD as a fair representation of BoB combat machines, I guess we'll see soon enough how the 110 would fare if handled well tactically.

[bongodriver]

Apart from electing/alowing a genocidal maniac to run the country and diverting useful resources to these 'mad' schemes, the Germans didn't make many mistakes, so i would suggest they handled themselves very well tactically.

[Blue 5]

Can you change the armament in COD ?? I would like to see the rear gunner with a 20mm cannon, then lets see how vulnerable it is!

Was that not facing forward for engaing ground targets? Trying to aim a manually handled 20 mm sounds like a receipe for not hitting much...


If we consider the CoD as a fair representation of BoB combat machines, I guess we'll see soon enough how the 110 would fare if handled well tactically.

It should do quite well as it will be flown by people who want to win and survive, rather than according to an operational requirement which usually requires a degree of sacrifice on the part of the individual. Look at its record in other theatres and you can see the capabilities of the design.

[Flying Pencil]

it didn't do so well in real life though, I think they withdrew it during the battle of britain and made it a night fighter because they lost so many.

Herman Goering ordered them to fly close escort the bombers, thus lost all their advantages.

They are strictly a first-strike warplane, and need close cooperation in case EA got on 6 (the MG-15 TG was hardly adequate).

The Hurricane was slower, but can out maneuver the 110, a Spit was more then match.

OH, the purpose of the 2ed crew, the TGer, was NOT for the BB gun in rear, but to switch the 60 round, 15kg MG-FF cannon magazines, a difficult task even in level light!

Ok, I forgot how much the 60 round drum weighs, but know for fact the MG-15 magazine is 4.5Kg loaded, pretty hefty.

[Flying Pencil]

Most wartime accounts of 110's from RAF pilots gave them little credence and both hurricane and spitfire pilots felt they were more than a match for the 110. GC Johnnie Johnson wrote in his book 'Wing Leader' an account in his early days from some Czech Hurricane pilots: (page 35)

"The 110 didn't give you any trouble. In fact it was slower than the hurricane and was of little account. As soon as they were bounced, the 110 pilots formed a defensive circle. But this was easy to break up, as long as the 109's weren't lurking above. The 109's! Yes, you soon knew when they were about!"

Personally rather than relying on theorists and statisticians, I prefer to trust the word of the guys who flew against them.

Interesting.
Yes, actual combat reports are worth more then statistical.
Then again, circle defenses (luftberry circles) are not that good. Bad tactics IMHO.

[Flying Pencil]

Can you change the armament in COD ?? I would like to see the rear gunner with a 20mm cannon, then lets see how vulnerable it is! :grin:

Actually Arm all the He111 with 20mm dorsal guns then 109s can do what they like! LOL!


He111.

Never had 20mm, but did get MG-81z, twin 7.92 BB's, 3600 RPM :O

111 had 13mm installed

[Oktoberfest]

The rule that didn't allow us to fly it.

Because we were rolling up the missions in no time flat.

And the bloody Spitfairies whined because we kept blasting them out of the sky becuase the clownasses kept attacking 110s and flying in front of them........:evil:

The rule that when they brought it in meant many WC veterans left WC..... THAT RULE.

Ask Oktoberfest.

Yeah, we wiped so many asses with our 1942 Bf110G2 vs P51, Late Spit IX, Tempests and P47s....

And we managed to strike the ground targets as well.

Well, when you have the good team tactics and get a crowd of 6 to 10 Bf110 flying together and working with brain... It can result to pretty unexpected result.

Training and team tactics will always do better in results than superior aircraft capacities with no discipline and no tactics.

That's how we managed, for example, in a fight with 6 110 vs 6 late war single engine fighters (2x51, 3xspits and 1xtempest) to get a 6 to 0 kill at 5000 meters. And this was not an exception.

This part is good memories.

And indeed, WC mods changed their rules for a few reasons:

- First, the map designed to last 3 hours lasted 20 to 35 minutes because we destroyed all of their targets pretty much quicker that they expected. This leaded the red team to two types of frustration.

-Second reason is frustration number 1 : all the P47, P51 and Spit IX pilots that wanted to use their absolute altitude advantage were pissed off. They spent 25 minutes to climb and cruise at 10 000 + meters (where they know that they are out of reach of any axis plane), but nobody was coming to fight against them anymore, because we gathered all the possible escort around the 110 group to get cover while attacking the ground targets, which of course,are below 10 k.
Those (astronauts) pilots couldn't figure out why they were losing and started whining like mad to the WC moderators about us. They didn't want to change their tactics to protect their targets (which would have meant to take a risk) and wanted the rules to adapt the opposition to their style of gameplay instead of adapting to the gameplay of the server.

-Third reason is the second frustration : some of the red team pilots (roughly the half that didn't play "fly me to the moon") tried to protect their targets. However, heavily outnumbered by the axis team because of the adopted tactics (fly in a pack with 5 to 10 FWs and 109s to cover the 5 to 10 attacking 110s), they just got wiped out one after the other, unable to carry on their CAP missions. They too started to complain (I don't say to whine, they actually tried to do their missions) because the game became too difficult for them.

-Fourth reason : The inadequation between clichés and reality. Most of the online pilots have read in all books and seen in all movies how the 110 was a sitting duck starting from mid - 1940 (BoB era). So as soon as they see a 110, they jump on it thinking "Hey, that's 200 easy points!"

However, given the 110 defensive and offensive tactics we developped AND the always present escort, they always got shot down, most of the times by 110s, and without doing much damage.
This couldn't suit their perception of reality, so they started to say that the 110 was an unfair advantage in the Blue team because it was comparable, in performance, to the P38 L Late... And at the end, the moderators adopted this Point of View.

That's how everything was made to give more and more disadvantages to the 110 squadron, eventually leading the team to disband through frustration and a big feeling of injustice (that's how we were rewarded for using an outdated 1942 design against late 44 allied planes?)
A certain number of vets of Warclouds left the server. Diplomacy was not used well at all at that time either, which didn't help to keep the heads cool.

But honestly, so much bullshit was written to justify this decision that I lost pretty much the will to continue to manage a 110 squadron.

I fly it still a bit and manage to do things well from time to time (2 month ago, using BnZ only, I managed a 26 to 1 k/d ratio, just for info). Red pilots can also be surprised to see a 110 above 9 k... And remember that IL2 version of the 110 is undermodelled, be it in speed and max reachable altitude !

110 was a very good plane in 1940. It was flown by the best pilots of the Luftwaffe as Göring wanted it to be elite units. That's because they were heavily misused in the BoB that they suffered so many losses and didn't do as well as they did over Poland, France, and the Soviet Union....

I think that the 110 will be the absolute terror in CloDo because all axis pilots that adopted BnZ tactics in IL2 will transpose those tactics to CloDo while using the 110.

[csThor]

If you chain an aircraft like the 110 to the slow-moving bomber formations the results are predictable. The defending fighters can bounce them at will and they're too heavy to get to any speeds useful in combat. Fact is they had the range, the firepower and the speed to be used in fighter sweeps which could have created all sorts of issues for the RAF (such as attacking squadrons taking off or assembling, strafing runs against airfields and parked aircraft, picking off damaged fighters trying to limp back to their base etc). But the Luftwaffe choose not to. Talk about utter failure of common sense.

[Blue 5]

Fact is they had the range, the firepower and the speed to be used in fighter sweeps which could have created all sorts of issues for the RAF (such as attacking squadrons taking off or assembling, strafing runs against airfields and parked aircraft, picking off damaged fighters trying to limp back to their base etc). But the Luftwaffe choose not to. Talk about utter failure of common sense.

Apart from Er. 210, which did a superb job. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, this was not lost on Germany's opponents :grin:

[David Hayward]

Criticizing the Germans for parking their fighters next to the bombers instead of sweeping out ahead is easy to do with 20/20 hindsight. But the Americans did the same thing when they were first able to send P-47s and P-51s to escort bomber missions. It wasn't until later that they realized that sending the fighters out ahead was a better tactic.

[Kurfürst]

Good post Oktoberfest. Should I say... sadly typical human behaviour?

[Blue 5]

Criticizing the Germans for parking their fighters next to the bombers instead of sweeping out ahead is easy to do with 20/20 hindsight.

They didn't; it was more nuanced than that; JG26 – with the blessing of Goering – worked around a 3-tier system that saw one Gruppe on sweep, one on high cover and one on close. It was sometimes adopted by other units. The rationale behind the 110s being used as close support was to free up 109s for less constrained escort. Had the 109s been present in sufficient strength then the heavier fighters might have been allowed to operate more imaginatively as Er. 210 was.

The 8th tried something similar once they had enough aircraft and experience; one squadron ahead, one above and one close. They could pursue retiring fighters if the bombers remained covered.

[Oktoberfest]

Good post Oktoberfest. Should I say... sadly typical human behaviour?

Thx Kurf,

I just hate it when people claim common clichés like absolute reality without testing.

And just for the info for other people who might put a doubt, on Warclouds alone, I had over 4000 sorties with the 110, with an average of 20 minutes eac, and longest sortie of 2 hours and 32 minutes. This gives you an idea of how much I could try and improve my concepts about fighting in the 110. And Warclouds is at least a "competitive" environment.

[David Hayward]

The rationale behind the 110s being used as close support was to free up 109s for less constrained escort.

Which means the Germans already realized that the 110 was a pig. They were hoping that very few Brits would get past the 109s, and that the 110s would be able to handle those which did. Had the Germans thought the 110s could take on Spitfires and Hurricanes on equal terms they would not have hid them behind the 109s.

[Blue 5]

Which means the Germans already realized that the 110 was a pig.

Possibly something along those lines but less binary. Fom memory, Fink (Bomber Commander, Luflotte 2) and Osterkamp (Fighter Commander Luftlotte 2) seem to have come to this arrangement to allow the JG to maximise their exchange rate with Fighter Command (Osterkamp appeared to be worried about draining the 109 strenght prior to the actual landing).

Having the 110s as close support was the outcome, though it does have an obvious disadvantage given the design. Maybe the lack of Zerstorer spokesman at their meeting was the critical factor? ;)

[David Hayward]

Having the 110s as close support was the outcome, though it does have an obvious disadvantage given the design. Maybe the lack of Zerstorer spokesman at their meeting was the critical factor? ;)

The design put the 110 at a disadvantage no matter what tactics they used. I'm sure we have all seen the gun camera video of a Spitfire easily turning out of the line of fire of a 110 planted in it's six. Hiding it behind the 109s was probably the best of the various crap sandwiches at the table.

[Kurfürst]

They didn't; it was more nuanced than that; JG26 – with the blessing of Goering – worked around a 3-tier system that saw one Gruppe on sweep, one on high cover and one on close. It was sometimes adopted by other units. The rationale behind the 110s being used as close support was to free up 109s for less constrained escort. Had the 109s been present in sufficient strength then the heavier fighters might have been allowed to operate more imaginatively as Er. 210 was.

Indeed - German tactics were far more complex than just the simplified, common version of 'everyone flies close escort'. Wood and Dempster describe these tactics:

"By September, standard tactics for raids had become an amalgam of techniques. A Freie Jagd would precede the main attack formations. The bombers would fly in at altitudes between 16,000 feet (4,900 m) and 20,000 feet (6,100 m), closely escorted by fighters. Escorts were divided into two parts (usually Gruppen), some operating in close contact with the bombers, and others a few hundred yards away and a little above. If the formation was attacked from the starboard, the starboard section engaged the attackers, the top section moving to starboard and the port section to the top position. If the attack came from the port side the system was reversed. British fighters coming from the rear were engaged by the rear section and the two outside sections similarly moving to the rear. If the threat came from above, the top section went into action while the side sections gained height to be able to follow RAF fighters down as they broke away. If attacked, all sections flew in defensive circles. These tactics were skilfully evolved and carried out, and were extremely difficult to counter.

Its a good hint for Blue pilots, too. Basically on bomber escort I'd fly the 110 as top cover, lurking above the bombers and waiting for somebody making a try.. BnZ works splendidly in the 110. When I was flying a Hurri in Battleground Europe, a well flown 110C, fighting in the vertical was literally untouchable..

[Kurfürst]

Thx Kurf,

I just hate it when people claim common clichés like absolute reality without testing.

And just for the info for other people who might put a doubt, on Warclouds alone, I had over 4000 sorties with the 110, with an average of 20 minutes eac, and longest sortie of 2 hours and 32 minutes. This gives you an idea of how much I could try and improve my concepts about fighting in the 110. And Warclouds is at least a "competitive" environment.

Anytime. Each plane has strenght and weakness.. and team tactics work with all, and the faster the plane and the more guns it have, the better team tactics work. Agility is more a matter of one-on-one fights.. IMHO. When many planes are present, speed is the only sure defense, and quick kills are essential.

I do hope we see you and your ZG on Cliffs of Dover servers mate! ;)

[Oktoberfest]

As soon as the game is playable !

[Blue 5]

Wood and Dempster

Though they may have been correct in this case, their book is pretty dated. Stephen Bungay, Alfred Price, Richard Overy amongst others have written more recent works which - though not perfect - have benefitted from more recent scholarship (as well as the authors' own research).

[Kurfürst]

This is a bit of an off topic, but personally, I do not have that much of an opinion of these new, more recent authors, especially Bungay. Bungay seems to me an extremely wishful neo-conservative author, and there are some glaring errors in his book.

The most notable is IIRC where he famously argues that losses sustained caused LW strenght was falling by some 30% - in fact he quotes the exact same statistical curve as Wood and Dempster some 30 years ago, except the W+D correctly labeled the table that it shows LW strenght in Western Europe - meaning that Bungay doesn't quite get the difference between redeployment and attrition, and strenght reports shown by ie. Murray disprove his so called analysis. The problem is, he has a set concept from the start, a 'revolutionary' one (which basically repeats the same as some authors 50 years ago), and he doesn't really lets the facts get in the way.

Richard Overy is, IMHO, a "serial author", much like Beavor. He's seemingly an expert of every aspect of history. He has read a thousend book, made no actual research himself, formed his opinion, which invariably causes some distortion as things get 'lost in translation' and wrote a 1001st. No thanks. I am interested in the historical facts, and rarely in an author's personal opinion of the facts. There are rare exceptions - for example Wilmott's summarial book on WW2, which I found reasonable, balanced and overall, excellent.

About Price I have mixed feelings. He is a very good writer, and an established air war historian, who is also reasonable, and tends to be as objective as possible; evidently he also makes his own primary research, unlike some others who seem to equally well versed in just about every historical field possible. OTOH, I often get the feeling that he tries to write best sellers, rather than book, deep history books, examplified by the horror that Runciman unleased upon the world under the disguise of a book about the Crusades. :p

Basically the British side of the Battle is very well covered, in depth, by British authors, but the contrast is striking when they start writing about the German side. Its obvious that they have little understanding, little or no research, and they repeat each other or some old clichés. And I have my doubts about the so-called recent research by generic historians - the British Goverment did a couple of studies and some data collection immidiately after the war, and basically all post-war authors repeat the same papers, and give varying, and often preconceptional conclusions based on that. They want to tell a given story, rather than write a good analytical history IMHO.

Personally I like Hooton for this reason, he seem to rely on a lot of German sources when writing on the German side of the Battle. The same goes to Foreman. But what I'd really like to see is a BoB book by Jochen or somebody of the caliber; rumor is at TOCH that one such of a horror depth book is in preperation, an ultimate bible, with every little detail possible... we have to wait and see.

[Il2Pongo]

then someone should tell that to the poor residents of Warsaw.

The only way the Germans were going to win the Battle of Britain is if the Brits quit.
The British defended with one hand behind their backs and still won quite easily.
Is almost like the Germans had not designed their airforce to attack a well defended country, but the British had designed theirs to stop attacks on their country.

The BOB played into the strengths of the RAF. And fully away from the strengths of the LW.

As to the 110, in a war of attrition, it was more expensive then the germans could afford in both resources and people. By making the germans think that 109s would not need the range to escort the bombers, and diverting scarce resources from an actual war wining plane that they had, the 110 was a tragic german mistake.

But even without it, and with that many more 109s, the result would have been the same. The whole strat bombing concept that you can force a country to submit if it is ready to resist you is flawed, and has been proven flawed. But the allies could afford to have a flawed concept and still win the war. The germans could not afford flawed concepts like the 110. Their chance to win the war was so small that such a critical diversion during their formative pre war build up was very significant.

[123-Wulf-123]

Yeah, we wiped so many asses with our 1942 Bf110G2 vs P51, Late Spit IX, Tempests and P47s....

And we managed to strike the ground targets as well.

Well, when you have the good team tactics and get a crowd of 6 to 10 Bf110 flying together and working with brain... It can result to pretty unexpected result.

Training and team tactics will always do better in results than superior aircraft capacities with no discipline and no tactics.

That's how we managed, for example, in a fight with 6 110 vs 6 late war single engine fighters (2x51, 3xspits and 1xtempest) to get a 6 to 0 kill at 5000 meters. And this was not an exception.

This part is good memories.

And indeed, WC mods changed their rules for a few reasons:

- First, the map designed to last 3 hours lasted 20 to 35 minutes because we destroyed all of their targets pretty much quicker that they expected. This leaded the red team to two types of frustration.

-Second reason is frustration number 1 : all the P47, P51 and Spit IX pilots that wanted to use their absolute altitude advantage were pissed off. They spent 25 minutes to climb and cruise at 10 000 + meters (where they know that they are out of reach of any axis plane), but nobody was coming to fight against them anymore, because we gathered all the possible escort around the 110 group to get cover while attacking the ground targets, which of course,are below 10 k.
Those (astronauts) pilots couldn't figure out why they were losing and started whining like mad to the WC moderators about us. They didn't want to change their tactics to protect their targets (which would have meant to take a risk) and wanted the rules to adapt the opposition to their style of gameplay instead of adapting to the gameplay of the server.

-Third reason is the second frustration : some of the red team pilots (roughly the half that didn't play "fly me to the moon") tried to protect their targets. However, heavily outnumbered by the axis team because of the adopted tactics (fly in a pack with 5 to 10 FWs and 109s to cover the 5 to 10 attacking 110s), they just got wiped out one after the other, unable to carry on their CAP missions. They too started to complain (I don't say to whine, they actually tried to do their missions) because the game became too difficult for them.

-Fourth reason : The inadequation between clichés and reality. Most of the online pilots have read in all books and seen in all movies how the 110 was a sitting duck starting from mid - 1940 (BoB era). So as soon as they see a 110, they jump on it thinking "Hey, that's 200 easy points!"

However, given the 110 defensive and offensive tactics we developped AND the always present escort, they always got shot down, most of the times by 110s, and without doing much damage.
This couldn't suit their perception of reality, so they started to say that the 110 was an unfair advantage in the Blue team because it was comparable, in performance, to the P38 L Late... And at the end, the moderators adopted this Point of View.

That's how everything was made to give more and more disadvantages to the 110 squadron, eventually leading the team to disband through frustration and a big feeling of injustice (that's how we were rewarded for using an outdated 1942 design against late 44 allied planes?)
A certain number of vets of Warclouds left the server. Diplomacy was not used well at all at that time either, which didn't help to keep the heads cool.

But honestly, so much bullshit was written to justify this decision that I lost pretty much the will to continue to manage a 110 squadron.

I fly it still a bit and manage to do things well from time to time (2 month ago, using BnZ only, I managed a 26 to 1 k/d ratio, just for info). Red pilots can also be surprised to see a 110 above 9 k... And remember that IL2 version of the 110 is undermodelled, be it in speed and max reachable altitude !

110 was a very good plane in 1940. It was flown by the best pilots of the Luftwaffe as Göring wanted it to be elite units. That's because they were heavily misused in the BoB that they suffered so many losses and didn't do as well as they did over Poland, France, and the Soviet Union....

I think that the 110 will be the absolute terror in CloDo because all axis pilots that adopted BnZ tactics in IL2 will transpose those tactics to CloDo while using the 110.



Excellent and correct :)

[Flying Pencil]

Good post Oktoberfest. Should I say... sadly typical human behaviour?

Completely agree.

Their seems to be a trend that allied players think they are instantly "uber" becuase they have planes that won the war.

Then reality smacks them around, but are too thick to realize they are at fault.

[Frequent_Flyer]

As long as the HMG's are modled with a much greater degree of accuracy than in IL-2. The 110 should be about as effective as it was in reality. At the end of BOB it suffered the ignominty of having to be escorted by 109's.

[functio]

At the end of BOB it suffered the ignominty of having to be escorted by 109's.

No it didn't. RAF pilots thought this as, when attacking bomber-escorting groups of Bf110s, they would often get bounced by Bf109s. The Luftwaffe would hardly waste time escorting fighters with fighters, after all.