Just curious about the P-51 FM

[Aviar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er1gOYKmOCE&NR=1&feature=endscreen

At 10:40 in this clip, a real life combat pilot describes a maneuver he used in WWII. Can anyone perform this exact maneuver with a P-51D in IL-2?

Also, the pilot uses the term 'full bottom rudder' and the narrator uses the term 'rudder down' to describe the same action. I've never heard either term before and not quite sure what they mean. Does anyone know?

Aviar

[JtD]

A more or less, probably less, simple snap stall, isn't it? Down rudder might refer to being 90° banked and use rudder to nose down.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Uh...I first thought: Who is answering to this old discussion now?

It has been here already quite some time ago. Conclusion was, that the physics in 'Dogfights' series are not well rendered. ;)


EDIT: Ah no, it was a different maneuver, but not less suspicious. I think, here he just stalled and flipped over while turning too narrow, and luckily recovered quite fast, having the right angle for - nose down. I do this in Fw190s occasionally. He just claimes it to be a planed maneuver now - because in 'Won the war- P-51s' you cannot do any thing by mistake. :D

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Look at 23:00. This is a situation, where in IL-2 every experienced player tells you to do exactly the same as the japanese pilot in the Frank: keeping speed and gain height. In this movie, they call it a 'mistake'. All the Mustang did was some 'spray and pray', like often seen in IL-2 too. Its just luck, as many of the 'kills' in that series. In fact, the Mustang was princibly dead, if there would have been a second Frank behind. And I'd call that 'maneuver' a even bigger mistake itself.


That series is not to be taken as serious display of history pls.

[rakinroll]

I wonder if those pilots whose talk at 10:40 and 39:00 were able to understand the law of conservation of energy in physics.

[majorfailure]

I wonder if those pilots whose talk at 10:40 and 39:00 were able to understand the law of conservation of energy in physics.
The pilots may not be the problem - they percieved what they tell the way they tell (and that can be pretty inaccurate) - and though snap-stalling your plane would count as a desperate measure in my book, they got away. What this show makes from these pilots testimonies -verbally and visually - that's the real problem. Every 08/15 maneuvre is "daredevil death-defiyng whatnot" and every maneuvre the enemy does is a mistake or worse. And the visual representation is even worse - some of the moves they show would test the limits of a heli pilots skills....and of course anything hit by .50 cal fire insta-explodes in reality.

[Luno13]

I have no idea what "bottom rudder" means, but I imagine it has something to do with his bank, ie, yawing in the direction of the bank. That seems like a snap roll to me. The renders on the show are often inconsistent with what the pilot is saying, compared to the other accounts I've seen.

Caspar makes a good point about the scene at 23:00. If anything, the P-51 pilot made a huge mistake by getting slow enough to stall, exposing him to an attack. Pure luck saved him.

[Black_Sage29]

People are quick to discredit Vets on the history channel..but guess what...they were there, they experienced it..so they have way more credit than most. The History Channel just exaggerates the Vet's account

I fly P-51 all the time, as well as P-47 and get kills all the time without the spray and pray. You need to be confident and smooth in a P-51..most that talk bad about it would get killed fairly quickly in it lol, it's not for rookies


The History Channel is exaggerating an overly-aggressive snap-roll at 10:40. Listening to the Vet, he tried to snap-roll ( like what he did earlier in the video ) and stalled too much ( thats why he fell 2,000feet) and ruddered out safely


and though snap-stalling your plane would count as a desperate measure in my book, they got away. What this show makes from these pilots testimonies -verbally and visually - that's the real problem. Every 08/15 maneuvre is "daredevil death-defiyng whatnot" and every maneuvre the enemy does is a mistake or worse. And the visual representation is even worse - some of the moves they show would test the limits of a heli pilots skills....and of course anything hit by .50 cal fire insta-explodes in reality.

Your right, History Channel exaggerates. Snap-Stalling is not a desperate measure though. It's a smart maneuver especially when the enemy plane is more maneuverable and turning is out of the question.

When your flying fast in a P-51 and you snap-roll, you'll stall a little, but you still have a bit of control of the plane, you just rudder the other way and come out of the stall...now the bandit is out in front or about to overshoot. You have to be gentle with it though cause you could lose control and stall out all the way


Also I've had enemy bandit planes explode from .50 cal fire in game. Rare but possible. You pretty much have to be a marksmen with the .50cals in game. American planes are way different from Soviet/German/and Japanese planes in game..it's harder and thats for sure

[IceFire]

People are quick to discredit Vets on the history channel..but guess what...they were there, they experienced it..so they have way more credit than most. The History Channel just exaggerates the Vet's account

I fly P-51 all the time, as well as P-47 and get kills all the time without the spray and pray. You need to be confident and smooth in a P-51..most that talk bad about it would get killed fairly quickly in it lol, it's not for rookies


The History Channel is exaggerating an overly-aggressive snap-roll at 10:40. Listening to the Vet, he tried to snap-roll ( like what he did earlier in the video ) and stalled too much ( thats why he fell 2,000feet) and ruddered out safely




Your right, History Channel exaggerates. Snap-Stalling is not a desperate measure though. It's a smart maneuver especially when the enemy plane is more maneuverable and turning is out of the question.

When your flying fast in a P-51 and you snap-roll, you'll stall a little, but you still have a bit of control of the plane, you just rudder the other way and come out of the stall...now the bandit is out in front or about to overshoot. You have to be gentle with it though cause you could lose control and stall out all the way


Also I've had enemy bandit planes explode from .50 cal fire in game. Rare but possible. You pretty much have to be a marksmen with the .50cals in game. American planes are way different from Soviet/German/and Japanese planes in game..it's harder and thats for sure
Vets are great resources for just about everything ... but we have to discount and be skeptical in appropriate places. One's recollection of events tends to be skewed without consciously realizing it. Detectives interviewing witnesses of crimes have to be very careful with witness testimony because even when they "were there", peoples memories are notoriously unreliable. Stress and adrenaline and all of that stuff interfere heavily... its amazing what we make up to make the whole situation make sense.

It still doesn't mean that we should discount or discredit witness testimony altogether but it should be taken in context in my opinion.

I'm sure what happened in the end is what happened... no question from me there, but the extent to which it happened is suspect. I, like others have already said, suspect that he snap stalled it and when he recovered was lucky enough to be in a quick firing position. It felt like what History Channel did there but it likely didn't look anywhere near as well coordinated as that! :cool:

[MaxGunz]

History Channel is good for exaggerations, mistakes, omissions and the occasional downright lie for gullibility's sake. The shows are best watched and jeered in groups with score pads to compete for error-finding.

Watch it for the mistakes, especially when the commentator speaks.

The veteran pilots were there but how many were trained to put everything into words that a non-pilot can correctly understand? Being a WWII pilot did not automatically confer writing ability nor does having a writer confer the ability to explain it all accurately. Did the pilot know everything that went on? How many used the word confusion to describe times in battle? But apparently some people believe that 'being there' is a magical formula to enable the pilots to make everything clear and concise to anyone. What a joke!

History Channel? More like Revision Channel, Quote-Mine Channel, Lightweight Channel, Rah-Rah Channel, Gullibility Channel, etc.

But they usually have some vintage footage to grab stills from.

[Aviar]

Since nobody knew what 'full bottom rudder' meant, I found this info:

A skid is an uncoordinated maneuver occurring when the pilot uses too much rudder input in the direction of the turn. Another way to say that is the pilot uses too much “bottom rudder.”

Aviar

[Luno13]

I think that corroborates the idea mentioned about it being a type of snap roll.

[majorfailure]

Your right, History Channel exaggerates. Snap-Stalling is not a desperate measure though. It's a smart maneuver especially when the enemy plane is more maneuverable and turning is out of the question.
When your flying fast in a P-51 and you snap-roll, you'll stall a little, but you still have a bit of control of the plane, you just rudder the other way and come out of the stall...now the bandit is out in front or about to overshoot. You have to be gentle with it though cause you could lose control and stall out all the way

And that's why I would rate it as desperate. The risk of totally losing control is there. And its desperate because in the faster less maneuverable plane you should not be in that pilots position.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

The interesting question (and initial one) is, what happens, if you give too much ruder in direction of the turning - in Il-2?

[IceFire]

The interesting question (and initial one) is, what happens, if you give too much ruder in direction of the turning - in Il-2?
In the direction of turn? Nothing much really. It kind of hits a likit and then the plane may, depend on the type, stall and sometimes flops out of a turn. The interesting bit is when you slam counter rudder while rolling into a skid. In many planes, P-51 included, you can get a negative torque roll that is very difficult to follow. I use it to evade attacks online. Only partially effective as it bleeds a tom of speed.

[MaxGunz]

Especially in a P-39.

[JtD]

I once saw a documentary on a WW2 battle and it started with the offical, documented weather reports from both sides on the day of the battle. Both were in agreement that it was overcast with occasional rain. Note that this was the report, not the forecast. They then asked all veterans interviewed for that show how they remembered the weather, they averaged out on sunny with some clouds, each being different from each other. Imho this was a perfect illustration how memory and facts can differ when it comes to detail.

I don't think that the documentaries are a bad thing. I like to listen to the people telling what they experienced, first had accounts are almost always worth the time spent listening. Also, for the casual viewer, it is this kind of show that generates interest in the WW2 flight sim genre. Better to have some facts wrong about the air war in WW2, then to not know that there was an air war at all.

[horseback]

The Il-2 Mustang is not all that comparable to the real thing in the context of the sim. I have to agree that it is very accurate on a one to one scale to the real Mustang, given the constraints of the game engine, but compared to the other aircraft depicted in the simulation, it is way too touchy to trim and control. If we were talking pictures, the Mustang is photo-real while the other (especially Axis) aircraft are done in a graphic novel style. Part of this may be due to what I perceive as the way the game was optimized for Force feedback sticks, but the Mustang's notoriously light stick forces should result in much less demand for re-trimming at the slightest change in airspeed or AOA, not more.

Compare it to the P-40, which is also in the game. The P-40 in real life is always referred to as a handful; the pilot has to be alert and ahead of the aircraft at all times and the rudder trim wheel is constantly in play. America's Hundred thousand devotes several paragraphs to the section about trimming the P-40, and makes it clear that trimming every other aircraft in the US inventory was quite easy (and predictable) by comparison.

Let's remember that the P-40 was basically a P-36 with an inline Allison crammed onto its nose. It was a compromise design. The Mustang, designed almost five years after the basic design for the P-36/40 series was completed, was a much more refined and tractable aircraft. It should have been, given that its design was targeted at out-performing the P-40 with the same basic engine. 'Bumping it up' to the (also) inline Merlin was a much less traumatic surgery than replacing a radial engine with a heavier inline powerplant; the Merlin powered Ponies needed more minding in some respects, but the consensus was that it was still much more easily trimmed than any model of the Hawk 81/87 series, and generally more ...predictable, if not quite as 'slam-bang' at low speed aerobatics.

The P-40 in the game is much easier to trim and fly accurately than the Mustang, which is simply turning the historical record on its head; most pilots who flew the Mustang in combat also flew either the P-39 or the P-40 in training or earlier combat tours, and all of them report that the Mustang was better in every way that mattered--it was easier to fly, not just faster, better at higher alts and longer ranged.

This is particularly egregious when we remember that the Soviets got a few thousand Lend-Lease Warhawks and thoroughly tested & documented examples of every sub-type at TsAGI, which Oleg and his team used as their primary source of flight data for most of the aircraft initially depicted in the sim. One can only assume that the P-39 and P-40 are accurately depicted compared to the other aircraft of that era modeled in the sim, that their faults and strengths are in proper proportion to those of the Bf 109F/G, the FW 190A and the Japanese fighters. The Mustang and most of the late-war US fighters are not. You can claim that they are more accurate in comparison to the real aircraft using recent data from actual flying examples, but it is a bit silly to claim that they are accurate in comparison to aircraft that have not been flown and measured in 70 years.

You can de-bunk and question the memories of an old man, but he was there, doing things that 99 out of a hundred of us could never do on the best days of our lives. Maybe, just maybe, there is a bit of truth in what he was saying.

cheers

horseback

[IceFire]

You can de-bunk and question the memories of an old man, but he was there, doing things that 99 out of a hundred of us could never do on the best days of our lives. Maybe, just maybe, there is a bit of truth in what he was saying.

With respect... I don't think any of us are going to say that this was a fabrication or a lie or anything like that. But human memory is notoriously unreliable... I'd rather go with the test results and that type of more objective (it's not 100% here) than some crazy move that a veteran pulled, that worked (again, no denying that), as the basis for a FM change. There isn't anything to go on there anyways...

What you say about the P-40/P-51 trim thing is true. I've heard the P-40 required a lot of trim to get it right while the P-51 was easier in this regard. Test pilot and combat pilot reports corroborate that. So it's not 100% right in the sim... definitely not. But I've looked over data long and hard and I'm not sure what's wrong either. The other thing that you'll notice is that 4.12 features an updated FM for the P-40 and some of that trim stuff will probably come into play.

[majorfailure]

IIRC there were quite a few pilots that did not like the P-51 better than the P-40 or P-39. And didn't 56th FG willingly fly P-47 because they liked them more than the P-51?
And didn't -I think- Bud Anderson state that the P-51 required trim adjustment all through the whole flight?

The P-39 though does require constant trim change in this game. The Bf 109 supposedly does not require much trim change -as it has no adjustable rudder and aileron trim -it was designed that way.

The P-40 in this game does not require trim change as much as it should need IMHO. And it is a extremly stable gunnnery platform, maybe a bit too stable.
Just speculation, but maybe the non-changing CoG could give rise to this behaviour?

And yes I do think the plane models -even the late war US fighters- are fairly accurate and compare well to each other. This sim doesn't just give them the accurate historic context. Range and good serviceability don't count. Pilot quality is the same in the Axis and Allied camp while in real life at the time where the Mustang ruled the skies on average an Axis pilot was less capable than an US pilot. And US forces used superior tactics many times, trying to attack from favorable positions, trying to bring numerical superiority, and trying to cover each other.

Had the US in the late war faced an enemy that could bring equal numbers of planes with enough fuel and equally capable pilots, using the same tactics the US did(reflecting the situation in this sim), they would have suffered considerably.

[MaxGunz]

I once saw a documentary on a WW2 battle and it started with the offical, documented weather reports from both sides on the day of the battle. Both were in agreement that it was overcast with occasional rain. Note that this was the report, not the forecast.

Just a possibility; Rain has a ceiling, if the battle was above the clouds or was met in a place where it wasn't socked in? Even so, they should have started out in wet overcast conditions.

[MaxGunz]

IIRC there were quite a few pilots that did not like the P-51 better than the P-40 or P-39. And didn't 56th FG willingly fly P-47 because they liked them more than the P-51?
And didn't -I think- Bud Anderson state that the P-51 required trim adjustment all through the whole flight?


Bud Anderson wrote about constant trimming during battle as something you just automatically do as a war pilot.

What happened to the IL-2 P-51 was that a small group of 'Stang' fanboys gathered up historic documents to push hard for lighter stick forces and that's what they, errrr, we got, an easier to teeter teeter-totter.

The P-51 was singled out and the change forced by fanboys. I wonder if anyone from that group is still around?

[KG26_Alpha]

Ok let not drag this discussion down.

We know who the P series fanbois were/are.

NB

Battle accounts can be flaky after 1 hour with adrenalin and fatigue effects let alone remembering nearly 70 years ago.

:)

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

P-51s are fun. Also P-47s and Corsairs. No matter what. And I like, that they are all different.

I had a soft day today.

[JtD]

Just a possibility; Rain has a ceiling, if the battle was above the clouds or was met in a place where it wasn't socked in? Even so, they should have started out in wet overcast conditions.That show was about a ground battle, not air combat. :)

[horseback]

________________________________________
IIRC there were quite a few pilots that did not like the P-51 better than the P-40 or P-39. And didn't 56th FG willingly fly P-47 because they liked them more than the P-51?

The 56th FG stayed with the P-47 because Hub Zemke went on leave at a critical moment, and eventually moved on to take over the 20th FG in order to allow Dave Schilling to command the 56th. Zemke's memoirs state flatly that he would have converted to the Mustang quite willingly, because it allowed him greater access to the enemy. Despite several upgrades in fuel tankage, the P-47 never had the range of the Mustang until the N model, and all other things being essentially equal, he wanted to get at the Luftwaffe more than he wanted the PR of being associated with the Republic fighter. Schilling, on the other hand, was much more receptive to that sort of thing.

And didn't -I think- Bud Anderson state that the P-51 required trim adjustment all through the whole flight?

The often-repeated account of Anderson's dogfight tends to ignore that it took place at high altitudes, where trim and precise handling become much more critical in the thin air. Instead of "flight", the correct word is "fight"; as I have pointed out several times, had the Mustang been the sort of trim hog compared to its contemporaries depicted in this sim, the close formation form-ups through the typical British overcast that was necessary to avoid collisions would have been far more difficult and stressful (and probably much less successful). Every account of wartime Mustang operations stresses how easy it was to master the Mustang and exploit its capabilities, much like the Merlin Spitfire marques, the FW-190 and the F6F. The in-game versions of the Focke Wulf and the Spitfire are pretty easy to operate and to exploit their strengths; why are the Mustang and other late war US fighters so much more finicky and less responsive?

The P-39 though does require constant trim change in this game. The Bf 109 supposedly does not require much trim change -as it has no adjustable rudder and aileron trim -it was designed that way.

The P-39 does require more trim than the average fighter in the context of the game, but it was a small fighter with an unusual design; using up all your cannon ammo had a definite effect on your CoG, and you had to be alert to that. However, contemporary accounts make it clear that it was not remotely the trim hog that the P-40 was, and in the game, it is. The Bf 109 was supposed to be a delight to fly, and it was pre-trimmed for cruise speeds with the understanding that the pilot would compensate for extreme situations with his control inputs. However, getting it into and out of the air was known to be much harder than for most fighters of the period; even the Spitfire, with a similar landing gear layout, was far more benign. The 109's landing and taxiing issues are ignored in the game; it is instead one of the more tractable aircraft in the inventory, and even its late-war issues are not as great as I would expect from my own reading of LW pilot memoirs.

The P-40 in this game does not require trim change as much as it should need IMHO. And it is a extremly stable gunnnery platform, maybe a bit too stable.
Just speculation, but maybe the non-changing CoG could give rise to this behaviour?

Agreed; if anything, the trim behavior of the Mustang should be swapped straight across for that of the P-40M in the game. The Mustang's fuel tank layout is very similar to that of the P-40, except that the fuselage tank was added long after the aircraft's basic design was established; in practice, that tank was filled ONLY when the extra range it conferred was not achievable with drop tanks, and the aircraft obtained 'normal' handling characteristics as soon as the fuselage tank was even half drained. This has been used as cover for a systematic defamation of the Merlin P-51 for years now, to minimize its actual climb and acceleration vs its contemporaries by insisting that its overload configuration was only its 'fully loaded' configuration.

One can only speculate as to why people would insist upon only counting the overload configuration, but the initial (1943) appraisals of the Mustang versus the P-38 and the P-47 put it right in the same class as the P-38 as regards climb and acceleration without that fuselage tank installed (or filled, in later versions). There is an account somewhere in my extensive liberry that describes a competition between one of the top Lightning groups and a former P-47 group that had (finally) obtained P-51s; the argument was about which aircraft could get to 20,000 feet first, and finally the best pilots from each group met in head to head competition after many bets had been made and several gallons of ice cream had been obtained for the members of the winning aircraft's group. The P-38 won, but it was made clear that its pilot had used shall we say, "non-standard" procedures to barely make altitude ahead of the relatively green Mustang driver.

And yes I do think the plane models -even the late war US fighters- are fairly accurate and compare well to each other. This sim doesn't just give them the accurate historic context. Range and good serviceability don't count. Pilot quality is the same in the Axis and Allied camp while in real life at the time where the Mustang ruled the skies on average an Axis pilot was less capable than an US pilot. And US forces used superior tactics many times, trying to attack from favorable positions, trying to bring numerical superiority, and trying to cover each other.

Having 'flown' the FSX A2A version of the P-51D and the DCS Mustang sim, both of which are acclaimed for their accuracy, I can point out some basic differences between these and the Il-2 Mustang using CEM. I'll start with trim: A2A and DCS' P-51 do require some trim adjustment with power changes, but mainly for the rudder, and in tiny increments. It doesn't require an adjustment for every 5mph increase in speed, and the effect is felt instantly; the needle and ball wobble and fall into place--the real challenge is to apply the trim in small enough increments. Elevator trim is pretty basic, and in most cases, stick forces are so light that it is often easier to hold the stick back a touch than it is to fiddle with the trim wheel until you've reached the alt where you plan to fly straight and level, at which point very little adjustment is required. Aileron trim so far has been minimal; generally speaking it has caused me more grief to fiddle with it than it does to just leave it alone.

Acceleration and climb; with the fuselage tank empty, once airborne, you can set your Manifold pressure to around 45" and the prop pitch for 25-2700 rpm, and you will be doing 250 mph (and climbing) before you can say "Bob's your uncle". Put your nose down and you pick up speed very quickly; without having the 'Zoom' set on my CH Throttle's microstick for the DCS version (to make up for my nearsightedness--I have to get a prescription just for midrange vision, instead of trying to see through a microdot on my trifocals), I'd be up over 450 mph at lower alts all the time--you have to watch your speed to keep it down to manageable levels, not constantly struggle to get it up and maintain it.

A2A and DCS versions are harder to take off in and easier to land than the 'simplified' Il-2 version; it took me about 3 1/2 hours of effort and fiddling with my rudder curves before I could get the DCS Pony into the air, but on the second time I got it off the ground successfully, I made a landing following what I remembered from the original MS Combat Air Simulator procedure; it worked like a charm. The next time I tried it, I spent a good hour doing touch and goes, sometimes giggling like a little girl, it was so much fun.

A2A and DCs depict the Mustang as a very responsive aircraft with predictable responses to pilot input; as long as you pay attention to what you're doing and avoid any sudden jerks or uncoordinated inputs, the Mustang will do what you want it to do; obviously it is much faster and better climbing than the Il-2 depiction, and the trim is quick to respond and predictable. It won't turn on a dime, but at 270mph indicated (which it can achieve and hold with shocking ease) the record shows that it would outturn most everyone else at the time without losing speed.

Had the US in the late war faced an enemy that could bring equal numbers of planes with enough fuel and equally capable pilots, using the same tactics the US did (reflecting the situation in this sim), they would have suffered considerably.

Now, about context, let's examine the period when the Merlin Mustang was introduced into combat; from November 1943 until April of 1944, there were only between one and three groups of nominally 50 fighters flying the P-51B/C. Besides the two P-38 groups, which had some even more serious maintainability issues and the marked inability to pursue an opponent in a high altitude dive, these were the only fighters in the Allied inventory that could reach into German airspace and escort the bombers during that period. Doctrine at the time required close escort, and there were a number of maintenance issues as well that led to most if not all escort missions being shorthanded during those months. In addition, two of the first three fighter groups assigned the Mustang were rookies; they had a few combat veterans in leadership, but more than three quarters of them were fresh off the boat from training commands. Only the 4th FG had any meaningful combat experience at the unit level, and they didn't get to join in the festivities (Mustang wise) until after Big Week in late February of 1944.

So here's your context: outnumbered in German airspace by over four to one by single engine German fighters over Germany, closely tied to the bomber stream, less than 150 fighters inflicted enormous damage to the Reich Defense fighters; from December 1943 to the early parts of April 1944, the Luftwaffe suffered an unprecedented loss of experienced leaders in its fighter corps, mostly right over Germany itself. The fuel supply at that point was not severely constrained and the German fighter pilots couldn't complain of exhaustion at that time, because the pace of Allied bombing over Germany had slacked off considerably during late 1944 until late February due to casualties to the bomber groups and the bad weather most of that winter, and the bald fact is that the Jagdewaffe was vastly more experienced and in large part just as well trained as the Americans in the Mustangs at that point in the war.

And the German pilots had not arrived in the combat zone after two or more hours of flying at high altitudes mostly over enemy held territory with their heads on a swivel in what was still essentially an experimental aircraft with a single engine that was known to occasionally pack it in over that enemy held ground or the North Sea in winter. The issues with the gun ammo feeds was quickly identified, although it took a while to fix and for the word to get around--communications were not as easy or simple as we take for granted today. The Germans were flying excellent aircraft with proven combat records and armament, well known established tactics and doctrine, with superior numbers, knowing where the enemy formations were before they took to the air, over their own territory, defending their homes--and they took a whipping.

After which, the Mustang pilots still had to fly two or more hours over enemy held territory to get back to southern England, where his base could easily be socked in by fog or heavy weather (I lived there for four years--I've seen it).

The greater numbers and superior training factored in after that point in mid-April 1944 as a direct result of the largely Mustang-inflicted casualties and the 8th AF started targeting the oil refineries in a serious way after D-Day; the Mustang was finally being produced in sufficient numbers that they could replace combat losses and equip other groups (and except for the 23rd FG in China, it was another four months before the Japanese saw a Merlin powered Mustang) and other veteran groups could convert from the P-47.

The obvious conclusion is that the P-51 was a much better than average fighter aircraft for that period in most respects, not merely range and speed. Admittedly, the opposition was hamstrung by not having a precise appreciation of what it could or could not do compared to their own aircraft, but that sword cuts both ways in war. In-game, the P-51 is slower to accelerate, harder to keep trimmed (which forces its virtual pilot to ahistorically fight his stick most of the time) and generally difficult to master compared to its opposition, which runs counter to both the record and other simulations that are widely acknowledged to be accurate.

The Mustang is not the only aircraft affected. All of the late war US fighters started experiencing 'issues' after the fracas over rights with the defense company that shall not be named; there was a steady series of problems with trims, the notorious wobble, fifty caliber convergence and the business about uneven firing synchronization of certain Allied aircraft since then. At some point, Oleg and the boys need to get over it.

cheers

horseback

[MaxGunz]

Well how about that? LOL!

Being there and later giving an encyclopedic account of every detail are not inclusive! Because what I find from the "they were there" guys is that every word is to be treated as straight literal fact.

I remember one guy that took Dave Southwoods' article Flying Black Six and came up with a stall speed test that allows loss of height as long as a wing does not drop since Southwood never mentioned keeping height as part of a normal stall speed test. The result being that when he performed the stall speed test his way the IL-2 109G-6 has a stall speed of 135kph, time to let Oleg know the 109's are overmodeled. It was hilarious!

Why certainly, every account, book or magazine article become complete reference and instruction material carved in gold to the worshipful fanboy. And every fanboy has the uncanny mental ability to extract the supreme truth from every account, etc.

Next stop, a special museum to see how people lived with dinosaurs and the many ways that evolution and most all science is wrong. Don't forget to buy the DVD's!

[T}{OR]

Bud Anderson wrote about constant trimming during battle as something you just automatically do as a war pilot.

What happened to the IL-2 P-51 was that a small group of 'Stang' fanboys gathered up historic documents to push hard for lighter stick forces and that's what they, errrr, we got, an easier to teeter teeter-totter.

The P-51 was singled out and the change forced by fanboys. I wonder if anyone from that group is still around?

You don't say? As long as I remember flying the Stang I trim for every situation and every speed. Just like described.

My one and only complaint for the Pony is, and that is after I've flown a DCSW P-51D (provided this is true for every model before), the propeller RPM/governor RPM - you set it at the desired RPM and only adjust the power (manifold pressure).

[RPS69]

The Mustang is not the only aircraft affected. All of the late war US fighters started experiencing 'issues' after the fracas over rights with the defense company that shall not be named; there was a steady series of problems with trims, the notorious wobble, fifty caliber convergence and the business about uneven firing synchronization of certain Allied aircraft since then. At some point, Oleg and the boys need to get over it.

horseback

Your accounts were acceptable, until this last comment. Some other statements, could belong to USA propaganda. After all, they got vast amounts of obsolete ships at the end of the war, and they urgently needed a market to sell the vets and make some money.

But this last statement is at best, a poor one.

[Pips]

Well done horseback, that's one of the best summaries on the abilities of the P-51 I've seen for a long time. And most of what you have said is borne out in the classic book "America's Hundred Thousand" by Dean. Easily the most comprehensive and succinct book on US WWII fighters.

[horseback]

Your accounts were acceptable, until this last comment. Some other statements, could belong to USA propaganda. After all, they got vast amounts of obsolete ships at the end of the war, and they urgently needed a market to sell the vets and make some money.

But this last statement is at best, a poor one.Sorry if it offends you, but I was there in '05/06, when the 4.0x series of patches came out and things got weird with the US fighters that had not seen a lot of Lend Lease service with the VVS. Every problem I cited can be found on that forum, and I am far from the only poster to make those points. It's very difficult to believe that there wasn't at least a small measure of vindictiveness involved with the treatment of late war US fighter's FMs, after so many documented conflicts with the historical record. I've been flying this sim since 2002; if you doubt me, check the Ubi forums and do a search for my posts. You will find that I registered there back in June of 2002.

Now if you think that the US government was so desperate for cash at the end of WWII that it had to 'propagandize' the P-51's reputation to sell it at 1/10th of the government cost to veterans who had often already flown it in combat or known someone who did, you really need to re-think a few things. Admittedly, a great many war planes were sold off for very low prices, but not because the US government needed the money; the aircraft were being sold for much less than their scrap value--it was thought that promoting sport aviation would result in a stronger demand for aircraft production and strengthen that industry, which was looking at a severe contraction after almost five years of all-out demand. Also, you must realize that the P-51 was still the USAAF's best fighter overall until the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was available in reasonable numbers (and even then the Mustang had vastly more range and payload); it was 'obsolete' only in the sense that it wasn't a jet, but given the limitations of the early jets, it had a great deal of military usefulness over the next six or seven years.

Finally a question: who was the only major industrial power in the world in 1945 that had not been subject to major damage to its infrastructure and had to provide modern goods and services to not only its own population, but to most of the free world (generally at a reasonable profit)? Bear in mind that we were (and still are) also a major agricultural power and produced a large portion of the world's food for most of the 1940s. The United States is not Pakistan; we are kind of big and wealthy, and have been since early in the 20th century. Unfortunately, the hallmark of governments is that even the best ones tend to be wasteful, even when they are trying to look thrifty, and the US is no exception.

cheers

horseback

[Luno13]

The last statement isn't offensive, it's just plain weird. There is no reason to believe that Oleg and crew would punish the fans of the game for something one stingy company did, especially because the fans were very supportive (hey, didn't they buy him a new car after he totaled one?)

I also fail to understand your reasoning that Oleg and crew would choose to model the lend-lease aircraft well, but not the other aircraft like the P-51. If he was going to rig the FM's for a misguided sense of patriotism, as you imply, the lend-lease craft would have been utter crap in comparison to the indigenous soviet designs. Yeah, the La-5 and 7 are UFO's, but the LaGG-3s are death traps compared to P-40s and P-39s. If you can fly the P-39 to the limit without spinning, you are almost untouchable. The early Yaks are so-so, but even then, they are representative of new machines, and not necessarily of worn-down front-line material. We also had some pretty UFO-ish late-war spits for a long time, and last I checked, the USSR was not friendly with UK either.

Maybe something is off, but if it is, there's more to it than an off-hand conspiracy theory can answer. It just makes no sense.

Anyway, I want to remind some folks that the P-51 is about 50% heavier than the Spitfire using the same engine. It was faster than the Spit, but only due to superior aerodynamics (the spitfire was, after-all, a late 30's design). I would not expect the Mustang to be as tolerant of hard maneuvers as the Spit in terms of acceleration and climb, at the very least.

[MaxGunz]

P-51 had superior high speed lines but inferior turning and low speed climb. Spitfire moved in that same direction from start to finish.

Many people see patterns that may or may not be there. They make their arguments and back them with picked data. You have to look for the personal angles as well as 'facts'.

Would Oleg have deliberately marred his work with petty sleights against selected planes? That's what some views would have and then some.

It was made clear from the start that IL-2 was to be based primarily from tests and factual data and not from 'pilots recalls'.

Try the P-51 as it first came out and 1 patch later. Not a teeter-totter. It was the low stick force boys that forced that, CoG closer to CoL results in lower stick forces without having to make model changes that amount to 'magic'. Demands were met and Oleg was clear that he did not like them nor would we. The intention-assigners decided it was petty revenge and made it clear that lower stick forces should only be achieved through numbers (modeling magic based on decree, not physics) to make the P-51 fit their own notions gained more from subjective accounts than actual tests and really a step or half-step short of full-on Gastonology.

I don't know the DCSW P-51, I can't run that sim on my PC! My favorite P-51 was the one in Rowan's 1999 Mig Alley Ace.

I look at IL-2 as a physics-based combat flight sim that uses a system superior in its time to the others. It still had to run on the hardware of the time and did that well. It had to be stretched, bent and twisted to meet an increasing number of additions and features all of which were met well through huge amounts of extra work on the part of the development team even as they were roundly abused on forums mainly by over-aged spoiled brats.

It is what it is and instead of assigning evil intentions to the makers there should be marveling at how few cracks there are given the amount of changes put to it. Those who focus on the bits they don't like should realize that everyone has bits they don't like so why are YOU more important and why do the good bits count for so little? My feeling is that much of the time the answer to that is found in emptied bottles.

[Buster_Dee]

Ok, I'll make and a** of myself. Sometimes, you get a feel that an a/c will let you do something, and damned if it doesn't. It happened to me in R/L. It's not defying the math; we just miss defining the problem. When I saw the dramatized account of cartwheeling the stang and spraying the enemy, I didn't dismiss it. Some pilots play with an a/c to see what it does that is not "published." If you don't fall into a flat spin or break the airframe, it's a good day.

To my weak example: an instructor was trying to talk me through a short-field landing. Something just told me to try something, so I was "ignoring" him. I came in steeper than he advised, and flared a lot harder than he wanted. Basically, I used aerodynamic braking "in the vertical." The a/c stalled just above the runway, settled like a feather, and rolled a few feet. We just stared at each other, then I throttled up to get to the 1st taxiway.

And I knew I had better never try that again.

[JtD]

There were times when the P-51 could manage 14s sustained 360° turns. As physics prevailed, those times are gone, but to some it is the result of a conspiracy, not a reality check.

[KG26_Alpha]

Since the beginning of IL2 series its all ways the same with fanboi's and their favorite planes and conspiracy or Oleg using the wrong data

1C Have had to deal with

Russian forums all our planes are porked
German forums all our planes are porked
Eng/US forums all our planes are porked

Most of the time no actual manufacturing flight data was supported in the accusations,
only some vets story or a book written by someone using accounts of a pilots recollection and testing ac that are worn/damaged/wrong fuel etc etc

This still happens even today in this forum............apparently.

:)

[horseback]

The last statement isn't offensive, it's just plain weird. There is no reason to believe that Oleg and crew would punish the fans of the game for something one stingy company did, especially because the fans were very supportive (hey, didn't they buy him a new car after he totaled one?)

I also fail to understand your reasoning that Oleg and crew would choose to model the lend-lease aircraft well, but not the other aircraft like the P-51. If he was going to rig the FM's for a misguided sense of patriotism, as you imply, the lend-lease craft would have been utter crap in comparison to the indigenous soviet designs. Yeah, the La-5 and 7 are UFO's, but the LaGG-3s are death traps compared to P-40s and P-39s. If you can fly the P-39 to the limit without spinning, you are almost untouchable. The early Yaks are so-so, but even then, they are representative of new machines, and not necessarily of worn-down front-line material. We also had some pretty UFO-ish late-war spits for a long time, and last I checked, the USSR was not friendly with UK either.

Maybe something is off, but if it is, there's more to it than an off-hand conspiracy theory can answer. It just makes no sense.

Anyway, I want to remind some folks that the P-51 is about 50% heavier than the Spitfire using the same engine. It was faster than the Spit, but only due to superior aerodynamics (the spitfire was, after-all, a late 30's design). I would not expect the Mustang to be as tolerant of hard maneuvers as the Spit in terms of acceleration and climb, at the very least.

First, the Airacobra and the P-40 were both supplied to the USSR in large numbers, and would seem to have a large domestic 'fan base' in the former Eastern Bloc countries; to some degree, the Russians often seem to think of the P-39 as almost exclusively theirs.

Second, the P-39 was an integral part of the original Il-2 Sturmovik inventory, and the P-40 was either in the original offering of Forgotten Battles or an early addition. In any case, their positions in the Il-2 'pecking order' was established quite early on. Changing them would alienate a much larger portion of your base market than you can justify.

Third, the original offering of the Mustang came with the Ace Expansion Pack which came some time before Pacific Fighters, and as Max says, the original Mustang was pretty sweet; the serious issues with the late-war US fighters began with Pacific Fighters and the ensuing legal problems with that certain US Defense company. The 4.0x series of patches is where the big problems started rearing their heads and trim became a critical problem on the old Ubi forum. The big heavy late war US fighters were easily the worst affected; all of these aircraft required some trimming (although not remotely like the real life P-40), but in teeny-tiny increments, which may not fit well in the game engine, especially for those of us who trimmed with button inputs. Most are nearly impossible to trim intuitively; it takes many hours of practice to get them anywhere close to the degree of control the average player obtains in a fraction of the time on late-war German or Soviet fighters.

Additionally, Oleg and his people rejected some widely accepted performance figures and data from official US sources which left some of the US fighters well short of their 'book' performances and extremely twitchy, as they remain to this day.

I think that Oleg made a good faith effort to fix things, but some individuals took the performance data rejections and offered changes quite personally, and it got ugly. Like the infamous 'bar' on the FW 190 windshield, positions hardened. I do think that there is a certain element of anti-Americanism; my countrymen tend to be direct, if not flagrantly undiplomatic, and America must seem like the Dallas Cowboys to the rest of the world in the sense that they have been too successful for too long, and even when they are not, they get waaaay too much attention.

As regards the Spitfire vs the Mustang, your numbers are a bit off; empty, the Spitfire Mk IX weighs between 5600 and 6000 lbs, depending upon your source and which version of the Mk IX is cited. The empty weight of the Mustang is 7,635 lbs. 'Combat weight', or for an aircraft carrying full internal tanks and ammo is 7,500 for the Spitfire IX (oddly, every source I found in a quick search used this loaded weight) and for the Mustang full combat weight is 10,100 lbs. However, the 'full' figure for the Mustang assumes a long-range escort role, which means that the overload fuselage tank is filled. Subtract the 516 lbs that the 85 US gallons in that tank weigh, and you get a combat weight of 9,584 lbs for a Mustang optimized for a point defense role like the Spitfire's.

Worst case is the D/K Mustang being 1.34 times heavier than the Mk IX (which allows the Mustang a round trip to Bremen and back vs the Spit making a round trip to Calais), dry weight vs dry weight is 1.32, and with the 'point defense' loaded weight, the Mustang is 1.28 times as heavy as the Spit IX (and able to stay in the air for at least twice as long, not to mention that its ammo load endows it with several seconds' longer firing time).

The Spit is probably better than the Mustang in a close-in knife fight, but that presupposes that the Mustang pilot is not very bright. The higher and more extended the contest, the better the Mustang becomes, especially under actual combat conditions rather than artificial rules of a co-alt head on pass before turning around and engaging.

cheers

horseback

[majorfailure]

Russian forums all our planes are porked
German forums all our planes are porked
Eng/US forums all our planes are porked

All wrong. The truth is:
The Italian planes are porked.:rolleyes:

[MaxGunz]

It would be nice to have an IL-2 P-51 with empty rear tank and CoG to match.

That high pitch noise on the forums would change to a new note singing the stick-force-is-porked song instead of the too-much-trim song. But that's what the choice is about same as not being able to have both the climb performance of a wide prop and the speed of a thin prop on the same plane either. The latter was about a FW chart-monkey association agenda, IIRC. Oleg let the answer to that one be known, chart-mixing is a no-no. Stick forces for one condition don't go with performance in other conditions. All from the same and how many differences can IL-2 support?

[RPS69]

The P39, was there with the 109 since the beginning. At that time, it was a hell of an airplane, much better than now. Still, what we have now is far more acurate than what we have in the begining.

190's are a history apart. They entered as flying bricks, evolved to a pilots dream, and then returned to almost the brick condition again. I rtemember being catch by il2 on level flight on the original il2. Now they are at a far more reasonable point. Not perfect, but reasonable.

The big problem with il2 world, is that the algorithms employed, lack the needed complexity to allow an acurate representation of all airplanes at the same time.

Tweaking in one direction, may correct things in one place, and disrupt them in another.

Obviously a product like DCS could have a better P51 perfromance, it's the only model that needs to be that accurate. They could choose what aerodinamics they could ignore.

Like previously said above, at many different times, some plane or family of planes will go to the all star position, to the underdog of the whole sim. But that is very far away from a conspiration. Is just an an oscilation of the pendulum in the search of equilibrium.

[KG26_Alpha]

All wrong. The truth is:
The Italian planes are porked.:rolleyes:

You mean there's Italian fanboi's out there ??

[MaxGunz]

You mean there's Italian fanboi's out there ??

There are. Years ago I exchanged PM's with one who was part of a group.

I think they are why we have Macchi's and SM-79.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Is just an an oscilation of the pendulum in the search of equilibrium.

What? I'm terribly frightened to put that into Bing translator for me. :grin:

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

There are. Years ago I exchanged PM's with one who was part of a group.

I think they are why we have Macchi's and SM-79.

OH YES! They were/are a strong community. They did a lot of research and even made all the models by themself. I helped them a bit back then. Oleg was impressed of them.

BTW, we have some italian fellows in DT too.

[sniperton]

Hmm, WWII was a six year long conflict here in Europe, but all this hassle is about Überplanes and porked Überplanes of the 44/45 period. The controversial ones are exactly those which were already modelled in early sims like Aces over Europe. The novelty of Il2 back in 2002 was that it featured earlier planes and battles 'forgotten' in earlier sims (made mostly for the American market).

Now that we have access to the best equipment available in WWII, the everyday 'traffic' with normal cars has transformed into a Sunday Formula 1 race where each pilot wants his preferred mount to be even further finetuned. Only in the best plane can you become/feel the best pilot, so it goes, particularly online.

But after all, it's only a game, and the real fun comes from the successful adaptation of our skills, which are rather limited in view of the fact that most of us would have never qualified as a real-life war pilot, and therefore the historical reality as an argument is always a bit problematic in the context of a sim (immersion is only the illusion of reality). What really matters is that the game challenges you to learn how to fight an illusionistic Dora in an illusionistic Pony, a Hurri in a Macchi, or a Brewster in a Rata (which latter ones I personally find much more exciting :rolleyes:).

[majorfailure]

OH YES! They were/are a strong community. They did a lot of research and even made all the models by themself. I helped them a bit back then. Oleg was impressed of them.

BTW, we have some italian fellows in DT too.
Let me say thanks to those guys. These Macchi planes are really something, I like them a lot, you can do quite some nasty things to allied aviation in them.


But after all, it's only a game, and the real fun comes from the successful adaptation of our skills, which are rather limited in view of the fact that most of us would have never qualified as a real-life war pilot, and therefore the historical reality as an argument is always a bit problematic in the context of a sim (immersion is only the illusion of reality). What really matters is that the game challenges you to learn how to fight an illusionistic Dora in an illusionistic Pony, a Hurri in a Macchi, or a Brewster in a Rata (which latter ones I personally find much more exciting :rolleyes:).
I bet I could not takeoff in even a trainer plane of that time. And don't forget a really accurate sim would have to introduce checklists to follow - which I personally can do without, its a COMBAT flight sim and a game. And to me the early to mid war period offers the most, too.

[Asheshouse]

The early aircraft are imo more interesting to fly than the later high performance types.

My current Campaign is Fokkers of the WinterWar, by Kapteeni, on the Finland map.
Flying the Fokker DXXI to begin with it was difficult to do much damage but, as in reality, you just had to get in close and aim at vital parts.

Taking bombers down becomes easier once you learn where the fuel tanks are located. Just get a flame going with a short burst then move onto the next one without waiting to see what happens.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Wasn't Fokkers of WinterWar from IceFire?

[KG26_Alpha]

There are. Years ago I exchanged PM's with one who was part of a group.

I think they are why we have Macchi's and SM-79.

Ermm I was doing sarcasm :)

They were pretty pissed off at the weapons and performance ...... sound familiar...... as with my other post add them to the list.


Let me say thanks to those guys. These Macchi planes are really something, I like them a lot, you can do quite some nasty things to allied aviation in them.

Hurri MkI v SM79 is interesting to a novice Hurri pilot :)

I bet I could not takeoff in even a trainer plane of that time. And don't forget a really accurate sim would have to introduce checklists to follow - which I personally can do without, its a COMBAT flight sim and a game. And to me the early to mid war period offers the most, too.

Early to 43 late is most interesting for me.




.

[MaxGunz]

Ermm I was doing sarcasm :)

They were pretty pissed off at the weapons and performance ...... sound familiar...... as with my other post add them to the list.




Hurri MkI v SM79 is interesting to a novice Hurri pilot :)



Early to 43 late is most interesting for me.




.

edit: Yeah well if you don't expect passion from Italians then you don't know Italians very well, or you put pills in their drinks.

There were "issues" that I didn't totally agree with but it's been a while and I figured it was going to change or it wasn't. I certainly did not know as much about those planes as that group yet I was able to turn the 202 much harder than some claimed.

IIRC the Macchi 202 is one of the planes most affected by the need for proper rudder use brought about by 4.xx. If there had been an award for most bitterly bi... complained about with least reason it was the 202. I banged heads over the "easy spin" appellation more than 2 or 3 times since A) I had checked it out and found that when keeping The Ball centered, the 202 could pull massively hard turns as long as speed was kept 340+kph and B) the main counter argument I got was "rudder didn't matter before" based ignorance of slip and The Ball.

One of the major points about 4.xx over the earlier FM is that before 4.xx you could not ride a stall, it would always fall into a spin and the reason was not canned code but what amounted to auto-rudder in the earlier FM.

How well you rudder in IL-2 makes a big difference, at least as big as proper use of trim. IRL you get motion and stick force cues, in the sim you don't, it's not going to match the reality and players should just get used to it and stop their blod-clot crying. The more wing-loaded and light-stick a model is, the worse it will be but those same planes get advantages for those who can deal with them they would not otherwise have. For sure, the P-51 could be a lot more like the FW-190.

I wonder how many players still use 3.xx? IMO while it is closer to arcade, it also needs less computer and joystick to play. Maybe there's some "lost tribe" out in the virtual skies.....

[majorfailure]

Hurri MkI v SM79 is interesting to a novice Hurri pilot :)

I' bet a lot of us learned that the hard way. The first time I tried to down one of these slow flying not too tough looking crates with a Hurri it took my entire ammo load but that darned thing stayed in the air. Now I only try to get a SM79 from behind when I brought at least 20mm cannons and lots of ammo for them with me.

[K_Freddie]

Surely you're not talking about a 'Low-n-Slow'/ or just 'slow' aircraft being hard to down ??

Somewhere .. sometime .. this rings a really Bad Bell
:cool:

[K_Freddie]

The real problem comes with the 'ground hogs', inability to accurately work out what the pilot is saying.

The biggest obstacle is that the 'groundhog' is just not in the pit when the story happens. The pilot has to deal with many variables 'on the fly', and make decisions based on education and experience. For the 'un-educated' these decisions are almost 'natural' and not worth mentioning ??

[tango2delta]

I do not know if this counts but I fly scale P-51D models, I have 2 that is 82" and about 30 to 40 pounds and let me tell you this, if you even breath wrong they will stall. And if you take off before you get your airspeed up it will snap roll. A P-51 will not fly tail heavy, if the CG is not right it will never leave the ground, it will but not for long. Now my 80" P-47 flies like a dream. I think the P-47 was the best U.S. built.

[MaxGunz]

If your models are scale right down to the airfoil curves then there's a little problem right there.

It just took me 10 minutes to remember the name that goes with it, it's about the Reynolds number which changes for wings as they get bigger or smaller.

The same shape airfoil works differently with different scale wings. What worked great for a bird worked less well for airplanes made before 1920 though the Gottingen thick wing used on the Fokker DrI and DVII went a good ways to fix that. Going from about 10 meter spread down to about 2 meters is going to be subject to a measure of that. But -only- if the curve of the wing is kept to scale.

I am wondering about controls on your models. Are the rudder, elevator and ailerons all controllable? I know of smaller models that only do rudder and elevator.

I also wonder if your controls are channel per axis direct like was done since long ago or if it's one channel wireless computer communication with a microcontroller in the plane? There's pluses and minuses either way.

[horseback]

There's also the little matter of Center of Gravity; unless your models are scale weight in the right places, it will have an effect as well.

cheers

horseback

[MaxGunz]

When I built model airframes the procedure was to attach a string at the balance point and whirl the sucker around. That went for model rockets too, IIRC.

[tango2delta]

If your models are scale right down to the airfoil curves then there's a little problem right there.

It just took me 10 minutes to remember the name that goes with it, it's about the Reynolds number which changes for wings as they get bigger or smaller.

The same shape airfoil works differently with different scale wings. What worked great for a bird worked less well for airplanes made before 1920 though the Gottingen thick wing used on the Fokker DrI and DVII went a good ways to fix that. Going from about 10 meter spread down to about 2 meters is going to be subject to a measure of that. But -only- if the curve of the wing is kept to scale.

I am wondering about controls on your models. Are the rudder, elevator and ailerons all controllable? I know of smaller models that only do rudder and elevator.

I also wonder if your controls are channel per axis direct like was done since long ago or if it's one channel wireless computer communication with a microcontroller in the plane? There's pluses and minuses either way.

Yes, all controls work. elevator, ailerons, rudder and flaps. Even have to trim them out. They have air retract system for landing gear. When I say scale I mean 1/4 scale. I use a futaba T8FG Super TX/RX to fly them with. One is a Aeroworks P-51B the other is ESM ARFP.

[MiloMorai]

Does your model of the P-51D use scale control surfaces movement?

What airfoil does your model P-51D use?

[tango2delta]

Does your model of the P-51D use scale control surfaces movement?

What airfoil does your model P-51D use?

Yes, (scale control) I have that setup in my Radio. The airfoil is NACA Laminar-Flow. What I am trying to say is if my model planes fly like the real P-51D they where built for speed (Interceptor) and long flights. But in a dogfight you would surly have a bad day in a slow turn fight. It would snap roll in a flash and turn around and spin not even trying. The first time I flew my P-51D I did that same stunt in that video not intending to, I just got to slow in a turn and gave it some up elevator and boom. Almost lost it. That would be the one that is my pic at the left top.

[MaxGunz]

The NACA profiles used on the P-51 work for wings the size of a full scale P-51. They will work less well on a 1/4 scale model. The difference due to Reynolds number difference can probably be calculated by an AE.

During takeoffs are you keeping wings level with side-stick (aileron)?

There are wireless network devices with outdoor line of sight range 1 mile for about $35 ea full retail. They have 6 10-bit analog inputs to read sensors or instruments or stick axes and send the results. They have 8 digital outputs to turn things on and off.
You can control more than 1 plane from the same ground station if it's got a PC hooked to it. Even use PC game controllers.
You can get feedback from the plane, it has a wireless node and even its own I/O. How about a pitot sensor and a slip ball and gyro/accelerometer data? Do you think you could fly better with that?


XBee Pro ZB has 250kbps speed, that's almost 5x 52k dialup. I remember when we'd go online IL2 and set net speed at 28k and get good games. Our big problem was lag and with local wireless that can be almost none. Transmission is light speed at a mile or less, not bouncing off satellites.

The Pro ZB is the middle column.
http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/111/ds_xbeemultipointmodules-19140.pdf

[pandacat]

I do not know if this counts but I fly scale P-51D models, I have 2 that is 82" and about 30 to 40 pounds and let me tell you this, if you even breath wrong they will stall. And if you take off before you get your airspeed up it will snap roll. A P-51 will not fly tail heavy, if the CG is not right it will never leave the ground, it will but not for long. Now my 80" P-47 flies like a dream. I think the P-47 was the best U.S. built.

Sorry to resurrect this old dead horse. I can't help but to comment on this. But drawing conclusion on RL planes from scaled models is just not right. If P-47 is so great, why would USAAF and later USAF replace most of them with mustangs? You may say 51s have greater range, but what about P47n models? They have similar ranges. If 47s are better, then they should have built more 47s rather than 51s. How about the fact that P51s were even retained and used in Korean war? You may say they were primarily used in AG operations. Well, wasn't P47 (aircool engine) an evern better AG bird than liquid cooled pony? Yes, p51s were built for speed and range, but classifying them as interceptors is plainly wrong. Have you seen any airforce use high speed interceptors for AG operations?

[MiloMorai]

Have you seen any airforce use high speed interceptors for AG operations?

The F-104 comes to mind.

[MaxGunz]

See if you can get Sensei to post about F-16's used for ground attack. He used to teach that.

P-47's were certainly high speed interceptors and equally certainly used for ground attack as were Corsairs, Typhoons and Tempests and FW190's.....

[pandacat]

Once again, sorry about beating this old dead horse. I believe some of what horseback said and argued are valid points. I just don't buy the arguement that P51 is inferior to 109 and 190, and this plane won the war by sheer numerical suporiority and better pilots. Let me point out several fallacy of this arguement. First of all, allies won the airwar over Germany. That's a fact. There shouldn't be any "well, maybe.", "yeah, but" crap for this right? Ok, there are several factors contributing this victory: number, pilot, plane and tactics.

1. Number. Yes on paper, western allies is numerically stronger. But it doesn't necessrily mean in every battle, P51 outnumbered opponents vastly. There were many instances where P51s were outnumbered by attacking 109 and 190s. Also, as you may be aware from your gaming experience, big battles quickly disintegrated into smaller group battles, team battles and individial battles. At this point, superior overal number means nothing. Moreover, air combat is nothing like ground wars where armies of millions clash with each other and numbers have important impact. In air, number helps but to a much less extend. Convincing? no? Let's go on to the next point.

2. Pilot quality. By the time, USAAF entered the conflict, LW had already been a seasoned veteran for many years. They battled French, British, Poles and Russians and prevailed most of times. By the time big bomber operations started in Western E, LW had produced numerous aces. Just counted how many pilots who had 50+ kills and were still active at that point of time. Compared to LW, USAAF was a much younger force. You may say, oh americans had more fuel and they can train their pilots more thoroughly. I don't deny that. American's pilot training may be superior. But one hr of training in a peaceful world or even in a simulated environment is nothing compared to one hr of actual heated combat. Pilot learn their skills and gain experience in actual combats. Even big aces who had adequate training before going into the combat still fumbled in the cockpit the firs time they flew into actual war. It was years of war that forged aces like Eric Hartmann, not hundreds of hours training school. You may also argue that toward the end of war, attrition burned way cream of LW pilot cadre. It is somewhat valid, but all the way until the end of war, LW is still formidable force to be rekoned with. The big turkey shoot in pacific has never happened in western theater. Even at the battle of bulge, LW still put up a tuff fite for western allies. It's a testiment of the quality of LW pilots.

3. Planes. Ok let's say for now P51 is shit compared to 109 and 190. Ok if 109 and 190 are so superior and their pilots are skilled, then why would P51 have much greater kill ratio? In ETO alone, the plane had 4950 kills vs 2500 losses (to all causes, enemy actions, operational mishaps etc). How come LW didn't pull the same performance on this plane as what they did when facing swarms of I-16s at the beginning of Russian campaign? If you have a numerical superior, but qualitatively inferior force (ie inferior equipment and less experienced personnel), you are bound to have higher loss ratio. But the fact doesn't reflect that. Look at russians. Russian beat LW in numbers especially later in the war, but they also suffered higher losses. Also, be mindful, most battles that P51 fought were fighter vs fighter fites. Not like battle of britain, there are no juicy fat bombers to chew on.

4. Tactics. German tactics were bad? Inferior? You tell me? By 1943, they had gone on war for 3+ years and they didn't know what they were doing?

Taken all together, let's look at the pic that IL2 painted for us in a real combat scenario. On the morning of a summer day in early 1944, a group of heavy B-17s escorted by p51s entered German aerospace. Suddenly they were attacked by a group of 109s. Jimmy, the number 4 of the p51 flight, was on his first combat mission. Suddently he found himself right behind a 109. Excited and eager to grab the kill, Jimmy quickly moved stick to bring the gun sight onto the target. "Oh, crap, why my nose is wobbling all over the place" "shit, I forgot trimming this sucker". "let's see. Trim Trim Trim. Nose down trim trim, still wobbling. Oh right, ball not centered, 5 degrees of rudder to the right." All the while Jimmy's left hand reached down to his trim controls, Hans, the pilot of 109 number 1, flew leisurely towards the bombers. Suddenly, his plane screamed at him, "bandit 6 oclock, break" Hans, lighting a ciggerate, "what can I do? The other guy had more hours of training school than me" "I am green" "We can do it," said 109, "I am a superior plane. We can outclimb, outrun and outturn this guy." "Ok, outclimb, how? Tell me. which nobs?" Hans snuffed his ciggerate, apparently excited. About the same time, Jimmy finally trimmed out his p51. Target deadly centered on his sight. "Fire", he pressed trigger. His 6x50 cal peashooters started spitting out a large number of beans. Immediately, he saw the effect of his shooting. Debris and paints flew off 109's wings and fueslage. But 109 just won't die and target getting smaller and smaller in Jimmy's sight. Suddenly, a red light shone on his instrument panel. "overheat?" "Why am I overheating?" "oh crap, prop pitch and rad". While, Jimmy fumbling with his overheating issue, Hans' 109 number 1 finally had enuf. "know what? This Hans dude sucks." "I am gonna get him bail out" "Getting shot at by shitty plane like p51 is an insult" It nosed over into a dive. "I am damaged and crashing. u better get out" said 109. Hans quickly released his belts and jumped out. Now the pilotless 109 gained a new lease of life. It pushed throttle into overdrive and engaged boost. Speed built up rapidly. A quick sharp turn 109 is behind Jimmy's plane. Jimmy tried to follow, but his p51 threatened to stall out of control. More power and engine complaint too hot. Now the p51 is dead center in 109's gun sight. "Gotcha" 109 bursted into a big smile. All guns fired away. 109's aim is true, there is no wobbling. Everything is stable. 2 hits, P51 bulching smoke from a dead engine and right wing broke off. "I told ya. Stang is shit." 109 bursted into a laughter. "Bang" something hit the 109. a couple of trcers flew by. 109 looked back, "shit, a group of at least a hundred more p51s. "Man, these people just won't quit. I am going home" 109 pitched nose over and accelerated away from the enemies. The leader of this new group of p51s is the cousin of Jimmy and also named Jimmy. Let's call this guy Jimmy 2. Jimmy 2 yelled in his radio,"Gentlemen, enemy turned tail. We won". Back at the base, general of the 8th airforce was smoking a cigar, "Tom u got the report yet?" "Yes sir. 10 kills and 49 losses." "What is the mater with you." general smacked down on young Tom's head."Have you graduated from you high school?" "It's 10kills and 4.9 losses." "How could we have 4.9 losses?" Tom rubbing his head. "Make it 5 then, u idiot." In his Berlin base, Hitler was reading a translated American newspaper. "What? 2-1 losses?" "Gorling you ruined my LW." "Mein fuhrer." Gorling grunted, "Please allow me to explain this complicated math." " They had more planes, more fuel, and better trained pilots...." "oh, enuf, we have better planes." "Yeah, but..." "enuf, enuf... I had enuf. U ruined my LW. Without LW, we are gonna lose." "I won't see myself under trial for war crimes." Hitler dropped the newspaper and pulled his lugger. "Bang" a shot thru his temper....
This is a story how shitty planes and vast numbers can win the war.

[pandacat]

See if you can get Sensei to post about F-16's used for ground attack. He used to teach that.

P-47's were certainly high speed interceptors and equally certainly used for ground attack as were Corsairs, Typhoons and Tempests and FW190's.....

I know P-47s were used for AG attacks. As a matter of fact, p47s were used in AG operations more frequently than P51s. What I am arguing is how come they never picked p47 for Korea if p47 is better than p51?

[Woke Up Dead]

Taken all together, let's look at the pic that IL2 painted for us in a real combat scenario...


Is this what happens when YOU fly the P-51? I get a better experience, and I'm probably just an above-average pilot in that plane.

The 109 is one of the easiest to fly and most stable to shoot with planes in the game, and the P-51 isn't. Once you get good with the P-51 though, you'll be able to out-fly and eventually shoot down any 109, even the G-2 and the K-4.

[horseback]

I know P-47s were used for AG attacks. As a matter of fact, p47s were used in AG operations more frequently than P51s. What I am arguing is how come they never picked p47 for Korea if p47 is better than p51?While P-47s were generally considered much better suited to ground attack than the Mustang, there weren't any in Japan when the festivities in Korea began, and the limited number of reasonably well-maintained Jugs were located in the US and Europe (where, if Stalin had decided to strike while the British and Americans were distracted by Korea) they would be desperately needed. Additionally, the Jug needed more maintenance time per flight hour and consumed a great deal more aviation grade fuel (yeah, we had plenty back then, but most of it had to be shipped from US West Coast refineries and that still cost a lot of money, and meant that some other needed items would have had to wait for shipping space).

In any case, the USAF was making a wholesale transition to jets; the Mustang was supposed to be replaced by F-80s and F-84s 'in two weeks, be sure' throughout the Korean conflict.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

Is this what happens when YOU fly the P-51? I get a better experience, and I'm probably just an above-average pilot in that plane.

The 109 is one of the easiest to fly and most stable to shoot with planes in the game, and the P-51 isn't. Once you get good with the P-51 though, you'll be able to out-fly and eventually shoot down any 109, even the G-2 and the K-4.And historically, the Mustang was one of the easiest to fly (and land, in direct contrast to the 109) and stable to shoot with of all WWII aircraft.

The in-game trim requirements are much too high in all late-war US fighters; in the case of the Mustang, you need to make rudder and elevation adjustments (not an adjustment) for every 10kph of speed variation, which is more than 6kph more often than the RL P-40 actually needed (and the P-40 was easily the biggest trim hog in the US inventory by every account). Obviously that is several times more often than the in-game versions of the P-40.

The only thing that is consistent about the 'ball' in the game's Mustangs is that if you are flying anything but straight and level at constant speed, it will be wrong; switching from cockpit view to Wonder Woman, the Turn & Bank indicator will usually be contradicted by the vector ball, and the error is not consistent the way most other aircraft instruments are depicted--always to one side or the other--it can go either way, and it seems more a matter of the luck of the draw than the direction you are moving or how abruptly you are changing direction.

People who have mastered the Mustang in-game have done so through long hours of practice, many, many more than most other aircraft require and inversely proportional to the learning curve of the real thing in the context of high performance single engine aircraft of that era. While I recognize that effort and skill, and absolutely agree that you should be proud of it, it should never have been necessary.

It certainly isn't realistic.

cheers

horseback

[IceFire]

And historically, the Mustang was one of the easiest to fly (and land, in direct contrast to the 109) and stable to shoot with of all WWII aircraft.

The in-game trim requirements are much too high in all late-war US fighters; in the case of the Mustang, you need to make rudder and elevation adjustments (not an adjustment) for every 10kph of speed variation, which is more than 6kph more often than the RL P-40 actually needed (and the P-40 was easily the biggest trim hog in the US inventory by every account). Obviously that is several times more often than the in-game versions of the P-40.

The only thing that is consistent about the 'ball' in the game's Mustangs is that if you are flying anything but straight and level at constant speed, it will be wrong; switching from cockpit view to Wonder Woman, the Turn & Bank indicator will usually be contradicted by the vector ball, and the error is not consistent the way most other aircraft instruments are depicted--always to one side or the other--it can go either way, and it seems more a matter of the luck of the draw than the direction you are moving or how abruptly you are changing direction.

People who have mastered the Mustang in-game have done so through long hours of practice, many, many more than most other aircraft require and inversely proportional to the learning curve of the real thing in the context of high performance single engine aircraft of that era. While I recognize that effort and skill, and absolutely agree that you should be proud of it, it should never have been necessary.

It certainly isn't realistic.

cheers

horseback
The new P-40 flight model requires plenty of trim now... more like the test reports although I'm not sure if by the numbers or not. Hopefully if the Mustang FM gets a once over we'll see that need to re-trim diminish and it'll be a more pilot friendly type than it is right now.

I will say that it is very easy to land in-game. One of the easiest in its year range for sure. I still have some difficulty fighting in it which is another matter.

[MaxGunz]

I know P-47s were used for AG attacks. As a matter of fact, p47s were used in AG operations more frequently than P51s. What I am arguing is how come they never picked p47 for Korea if p47 is better than p51?

Who said the P-47 is better? High speed interceptor that was good AG yes, more suited to the high speed environment of Korea, no. The Mustang was crap compared to the MiG with a decent hit and run pilot. But the P47 is slower and bigger and not 30mm-proof regardless of stronger build.

How long did the F-80's last?

[horseback]

The new P-40 flight model requires plenty of trim now... more like the test reports although I'm not sure if by the numbers or not. Hopefully if the Mustang FM gets a once over we'll see that need to re-trim diminish and it'll be a more pilot friendly type than it is right now.

I will say that it is very easy to land in-game. One of the easiest in its year range for sure. I still have some difficulty fighting in it which is another matter.
I've spent a few hours in the P-40 series since 4.12 came out and have noticed that it does need more trimming to get the most out of it (as well as addressing the performance of the M version vs the E).

However, as both stand, the Tomahawk/Warhawk series still require less constant adjustment of down elevator-down elevator-down elevator-down elevator-right rudder-right rudder-right rudder then up elevator-up elevator-left rudder, ahh, that's got it--!???!--bloody hell!--down elevator-down elevator- ad infinitum of the Mustang series.

Of course, the iconic Grumman F6F is even worse; God only knows what the Northrup Black Widow would have been treated like...

cheers

horseback

[MaxGunz]

Rudder trim is because propwash torque on the tail changes with speed, engine, and prop settings. Below a certain speed you need rudder to one side and above you need rudder to the other. They joked that Hartmann walked in circles because one leg was stronger from holding rudder at high speed.
The stabilizer is offset to make 0 rudder needed at cruise speed which helps reduce heaver low speed propwash torque, if you don't have rudder trim you get to move the pedals instead. If you do have trim then complain about that. Step on the ball instead.

[majorfailure]

1. Number. Yes on paper, western allies is numerically stronger. But it doesn't necessrily mean in every battle, P51 outnumbered opponents vastly. There were many instances where P51s were outnumbered by attacking 109 and 190s. Also, as you may be aware from your gaming experience, big battles quickly disintegrated into smaller group battles, team battles and individial battles. At this point, superior overal number means nothing. Moreover, air combat is nothing like ground wars where armies of millions clash with each other and numbers have important impact. In air, number helps but to a much less extend. Convincing? no? Let's go on to the next point.
I disagree. Numerical superiority helps even in smaller battles. Even an 10:9 superiority means 1 pilot out of ten can engage the enemy at will. And if the LW managed to get 300 planes in the air to engage the bombers and say 100 P-51, then it looks like a huge numerical superiority for the LW, but may in fact have been 100 P-51 against 30 LW planes and this ten times.


2. Pilot quality. By the time, USAAF entered the conflict, LW had already been a seasoned veteran for many years. They battled French, British, Poles and Russians and prevailed most of times. By the time big bomber operations started in Western E, LW had produced numerous aces. Just counted how many pilots who had 50+ kills and were still active at that point of time. Compared to LW, USAAF was a much younger force. You may say, oh americans had more fuel and they can train their pilots more thoroughly. I don't deny that. American's pilot training may be superior. But one hr of training in a peaceful world or even in a simulated environment is nothing compared to one hr of actual heated combat. Pilot learn their skills and gain experience in actual combats. Even big aces who had adequate training before going into the combat still fumbled in the cockpit the firs time they flew into actual war. It was years of war that forged aces like Eric Hartmann, not hundreds of hours training school. You may also argue that toward the end of war, attrition burned way cream of LW pilot cadre. It is somewhat valid, but all the way until the end of war, LW is still formidable force to be rekoned with. The big turkey shoot in pacific has never happened in western theater. Even at the battle of bulge, LW still put up a tuff fite for western allies. It's a testiment of the quality of LW pilots.
The Luftwaffe of early 43 was good. But the decline in quality and quantity of pilots and material was rapid and by mid 44 the LW was only a shadow of its past glory. By end of 43, when P-51s came into the theater the RAF and P-47s had made quite some dents into LW.

3. Planes. Ok let's say for now P51 is shit compared to 109 and 190. Ok if 109 and 190 are so superior and their pilots are skilled, then why would P51 have much greater kill ratio? In ETO alone, the plane had 4950 kills vs 2500 losses (to all causes, enemy actions, operational mishaps etc). How come LW didn't pull the same performance on this plane as what they did when facing swarms of I-16s at the beginning of Russian campaign? If you have a numerical superior, but qualitatively inferior force (ie inferior equipment and less experienced personnel), you are bound to have higher loss ratio. But the fact doesn't reflect that. Look at russians. Russian beat LW in numbers especially later in the war, but they also suffered higher losses. Also, be mindful, most battles that P51 fought were fighter vs fighter fites. Not like battle of britain, there are no juicy fat bombers to chew on.
If the LW had had plenty of good high-alt planes to counter the P-51 (109G-10, K-4) the Pony could have faired worse, but some of the enemy planes were Bf110 and derivatives and Fw190As, that at bomber altitude did not have good performance

4. Tactics. German tactics were bad? Inferior? You tell me? By 1943, they had gone on war for 3+ years and they didn't know what they were doing?

The LWs tactics were not optimised to keep the fighter losses//Mustang kill ratio low. They tried to shoot down as many bombers as they could, and most of the time did so by throwing fighters in small portions at the bomber stream. And their intended target were the bombers.

And besides that - if the enemy manages to carry the fight to your homeland, than you are at a severe tactical disadvantage -you can not act, you react.

The Pony in Il-2 is fine (maybe except for the trim requirements). It is FAST. In a shallow climb or dive you outrun almost anything. And it keeps its speed if you don't hamfist it. At speeds where a P-40 would start losing parts it is stable like a brick. It climbs reasonably well and accelerates okay.
It has endurance a Bf-109 will never achive. It can carry a useful load of ordinance, or even more fuel. Now if I only could hit anything while flying it...

[horseback]

I disagree. Numerical superiority helps even in smaller battles. Even an 10:9 superiority means 1 pilot out of ten can engage the enemy at will. And if the LW managed to get 300 planes in the air to engage the bombers and say 100 P-51, then it looks like a huge numerical superiority for the LW, but may in fact have been 100 P-51 against 30 LW planes and this ten times.Your 100 Mustangs engaging 10 consecutive 30 plane attacks would lead to a certain amount of wastage; aircraft would be lost, some would expend too much fuel or ammo and have to RTB, and some would get separated from the main body and not be able to rejoin. By the time the 10th group of 30 LW fighters arrived, they would be facing a seriously depleted escort, even had the Mustangs managed to destroy or disperse the previous 270 fighters.

The LW had radar plots & aircraft shadowing the bombers from the North sea onwards as they headed to their targets; they systematically kept track of each bomber formation’s altitude, course and speed, where the escorts were most heavily concentrated and tried to calculate how soon they were likely to depart or be replaced for the next ‘leg’ by another group of escorts. LW interceptors were kept well-informed of all of this as they waited for takeoff orders and as they climbed to position for their attacks.

The whole point of these practices was to ensure numerical superiority at the point of attack, and as a practical matter, they were often successful. But even if they were successful, an aggressive escort positioned in the right place could break up an attack and inflict disproportionate casualties. The sky is a big place and you cannot keep track of everything. There is the glare of the sun, contrails, clouds and sheer distance to contend with. The 8th Fighter Command had some very good minds who worked very hard at coming up with new ways to vary courses and schedules to throw the Germans off the scent, but most of the time, it mainly came down to the escort being in position for the bounce and being better than the opposition.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

The Luftwaffe of early 43 was good. But the decline in quality and quantity of pilots and material was rapid and by mid 44 the LW was only a shadow of its past glory. By end of 43, when P-51s came into the theater the RAF and P-47s had made quite some dents into LW.
I love this recurring meme; the poor jagdewaffe in the West being run ragged by huge numbers of Spitfires and P-47s nibbling at the fringes of European airspace and fighting desperately to stem the tide of thousands of B-17s and B-24s that were striking at Germany itself and implying that this was the case immediately after the United States entered the war.

I’m not familiar with the numbers of Spits on the Channel, but the best figures I can get for their reach is about 90 miles (145 km) past the French coast, and that was only in certain areas where France and England were fairly close. In terms of attrition, they were a minor concern to the LW; they could largely be avoided or ignored. A P-47C/D with a single belly tank (the twin wing pylons of the late D models didn’t become available until late spring of 1944) could have an effective combat range out to the edges of German airspace, and it took the USAAF about six months to develop that capability after the P-47 was introduced to operations (March, 1943).

The P-47 was introduced early spring of 1943 and it was still a developmental aircraft in many ways; mechanical and radio aborts were fairly common well into the fall of that year, and it was quickly established that the Thunderbolt was not competitive at altitudes below 20,000 ft. Additionally, of the three 8th AF fighter groups, only the 56th FG had had any previous time in the type; the more combat seasoned 4th FG had previously flown Spitfires under British control and the 78th was stripped of its P-38s and most of its pilots to supply the Torch/N. African campaign—it was mainly a shell of senior officers and newly trained pilots dropped into modern fighters right out of the gate. The 4th lost a good number of experienced pilots and leaders who were sent to other AAF units to provide combat experience and leadership (and dilute the RAF mindset they had). Basically, two of the three fighter groups in England started operations in the P-47 already resentful and shorthanded.

For most of the summer and early fall of 1943, these three groups of roughly 45 aircraft each could field a maximum effort of maybe 110-120 fighters to escort (in shifts) a fairly limited number of B-17s over (mainly) France, and they were getting their asses kicked. The Germans were destroying aircraft and killing or capturing trained aircrew about as quickly as we could build or train them & get them across the Atlantic most of that year. In the case of bombers and crews they were taking them out even faster than (less experienced) new ones could be brought in for most of 1943.

In fact, there was a great deal of discussion of at least suspending the daylight bombing effort entirely by mid-October of that year, in order to finally gather up a big enough force to overwhelm the German defenses (although without effective fighter escorts past the German border, it might have simply led to even greater losses to no benefit). During that fall and early winter of 1943, about five or six new fighter groups joined the 8th AF, but their participation in combat operations were limited by the ‘breaking in period’ required partly because production of USAAF first-line fighters had not reached the point where they could be used for advanced training, which meant that the first time the newly trained pilots actually got meaningful time in the fighter model they would be fighting in was after they had arrived in England and partly because they still had to be trained and briefed on the latest tactics and radio procedures in the theater.

That breaking in period was extended by truly atrocious weather that fall, which slowed their progress and led to several fatalities in training while the original three groups not only continued their combat operations, but ‘loaned’ key personnel to the new groups to train and evaluate them.
8th AF combat operations during the period from mid-October ’43 until mid-February of ’44 were spotty and erratic due to the weather and the ongoing debate about which direction the bombing campaign would take; Escort To Berlin, the combat diary of the 4th FG, shows just over 40 missions for the group (often squadron sized or less) during that 123 day period, making contact less than half the time, and barely breaking even in terms of victories and combat losses (add in operational casualties, and they were losing, and badly). Only the 56th FG was enjoying a measure of success at that time; the 78th and the 4th were probably still sulking over being stuck with the P-47 and all the key personnel they’d had stolen from them to stock other groups in England, Italy and the Pacific.

Meanwhile, the poor LW was busily patting itself on the back and painting victory bars and pictures of Iron Crosses on their tail fins, ignoring the fact that the Battle of the Atlantic had been lost by the U-boats and that now the steadily increasing production of the US factories and training bases could be brought to England without losing a meaningful percentage first. They thought that they had already won the Battle of Germany, and their leadership simply didn’t believe that reports of the P-51 equipped with a Merlin 60 series engine could a) have the range to escort the bombers over Germany or b) be effective even if it did. Morale at Christmas of 1943 was very good, and confidence was high. Most fighter pilots were more concerned about what Goerring might do to them than what the Americans would do.

Certainly there had been some attrition, but they were winning and doing so easily. There had been sightings of P-38s, but these were poorly flown by half-frozen, half-trained pilots in limited numbers, and the Lightning was never well thought of by the pilots of the Luftwaffe unless they were shot down or nearly got shot down by one (and some not even then, like Galland). It had good range, but it was a twin, and it was an article of faith that twins couldn’t compete with single engine fighters. The P-47 was sometimes dangerous up high, but it was short legged and useless below 6500m, where any extended fight was likely to end.

A German fighter pilot stationed in the West at the end of 1943 was well trained, well rested and confidant; he had more combat experience, proven leaders in every unit, excellent aircraft, reliable weapons, good tactical doctrine, and an extensive early warning and ground control system. He probably would have thought himself in a better position than the Tommies were over southern England in the summer of 1940. There were lots of Tommies and Americans, it was true, but they could be avoided most of the time and once the bombers got past the French border, they were alone and practically sitting ducks. More victory bars and fancier medals for the tail fin display were on the horizon, and once they finally learned that the Fatherland was not to be trifled with, they would come to terms with Germany and maybe even join in on the destruction of the Soviet Union.

That's both sides of the story; 1943 was a very good year to be a German fighter pilot, and most of them thought that there was no end in sight for their continued dominance over their own airspace. At the start of 1944, the Germans were convinced that they had everything well in hand in the West. They certainly made no efforts to increase training schedules or the number of fighter units in the West until the situation became a crises.

cheers

horseback

[JtD]

Certainly there had been some attrition, but they were winning and doing so easily.Since 1939, until the end of 1943, the fighter arm of the Luftwaffe had suffered about 800% losses, meaning every unit was completely wiped out and replaced 8 times. About 3 times in 1943 alone. Pilot losses were nearly half of that.

[horseback]

The LWs tactics were not optimised to keep the fighter losses//Mustang kill ratio low. They tried to shoot down as many bombers as they could, and most of the time did so by throwing fighters in small portions at the bomber stream. And their intended target were the bombers.

And besides that - if the enemy manages to carry the fight to your homeland, than you are at a severe tactical disadvantage -you can not act, you react.
Again, there is a false chronology: There were less than 200 Mustangs operational in England to be used as bomber escorts from December 1943 until mid-April, 1944, during which the zerstörer Gruppe were largely massacred, and the jagdewaffe suffered its greatest attrition over Germany; that means that the majority of experienced leaders and pilots lost were lost to Mustangs flown by mainly grass-green pilots (three of the first four Mustang groups didn’t fly a Merlin Mustang until they arrived in England less than two bad flying weather months before entering combat), however well trained. The single engine fighters were there to mop up after the zerstörer units, and if there were fighter escorts to deal with them.

They had no business fixating on bombers until after the zerstörer gruppe had been rendered hors de combat by the end of March, and some of their number were reassigned to carry heavy cannon pods and rocket tubes to break up the bomber formations. At no time during this period were the German single engine fighters outnumbered over Germany by the fighter escorts. At best, they were misdirected or just couldn't get the job done.

As I have repeatedly pointed out before, that means that either the Mustang was an exceptional fighter in nearly every way, or most of the men in their cockpits were sons of Krypton flying incognito.
The Pony in Il-2 is fine (maybe except for the trim requirements). It is FAST. In a shallow climb or dive you outrun almost anything. And it keeps its speed if you don't hamfist it. At speeds where a P-40 would start losing parts it is stable like a brick. It climbs reasonably well and accelerates okay.
It has endurance a Bf-109 will never achive. It can carry a useful load of ordinance, or even more fuel. Now if I only could hit anything while flying it...
Except for the trim requirements? In this game, that level of endurance, even on the biggest maps, is unnecessary to the point of parody. Speed and endurance are next to useless to a fighter that cannot be kept under control, and if you can't aim your guns accurately, it can't be called 'stable', like a brick or anything else. I would argue that the whole point of the trim requirements (and a COG more consistent with an overload fuel capacity) is to keep you from hitting anything when you fly with it.

'Nuff said.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

Since 1939, until the end of 1943, the fighter arm of the Luftwaffe had suffered about 800% losses, meaning every unit was completely wiped out and replaced 8 times. About 3 times in 1943 alone. Pilot losses were nearly half of that. That sort of attrition was standard for combat groups in WWII, even against inferior opposition. US fighter groups in the Pacific, like the 49th FG in New Guinea and several USMC squadrons operating in the Solomons during 1942-44 had very comparable turnover rates under much more physically demanding conditions. Combat infantry outfits in the same constant pace of operations underwent a far higher turnover.

What you ignore is that the LW was able to replace those men at those rates and still dominate; what they couldn't handle was the way the rate of loss sharply increased in the first three months of 1944, when the Mustang was first introduced in the very places where the greatest losses were inflicted.

You can continue to insist that it's just a coincidence, and that they just won some sort of numbers game, but if the numbers change like that, I must maintain that the change in fortunes was earned by the P-51 groups and lost by the FW 190 and Bf 109 outfits at a time when the Mustangs were at a numerical disadvantage.

The average Mustang pilot flew much farther under more stressful conditions for much longer just to get to where he could do his real job. If the Germans, with foreknowledge of where the bombers and escorts were likely to be, greater combat experience and superior numbers couldn't get the job done in those critical months, maybe some credit should go to the men and aircraft that were successful.

cheers

horseback

[JtD]

You can continue to insist...I haven't even started insisting on anything. So leave your polemics out and try to argue the points I make, not invent some on your own and then go on to debate them with yourself. :confused:

You made the claim that the Luftwaffe was "easily winning" the air war in the west until the appearance of the P-51. That's simply not true. You're of course free to insist, but you won't change facts.

[majorfailure]

Except for the trim requirements? In this game, that level of endurance, even on the biggest maps, is unnecessary to the point of parody. Speed and endurance are next to useless to a fighter that cannot be kept under control, and if you can't aim your guns accurately, it can't be called 'stable', like a brick or anything else. I would argue that the whole point of the trim requirements (and a COG more consistent with an overload fuel capacity) is to keep you from hitting anything when you fly with it.

'Nuff said.

cheers

horseback

Speed gives you the ability to enter and exit a fight at will. No other plane characteristic gives you such a tremendous advantage IMHO.

And endurance gives you the ability to fight as long as you want - or to leave the fight, reposition, or to fly around known enemy concentrations -and it gives you the ability to get the best aircraft performance for prolonged times - though in IL2 most missions are considerably shorter than real life 4-5 hour missions so endurance is as you said of limited use.

And my aiming problems have little to do with the stability of the P-51, more with usually great closure rates leading to small shot windows -and very largely to not beeing used to flying it.

[horseback]

Speed gives you the ability to enter and exit a fight at will. No other plane characteristic gives you such a tremendous advantage IMHO.

And endurance gives you the ability to fight as long as you want - or to leave the fight, reposition, or to fly around known enemy concentrations -and it gives you the ability to get the best aircraft performance for prolonged times - though in IL2 most missions are considerably shorter than real life 4-5 hour missions so endurance is as you said of limited use.

And my aiming problems have little to do with the stability of the P-51, more with usually great closure rates leading to small shot windows -and very largely to not beeing used to flying it.Agree with all but the last point. However, the Mustang with half a fuel load gives you all of that. The idea that you need to fly with anything in that damned fuselage tank is--there are no words for it, but it seems to me that it's like letting the other guy dictate to you that you have to fight with one hand tied behind your back. I find that more often than not, as I am closing on the target I am fighting my stick and sometimes my pedals trying to keep my pipper centered on target while the ball under the sight does its best pinball impression, something I rarely experienced flying a Dora or late model big gunned 109 in other campaigns. Of course, the fifties don't give you that deeply satisfying insta-kill 99.9% of the time either. You must either slow down or make multiple passes.

I have to wonder whether most people decide not to fly the Mustang in-game because it is so much extra work.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

I haven't even started insisting on anything. So leave your polemics out and try to argue the points I make, not invent some on your own and then go on to debate them with yourself. :confused:

You made the claim that the Luftwaffe was "easily winning" the air war in the west until the appearance of the P-51. That's simply not true. You're of course free to insist, but you won't change facts.From Wikipedia: A polemic /pəˈlɛmɪk/ is a contentious argument that is intended to establish the truth of a specific understanding and the falsity of the contrary position. Polemics are mostly seen in arguments about very controversial topics.

The art or practice of such argumentation is called polemics.

Along with debate, polemics are one of the most common forms of arguing. Similar to debate, a polemic is confined to a definite controversial thesis. But unlike debate, which may allow for common ground between the two disputants, a polemic is intended only to establish the truth of a point of view while refuting the opposing point of view.

I re-read the definition, to be sure that we are on the same page. I do not understand why engaging in a polemic argument is bad, if we are dealing with a situation where if one of us is right, the other must be wrong.

Your contention that the LW’s fighter arm suffered 800% casualties ignores the situation in the West or more specifically, the part of the West where the Mustang was exclusively engaged for the first six months of its combat operations, the Channel Front and specifically against the Reich Defense. You imply that 800% casualties for the jagdewaffe as a whole over a 39 month period applies evenly across all fronts, and that the Allies on the Channel were just as successful in their operational aims across the Channel and over Germany as the Soviets over Kursk or the Desert Air Force and the 12th/15th Air Forces over Italy and the Mediterranean, and that the Luftwaffe was on the run everywhere, men and machines were at the end of their ropes and they were on the verge of collapse in the face of triumphant Allied forces. Not so.

Several heavy bomber groups in the 8th Air force suffered well over 300% casualties during 1943, and when you lost a bomber over Germany or occupied Europe, you weren’t getting any of those men back, dead or alive. There were several occasions where individual bomb groups or squadrons lost more than half their strength in a single sortie that year, and there was at least one group that got hit that hard more than a couple of times. The only reason the three fighter groups in the 8th AF didn’t take similar casualties is because the German fighter command avoided them (HUGE mistake, IMHO—if I had been running the operation, the P-47 units would have been beaten like red-headed stepchildren at every opportunity to keep them in the proper frame of mind—scared and eager to avoid me and leaving the bombers unprotected for the ZGs and JGs in Germany) through most of the summer and fall of ’43. The Army Air Forces suffered a higher loss rate than the Infantry for most of that war, and 8th Bomber Command took the lion’s share of those losses, both operational and due to enemy action (and the sheer bloody-mindedness of Ira Eaker).

It is a fact that many if not most ground based USAAF and Navy/Marine fighter units in the first two and half years of the Pacific war took higher losses than the JGs and ZGs along the Channel Front and over Germany from 1940 to 1943; they lost men to disease, operational accidents (guys who ‘safely’ ditched right next to friendly ships were still lost about a fifth of the time, never mind the ones who got lost over the ocean or some jungle) as well as to enemy action. There is hardly a single veteran of those campaigns who did not suffer from malaria the rest of his life (right off the top of my head, I can think of three top aces who were forced to leave combat at the peak of their powers because of tropical diseases).

Similarly, ground combat units in every combatant army were suffering at least as high a casualty rate.

The greatest health problem the jagdewaffe had while staying in France, Holland and Belgium was apparently venereal disease. Yes, they were taking losses from enemy action, but they were inflicting much greater losses on the RAF and the USAAF and they knew it quite well. According to Caldwell in his Top Guns of the Luftwaffe homage to JG 26, 43/44 was not that much different than the previous winter until ‘Big Week’ in February of ’44, and morale, particularly in the German-based units who never saw enemy fighters was high.

If they were in trouble, they didn’t know it and neither did the folks on the other side. Only hindsight allows you or anyone else to suggest that it was inevitable. I don’t think that it was entirely; if the Mustang was only as successful as the P-38s in the 8th AF, we have to wait for all of the P-47s to get the improved wider props and the increased fuel capacity from the wing pylons before air superiority over Europe is established, which sets the Allies back by at least three or four months.

The injection of first, just fifty Mustangs able to reach over Germany in December ‘43, then fifty more in January, and then another hundred or so over February and March just blows all of that to hell. The P-47s and Spitfires are reaching no farther than they did in October, and the P-38 group is suffering high abort rates and scoring at a lower pace than the P-47 groups. The serious losses to the Jagdewaffe were taking place over the Franco-German border and Germany itself, where only Mustangs can reach.

Those are established historical facts. Could an aircraft as twitchy, trim sensitive and unstable as the in-game Mustang have fared as well in those conditions if the Bf 109Gs and FW 190As depicted in the game were directly comparable to their real-life counterparts?

Please note that I leave out the spurious performance of the rear gunners of the in-game Bf 110Gs and the other twins out of pure Christian charity.

cheers

horseback

[Mustang]

Chronicling the history and development of the P-51 Mustang through a timeline


http://p51h.home.comcast.net/~p51h/time/time.htm

:grin:

[Mustang]

I found data, Maybe not good for P 51 D's

FM:

One problems with the P51D was that on take-off with a full load of fuel (with drop tanks and ammo) the plane at maximum weight AND was tail heavy.
Instructors in the US trained the new pilots to burn off their drop tanks FIRST, then begin burning off fuel from the tank behind the pilot in order to get maximum range.
The problem was that if a problem came up that meant returning to the field o land, the plane could not be landed in the tail heavy condition: it would flip upside down on its tail on approach.
Many green pilots were killed.
The experienced pilots quickly retrained the green kids to take off on the wing tanks, then at about 2000 feet switch the tank behind the pilot to burn off the 85 gallons that was making the plane tail heavy during the remaining time it took to climb to 30,000 ft plus. That way if they did have to drop the wing tanks to go after BF 109s for FW 190, the Mustang would not have to fight in a tail heavy configuration, which would mean sure death.
Landing the Mustang had some Do's and Don'ts. The plane required itself to be flown onto the runway with ample power. Too many green pilots would find themselves "short" of the runway and at just above stall speed, trying to add a big burst of power from the Merlin. The Merlin is not a high rev engine, but it IS an extremely high torque engine. Opening the throttle would cause an immediate increase of torque to be applied to the massive bladed propeller which reacted slowly causing reaction torque causing the plane to roll in the opposite direction of the propeller rotation, usually causing a stall and crash since there was no time to apply opposite stick to correct. Most experienced Mustang drivers landed well above stall speed and slightly long to assure that they would not be caught with this problem.
This high torque problem showed up on the F6F Hellcat and the Corsair which used the same design prop. Both Navy and Marine pilots reported the problem which was very bad on flat top landing where there was no margin for error.

When the D model became available in quantity in the summer, cases of the aircraft losing its tail surfaces in flight began to be reported.
Flight restrictions were placed on the aircraft and the tail surfaces were beefed up. Wing failures were also reported due to control stick force reversal in high-speed dives.
The bobweight was added to the elevator control system to fix this problem. But for the aircraft to be even marginally stable, the fuselage fuel tank had to be less than half full.
The Mustang still had problems a year later when the 7AF began B-29 escort missions to Japan. Incidences were reported of tail surface failures in
dogfights.


History:

The first combat unit equipped with Merlin-powered Mustangs was the 354th Fighter Group, which reached England in October of 1943. The 354th FG consisted of the 353rd, 355th and 356th Fighter Squadrons, and was part of the 9th Air Force which had the responsibility of air-to-ground attacks in support of the upcoming invasion of Europe. However, they were immediately ordered to support the bomber operations of the 8th Air Force. The 354th flew their first cross-Channel sweep mission on December 1, 1943, and scored their first victory on a mission to Bremen on December 16. However, inexperienced pilots and ground crews and numerous technical problems limited operations with the P-51B/C until about eight weeks into 1944. From the early spring of 1944, the Merlin-powered Mustang became an important fighter in the ETO.

The 357th Fighter Group, also initially assigned to the 9th Air Force but was quickly transferred to operational control of the 8th Air Force for bomber escort. It flew its first P-51B escort mission on February 11, 1944.

The 363rd Fighter Group became the third P-51B operator in Europe on February 23, 1944.

Most of the P-51B/Cs were assigned to the 8th and 9th Air Forces in England, with a lesser number with the 12th and 15th USAAF in Italy. The P-51B/C remained the prime Mustang variant in service from December 1943 until March of 1944, when the bubble-topped P-51D began to arrive. However, P-51B/C fighters remained predominant until the middle of 1944, and remained in combat until the end of the war in Europe even after the arrival of large numbers of P-51Ds. Even as late as the l ast month of the war, 1000 out of the 2500 Mustangs serving in the ETO were of the P-51B/C variety.

However, many pilots regarded the Malcolm-hooded P-51B/C as the best Mustang of the entire series. It was lighter, faster, and had crisper handling than the later bubble-hooded P-51D and actually had a better all-round view. Its primary weakness, however, was in its armament--only four rather than six guns, which often proved prone to jamming. Some of the modifications applied to the P-51D to improve the ammunition feed were later retrofitted into P-51B/Cs, which made their guns less prone to jamming. With modified guns and a Malcolm hood, the P-51B/C was arguably a better fighter than the P-51D, with better visibility, lower weight, and without the structural problems which afflicted the D.

.


WWII 8thAAF COMBAT CHRONOLOGY
JANUARY 1944 THROUGH JUNE 1944

http://www.8thafhs.org/combat1944a.htm

???

XLS spreadsheet showing all the 8th Air Force missions and targets with losses by date throughout the war. The 8th flew Mission #1 17 August 1942 when 12 B-17s attacked Rouen Marshalling yards and the last mission on 8 May 1945 Mission.

http://www.taphilo.com/history/8thaf/8thaf-missions.xls

???


.

[MiloMorai]

The fuselage tank was used first as this is what caused the tail heaviness. Then the drop tanks as the wing tanks were required to get home.

[Mustang]

The fuselage tank was used first as this is what caused the tail heaviness. Then the drop tanks as the wing tanks were required to get home.

No!

You have the main fuel tanks inside the wings :grin:

http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h448/totoloco1/mustang-92-2.jpg

http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h448/totoloco1/p51dcutaway12-2.jpg

It all depends on the distance of the mission..

Maybe you need keep full the 85 gallons fuel tank behind the pilot on fight in order to get home.

[MaxGunz]

The tanks in the wings are the wing tanks, same as the ones you shoot for.

[JtD]

Really can't be bothered to reply to all of your chitchat here horseback, as most of them are unrelated to what I said anyway, but as you mention JG 26 as the unit who "easily won" the air war in the west in 1943, JG 26 had to write off 400% of their average operational strength in 1943. And as losses are not the only thing indicative of winning, lets look at other aspects as well:
- it was tasked with protection of Germany and territories against bombing raids, which were conducted more frequently and more destructively by the end of 1943 than at the beginning of 1943
- it was tasked with the destruction of the enemy air forces, which by the end of 1943 were a lot stronger than they were at the beginning of 1943

Those are the facts. "Winning easily" looks different. By any rational standard.

[JtD]

No!

You have the main fuel tanks inside the wings.If you start with two 110 gallon drop tanks you have a fuel total of 489 gallons. Lets say you use 225 gallons each way, and keep 39 reserve. If you use up the 85 gallon fuselage tank first, you'll still have 80 gallons at the far end of your trip in the drop tanks. If you happen to be engaged there, you can't drop them if you want to return to your base, as you'll need 225 gallons, but only have 184 internal.

Practice was to use half the rear tank first, then the drop tanks. In this case, you'd have OK control characteristics and could always drop the drop tanks and make it home.

[MiloMorai]

Maybe you need keep full the 85 gallons fuel tank behind the pilot on fight in order to get home.

You wouldn't get home as the a/c would become VERY tail heavy. That would be ~600lb behind the CoG.

From the Pilot manual:

more than 48gal in the fuselage tank - a/c restricted straight flying and gentle maneuvers only

aerobatics and spinning permitted with no more than 30 gal in the fuselage tank

kind of hard to have combat with these restrictions :-P

http://www.avialogs.com/viewer/avialogs-documentviewer.php?id=3851

[Bearcat]

I think that by "down rudder" he means going full rudder in whatever position is closest to the ground... in a right handed turn that would be full right rudder.. in a left handed turn that would be full left rudder but I imagine that IRL the torque from the engine would play a roll in a left or right turn as far as which would be more effective..

[Bearcat]

The fuselage tank was used first as this is what caused the tail heaviness. Then the drop tanks as the wing tanks were required to get home.


No!
You have the main fuel tanks inside the wings :grin:

http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h448/totoloco1/mustang-92-2.jpg
http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h448/totoloco1/p51dcutaway12-2.jpg

It all depends on the distance of the mission..
Maybe you need keep full the 85 gallons fuel tank behind the pilot on fight in order to get home.

Generally what they did was use drop tanks first then use up about 1/2 - 2/3 of the fuel in the fuselage tank then they would alternate between wing tanks to make sure the aircraft was balanced. From what I was told by P-51 pilots in the chapter of TAI that I belonged to they kept that fuel for a reserve and once it got past @ 45 gallons it was less unstable.. but they then went for the wing tanks.

[horseback]

Really can't be bothered to reply to all of your chitchat here horseback, as most of them are unrelated to what I said anyway, but as you mention JG 26 as the unit who "easily won" the air war in the west in 1943, JG 26 had to write off 400% of their average operational strength in 1943. And as losses are not the only thing indicative of winning, lets look at other aspects as well:
- it was tasked with protection of Germany and territories against bombing raids, which were conducted more frequently and more destructively by the end of 1943 than at the beginning of 1943
- it was tasked with the destruction of the enemy air forces, which by the end of 1943 were a lot stronger than they were at the beginning of 1943

Those are the facts. "Winning easily" looks different. By any rational standard.You’ll want to explain all that to the men of the 91st, 96th and 100th Bomb Groups, each of which suffered over 400% casualties over Europe from spring 1943 to VE Day (there were 48 bombers in a Group). There were about 20 Heavy Bomb Groups in the 8th AF that suffered a minimum of 200% casualties and several among that number had around 300% casualties. The groups that took the highest casualties lost most of their numbers at a disproportionate rate in 1943. What the JGs and ZGs in the West prior to the spring of 1944 were doing looked an awful lot like ‘winning easily’ to them.

I tend to differ with you about the tasking of the JGs on the Channel Front; I used JG 26 as a well-known example, but let’s examine the war aims of the two sides. My contention of the LW’s campaign being easily successful at the end of 1943 is based on the understanding that the German leadership at that point in the war believed (regardless of whether it was rational to do so) that once the Allies got tired of banging their collective heads against the Atlantic Wall, they would at worst, recognize Germany’s hegemony/de facto control of Europe and go the hell away, or at best, join Hitler and the volk in the effort to crush the Communist threat embodied in the Soviet Union (somewhere in the middle of all that they were hoping for at least the suspension of Lend Lease to Stalin). They believed that the Casablanca declaration that the Allies’ primary war aim was unconditional surrender of the Axis Powers was all show.

On that basis, the goal of the LW in the Channel was to continue to do what they had been doing very well in the second half of 1943—bleed the American and British air forces as they crossed into Europe and hammer the bombers once their escorts had to turn back from lack of fuel. Inflicting maximum casualties on the enemy meant that their weak and effete democratic system would eventually turn on Roosevelt and Churchill and the new elected leaders would sue for peace. For Hitler and his followers, it was a classic demonstration of German will and that was how they sold it to the German people.

"Just hang on a little bit longer, and they will give up and go back to making refrigerators and razor blades. Once we've settled with Stalin and consolidated our holdings in Europe, then we'll deal with them on our terms," they were saying.

On the other side, the requirement for unconditional surrender was not show, but they were working to a schedule; FDR and Churchill were committed to opening a ‘Second Front’ in Europe in 1944, which meant a major amphibious assault on the French coast, and the best time for amphibious operations is when the weather is reasonably good and the tides are low near dawn. That meant no later than August, and if they needed a moonless night before the morning of the invasion in order to maximize the effectiveness of airborne assault to ‘prep’ the area behind the beachhead, you only had early June.

All of that required (according to the Admirals whose ships were going to be stuck close to an enemy held coast and the Generals whose soldiers and equipment were going to be bottlenecked on the beachhead for the first couple of days) that the Luftwaffe be seriously cut down in size and effectiveness, and that was the responsibility of the Allied air forces. In late 1943, there was serious doubt that they could accomplish that task.

The heavy bombers had been expected to be able to protect themselves and to penetrate Germany’s airspace to bomb German aircraft production out of existence; there were other industries targeted but aircraft production was the main target. It turned into a massive failure, because the bombers were taking unacceptable losses in the absence of effective fighter escorts. Heads rolled at 8th AF Command and in its Fighter headquarters in late 1943 as a direct result, and major efforts to get the new Mustangs under 8th AF command were made. It is a fact that all Merlin Mustang production not committed to the RAF went to the 8th Air Force (or its control) until late spring of '44, when production finally allowed for groups outside the ETO to transition into the type.

That's why I said what I said.

cheers

horseback

[JtD]

You’ll want to explain all that to the men of the 91st, 96th and 100th Bomb Groups, each of which suffered over 400% casualties over Europe from spring 1943 to VE Day (there were 48 bombers in a Group). There were about 20 Heavy Bomb Groups in the 8th AF that suffered a minimum of 200% casualties and several among that number had around 300% casualties. The groups that took the highest casualties lost most of their numbers at a disproportionate rate in 1943...So, by your standards, these bomb groups were "winning easily" as well. I disagree.

...What the JGs and ZGs in the West prior to the spring of 1944 were doing looked an awful lot like ‘winning easily’ to them...You shouldn't be selling subjective impressions for fact. In a war of attrition, any side that does a mission every day and comes back with 3% loss will think the other side is winning easily, no matter if the other side loses 5% or 0.5% each day on their own.

[K_Freddie]

So, by your standards, these bomb groups were "winning easily" as well. I disagree.

You shouldn't be selling subjective impressions for fact. In a war of attrition, any side that does a mission every day and comes back with 3% loss will think the other side is winning easily, no matter if the other side loses 5% or 0.5% each day on their own.

I think you misread that previous post completely !!
;)

[JtD]

Just pointing out silly double standards. I'm pretty sure horseback thinks that 400% turnover in US units are brutal, yet when a Luftwaffe unit suffers the same losses, without even achieving any of its objectives, it is "winning the war easily".

When Hitler got hold of the spear of destiny, he thought he'd be invincible. But this turns Stalingrad into a victory just as much as wrong assessments by a few Luftwaffe members turn 1943 into a year of victory for the Luftwaffe.

Eventually, I don't even think it's silly, it's clearly beyond silly. Probably intentionally posting nonsense in order to provoke arguments. And I am idiot enough to fall for it...

---

For those interested in history and maybe not yet knowing everything - I recommend to browse the USAAF statistical digest (http://www.usaaf.net/digest/operations.htm). In particular, related to how the Luftwaffe did not easily win the air war in the West in 1943, number of (heavy bomber) sorties by month (http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t119.htm) or tonnage of bombs dropped (by heavy bombers) by month (http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t143.htm). It is glaringly obvious that by the end of 1943, the USAF flew more sorties and dropped more bombs than any time before. And where the entire(!) German fighter force remained near constant at around 1500 total for most of 1943, the 8th AF alone grew from a force fielding a few hundred aircraft to a force approaching 2000 aircraft.

[jameson]

From here: http://acepilots.com/planes/b17.html

As the heavy bomber demands of the North African campaign eased in the winter of 1942-43, the air war in Northwest Europe accelerated. On January 27, 1943, for the first time, American bombers hit inside of Germany itself, the submarine facilities at Wilhelmshaven.

A turning point was reached on April 17, when 115 Flying Fortresses bombed the Focke-Wulfe factory in Bremen. As if defending its nest, the Luftwaffe struck hard, knocking down sixteen B-17's (a 15 percent loss rate - on a single mission!). Soon, ten-to-fifteen percent losses became the norm, as the Luftwaffe improved their tactics, in particular by attacking the B-17's head on. Thus the famous phrase "Bandits at twelve o'clock high!"

But the Eighth continued grimly on, throughout 1943, next targeting ball-bearing production, considered a vital weak point in aviation manufacturing. On the 17th of August, a large force of 376 bombers raided Schweinfurt and Regensburg. Sixty bombers, with six hundred aircrew, didn't come back. 16 percent losses. At that rate, the Eighth Air Force could not continue. When B-17G's began to arrive in August and September, the forward machine guns in their chin turrets helped a little. The appalling wastage continued:

September 6 - Over 400 bombers attacked the Stuttgart ball-bearing plant; 45 were lost.
October 14 - Schweinfurt again. 291 B-17's went out; 60 went down.
January 11, 1944 - German aircraft industry targets. 600 Flying Fortresses were sent out. Because of bad weather, only 238 reached Germany; 60 were shot down.

[jameson]

By way of comparison, see here: http://don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/thtrlosses.htm regarding luftwaffe losses. In these discussions only aircraft losses are discussed, of more relevence from the German viewpoint would be pilot losses, or at least of experienced and well trained ones, and the inability of the Luftwaffe to replace them.

[MaxGunz]

All sides knew about when and where they lost their aces, the ones that really counted. How about use experts as a gauge of overall effectiveness? The data on aces should be solid, shouldn't it?

[horseback]

Just pointing out silly double standards. I'm pretty sure horseback thinks that 400% turnover in US units are brutal, yet when a Luftwaffe unit suffers the same losses, without even achieving any of its objectives, it is "winning the war easily".

When Hitler got hold of the spear of destiny, he thought he'd be invincible. But this turns Stalingrad into a victory just as much as wrong assessments by a few Luftwaffe members turn 1943 into a year of victory for the Luftwaffe.

Eventually, I don't even think it's silly, it's clearly beyond silly. Probably intentionally posting nonsense in order to provoke arguments. And I am idiot enough to fall for it...

---

For those interested in history and maybe not yet knowing everything - I recommend to browse the USAAF statistical digest (http://www.usaaf.net/digest/operations.htm). In particular, related to how the Luftwaffe did not easily win the air war in the West in 1943, number of (heavy bomber) sorties by month (http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t119.htm) or tonnage of bombs dropped (by heavy bombers) by month (http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t143.htm). It is glaringly obvious that by the end of 1943, the USAF flew more sorties and dropped more bombs than any time before. And where the entire(!) German fighter force remained near constant at around 1500 total for most of 1943, the 8th AF alone grew from a force fielding a few hundred aircraft to a force approaching 2000 aircraft.You appear to miss the point that your original post on the subject made a big deal out of Luftwaffe JG loss rates: 400% casualties over a 39 month period, implying that their 'suffering' was unique, unusual and/or unfair. Military aviation has always been a very hazardous job, even in peacetime; people entering that profession (especially in the 1930s) went in with their eyes open and knew quite well that they would lose friends or even die themselves--it is the nature of the job. The tradeoff was that pilots and aircrew were expected to be in combat for relatively short times once or twice a day, and lived in relative comfort (to foot soldiers) the rest of the time.

My responses were intended to illustrate that those losses were neither unique or disabling; for example, the 4th FG took over 200 casualties in its first two years of operations (Sept '42 -Sept '44), which is very close to 400% (and the wastage of aircraft was significantly higher). They remained quite effective throughout hostilities. That the bomb groups were able to increase their 'tonnage' (with embarrassingly poor accuracy) throughout the course of 1943 only illustrates the willingness of the Army Air Force command structure to throw more young men into the fire for minimal return, coupled with the steady increase in sheer output of the training commands and the industrial effort back in the States, not that the campaign was gaining any traction that they could detect.

In terms of military usefulness and probability of success for the 8th AF's 1943 bombing campaign, I'm inclined to think of the 'Charge of the Light Brigade' in Crimea or Pickett's charge at Gettysburg in the mid-19th century. In retrospect, it was mostly an empty gesture, and a very costly one. It turns out that the 'bomber barons' who dominated the USAAF's strategic thinking in the 1930s were horribly wrong about many key concepts, and that fighter-centric theoreticians like Claire Chennault were horribly right.

But no one on either side knew half of the things we know today; certainly not enough to pick out the relevant facts and trends that would lead to victory. It is not fair to judge their actions or beliefs on the basis of 20/20 hindsight, and it hinders our own understanding of what was going on or why.

cheers

horseback

[JtD]

You appear to miss the point that your original post on the subject made a big deal out of Luftwaffe JG loss rates: 400% casualties over a 39 month period, implying that their 'suffering' was unique, unusual and/or unfair...Right, point me to it. :rolleyes: I was merely putting your "winning easily" into the proper perspective - i.e. it being nonsense - and have stated nothing else ever since.

Certainly there had been some attrition, but they were winning and doing so easily.Since 1939, until the end of 1943, the fighter arm of the Luftwaffe had suffered about 800% losses, meaning every unit was completely wiped out and replaced 8 times. About 3 times in 1943 alone. Pilot losses were nearly half of that.

[KG26_Alpha]

Ok can you all use PM for your attrition rate discussion and let the thread get back on topic thanks.

:)

[KG26_Alpha]

Off topic threads deleted .......................

Start a new thread please, all related posts will be moved to it to clean this one up.

:)