Originally Posted by dduff442 (Post 142540)

At lower speeds (<350kph) the FW-190 still rolls better but the advantage is most pronounced between 450-550kph. At high speeds, the late-model P-51s roll better so they're your natural threat.

Fast rolling helps hugely in a flat scissors (or any sort of scissors) because you can switch direction faster than your opponent. The 190's excellent at flat and vertical scissors manoeuvres, especially the former. Get use to the noise of turbulence over the wings that happens when those little eddies appear at the wingtips in tight turns... You need to turn the 190 at its limit with out snap-rolling. As soon as the turbulence get's loud you're turning perfectly but pull any harder and you'll stall and probably die.

I often hear about it being good at 'fast rolling scissors' but I've never seen much point in this. The whole point of a scissors is to move forward slowly while keeping your plane speed high.

A slight rolling scissors or (better IMO) a jerky series of small 'dinks', just enough to throw off a pursuer's aim, can be very useful when you want to get a pursuer close enough to you to use a decisive evasion manoeuvre (like a flat scissors) but that's about all the use I have for rolling scissors in the 190. Small turns (or open curves) won't slow you down much -- the 190 loses energy in turns because the angle of attack quickly gets very large in sustained manoeuvres. Quick small changes of direction don't have so much of an effect.

There are numerous ways the roll speed advantage can be used to throw off close pursuit. You can feint in one direction, then rapidly reverse the direction of roll and turn away (propably scissoring back into him to seal your escape). Alternatively, you can do a 3/4 roll and then turn hard (your pursuer will probably not have done more than a 1/4 roll in the meantime if you're doing 475-550kph).

Some people just roll constantly for a couple of seconds and then turn off in a random direction. If you're using external views, that's fine as you'll be able to tell if your enemy is well positioned to follow you. If you're using cockpit only view, this is a bit chancy. Probably your opponent won't be aligned to follow your turn but it's really random chance.

Some people use the scissors to attack and it can be a way to turn defense into attack in an instant provided you start out at high speed. A Spit within 150m could easily end up in front of your guns if he doesn't react quickly enough to your scissors. Personally, I don't like this tactic though. This amounts to 'betting the farm' on scoring a kill in the scissors. If your enemy goes for a high yo-yo or if you just cant get your guns on him, you'll soon find yoursrelf at 250kph while he has plenty of energy and (if it's late-war) probably accelerates better as well.

I find it best to use the FW-190's strengths in this regard to evade only: after one or two scissors, you'll be crossing over your opponent head on and that's the time to make your getaway. Just head on straight and by the time your opponent's turned to follow you'll be gone.

Diving (often preceded by one of the manoeuvres above) is another excellent option for the 190 but has the disadvantage of probably leaving you well below the fight afterwards. It's best to evade without losing altitude if possible if you want to stay in the fight.

As regards attack, if there's a big furball around you don't need to dive on a specific opponent. Don't even dive right into the middle in fact; dive short of the fight, pull up slowly so that the angle of attack stays small and you retain energy, blast into the fight at 650-700kph (faster if you like but the 190 doesn't turn so well at very high speed) and you can pick a target as you go. Nothing turns like a 190 at 650kph and you'll have no problem finding a target if there are enough of them around. The 190 has so much blasting power that even extreme deflection snap shots have an excellent chance of scoring.

If the attack works out, that's great. If it doesn't, don't turn more than 90-120deg trying to get your guns on him (try and keep it below 45deg if possible in fact). Just fly straight on and when at a safe distance do a slow, high banked turn or half-cuban to reverse direction back into the fight while retaining energy. This will have you in position for another attack within 30secs without bleeding off too much speed.

Ideally, getting some practice in with a wingman would be perfect. The 190 is not a solo machine. It's basically useless 1-on-1 but 4 v 4 it's unbeatable. The Thach weave is ideal for the 190, but this would require joint training, a bit of discipline and mutual confidence.

I love the 190. It's very hard to enjoy any other plane as much when you've gotten used to it. I don't know how much experience you have with it so I'll mention that the A-4 and A-5 are excellent but the A-6 (the 1943 model) is the best. All these models are so superior to their contemporaries it's almost unfair.

The 1944 A-8 is only good against bombers really. The extra armour is too much against fighters. The A-9 is a slight improvement but will still struggle if there are lots of P-51s around.

dduff

Originally Posted by noxnoctum (Post 145168)

Hey this was some REALLY good advice, thanks a lot man.

Can you explain your reasoning why the A6 is the best though? I've heard from so many people that the D-9 performs the best, and in IL-2 compare, the D-9 scores higher on pretty much everything (except armament obviously). Likewise, the A9 scores better than the A6. Also, just in my own experience, it seems like the D-9 seems just a bit more maneuverable, rolls better, and faster than the A series. Maybe it's just my imagination though.

Obviously you have a lot of experience with it (way more than me lol) so I'm just curious why you say that.