Flying at 400km/h isn't that hard to do at about 45%-55% throttle in level flight (with the proper trimming of coarse). Or at least that's what I've noticed in IL-2: 1946. I'm not one of those that fly at 110% everywhere i go, that is just nonsense... But like people are saying fuel concerns are going to be the biggest limiting factor when it comes to time spent across the channel. But we'll just have to wait and see just exactly how accurately fuel consumption is modeled in CoD. The RAF will definitely have the advantage as far as fuel tho....

I've been doing a bit of reading and it seems you may be somewhat correct. The Spit MkI did outclimb the Bf-109E, but only above about 7,000 feet or so. But I stand firm with my claim of other advantages. The 109 just seems a better plane to me, but it takes alot of practice and getting used to.

Oleg has said several times in the past that his aim is to simulate reality, not to create "balanced gameplay".

As has been said soooo many times, here and elswhere, the pilot has much more to do with the outcome of a battle than the aircraft. The simple fact is that both aircraft have strong points and weak points and the pilot who knows them, exploits them properly and has conserved his fuel enough to exploit them at all will be victorious. Or at least get home in one piece.

I'll be the ball of fire heading towards the ground.

I'm only reading from that wwii performance site link, I haven't read much of that before. According to the info there, the Spit even outclimbed the 109 from the deck, if the 12lb boost was engaged. The details from the 190 that landed in Britain is interesting too.

Do you mean it seems like a better plane in IL2?

Thanks for that. Although that's what we'd all ask for, it's not necessarily what's best for the game (depending on the area). The balance of pilot skill on our servers will be fair, but in real life it was very different. And numbers on our servers, and tactics are also similar, but in real life these were very different too. If these reports are really true, that the Spit was faster (slghtly), climbed better (with boost), and out-turned the 109E (easily), and Oleg makes them as such, there will be a lot of unhappy blue players.

Yea and Amen! The plane-set is intrinsically perfectly balanced. Those of us who get shot down will do so because we ran out of altitude, airspeed or luck and no other reason.

Yes very true. Overall it was a pretty even match and really came down to pilot skill.

Very enjoyable and interesting thread, but unless we set a basic common ground in regards to difficulty options in the server and mission profiles, every single opinion in this discussion would be correct :-P
Are we taking about full difficulty or not?
Are we flying on a custom made DF map with smaller distances or the full size one the game will ship with?
Are we flying historical profiles or are we going to use our hindsight to gain an edge?

And since we can't all agree, i suggest that we give our personal "starting conditions" before presenting our opinion.

For me, this is full difficulty servers on the real-life sized map (at least i hope there will be servers that do that regularly :grin: ), while using tactics of our own instead of Goering's ones.

In that sense, i expect that the plane to really outshine and surpass its real life counterpart will be the 110, because people will actually fly it in a way that maximizes its advantages in the sim.

They will learn to stay fast and only boom and zoom, they will either range ahead of the bombers or zig-zag above them as top cover, they will do low level bombing raids to key, pinpoint targets under the cover of radar and generally fly in a smart way. Back in the day i've seen people take on model 1943-1944 Spits at 7000m or more when flying model 1942 110G-2s on the warclouds server.
With the proper people who know their teamwork and just a single engined fighter to force the spits to maneuver it's pretty scary how effective it could be, and the 110G-2 in IL2 is a total dog when compared to late war allied fighters. In CoD where the performance gap won't be as wide, i can't imagine what will happen but i'm really interested to find out. For the record, i was mostly flying 190s in IL2 but in CoD there's so many new possibilities that i'll most probably fly both sides regularly.

Anyway, all this hindsight we have opens up a big can of worms, since the 110 is actually turned into a useful aircraft with the range to escort the bombers all the way to the target. It just has to be flown in a top cover role and not close escort.

First of all, fuel is an issue but has the potential to cause problems for the defenders too, as illustrated here:
Another point, since i assumed i'm not going to fly the way they did but try to see the "what if" scenario of the battle, things will be further shaken up.
For starters, since the axis force will have some way to travel, it's no harm climbing to their absolute ceiling IF we're talking about a level bomber attack.

What i would do if i had a team of like-minded pilots in such a scenario? Easy, i'd sent the bombers out with 110s as top cover first of all. Correct me if i'm wrong, but i think i read somewhere that the 110 was faster than both the hurricane and the spitfire. Sure, maneuverability and acceleration might not be great, but if all you do is dive on RAF fighters and spoil their firing pass on the bombers before you climb back up, then that won't be much of an issue, plus you'll be getting your share of kills too.
If the 110's also do it in pairs instead of all at once, even if the first pair that dove down gets attacked, another pair will be able to dive down and clear them.

This means the fighters will not be "on-call" for the bombers, but attacking under favorable terms. Initially, this will be hard for bomber pilots but overall and statistically speaking, it's a better deal. It's better to lose 3 bombers during the first pass of the RAF fighters but shoot down or damage and force to RTB 50% of them, than lose 1 bomber during the first pass but get tangled in a dogfight which ends up with less RAF fighters killed, your escorts decimated and the bombers making the rest of the way unescorted.

So, what about the 109s? Well, i would send them AFTER the bombers and 110s were about halfway across the channel. Remember, best economy cruise speed doesn't usually equal best endurance speed which tends to be lower. Effectively, this means that 109s cruising at 220km/h might have fuel for 75 minutes and have a range of X miles, but if they cruise at 300km/h they might have fuel for 50 minutes and yet cover X+200 miles.

So, instead of having the 109s follow the bombers even loosely and wasting that range, i would send them off after the bombers and 110s. How long? Well, that needs some planning and a bit of math. In any case, long enough to overtake the bombers before they reach the English coast and be over the target maybe 5 minutes before the bombers reach it. Assuming they have 10 minutes of fuel in combat power over there, they are free to do as they want and attack, shoot down and damage as many RAF fighters as they can before they even get up to the bomber's altitude.
The ones that do get away and press on to the bombers will be outnumbered by the 110s, which will proceed to boom and zoom them repeatedly.

You'll ask me why can't the RAF players reinforce/go at it again? Of course they can. It's just that on a 1:1 scaled map, the fuel needed to get there and the altitude the bombers are flying at, it might take an extra 20 minutes to do so if you want to enter combat from a proper starting altitude (by which time the 111s might be half way to France), or it might mean scrambling from a closer airfield but having to go on a maximum climb profile which makes you slow for prowling axis fighters. Not to mention that we'll have engine limitations in the new sim, so that climb will certainly not be at full throttle when flying in full difficulty servers.

This combination makes the most use of the 109s advantages, while making sure that the 110s won't have to deal with hordes of slower but better maneuvering, better accelerating single seaters so that the 110's better range can be exploited to stay with the bombers all the way to target and back.

This is exactly what the US 8th air force did later in the war when they decided to send the fighters ahead of the bombers and keep a token top cover escort in case something got through, it worked like a charm. Granted, the 8th didn't send heavy fighters to escort their bombers at that time (the p-38 was mostly phased out of escort duties at that time), which made the tactic even more effective.

As for the other aircraft, Stukas will probably get massacred as historically happened, but if they are escorted that way they'll at least stand a chance of taking out their targets first.

Finally, i expect we'll see a lot of people using bomb ladden 110s in under-the-radar raids with 109 escort, since the 110s can cruise at a speed which maximizes the 109s range.

Assuming we get a full difficulty online campaign server for the new multiplayer mode, that's what i'd do before anything else and raid the radar towers that way to open "corridors" for the level bombers.
Combine with a second wave of Stukas at high altitude, but coming behind the 110 strike package and you have this situation: the AI ground control vectors me to the high flying Stukas with the 109 escort (radar was mostly near the coast, so it's a shorter hop across the channel that 109s might be able to handle).
At that point i either spot the low flying 110s/109s and choose to dive back down towards them with an energy advantage, or press on to the Stukas regardless if i spotted the low flying 110s or not.
In any case, i will either have to allow one raid to break through or split my flight of RAF interceptors and take on two groups with half my force on each one, both of which groups are escorted by 109s. It's not pretty.

Notice that i didn't say anything about specific charts, i didn't quote any numbers and i didn't factor in pilot skill. The reason? This is how i would plan for flying and the things i'd take into consideration when flying either side in an online campaign with full difficulty.

Of course, for single missions like COOPS or what we currently have in mission-centric gameplay DF servers things could be much different, but if the multiplayer campaign has sufficient statistics tracking for each team's supplies like available pilots, aircraft, fuel, ammunition, repair timers for ground targets dependent on available resources,etc, things would get very interesting very fast. In fact, it could be the closest we could get to recreating a "what if" battle of Britain with the Luftwaffe flying proper tactics ;)

Nice post blackdog. Which makes me wonder how, or if, sunglare off aircrafts will present itself on lower targets. There are countless reports from BoB pilots that mentions a sunglare off the canopy perspex/glass that reveals their bogeys position below.

Do a search and see what you can find. This is from http://www.battleofbritain1940.net/0014.html

"The Messerschmitt Bf110 originally was designed as three seat strategic fighter that had the task of clearing the way for the bomber formations that followed. Soon to become known as the Zerstörer (the Destroyer) they made their presence felt during the early part of the Battle of Britain when the Luftwaffe began their attacks on the Channel convoys. But even at the hands of hand picked elite aircrew, the Bf110 was to prove no match for the Hurricane or Spitfire and soon started to succumb heavy losses. Soon, Bf110 formations were to be escorted themselves by Gruppes of Bf109s and even though the elite Erprobungsgruppe 210 had many major successes, the Bf110 which started out as a fighter escort was relegated to the role of just a fighter bomber after the Battle of Britain. "

"Straight line top speed of the Bf110 was greater than that of the Hurricane, but it could not outrun the Spitfire. Normal practice was to force the Bf110 into a turn where its slow and wide turning circle was its greatest drawback. Another problem for the Bf110 was from surprise attacks by British fighters, where they became vulnerable because of slow acceleration from cruising to top speed. The Bf110 was to suffer heavily during the Battle of Britain. "

the rAF Pilots used to get in as close as possabel to the LUftwafa and then let rip with thee gun's so thats what i will do

I think its in Ulrich Steinhilper's book when he is talking about why the allies though the 109 couldn't turn very well. It was that the captured planes were flown in a much "gentle" way. He mentioned that turning for an experienced pilot started when the leading slots opened up with a bang which scared the living day out of the rooky pilots.

He were also talking about the way they climbed. Beginners are always lagged behind on the first few sorties until they learned how to use pitch control in manual settings. He describes the exact way of gaining more power which is valid to the IL2 109s to this day. Use manual pp to overrev a little than switch back to auto straight away before u damage your engine.
He wrote that you could hear if someone with experience flown the 109 from this constant revving.

I might be mixing the source of this, so apologies if this is the case. I will look it up later on when i have access to my books.

HWick

quote: Blackdog kt
For me, this is full difficulty servers on the real-life sized map (at least i hope there will be servers that do that regularly :grin: ), while using tactics of our own instead of Goering's ones.

In that sense, i expect that the plane to really outshine and surpass its real life counterpart will be the 110, because people will actually fly it in a way that maximizes its advantages in the sim.

They will learn to stay fast and only boom and zoom, they will either range ahead of the bombers or zig-zag above them as top cover, they will do low level bombing raids to key, pinpoint targets under the cover of radar and generally fly in a smart way.


Some well thought out idea's Blackdog, will certainly be disruptive to RAF defenses no doubt.:grin:

Those are calculations with wingloading only, which would only make sense, if both planes would use the same airfoil (and if the 109 would have washout or the Spitfire wouldn't have washout). Those numbers mean nothing.

But whatever, most sources (both german and british) say, that the Spitfire turned better then 109 E. However, that's pretty much the only real advantage the Spitfire has. Both have about the same speed and climb, the outcome depends on energy and how long the pilot can use maximum power before overheating.

The 109 can climb steeper (not faster), can roll faster at low to medium speed, can dive faster, has the better armament (imo), the better forward view (makes deflection shooting easier, the Hurricane has a better forward view then the Spitfire aswell), has no problem with negative G, has a relatively harmless stall behaviour.

I think both planes will be "balanced" when modelled as realistically as possible in a PC flightsim.


And of course, when we're talking about realism here, we won't see only Spit vs. 109 E. We'll see way more Hurricanes and both the Hurricanes and Spitfires should (probably won't) take the bombers out asap. Of course there are also some 110's around to mix it up. And the Hurricane is not really that good against 109's.

I guess if him even considered slats deploying. In the scientifc way i known well that sometimes one force their results, considering not all variables or considering more, to match the results. It is not wrong at all, but is at less questionable. Maybe both calculation are made most at the same way and considering the same way, this way they agreed so well. You must present the full article (conditions, variables considered) for better understading.

So you guys really dug up on the 50-60min sorties... great.
I mean all this not-enough-fuel fixations, RAF being in disadvantage with full tanks etc.

About Luftwaffe being in any kind of advantage in this sim... believe me the only advantageous position as I see it is that they have about 20-30mins to change your mind and RTB and save their virtual life.
Quick reality check... in "realistic" game setups, any kind of malfunction with your plane and your life is in danger quite literally... while RAF can more or less just hit CTRL+E unless they are over sea.
Plus they have enough fuel to chase Luftwaffe to France which I'm sure they will do in this game, so LW can say goodbye to their experten fuel management.
Even if Luftwaffe turn back to RAF chasers shot them all down and win they will still probably end up in drink (and most likely die).

Note I'm not saying anything on some big scale tactics I am just talking about micro scenarios that will happen to you on "daily" basis.

In short, I can't wait for this sim to hit the shelves to actually see how many of you elated forumites will still fly after one month of playing such "joyful" scenarios.

:grin:

so you refuse to save fuel so you can't return to base :-P

Ah he is just worried that too many will join the dark side and that the poor dweebfires will be blasted out of the sky. So they got to boost moral, like making a collectors version only for the British side. I think they fear that they are going to be over run by hundreds of Bf109s, Bf110s and He111s and Ju88s.
I can only say keep your shovels ready they are going to be a lot of potholes to fill in!

What will ACTUALLY happen with the online 3D-AIR-HALO point whore brigade is they will meet up mid channel and there will be a gigantic WWI style furball 10km off the coast of Dover :D

Bingo! :)

And you know... if that makes people happy there is no reason to rain on their parade. Everyone has different likes.

Ah but that is only talking about the poor who can only afford a single engine. You are forgeting the dedicated bomber nuts, that are certainly not going to join in, in that gang bang. But will let the little tykes play with their furball while they make a wide circle around them and plaster their bases. And the furballers will be just wondering how that could happen. Pretty much the same as in IL2.

Oh man, forget it!

I like to rain on such parade too much to miss it:lol:.

You know, "well look at me, I'm tough experten who flies 10min sorties on WW view, I eat Spitfires for breakfast and use Hurricanes as toothpick".

These types I like best.:cool:

A 10 min kickban is a good motivator for surviving your sortie.

A personal stats' reset too. :rolleyes:

Never understood why people pick a simulator game and then play it all helps on, yet still whining how its too difficult or like in the case of il2, "why no missiles". Then all the rules: "no bnz", "no vulching" etc.

We need a purists' club. :grin:

I'll drink to that!!!:-D

Sad fact that purists are minority, and also rather sad fact is that they are practically the only ones who should be playing this in the first place.
However we all know that sales must be up so there must be compromise.

Which, in my case, mainly consist on reading wonder woman aces (boasting, whining, charting etc.) stories on UBI, 1C forum or somewhere else.

Count me in! :)

Count me in as well! I really hope CoD will penalize the lazy, I haven't got time, can't be bothered, never read the manual, it's not allowed mob. We'll need two squads though, one blue, one red...

You snobs realize that if only you purchased/played flight sims there wouldn't be any, don't you?

Penalize someone for enjoying the title in their own way?

Idiots, the lot of you.

Well, thanks for that! I do wonder why someone would want to buy the "most realistic" flight simulator and then never use it's realistic features, perhaps you could explain that?

It might well be the most advanced combat flight sim ever,but there will still be a rather large group that just want a WW view,and fly around shooting stuff down,and blowing stuff up.
I personally like full switch settings,but am quite happy for others to play with arcade settings on another server.I would be more than happy if there is a server setting to turn points off!
Each to their own really. :)

If taking on a challenge makes me a "snob", well, then i must be one.
BTW, ElAurens, where did you get that "penalize"- part???
And also thanks for getting personal, tells a lot about your personality :-D
One thing i've seen from young people today that it is "cool" not to know something
and not being able to to something because to be eager to learn is extremely "uncool".
To defend this behaviour is, lets say, "uncool"??
Anyway, i hope that there will be not only servers where the realism is more limited as it already is by playing on a computer.

Some say it is not kind to stereotype, but i have to agree. I'm 21 and trust me i hate my generation. Everyones interest lies solely in their appearance and very little effort goes into obtaining any useful knowledge. I have an extremely hard time trying to start up a conversation with anybody my age... they all seem so dull. Hopefully they will realize that by the time they are 30 and have more appreciation for learning. I grew up watching the history channel and absolutely love it. WWII has especially been a huge interest to me :)

Exactly my point.

A successful title has to accomodate a myriad of play styles, even if those of us who fly "full switch", and I do mostly, don't use them ourselves.

It's about preferences, not jugdgements. And I see a lot of people here being very judgemental.

Well one thing is clear to me, the harder the skill level (switch setting) one play's at, the higher the amount of tactics are necessary to be able to RTB,:grin:


So far only Blackdog came up with something that I can use, a very promising idea! and March is closing in quick:-P

That's just another play style that I'm very happy to see accommodated. Sometimes they coexist on the same server and sometimes there are dedicated coops and servers for that sort of organization and coordination. I've done both and I will continue to enjoy both for their unique angles on the game.

It's all about the variety... some people just focus on fighters. Some fly bombers and some fly tactical aircraft. If everyone did the same then the online experience would be boring :)

A Fine Blue Day | interview with WH 'Dizzy' Allen, Bob Pilot:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/battleo...in/11419.shtml

Worth a listen! Very forthright in his views!

Would someone from outside uk post to say if they can listen to it? I don't know, thanks.

from the US... i can here it fine.. good stuff!