Quote:
Originally Posted by MD_Titus
tbh i'm pretty firmly of the opinion that spitfires may be easy to fly, but they are hard to excel in. i find 190s are far deadlier, either in my hands or in those of my opponent. i find spitfires irritatingly hard to get guns on, but as long as i am not being stupid i don't fear them as much as a 190. i also try not to attack people at my altitude, but that's in any airframe barring possibly a 190, where i can rely on the heavy armament and a reasonable speed/dive advantage. overall... hell i don't know, i'll get used to it! however i would say if you take damage in a spitfire it robs you of it's main, defensive, tool - a stable fast rate turn. a 109 or 190... couldn't turn in the first place, so nose down and flee.
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Of course the faster plane is the better one for survival, and I'm aware that Spitfires can take a great punishment by a single 20m (sure they are not Las or "Emmental" Yaks). However there is the thing called "ambush". You can kill a Fw190 with an Hurricane if you bounce it. But in all my hours of flight on dogfight servers the number of times I have found Spitfires higher than me is something like 10 (to be positive!). A lot of P47s, many P51s... but usually the Spit are on low/medium altitude. Usually you find them following a enemy without checking they six (and then some hilarious guys call the DnB a blue tactics, like P51 couldn't do it) or chasing a smoking plane in the enemy base (I'm quite sure that many complains by P51's pilot about the inadequacy of the brownings in IL2 were because they couldn't score kills: they damage the 109, that 109 go home but a Spitfire get him "winning" the 100 points ). Why do I find them always at 300m in furballs? It's like fishing in a bathtub! Go in the BoB dogfight server, it's an example.
The times I had Spitfire higher than me, even if I was not ambushed (one single ambush of Jaws had taught me in my first days.. now I'm paranoid):
- I had to extend home since I could not touch it
- to kill the good Fenrir in his single Spitfire at 6km my squad needed of four 190s (Spitfires climb better and can stay in the zone at lower speed, Fenrir knew it well)
- another time 5 Doras couldn't not touch another guy at 7km.
And when you have an enemy over your head you can't do your job because your SA is always busy (and the other guys on the targets can do more damage... Tempest?).
What if they weren't alone but there were four coordinated Spitfires? A good thing of Spitfires is that they can stay on the zone of action since they don't rely on high speed to be fled (do you remember the Galland's quote?) and so they can provide a wonderful air superiority on the front.
To me their main problem is the ammo quantity but without the "engine radar" limit of IL2 that would not be a real issue(infact in IL2 it's a problem for both the sides).
However I know that diving is better in the german planes but still diving is a defensive manouvre who actually take them OUT of action... after the dive you have to go away and regain energy (altitude). Instead the Spits can turn hard staying at the same altitude; 190s can't sustain more then 2 pass on the same Spitfire. This is the reason they are really good air superiority planes (not like the P51s of course because of the fuel issue) but again people don't use it in the way they should.
I was scared of moment the majority of Spitfire pilots were to learn this: luckly in 4.10 Spitfires are not the amazing things they were in 4.09. Finally I can take a SpitV in a climbing contest knowing that in thin air their energy management can be affected too!