Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunderbolt56
I-16 type-24's can ruin an Emils day in very short order too. I-153's too. Those early shvak-armed slowpokes are vicious killers.
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While its true that fairly modern armaments exist in 1942 (Fw-190, Spit V, P-40 etc.) and that cannons were widespread by 1941 there are a number of factors influencing their use.
Maneuvering:
- the relatively lower speeds mean that there is less of a tendency to enter into high speed stalls and thus allows more evasive maneuvering.
- air combat tended to take place at closer ranges (due to lower powered engines, aircraft don't separate as readily) - this means that an aircraft "crossing the beam" at a given speed will tend to cover more degrees per second (making relative position and maneuvering more important).
The weapons:
- the early cannons, such as the MG-FF, lack the rate of fire and muzzle velocity to quickly project firepower at a given range. This means that they need to be able to concentrate the fire of a longer burst on a target to be effective.
- the lethality of a single MG-151 or ShVAK is impressive but it is also considerably less than that of a MK-108 or twin ShVAK. So, a Lagg/Yak/109F still takes a considerable burst to be certain of bringing down its target.
All of these factors change the geometry of combat, as well as result in a smaller "cone of death" for most cannon and heavy machine gun armaments. So, I would argue that there is a significant change in air combat between the two halves of the war. In short a I-16/24 can easily destroy a Bf-109, but only if it can somehow get close enough and in the right position to prevent the German pilot from maneuvering out of the effective range of the guns.
So, if anyone knows of any servers with pre-1942 maps or if any server would like to try having one evening a week in which the maps are early war... it might be an interesting experiment. Of course, SoW:BoB will initially be like that anyway...