Quote:
Originally Posted by Furio
Simplification must be accepted, but if you talk about drag during climb, you should not mention top speed. Climb happens at much lower speed, and much lower drag (the best climb speed for the I16 is 200 kpm only).
But this is not my main point. Overall, the BF109 was a more modern and effective combat type than the I16, nobody dispute this. More: the 109 still had development potential, while the Polikarpov had reached (and passed) its peak. My point is that numbers on a flight manual are written while testing a plane in ideal conditions, and that the same numbers were seldom if ever reached in operative environment. In my opinion, faster planes suffer more than slower ones. Think at the effect of dirt, mud or light surface damages on a fabric covered biplane compared to the same on a laminar flow Mustang or B24. So, in my opinion, an overall levelling of performances is not that unrealistic. Numbers alone cannot explain how the P39 was outclassed in the Pacific in 1942, and held its own against Luftwaffe in 1945. Or how the P38 fared badly against Luftwaffe and did so well in the Pacific.
In my opinion, the I16 suffered more for Luftwaffe superior tactics in the opening stages of Barbarossa than for superior BF109 performances, and that such tactical situation is very hard to replicate in a game.
|
Everything you say is true. Production planes of all sides did rarely reach the prototype performances. BoB Hurricanes were , for example, something like 15 km/h slower than the prototypes; Soviet planes suffered even more from the production standards. Japanese planes, especially at the end of war, too, experienced workers having been drafted. As the germans begun using concentration camp labor, you can imagine the motivation of these people- there was sabotage, too.
US laminar wing planes you mention could never be even produced to the narrow tolerances needed for that kind of aerodynamics at that timepoint, nothing to say about repaired combat damage in field, etc. At last, an average pilot is not an expert test pilot, too- I bet same plane climbs better in such hands, for example.
Germans had tactics superior to that of all other combatants at the beginning of Barbarossa, and a long experience of using it in combat operations- beginning with Spain, and that is true, too.
It is true , too, that a plane at 400 km/h experiences four times the drag of a plane with 200 km/h. I simply ilustrated the point of the drag difference between two planes.
Let's make a small calculation of the power needed to lift the plane at certain speed thru the air.
Let's say I16 climbs at 15 m/s , and has a mass of 2000 kg; that makes it's weight approx. 20 000 N. Power used to lift the plane at the speed given is then 15m/s*20 000N= 300 000 W=300KW = (approx.) 300*1.3HP=400HP.
This is the so called Excess Power, which remains after the power needed to overcome all the other resistances has been deducted from the power available, in this case 930 HP.
That means even at 200 Km/h, 530 HP is absorbed by the parasite and (much less) induced drag of the I16. That explains , now, why 109F is such a good climber , with it's clean aerodynamic, and the stubby I16 less so, in spite of a very good power to weight.
Regarding the Lightning- well the germans had much more fighters performing well at height, and the radar, too.
P39 suffered because of its quite bad altitude performance- engine has been made for the low level work only, due to the political circumstances in the US before the war. Operations at the low level in the Soviet Union made that irrellevant- everywhere else not. The british had flatly refused the plane.
BTW. the plane is very badly overmodelled in game - where else- in climb. There are models that come to 7000 m 70 % faster than RL, and this has been almost 100% earlier in the game
That makes people wonder- how on earth has this plane been unsucessful in the Pacific