difference between the spitVb and the spitLF V??

[David198502]

hey guys!!
i was wondering if anybody can tell me what the difference is between the spitmkVB released in 1941 and the spit LF V released in 1942!?

for me i can't see any difference in its visible parts. so is there a difference in the engine???cause it seems that the LF doesnt overheat that fast as the Vb. i would appreciate any answer from you experts.thx

[swiss]

LF= Low Fighter
HF= High Fighter
CW= Clipped Wing



Ilcompare is a nice and very important tool...

[IceFire]

Knowing your Spitfire can be really handy. As swiss has pointed out with the IL2 Compare tool... the LF versions of Spitfires are generally meant for lower attitudes.

With the Mark V this means that the aircraft is best between 0 and 3000 meters. Above that and performance seriously declines, whereas the F.Vb is constantly increasing it's maximum top speed up to around 6000 meters. So depending on your application you will want to choose the appropriate fighter.

With the IX version things get more complicated.

The LF.IX versions are "lower altitude", however, the history is a bit different. With the LF.IX the supercharger settings were changed so as to make the IX faster than the captured FW190A-4 that the RAF had at all altitudes. The F.IX Spitfire is only faster at some altitudes and not others. We don't have a F.IX right now so all Spitfire IX's are LF models....

Except the HF.IXe which I see a lot of online. The HF.IXe is not faster than the LF model until somewhere around 8000 meters. But yet I see tons of HF models flying on servers at altitudes of 500 meters and never climbing above 2000 meters.

So now you have a leg up

[illegalBeagle]

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think the original question has been answered. My understanding is that the games Spit Mk Vb without the LF or HF suffix is supposed to represent a slower Spit exported to USSR using less powerful Russian fuel. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here please.

[David603]

Originally Posted by illegalBeagle

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think the original question has been answered. My understanding is that the games Spit Mk Vb without the LF or HF suffix is supposed to represent a slower Spit exported to USSR using less powerful Russian fuel. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here please.

Its just the regular F Mk Vb. F stands for fighter, but the F prefix isn't normally used.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by illegalBeagle

Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think the original question has been answered. My understanding is that the games Spit Mk Vb without the LF or HF suffix is supposed to represent a slower Spit exported to USSR using less powerful Russian fuel. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here please.

Swiss answered it... simply the F is the medium altitude (regular) model while the LF models are optimized for low altitude flight and the HF model is for high altitude.

With the Mark Vb it's a bit more confusing because the modeling also represents different years. So ... we have different engines with different supercharger settings and then you throw in the clipped wing versions too (which have an overall performance impact).

The Vb has RAF level performance for 1941 (actually I believe it's a bit better than it should be in the climb). The VVS didn't receive lower performing models... although by the time they got them and employed them performance may have been lower due to lower quality field conditions (fuel, oil, dusty conditions, etc.). The Spitfire was a bit more sensitive than some of the Russian birds. This doesn't seem to be represented in the game.

So to recap: The regular Vb has higher performance at higher altitude while the LF.Vb has higher performance at lower altitude and drastically reduced performance at higher altitude.

Spitfires are confusing because there are many modifications made to them over the time that they were used and not all of these are represented by a model number change. In comparison to the Bf109 we have the G series with G-1 through G-14 each representing some sort of significant change. With the Spitfire they would probably have been all under one Mark number with very little to identify. The RAF was slow to even classify the modified aircraft (some publications and log books refer to the Mark IX-B which is really a Mark LF.IX ).

Confusing

[illegalBeagle]

Fuel quality is the issue I mean, not derated engines. My understanding is the first Spit we got for this game, the MkVb, was intended for Eastern front maps in USSR service not Western theater. Lower quality Russian fuel resulted in lower performance, and this is modeled somewhat. For years the game was primarily Eastern front. This is from years ago and my memory is fuzzy.