luthier, the historical performance btw 109/spitfire/huricane is NOT simulated in CoD

[zapatista]

the purpose of this thread is to try and provide a summary of historical facts and figures about the performance comparison and combat tactics/behavior of these fighter aircraft during the BoB era, in the hope/intention we can aid luthier to fine tune the 109/spitfire/hurricane, so we can simulate online/offline the right strengths and weaknesses of each side and replicate accurate historical tactics and engagements.this will be all the more critical once the dynamic campaign servers become available, and people have to step out of their air-quake comfort zones (particularly the blue side)

The problem we have right now:
- right now we have the problem pre-patch that luthier indicates the red planes being even further "tones down" and neutered, which will result in a luftwhiner gloat-fest and illusory justification for the fake-real advocates (no offense to the genuine blue flyers who want a historical accurate simulation, and are able to debate this in a sensible manner). the anticipated further unfairly toning down the spitfires and hurricanes will completely tip the balance in favor of the uber-blue behavior, which was simply not the case historically.
- the only adjustment that was needed is the spitfire IIb needing a little toning down in level flight top speed performance.
- most online servers are a monotonic air quake scenario, with perpetual furballs over the coastline, with 109's significantly outperforming spitfires in situations where this was not historically the case. 109 online flyers are not recreating the historical situation their aircraft would normally be expected to perform in, and on a 1-1 comparison the current CoD 109's do not represent their historical role/function when matched against spitfires/hurricanes in most confrontations.

So to get the ball rolling with a general summary of these fighter aircraft performances[/B], and their role during the historical BoB era, i'll summarize my current general knowledge. there are some very knowledgeable people here, both on red and blue sides, and the hope is they will contribute with facts and figures, rather then it becoming a long winded "personal preference argument".


Context:
historically the 109 and spitfires of the BoB era were very evenly matched, and each had their respective advantages/weaknesses. we (the red team) are not asking for equal performance in combat aircraft (109 vs spitfire), but we ARE ASKING for simulation of correct historical strong/weak points so the red/blue sides in CoD can be "equally matched". BUT THIS IS CURRENTLY NOT POSSIBLE IN CoD !! this historical relationship is currently not modeled in the sim in its curent state (and luthier and Co seems to be totally unaware of this problem, so i suspect mostly fly for the blue side when they use the sim), AND THIS PROBLEM IS ABOUT TO GET WORSE IF THEY CRIPPLE THE RED TEAM FURTHER BY NEUTERING THE SPIT IIb. generally speaking the problem can be summed up in their historical context as:

the spitfires:
- where more agile, had better roll rate and tighter turning circles then 109's.
- but there carburetors would cut out on a sudden dive/nose-down, and couldnt fly inverted without starving their carburators of fuel, similar problems existed in other -ve G maneuvers.
- had the advantage of flying above friendly soil, allowing ejecting or downed pilots to fight another day (sometimes even on the same day)
- could refuel and rearm quickly, being back in the air protecting home soil 2 or 3x faster then the blue team, and ready for the next wave of incoming bombers. this meant the same allied pilots could hit a german formation (and escorts) on the way in, and on the way out of their mission, meaning each allied pilot almost doubled in ability to engage the enemy
- english production of spitfires and hurricanes significantly outpaced the german ability to provide new planes and crews, this did become a factor in the 2e half of BoB when allied fighter plane numbers started to outnumber german fighters, AND allied aircrew were rotated to less active rear-located airfields for rest and recovery which the germans never were (for the whole duration of the war on all fronts). hence allied crews were generally more rested, and were constantly supplied with new replacement planes (but had the initial disadvantage at the beginning of BoB that very inexperienced fresh new pilots kept being being sent to frontline squadrons, leading to high fatality rates for those that were not quick learners)
- once luthier cripples the spitfire lineup further by reducing the IIb in speed so severely (whereas it only needs some minor trimming), all we end up with is that all spitfire models behave similar to hurricanes in relation to 109's, with the spitfires flight performance being toned down to hurricane levels, and giving the 109's in il2-CoD total performance advantage in almost all situations (which was not the historical case)

the 109's:
- had slightly better dive speed (used successfully for escape from engagements with spitfires but only when done from sufficient altitude), mainly because that slight speed advantage combined with the "no carburator fuel starvation"problem in the initial part of the dive,
- had similar level flight speeds and climb rates to the spitfires at low and medium altitudes (except at high altitude where they had an advantage initially),
- could spiral climb out of reach of a chasing spitfire, the combined climb/rudder action was a unique strenght for that plane model (shape/size/wheight) during most of the war
- had the disadvantage of very brief flying times over enemy territory, and limited ability to escort bombers all the way to london (could do for coastal airfields and installations)
- when starting an engagement with hight advantage, they could jab and take potshots at enemy fighters and zoom back to altitude to sit back on the perch, and then do the same all over again. the slingshot speed effect that allowed them to regain altitude was the main advantage here (combined with the linear aiming of the nose guns that didnt need to wait for convergence to be correct at a specific distance from the enemy). BUT USING THIS TACTIC LED TO MASSIVE UNSUSTAINABLE LOSSES IN THE BOMBER FORMATIONS SENT TO ENGLAND, hence it was not a sustainable strategy to try and have a "succesfull outcome of the war" (from the german view point). point exactly proven by the historical massive 109 losses that ensued when they were ordered to close escort the bomber formations, without their slingshot potshots and sitting on the pirch advantage
- when fighting at equal altitude and engaging at equal speed (without the element of surprise to be able to shoot an unaware enemy pilot in the back while they were not looking), THE 109's WERE OUTCLASSED BY THE SPITFIRES DURING THE WHOLE BOB PERIOD, why do you think Garland asked Goering for squadrons of spitfires to be supplied so they could be more effective against the enemy ? why do you think so many german pilots came down with stress related problems ((Kanal Krankheit) which further reduced their ability to perform well ?
- the combined result of these factors led to the fact that in the last 1/2 of the BoB era, german fighter pilots were either closely escorting bomber formations (as instructed) and getting decimated (when confronted with an equally matched allied pilot in a spitfire, with the spitfire pilots having the advantage of "flying over home soil" etc.., or they were in high altitude "free hunt" positions over the southern part of the english coast and RELUCTANT TO COME DOWN TO FORMATIONS OF ALLIED FIGHTERS AT MEDIUM/LOW ALTITUDE and duke it out on equal terms. (note: when in the post BoB phase cocky english pilots starting to fly missions over the french coast, the germans had a similar advantage and dealt some large blows to overconfident english pilots, with the result allied command put major limits on those "excursions", eg i am not arguing for uber-allied spitfires or hurricanes, just their historical strength and performances in the BoB context)

if you compare that to the 109 uber plane behavior we have now (with the recent news of spitfires being further crippled in speed), you arrive at a completely fictitious scenario where:
- 109's outpace spitfires at all altitudes
- 109's are like flying bricks of concrete and much more damage resistant
- 109's can explode in a fireball and be fully on fire without their flight performance being affected
- 109's can out-turn, out-dive, and out-climb spitfire at any altitude
- german fighter pilots can completely ignore escorting and protecting their bomber formations, yet still claim to win engagements
- downed german pilots keep magically and perpetually re-spawning to fresh planes without the historical context being included

CONCLUSION:
so the "fake real" 109 luftwhiners shouldnt constantly and perpetually be able to try and replicate the hight/speed/dive advantage, have bullit proof planes that fly while on fire, and out maneuvre the red team (as it is becoming right now), and outpace the spitfires on level flight at any altitude. this problem is much exacerbated online because the only servers gameplay that is present right now is air-quake over the channel, THIS SCENARIO IS NOT BOB FOLKS !! in RL they would have been court marshaled or shot by friendly fire from their surviving bomber pilots who made it back to base

but it is about to even get worse !! as the previous il2 series has shown, and we are about to have history repeated, you can predict the russian planes to significantly outperform their german counterparts, where i-16's will dominate 109's for ex. the russian planes will be modeled on russian "facts" and figures, based on glorious war propaganda reports of their historical greatness, and completely ignore the 100's of german pilots with "above 50 kill scores" in that era of the war, because the initial russian campaign was by and large a big turkey shoot for the germans. il2's didnt have rear gunners initially and were easy pickings (no matter how well armored), and the early mig's and i-16's were swatted down like flies (unless some stupid german fighter pilot tried to dogfight at low speed with them)

right now what we need to correct the flight models and damage models of the blue/red relationship in BoB, is historical facts and figures to keep presenting to luthier and Co, AND we need luthier to gives us il2-compare type data OPENLY so we can see exactly what they provided under the hood, in 2012 it is way to late to expect us to make do with "lets just imagine this plane behaves historically", and if i outperform the historical opponent it just means i was the better pilot". facts regarding the date used in the sim for plane performance and speed needs to be OPENLY PROVIDED

[CWMV]

You can try to sum it up into talking points all you like, but this is going to boil down to figures.
I cannot believe that you are getting bent out of shape about bringing the figures in line with the historical performance of the aircraft, in a patch that hasn't even been released yet.
And jumping to conclusions about the russian planes much?
Ive been as critical of the dev team here as anyone, but at least I waited for something concrete and extant to complain about!
And for the record-noting about the 109 in game is uber-it is in fact slower than it should be by a fair margin.
Seems this sissyfire boy is jumping the gun a bit more than the luftwhiners eh?

[David198502]

good thread!
i want the same like you, historical correct performing planes on both sides!
i fly only 109s right now, and it doesnt feel right how easy it is to fight spitfires.
honestly, thats because i dont fight them anymore, because i feel pity for them, and therefore i prefer to fly on rebka4 and fighting other 109 pilots.

on the other hand, luthier mentioned, that the spit1 will get better performance, so it should not be the way you assume it will be.
the hurri right now, really seems to fast, so i welcome the performance decrease it will get, and the same goes for the spitII.

but i have a problem, that they didnt lose a word about the 109 in yesterdays update, and also the graph of the G50 is disappointing in some ways for me.
not that i regret the performance boost it will get, that it gets more accurate performance, but that there are still 3 curves in the graph they showed us yesterday.

pre patch,after patch, and the real thing.....when they actually use historical data, why the heck cant they just make the plane perform like it really did?i want to only see two curves for all the planes:pre patch and after patch curve which is identical to historical data.

luthier also mentioned, that because of the new gui system they will use, they cant show us other performance graphs....i really doubt it, because how were they able to make it for the g50 then?

also the really vague explanation about the 109 flight model changes, lead me to believe, that in fact they havent changed anything...and thats sad.
again, i dont want to fly a uber plane, but i want it accurate.and please as accurate as possible.and if we all know, that for example the pp of the 109 needed 4seconds to change the pitch 1hour, then i dont understand why they refuse to do it that way, and make it 6seconds instead.

but lets see what the patch brings...

PS:you mentioned the roll rate of the spit should be better than the one of the 109s?
interesting, never heard that before.i was always of the opinion, that especially the roll rate was one of the spits weak points.

oh btw, the red side's damage model is off as well....i have blown up several thanks of hurricanes, and they kept flying as well.one can also put really big holes in spit's wings, and they will still have their lift to outturn one,....and so on, so the damage model has to be looked at on both sides. i especially know what im talking about, since i fly on rebka4, where i noticed, that its in fact way more easy to get down 109s than the british planes.their wings will fall off very often, even when you hit them often enough with the E1's mgs! never managed that on a "red plane".

[IvanK]

Zapatista you said :

"- had similar level flight speeds and climb rates to the spitfires at low and medium altitudes (except at high altitude where they had an advantage initially),
- could spiral climb out of reach of a chasing spitfire, the combined climb/rudder action was a unique strenght for that plane model (shape/size/wheight) during most of the war"

This is confusing how can the 109 have a similar climb performance in normal climbs but better climb performance in a spiral climb ?

What is a combined Climb/rudder action ? Any rudder other than that that ensures balanced flight will increase drag and therefore reduce climb performance.

[salmo]

Originally Posted by zapatista

<snip> ...
the spitfires:
- where more agile, had better roll rate and tighter turning circles then 109's.
- but there carburetors would cut out on a sudden dive/nose-down, and couldnt fly inverted without starving their carburators of fuel, similar problems existed in other -ve G maneuvers...<snip>

Negaive G effects on engine performance was somewhat overcome by early 1941 with the retrofitting of spitfires with Miss Shilling's orifice.

[Verhängnis]

Why are you complaining about pilot skill, lack of rest or mental breakdowns? This is a FLIGHT SIMULATOR, not a "I live in England, it's 1940 and I'm oh so tired that my CO has sent me down to reserve for a nice cup of tea and some R&R" Simulator.
Besides that, I don't think your ever going to see a perfect simulation of any aircraft in "a game". The technology they are using has it's limits! And to me, flying both sides, the OP seems to make little sense with no evidence and is rather biased... This topic will become nothing more than Subjective! It's like trying to argue with religion - nobody has the facts and it all settles down to opinion - in the end; someone get's banned.

[CWMV]

Originally Posted by salmo

Negaive G effects on engine performance was somewhat overcome by early 1941 with the retrofitting of spitfires with Miss Shilling's orifice.

...Which didnt have much to do with the BoB.

[RCAF_FB_Orville]

Chaps, CWMV is speaking words of wisdom. Lets wait to see what the changes actually are exactly, when the patch is released. Otherwise, its just borderline hysteria until we know the actual ingame performance facts.

I would agree though that it should be a 'given' for a graphical representation of performance figures to be provided, which cuts down on a lot of the 'I feel that....' etc subjective speculation, which is of no use whatsoever.

Zap, I know you mean well and are possibly just joking, but its not really helpful referring to Blue fliers as 'Luftwhiners' as it just gets peoples backs up, then we have the pathetic 'Luftwaffler-Sissy blah blah' rubbish which is frankly schoolyard stuff. I know others do it (some habitually, and in almost all of their posts) but it doesn't mean you have to as well. Some just do it as a gentle wind up, some more serious. Either way, its daft ( I'll admit I've done similar myself in the past, in jest though). Show some class. Funny thing is, I know many of you are 40-50+, some even older! Act like it, hehehe.

PS, It doesn't bother me personally, as I don't take things that seriously lol. I also fly and enjoy both sides, lots of love for em all. But its still not a good idea (joking or otherwise) if we want a serious discussion. There are some sensitive people out there. Wait till we see 'whats what', definitively, then we can "let slip the dogs of war" (sensibly, with documented evidence...not just 'opinion'). Just par for the course.

Cheers.

[klem]

Zapatista I really think we should wait and see what Luthier is giving us.

I did wonder at the SpitIIa performance being reduced because I could never get it to achieve the Sea Level speeds that were documented for it, i.e. it wasn't that the SpitIIa was overmodelled it was that the others were undermodelled, but the best thing would be to wait and try them out before we worry too much.

[csThor]

As a general note: It would be a great help to generate a decent discussion if people did away with the more or less thinly veiled insults. By using these insults - usually aimed at those who do not share the OP's opinion - people discredit themselves and show they're not really interested in adult and well-mannered conversation but in imposing their own opinion on everyone else.