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| IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey Famous title comes to consoles. |
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#2
10-03-2009, 08:02 PM
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I'll just rely on my experience in saying the Spit and La-7 own most of the other aircraft.
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#3
10-03-2009, 08:11 PM
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Quote:
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#4
10-03-2009, 08:52 PM
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I agree, Yak 3 for sure is best. It just takes a fine touch compared to La7. The yak is more prone to stall despite its better turn.
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#5
10-04-2009, 12:47 AM
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`An altitude of 3048 m. (10,000 feet) and a speed of 428 km/h (300 mph) allowed the Me 109 E-3 a minimum horizontal turn radius of 228 m. (750 feet) at 8.1 gravity with a half fuel wing loading of 25 lbs. per square foot, the Hurricane Mk. I/II a minimum horizontal turn radius of 243 m. (800 feet) at 7.5 gravity with a half fuel wing loading of 22 pounds per square foot, the Spitfire Mk. I/II a minimum horizontal turn radius of 268 m. (880 feet) at 7.0 gravity with a half fuel wing loading of 24 pounds per square foot.` `Some of the Spitfires were lost in spins, so RAF pilots were told to avoid this maneuver. The Messerschmitt Me 109 suffered no such vice, there was no problem getting out of a spin and it never went into a flat spin.´ ‘The (Hurricane and Spitfire) Merlin engine carburettor system seldom delivered exactly the same amount of fuel simultaneously to each cylinder. Worst of all, the (British Hurricane and Spitfire 1940 Merlin engine) carburettor was subject to centrifugal effect, so that it starved, and missed a beat or two, as it went into a dive. The RAF pilots (therefore) learned how to half-roll before diving, so that the fuel from the carburettor was thrown into the Merlin engine instead of out of it, but in battle this could be a very dangerous time-wasting necessity.’ ‘The RAF fighter pilots were learning about their German adversaries. The Bf 109, with its fuel-injection engine, not only dived without missing a beat or two (unlike the carburettor-fed British Merlin engines) but could also outdive the (1940) RAF Hurricane and Spitfire fighters.’ ‘(The German invented) fuel injection (in the Bf 109), which puts a measured amount of fuel into each cylinder according to temperature and engine speed etc., was demonstrably superior to the carburettors that the (Hurricane and Spitfire) Merlin engines used.’ ‘The 32-foot wing span of the Bf 109 gave it an advantage over its rivals. In spite of its high wing loading, it had a horizontal turn radius of only 750 feet (Spitfire 880 feet and Hurricane 800 feet), and this could be a vital factor in air fighting.’ ‘Both the (1940) RAF fighters (Hurricane and Spitfire) had eight Browning 7.7 mm machine guns. The German Bf 109 E was equipped with two 7.92-mm machine guns and two 20-mm cannon. Although exact comparisons are difficult (because in combat the German 20-mm cannon were firing thin-shelled ‘mine type’ 20-mm missiles that exploded on impact), it is reasonable to say that a three-seconds’ burst of gunfire from the Messerschmitt Bf 109 E weighed 18 lbs. The RAF fighter fired at most 13 lbs. in the same duration of shooting.’ ‘During (the Battle of Britain in) 1940 the Hurricanes and Spitfires carried eight Browning 7.7 mm machine guns. The Bf 109 E usually had two 7.92-mm machine guns on top of the engine cowling and a 20-mm cannon in each wing. Most German 20-mm cannon shells were thin-walled and contained explosive, but incendiary and armour-piercing rounds were also used.’ ‘One of the problems of the Browning 7.7-mm machine gun, in RAF use, was the fact that it had to fire the British Army’s rifle bullets’. ‘On 11 July 1940 Peter Townsend a peacetime RAF pilot, a flyer of great skill and experience, raked a German bomber with his eight Browning 7.7-mm machine guns.. … Townsend had put 220 bullets into the German bomber but it got home to Arras.’ ‘In an incident in the Battle of Britain six Spitfires of 74 Squadron expended 7,000 bullets in attacks on a single (!) German bomber but did not bring it down.’ ‘On Sunday 28 July 1940 … (RAF fighter ace) ‘Sailor’ Malan was leading twelve Spitfires of 74 Squadron from Manston. (Luftwaffe fighter ace) Mölders was leading a (Me 109) formation, he turned and shot down a Spitfire. ... Both Mölders and Malan were fast, but Mölders was a split second faster …, Mölders was already on his tail, Malan turned into the attack … his (7.7-mm) machine gun bullets raked the Me 109. Had Spitfires been armed with (reliable) cannon, Mölders would not have been able to nurse his badly damaged machine back to his base at Wissant.’ ‘Although the rival merits of machine gun and cannon were much argued at the time, the RAF had secretly concluded that the cannon was far better. In 1940 (at the Royal Aircraft Establishment), a series of tests was carried out against an old Blenheim airframe (incorporating armour). The eight machine gun configuration was fourth in a list in which two cannon were top.’ ‘As an experiment the RAF used a few Spitfires equipped with (Hispano 20-mm) cannon during the 1940 battles. However the RAF had trouble with its unreliable 20-mm cannon guns, and the few RAF pilots that were given them during the Battle of Britain for the most part cursed their luck and were then re-equipped with 7.7-mm machine-gun fighters.’ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Major Werner "Vati" Mölders, Kommodore of JG 51 during the Battle of Britain, participated in the comparative trials at E-Stelle Rechlin, the German equivalent of the RAF RAE, during which he flew both the Spitfire and the Hurricane, on which he recalled, in agreement with the report below. "It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. The Hurricane is good-natured and turns well, but its performance is decidedly inferior to that of the Me 109. It has strong stick forces and is "lazy" on the ailerons. The Spitfire (Mk. I/II) is one class better. It handles well, is light on the controls, faultless in the turn and has a performance approaching that of the Bf 109. As a fighting aircraft, however, it is miserable. A sudden push forward on the stick will cause the Motor to cut; and because the propeller has only two pitch settings (take-off and cruise), in a rapidly changing air combat situation the motor is either over speeding or else is not being used to the full." Mölders proved very successful during the Battle, despite a poor start on 28 July, when he lead his Bf 109 unit the first time into combat, and was wounded in combat with Spitfires but also shooting one down one in the confusion. During the Battle of Britain he was victorious in 29 air combats against RAF fighters (14-14 aerial victories against Hurricanes and Spitfires, and another against a FAF Curtiss), culminating on 31 August, when he downed 3 Hurricanes in quick succession, repeating the same feat on 12 and on 22 October once again; ultimately finishing the Battle with 54 victories to his name. Up to May 1941, when he was transferred to the Eastern Front, he downed a further 13 Spitfires and Hurricanes - the friendly rivalry between him and Galland in scoring victories was legendary. His final number of victories was raised to 115 victories in his later career as fighter pilot. Mölders was also one of the first to test the new Bf 109 F-1 against the RAF during the last phase of the battle, his first flight on the Bf 109 F-1 being on 6 October 1940. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In " Duels in the Sky", by Captain Eric Brown ret. a WWII British combat fighter pilot and the WWII Royal Aircraft Establishment Chief test pilot at Farnborough, Brown discusses many major aircraft of the 1940-45 period, and explains how different types would have fared in dogfights. As the Chief RAE test pilot, he flew almost all Allied and Axis WWII planes, including all Spitfire Marks, and his evaluation is therefore probably unique. For what it's worth, his own hardest trial may have been while flying an RAF Spitfire Mk. IX against a Fw 190 over France. After 10 minutes, the German and he realized that their pilot skills were so evenly matched that they broke off combat. The German fighter had an edge "in the vertical", while the Spitfire had an edge "in the horizontal". Neither could get his sights on the other, and they finally gave up. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In `Wings of the Luftwaffe`, by Captain Eric Brown ret. a WWII British combat fighter pilot and the WWII Royal Aircraft Establishment Chief test pilot at Farnborough, Brown discusses in technical detail the flying characteristics of 16 German aircraft types, not counting the various mark variants, that he tested as WWII RAE Chief test pilot. He remarks on his RAE tests of a Fw 190 A-8 (he flew and tested various Fw 190 marks from the A-3, A-4, A-8 and F-8 right up to the Fw 190 D-9 and the Ta 152 H-1 which are all discussed in his book): `Several fighters were to display the hallmark of the thoroughbred during World War II – aircraft that were outstanding to varying degrees of excellence in their combat performance, their amenability to a variety of operational scenarios, their ease of pilot handling and their field maintenance tractability – but none more so than designer Kurt Tank´s remarkable creation sporting the prosaic designation of Focke-Wulf Fw 190.` `Within six or seven months of its operation debut, the Fw 190 was causing widespread consternation among RAF fighter squadrons based in the south of England. The Tank-designed fighter could out-perform the contemporary Spitfire on every count with the exception of the horizontal turning circle – one leading RAF pilot is recorded as having commented acidly when this attribute of his mount was stressed during a pre-operation briefing, `Turning does not win battles!`. By April 1942, RAF combat attrition on the Channel Front reached prohibitive levels primarily as a result of the activities of its redoubtable German adversary – more than a hundred Spitfires being lost on offensive operations over Europe during the course of the month – and the Merlin 61-engine Spitfire Mk. IX was still two or three months away. But while going a long way towards redressing the balance and even offering an edge in climb above 26,000 feet (7 925 m) the Spitfire Mk. IX was still to be left standing by the Focke-Wulf´s half-roll and dive!` `Indeed, as the months passed and the Focke-Wulf consolidated the ascendancy that it had established over its RAF contemporaries from the time of its operational debut, morale of pilots of the Spitfire squadrons inevitably being affected, Air Ministry concern over the situation began to border on desperation.` `I was pleasantly surprised to find, after clambering into the somewhat narrow Fw 190 cockpit, that the forward view was still rather better than offered by the Me 109, the Spitfire or the Mustang. The semi-reclining seat – ideal for high-g maneuvers - proved comfortable and the controls fell easily in the hand.´ `Incredible aileron turns were possible in the Fw 190 that would have torn the wings from a Bf 109 and badly strained the arm muscles of any Spitfire pilot trying to follow.` ´From high-speed cruise, a pull up into a climb gave the Fw 190 an initial advantage owing to its superior acceleration and the superiority of the German fighter was even more noticeable when both aircraft were pulled up into a zoom climb from a dive. In the dive the Fw 190 could leave the Spitfire Mk. IX without difficulty and there was no gainsaying that in so far as maneuverability was concerned the German fighter was markedly the superior of the two in all save the tight horizontal turn – the Spitfire Mk. IX could not follow in aileron turns and reversals at high speeds and the worst heights for a Spitfire pilot to engage the Fw 190 in combat were between 18,000 and 22,000 ft (5 485 and 6 705 meters), and at altitudes below 3,000 ft (915 meters).´ ´At low speeds Fw 190 rudder control proved positive and effective and I found it satisfactory at high speeds, seldom needing to be used for any normal maneuver. It was when one took the three controls together rather than in isolation that one appreciated the fact that the Fw 190´s magic as a fighter lay in its superb control harmony. A good dogfighter and a good gun platform called for just the characteristics that this German fighter possessed in all important matters of stability and control. At the normal cruise of 330 mph (530 km/h) at 8,000 ft (2 440 m), the stability was very good directionally, unstable laterally and neutral longitudinally.´ Brown, as noted earlier, was both a WWII British combat fighter pilot and the Chief RAE test pilot in WWII and as such he flew almost all Allied and Axis WWII planes, including all Spitfire Marks, and his evaluation is therefore probably unique. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some data from Osprey´s Aircraft of the Aces No. 9 `Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Aces of the Western Front´ written by John Weal: ´In the spring of 1941 … in the west there remained just two complete Luftwaffe Jagdgeschwader (JG´s 2 and 26, between them fielding exactly 140 serviceable fighters).´ ´The winter months of 1941-42 provided a welcome hiatus for Douglas´100 RAF fighter squadrons (that is well over 1200 RAF fighters, mainly Spitfires, against 140 Luftwaffe fighters). … Figures of the time for the latter half of 1941 quote the RAF as admitting the loss of 411 of their own fighters over the Channel and northern Europe, while claiming the destruction of 731 German fighters. In fact, the true cost to the Luftwaffe´s western based Jagdgeschwader (JG 2 and JG 26) was just 103 fighters. This victory-to-loss ratio of some four to one in favour of the heavily outnumbered German defenders prompted the British Air Staff to warn Air Marshall Sholto Douglas, the man who had initiated the policy of ´leaning forward into France´ upon succeeding Sir Hugh Dowding as AOC Fighter Command in November 1940, that a more defensive stance had now become ´a disagreeable necessity´.´ ` ... the pilots of JG 26 had been enjoying three months of near total mastery of the skies (in July 1942). There were even reported instances of German pilots cheekily performing ´upward Charlies´ (climbing rolls) alongside formations of Spitfires, which did little to improve RAF morale! In many fighter messes along the south coast of England the Fw 190 became the main topic of conversation, and debate. If not exactly ´twitchy´, many RAF pilots conceded among themselves that ´they´ (i.e. the Jagdwaffe) have definitely got the upper hand at the moment´. Official figures tend to support this view. By the end of March RAF Fighter Command had lost 32 Spitfires and their pilots at a cost to JG 26 of just five pilots killed.´ ´Throughout May 1942 the Fw 190´s of JG 26 continued to inflict heavy losses on the RAF. On 1 June Circus No 178 saw eight bomb-carrying Hurricanes over northern Belgium escorted by no less than 168 Spitfires! Two Gruppen were scrambled (paper strength at best 72 servicable Fw 190 fighters, with about 60% operational, meaning 40 Fw 190 aircraft operational at best) to intercept them – Hauptmann Seifert´s I./JG 26 from St. Omer-Arques and Hauptmann Priller´s III./JG 26 from Wevelghem. The two Gruppen caught the four Spitfire squadrons of the Debden Wing over the coast east of Ostende. A classic ´feint-and-bounce´out of the sun resulted in the loss of the Wing´s commander and eight of his Spitfires, with another five suffering damage. … Not a single machine of JG 26 suffered any reportable damage.´ ´July 1942 witnessed … the introduction of the Spitfire Mk. IX into RAF squadron service – a move which reduced, while not eliminating, the Fw 190´s margin of superiority …´ ´On 19 August 1942 (in) Operation Jubilee, the costly raid by the Canadians on Dieppe … (the) RAF had paid a high price for maintaining aerial superiority over the strict confines of the Dieppe beaches and offshore waters – with 106 aircraft lost, including 88 Spitfires. Against this JG 2 lost 14 fighters (with eight pilots killed) and JG 26 six fighters and their pilots.´ Last edited by Widar; 10-05-2009 at 07:05 AM.
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#6
10-04-2009, 01:06 AM
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I think you get the prize for longest post ever.
__________________
 XBL GT: - Robotic Pope HyperLobby CS: - Robot_Pope
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#7
10-07-2009, 04:24 AM
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First off I'd like to extend my thanks to Wildar for taking the time to make this data compilation. Very helpful.
A couple suggestions: I think you'd get better climb results if you tested the aircraft climbs at certain speeds rather than angles, since not all of those planes can reach those angles. I think all the planes can reach at least 200km/h though. Also, I noticed that the Spitfire XVI rolls worse than the IX? Is that a mistake? The clipped wings should help it roll better, not worse...
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#8
10-07-2009, 10:41 AM
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When I have some more time on my hands I plan on doing new BOP tests with stricter test parameters (i.e. manoever speed), higher sensitivity settings etc. but only for a few of the aircraft on the list and not for all 20 that are on the current test list. I want to duplicate some real life tests with various aicraft in BOP to be able to compare it further to real life data. In many ways this is a waste of time, since BOP has not paid that much respect to the real life performance and characteristics of various of the aircraft simulated. Especially the US and German ones are treatly badly. But I still want to further test the difference between reality and BOP to identify the BOP design philosophy. There is one test result about which little can be argued: maximum sustained WEP level speed in BOP as compared to the real life historical aircraft test data. Just one look at the max. level speeds reveals that BOP is not equal to real life. The max. speeds are way off in BOP. That says something about simulator accuracy. A lot of the aircraft I tested have great difficulty settling even at one certain speed in the max. level speed tests, so I took the result that was there most often during about a 2 to 3 minute level flight at about 0+ degrees AoA. Those max. speed test results in BOP, the first thing I tested actually, are one of the reasons why I gave up on duplicating real life tests in BOP when testing all the 20 aircraft on the current test list.
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#9
10-07-2009, 06:04 PM
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Roger that. Thanks for taking the time to look and analyze all these planes though.
Despite being an amazing and hugely entertaining game, like a few of the players said, there are some glaring flaws. This is why I don't like sim mode because all the planes are modelled very differently when compared to my research, which includes mostly data from published books about the Spitfire. "Spitfire: An Operational History" and Mike Williams' performance charts which he gained from both Germany's Luftwaffe records and Britain's RAF records. The performance differences are quite massive. The fact that a Spitfire XVI rolls badly compared to a Spitfire IX is something to be looked at. I can say though that IL-2: 1946 was far more accurate than BoP. I can't hope to play on sim mode in this game when comparing the performance differences because it feels so wrong.
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