Fw-190 Vs Spitfire

[winny]

Originally Posted by whoarmongar

As the FW-190 didnt appear till mid 1941 its doesnt concern us really yet
However when it did appear it was a nasty shock to the RAF. The superior speed dive and roll rate meant that the contempory Spit (MkV) was outclassed. As at the time the RAF was launching "Rhubarb and Circus" patrols across to France any Spit shot down was over enemy teritory and the pilot lost, the roles had been reversed now it was the RAF pilots who had to undertake the hazardous channel crossing in a vulnerable liquid cooled fighter.
The "stopgap" answer came with the introduction of the MkIX which was visually indistinguishable from the MkV, eventually this "stopgap" model would be the largest production run of any Spitfire model.
The roll rate problem still persisted and to counter this some Spits had the wings shortened the so called "clipped wing" Spitfires in order to improve the roll rate. This obviously affected high allitude performance but by then the RAF and luftwaffe both seemed to have agreed that 30000 feet was a bloody silly place to have a dogfight.
As for turning neither the FW-190 or the Me109 could outurn a Spitfire. The reason for this is obvious just look at the wing. That wide Spitfire wing simply produces more lift even with you fancy leading edge slats. Also the Spit was a more benign beast when entering or on the edge of stall, it seems that the inner edge of the wing stalled first producing buffeting and giving the pilot plenty of warning that he was about to stall

An IX is easily distingushable from a V. Just look under the wings.

And as for the Spitfires stalling characteristics..

The problem was the actual stall which was quite severe.

When the RAF tested a 109 E (theoretical tuning circle 885 feet) against a Spit Mk1 Theoretical turning circle 696 feet) they found that, quote:
"In a surprisingly large number of cases the 109 suceeded in keeping on the tail of the Spitfire during these tests, merely because our pilots would not tighten up the turn sufficiently from fear of stalling and spinning"

(RAF underlined that bit not me)

The stall in a Spitfire was quite bad. From the Pilots notes:

"Never attemt a tail-chase with an enemy aeroplane having a smaller turning circle than a Spitfire. If stalling incedence is reached the aeroplane usually does a violent shudder with a loud clattering noise, and comes out of the turn with a violent flick. This would be a serious loss of advantage in a combat"

[whoarmongar]

Hmmm . So you can tell the difference between an oil cooler and a radiator at 300mph and a few hundred feet can you? The MkIX was "quick fix" to the FW-190 problem. They converted Spit Vc to merlin 61 engines(two-stage merlin) . This entailed modding the cooling system and fitting an additional external radiator in place of the oil cooler unit under the starboard wing, new engine cowlings and a four blade rotol propellor were required. Eventually 5665 of them were built mostly at castle bromwich in Birmingham.
To quote Jeffrey Quill from his book"Spitfire". "The great thing about the appearance of the MkIX was that it was extemely difficult to distinguish a MKIX from a MKV in the air".

[Robotic Pope]

Originally Posted by whoarmongar

Hmmm . So you can tell the difference between an oil cooler and a radiator at 300mph and a few hundred feet can you? The MkIX was "quick fix" to the FW-190 problem. They converted Spit Vc to merlin 61 engines(two-stage merlin) . This entailed modding the cooling system and fitting an additional external radiator in place of the oil cooler unit under the starboard wing, new engine cowlings and a four blade rotol propellor were required. Eventually 5665 of them were built mostly at castle bromwich in Birmingham.
To quote Jeffrey Quill from his book"Spitfire". "The great thing about the appearance of the MkIX was that it was extemely difficult to distinguish a MKIX from a MKV in the air".

I'd agree with Winny actually. If you see the mkix silueted against the sky from the front or back, its pretty easy to spot the extra radiator. Much easier than telling a 109 Friedrich apart from a Gustav from a distance.

[vdomini]

Very interesting post, full of historical information about real FW and Spits.
but in this game all FW series are TERRIBLE compared to spitfires.

Maybe FW can be faster or roll faster than a spit but an overall sums of all his aerial combat performance place it very under what a spitfire can achieve. Talking about turning, spitfire outturn FW very very easily.

So be carefull when flying against those!

My final answer to your question is that on PS3, Spitfires are better than FW (and also bf190) series in pure 1 vs 1 aerial combat.

[Cryptic Phant0m]

lol, I know that the Fw-190 can not compete against Spits in BOP, I was just wondering about the real planes.

I just hope that in the "Sequel" that the planes will be more realistically portrayed *cough "P-51D" *cough

[Cryptic Phant0m]

Yes, but unfortunately even Sim has Radar on the Map display. So you can not have any form of surprise advantage unless the person is not looking around.

[Robotic Pope]

Originally Posted by Cryptic Phant0m

Yes, but unfortunately even Sim has Radar on the Map display. So you can not have any form of surprise advantage unless the person is not looking around.

Yeah that was his point. If you were able to force map dots off, Speed and firepower would then become the most important factor instead of turn rates. The game would be much less active though and man would your eyes be tired after all that sky scaning.

[SEE]

The better of the two depends on the pilot and who had height advantage. If a FW missed his prey in his initial dive then the Spit pilot could count himself very fortunate and not be suckered in trying to follow him in that dive. That FW will distance itself, use its energy to gain height rapidly and attempt another altitude bounce. The FW is a bird of prey and in the right hands (with altitude advantage) a reall killer with awesome capability!

[Robotic Pope]

Originally Posted by SEE

The better of the two depends on the pilot and who had height advantage. If a FW missed his prey in his initial dive then the Spit pilot could count himself very fortunate and not be suckered in trying to follow him in that dive. That FW will distance itself, use its energy to gain height rapidly and attempt another altitude bounce. The FW is a bird of prey and in the right hands (with altitude advantage) a reall killer with awesome capability!

That's what should happen.

In BoP though half the time the spitfire will be able to turn around and follow the 190, quickly accelerate with WEP to match its speed an then as soon as the 190 trys to climb again he's dead thanks to the unbelieveable climb rate of the spitfire and the laser bullets.
I think you know who the pilot of the Spitfire is

[bobbysocks]

the only one you might get away with that is the Ta...which is an Fw but not and Fw. i took one last night just to mess around and had a spit chase me for 10+ minutes all over britian. was kind of funny. i had taken just enough damage i could stay ahead of him but not enough to get the room to turn back for a head on. some of the advantages the real ac are not evident in the game...and thats too bad really.