FW-190A vs Spitfire, Me-109G, P-47D in dogfights

[Gaston]

Yes pilots do make a difference: You only have to look at the disparities between front-line pilots accounts of the FW-190A, and test pilot accounts such as the two US Navy FW-190A tests, which, let's face it, only paint a picture that corresponds exactly to what anyone would have expected by looking at these heavy small-winged aircrats sitting on the ground...

The fact is that the intuitively "easy" picture of the FW-190A: A high-speed fighter that should compensate its lack of turning ability at low speed by high-speed dive and zoom maneuvers, is not only inaccurate, but is in fact the PERFECT opposite of what ALL front-line fighter pilots observed it to do in actual combat:

-An actual FW-190A Western ace described his method of fighting P-51s on the forum of "Aces High" (thread appears to be long gone despite my appeals to those in charge of that site): Downthrottling to reduce speed well before the merge, popping the flaps and fighting exclusively by horizontal turns... NOTHING else... With reduced throttle he described out-turning a tailing P-51D in two horizontal right 360°s on the deck (from the slow merge starting speed since he had reduced his throttle)...

A P-51D proved more competitive against the FW-190A by also reducing its throttle, though I think the FW-190A likely did not itself downthrottle in that instance, and thus lost the turn fight.

The very fact that Karhila, in Me-109Gs, FW-190A pilots, and above all P-51D pilots (in at least a dozen detailed instances), ALL describe reducing the throttle, despite being from the start at low speed in sustained multiple 360° turns on the deck, and this in order to gain a huge and immediate advantage in sustained turn rate over prolonged periods, shows that even the most basic methods of fighting with these aircrafts are very poorly understood, probably because the available understanding is derived from jets which are propelled rather than tracted, not to mention their differences with prop/pistons in ability to sustain speed as power is reduced...:

See this clearest of many examples of how downthrottling is the direct cause of winning the sustained low-speed dogfight on the deck, an example which has many other counterparts, for the P-51 mostly, but also other types as well (note how Johnny Johnson gets his ass kicked in a Spit V vs FW-190A horizontal turn fight by remaining at full throttle throughout):

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/m...an-24may44.jpg

Note how the pilot TWICE attributes his success in the prolonged on-the-deck turn fight to his action of downthrottling (it is prolonged because the German base fires AAA "every time" the circling got them close to it...)...:

"He stopped cutting me off (from behind!)as I cut throttle"

"I commenced turning inside of him as I decreased throttle settings"

This is unambiguous, as is Karhila when he said, "most pilots increased throttle and then turned, I decreased throttle and found I could turn just as well" "Optimal sustained turn speed for the Me-109G was around 160 MPH(!)"

The very fact that slow-speed turning was not an exception but the rule in most theathers of WWII (due I think to the weakness of a 2% gun striking rate, less pronounced perhaps with a centralized armament or a fragile Japanese target...) shows that typical WWII dogfighting and priorities are in fact very poorly understood, and heavily coloured by post-war jet experience...

Furthermore, an exaustive 1989 test at METO power and 6 Gs (the only serious WWII fighter test in 60 years, made by the "Society of Experimental Test Pilots", with modern instruments), found the 6 G "Corner Speed" of a P-51D to be as high as 300 MPH IAS, or 64 MPH ABOVE the accepted "calculated" value 2.44 stall, or around 244 MPH IAS.

This higher value means that, in theory, downthrottling is even less useful than anything previously assumed... Yet it was used to advantage in SUSTAINED turns...

All this clearly indicates that predictive calculated methods are not only inaccurate, but the lack of knowledge about prolonged downthrottling in sustained horizontal turns, and of the actual WWII most-prevalent combat tactic (outside the peculiarities of the Pacific Theater): Horizontal turn-fighting, means our current assumed knowledge is in fact entirely fictitious...

Even the two WWII doghouse charts of the Spitfire I and Me-109E have no late-war counterparts (because they were in fact useless): They were calculated from engine output variations with speed alone, most likely, and the 1989 P-51D/F6F/FG-1/P-47D test shows the "doghouse" shape itself is fictional for powerful prop-tracted WWII fighters:

"Corner Speed for all were found to be very close to the maximum level speed" (At Meto this means 6 G for the P-51D at a minimum of 300 MPH IAS, and likely higher with more power in my opinion)

Gaston