Tales from online; ignorance of energy....

[K_Freddie]

Moons ago, online Berlin map..
In a FW190-A9, I'd just plugged a red a/c and was set upon by a LA7.
A few seconds later he was joined by another LA7 and they both had advantage on me.

I couldn't escape directly to Berlin, as they would easily catch me. Then both attacked one behind the other, which gave me an escape route.. turning inside this attack, I put nose down gently and 'floored it' towards the south.
They caught up to within about 400m as we reached ground level.

What followed was about 10 minutes of treetop speedway.. As I trimmed and played with my radiator and plop-pitch.. I kept them at arms length - their shells 'expiring' a few metres behind me.
Slowly turning in a wide gentle arc I headed back towards my base. The one LA gave up halfway but the other had big ideas...

Little did he know, I was leading him into a trap... my base AAA shot him down.

[Jumoschwanz]

Originally Posted by JtD

Having someone above you with an energy advantage means that you went below him with an energy disadvantage. What a stupid thing is that to do if you don't know you're fast enough to still get out?

I guess I should have specified I fly on hard settings servers where there is no way to know where other aircraft are on the server, just as in WWII. I am not interested in gaming on easy servers where the players scroll through outside views and have icons.....it means about the same as someone bragging about how well they do on Pac-Man.


As for K_Freddie's escape from the LA-7s, good job because they are certainly faster than a 190A. I had a similar experience once, only managing to escape because I watched my engine temperature and the pilot of an La5fn did not and ruined his engine after chasing me for quite a while.

Although the La- series of Russian fighters are generally as fast or faster than their contemporary 190A opponents, they do have fragile engines and if their pilot does not know how to manage his Energy or his engine then the full potential of their aircraft will be wasted.

In earlier patches of IL2 the Russian aircraft seemed to come apart in high speed dives easier than they do in the last few patches. Back in the day I watched more than a few La- or other Russian fighter hit the ground behind me while trying to keep up with my 109 or 190 in a dive. It was always good for a chuckle.

[JtD]

My statement applies to both externals on and externals off servers. Only difference is the flight plan.

[Notorious M.i.G.]

Originally Posted by Jumoschwanz

In earlier patches of IL2 the Russian aircraft seemed to come apart in high speed dives easier than they do in the last few patches. Back in the day I watched more than a few La- or other Russian fighter hit the ground behind me while trying to keep up with my 109 or 190 in a dive. It was always good for a chuckle.

I can't really recall how severe it was compared to now, but I've inadvertently ripped a few ailerons (or more) off in the Las while trying to follow a German fighter diving away - at around 650km/h (for the early LaGG-3 at least iirc), you don't really get a whole lot of leeway to chase down something before you're forced to call it quits.

[Laurwin]

I believe that in practical terms, it is valuable to know enemy plane's capability and your own plane's capability.

Know yourself and your enemy and you will triumph in thousand battles.

Obviously different aircraft characteristics exist for different planes. This has been established.

Characteristics such as top speed, - and perhaps even acceleration. (heavy overweight planes like p47 don't seem to accelerate fast, actually tempest seems to suffer slightly from the same thing)

And these characteristics are different at different altitudes (this is the reason for all those DREADED CHARTS that they made in black-and-white paper for studying the aircraft effectiveness in WW2)

Does this have any relevance to the game though? Well, ideally speaking the physics determine the viability of tactics and to some extent even strategy.

Physics is behind the "rules of thumb" that they gave to real life fighter pilots, rules like "never dogfight with zero" (it was posted on a placard in squadron mess somewhere in Pacific)

So, basically all of this ought to help in finding out tactics on how to use certain planes against certain enemies.


More about the speed characteristic. I do remember reading about a Finnish ww2 fighter pilot's advice to new pilots. He noted that basically assuming 1v1 scenario, the socalled speed differential (difference in speeds, of the two airplaes) is one important factor. IF the speed differential is too much disadvantegous, then this is cleaarly bad thing you could say. Practical example of this situation is e.g. brewster buffalo vs la5, p38 vs zeke

The enemy will possibly be able to gain overwhelming energy advantage, if he can keep fighting for long time, and keeps slowly building his energy. Something like that I think. It maybe was from Hans Wind fighter pilot...

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Jumoschwanz

I guess I should have specified I fly on hard settings servers where there is no way to know where other aircraft are on the server, just as in WWII. I am not interested in gaming on easy servers where the players scroll through outside views and have icons.....it means about the same as someone bragging about how well they do on Pac-Man.


As for K_Freddie's escape from the LA-7s, good job because they are certainly faster than a 190A. I had a similar experience once, only managing to escape because I watched my engine temperature and the pilot of an La5fn did not and ruined his engine after chasing me for quite a while.

Although the La- series of Russian fighters are generally as fast or faster than their contemporary 190A opponents, they do have fragile engines and if their pilot does not know how to manage his Energy or his engine then the full potential of their aircraft will be wasted.

In earlier patches of IL2 the Russian aircraft seemed to come apart in high speed dives easier than they do in the last few patches. Back in the day I watched more than a few La- or other Russian fighter hit the ground behind me while trying to keep up with my 109 or 190 in a dive. It was always good for a chuckle.

They still do... but the effect is a little more nuanced across the lines. The Yak-9U for example had a better dive limit than the early Yak-9s. The La-7 is a bit better if I remember right than the early La-5. I can tell you that the Yak-7 falls apart at a pretty low dive speed... maybe even too low. You can't dive that thing at all!

[MaxGunz]

I seem to recall accounts from the Russian Aces about which planes could not chase or run from from Bf109's and in another case a Bf109 pilot that only managed to get out of a dive through extremely careful use of trim.

From what Gunther Rall who flew German and captured US planes wrote, it should be the P-51 and P-47 that are the highspeed dive champions. I dunno if he ever flew a P-39.

After running my own tests I saw how top end in a dive accounts for so many accounts I've read. But still, no one just dives away from bullets with only a 200m head start and a straight path.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

I seem to recall accounts from the Russian Aces about which planes could not chase or run from from Bf109's and in another case a Bf109 pilot that only managed to get out of a dive through extremely careful use of trim.

From what Gunther Rall who flew German and captured US planes wrote, it should be the P-51 and P-47 that are the highspeed dive champions. I dunno if he ever flew a P-39.

After running my own tests I saw how top end in a dive accounts for so many accounts I've read. But still, no one just dives away from bullets with only a 200m head start and a straight path.

That's the biggest problem I think... many have read about how superior X plane is in a dive and they use it at the last moment in a desperation move. And they get shot down because no matter how much faster the other plane is in a dive... it won't get you out of gun range if they are already chewing on your tail with their propeller.

[Laurwin]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

I seem to recall accounts from the Russian Aces about which planes could not chase or run from from Bf109's and in another case a Bf109 pilot that only managed to get out of a dive through extremely careful use of trim.

From what Gunther Rall who flew German and captured US planes wrote, it should be the P-51 and P-47 that are the highspeed dive champions. I dunno if he ever flew a P-39.

After running my own tests I saw how top end in a dive accounts for so many accounts I've read. But still, no one just dives away from bullets with only a 200m head start and a straight path.

This is true and Icefire is also right in his last post there...

I remember one encounter online in full real. I was flying mustang in 1943 against fw190A.

After a some manouvering, I got onto fw's six.

Focke wulf simply thought he could dive away from me and he started diving quite rapidly.

I immediately dived after him, slowly getting closer to gun range

I was getting closer, then the focke wulf went into even deeper and deeper dive

After maybe 2km of diving, the ocean level was getting awfully close to the focke wulf. He crashed into the ocean like a comet or something

Focke wulf didn't respect mustang's better speed and dive capability, and he paid the price.

(I didn't get the kill in game server rules, but it was manouver kill in real life rules)

[MaxGunz]

The acceleration, by the numbers, just isn't that great. Those planes accelerate at far less than 1G in addition to gravity that is only 1G when you go straight down. Even if your plane does accelerate faster than the other, the major factor in both is gravity which is the same for both. The pull-away isn't one stopped and the other dropped which would still allow for shots.

You need some initial angular separation or a surprise maneuver to create that like Robert S. Johnson had done in his mock 'combat' with the Spit. He out-rolled the Spit and broke, by the time Spit pilot got back on his trail he had distance and speed to pull a reversal while the Spit pilot still hadn't figured out what was happening let alone be ready to respond.

If you want to start a dive real fast, roll over and use your lift as it is the most powerful force you command in a WWII fighter. If you have the speed to pull 6G's then your biggest problem may be avoiding lawn darting. A follower that doesn't roll with you will overshoot and never catch up if you manage to not crash. Just hope you don't get shot to bits in the setup!