Wings with slats stall too. Look at 109 slats. They not cover all leading edge of wing but mostly airleon area. So it mean that your wing root could be actualy in stall but wingtips still have lift and you aircraft is controlalble. You push stick more and your wing tips would stall also. Slats in 109 cause much more control in stall depart and very good stall symptoms but still if you push it more you will stall your plane. It would help a lot but not elimante stall completly.

In Spits other hand there was wingtips washout which also allow higher angle of attack in wingtips and when your wing roots were in stall your wing tips and airleons were not and your plane was still controlable until you push it more. Spit had also good symptoms of incoming stall.

Of course slats give 109 more gentle stall but other hand casue some more other problems with not symetrical opening slots in both wings ( in slip or slide).

Not from Denmark :(

I love this thread! I have read the entire thing!

I apologize for not having anything to contribute on the subject, however, I wanted to post my appreciation for all the thought, dedication and hard work that goes into the mechanics of each and every plane in the IL-2 series.

This thread demostrates the fact that we all here respect the men and women who flew these amazing machines our desire to recreate as close as possible the conditions these people encountered in various circumstances.

I have worked in the aircraft manufacturing industry so many of the things discussed here intrigue me on a mechanical level.

Thank you posters for a fascinating discussion!

I know.... :)

Here is the BBC Doc:
For the Spit enthusiasts: Part 4 is the part were they talk about the advantages and disadvantages of Spit vs 109...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDDeLRy7UM0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5D49...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IHLZ...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8FsR...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MW0i...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIcWx...eature=related

[i]A fresh analysis into the Battle of Britain, exploring the German point of view, and highlighting the role of those who supported the Few during the summer of 1940.
Focusing on the tactics, technologies and intelligence available to both sides, Mr. Holland examines the ways in which both Germany and Britain used their resources: from aircraft to air defence, and from intelligence to organisation. And, by gaining rare firsthand testimony from German veterans, and access to the untapped diaries and documents we reveal that this was a battle of two sides and many layers.[/]

-------------------------
Spit vs Me 109 Part 4 from Min. 3 sec 20....

Spit 14.7 sec of fire Pee Shooter Ammo vs Me 109 55 sec of fire.. nearly 4 times as long!

If this and other facts are modeld in Olegs "realistic Simulation" "Cliffs of Dover".... no one will fly spit.....
---

Why will no one fly spitfire? From what I read, the spit and the 109 are so close in performance, that the pilot will be the decisive factor. And firepower is worthless if you can't get behind the ennemy.

Btw. I am saying that as a pure blue flyer, so no bias for the spit from me.

pls hear !!! the pilots from both !!! sides in part 4 of BBC Doc.... ;-)
they are not so close in performance.... ;-)

IL2 are balanced... and COD will be the same.....

Well, never trust only one source. And If the 109 faces a spit with higher boost pressure (100 octan fuel) which were common in the BOB, then the speed advantage is for the spit at most altitudes.

in this doc different pilots (plural!!!) talk... about advantages and disadvantages of Spit vs 109.
And yes to: never trust only one source.... but if i see such sources (pilots, facts).... I beginn to trust....

but anyway.... dont feed.... ;-)

Sorry, Corto, but ... Never take interviews conducted 50 or 60 years after the event as gospel. Take them as a facet of what happened, but we're all humans and therefor fallible. Do you still remember every little tidbit you experienced two or three years ago? ;)

Well ...

Spitfire 8 machine guns to fire vs. Me 109 2 machine guns to fire ... nearly 4 times of guns!

I'm not counting the MG FF, 'cause the 55 sec. of fire only applies to the machine guns, not the canons.

Quite right. This was the first thing that glared at me from the way this documentary was presented when I saw the first broadcast.
The 109 has to hold a 'plane in it's sights 4 times as long to get same weight of projectiles on target, compared to Hurris and Spits, using machine guns alone.
As it happens 55 secs is near enough four times 14.7secs. Roughly the same rate of fire.
The sensible view of this is that the 109 pilots had loads of time to sight the target with their m/g's, then let go with a short burst of cannon.:)

Whatever the differences, planes on both sides were shot down. Axis Bomber crews suffered heavily, their fighters had low combat time, RAF tactics improved whereas Axis were impeded by Goering's close escort strategy. In simple gaming terms the Spit may well appear to be at a disadvantage given the nature of on-line participation. If there are more 'blue' flyers in CoD MP then at least that will be accurate. I just hope they (Axis Fighters) have low fuel tanks and some of the Allied flyers can work together as a team (which rarely happens at the mo!) :grin:

Well, that's a good explaination for Il2, but the RL Bf-109E had all the guns linked to the same trigger ;)

Separate MG and Cannon triggers didn't come until the Bf-109F.

That is just plain wrong.

http://www.cockpitinstrumente.de/arc...chusswaffe.pdf

The E-1/3 detailed here feature already the seperate triggers for cowl MGs (Abzughebel / A-Knopf) and wing MGs/cannons (B-Knopf).

Ahh

Read it in a book a while back (think it was by William Green, but not 100% sure on that). Probably should have checked other sources first :-)

I want my previous state of perceived knowledge rather than this altered state of whatever!

I havent got a fckn CLUE how a Spit actually flies, but i demand you change it !

May have been a bit harsh with my choice of words, so I am glad you took it in a sporting manner. It is just that I don't like to see others being corrected without actual presentation of proof.

I am primarily an off-line flyer, and don't really care about one side having an edge over another. I fly almost exclusively "red", preferring Hurricanes rather than Spitfires. I am extremely pleased with the "new" 'Tilly orifice'! Thank you TD for making the game more immersive!

From a purely game enjoyment-POW, I think neutral trim for all planes (not just Spitfires) should be set to combat speed. When you are cruising around at economy setting, you have all the time in the world to fiddle with the trim-knob. When in a fight you have more than enough with keeping an eye on temperatures, superchargers and stalls, not to mention trying not to get shot down. Going straight and level for a few seconds to adjust your trim is fairly low on the priority-list.

I have no idea how trim was adjusted in real life. I suppose a pilot could always ask the mechanics to adjust it to his personal liking. I would therefore like to ask TD if they would consider changing the trim setting so that "neutral" trim is close to maximal cruise speed rather than to maximal fuel economy cruise speed in the upcoming 4.11 patch. Would that be possible without upsetting some other aspect of the game code?

There were strengths and weaknesses in both aircraft and at the end of the day, pilot skill and experience was almost always the deciding factor. I think you'll find that not everyone chooses a ride based on ego alone. Just because an aircraft is outclassed in a certain department doesn't mean people will avoid it. If the Spit was good enough for our boys in 1940 then it sure is good enough for me now.

Check out the BoB loss figures and you'll find that the Spits and Hurris did a pretty good job, irrespective of how superior the 109 was.

I will.

I saw that documentary when it was aired, very good. As above, explaining the 109 has cannon and 55 seconds is misleading, but regardless, it had the better guns. But again, as above, that's no good when you're on the wrong end.

There was little else in that documentary to say that a 109 will do better (please quote from in if you disagree). Hans Ekkehard Bob says he was always able to out-manoeuvre the Spitfire pilots, but he was probably a better pilot than those he was up against, and he was certainly more experienced. It's like if you wanted to work out which aircrafts suffered most PKs, and asked the survivors - they'd all explain that they were never killed (er, obviously). So if you ask the survivors, they tend to be the ones that did pretty well.

Comments from Tom Neil don't cover dogfights from those at equal altitude. He often talks of 109s dropping down to attack him.

The evidence from all sources seems to suggests:
the 109 has better guns
the 109 can accelorate more quickly when diving
the 109 can push it's nose down without losing power - Spit will lose power but engine won't cut.
Spit climbes faster
Spit turns quicker
Spit is faster in level flight

When there are a lot of aircraft in a fight, being able to dive away from danger, and having the firepower to more easily knock the opponent out in one pass are big advantages.
When a fight is one on one, I think the Spit has the key advantages.
Team play and tactics will be important.

If the trim was adjustable in flight there was no reason to do anything.
If you mean presets for the ground adjustable trims (for example, rudder in a 109 or aileron in a hurricane), then i guess it does have some merit.
For pilot-adjustable trim tabs it's a non-issue since the pilot will be fiddling with it soon enough. For example if my mechanic sets my elevator trim in the Spit and i climb in the cockpit, i'll see the trim indicator needle showing an off-center position and i'll have the same amount of remaining trim towards either direction as if i had done it myself, it's not like i somehow have a "surplus" of trim tab tab travel because the mechanic did it.

In any case, the main problem with what you describe is that real life combat speeds are not IL2 combat speeds. First of all, what is combat speed? I guess we could define it as the airspeed reached with maximum continuous power and in level flight.

Well, if trims were set to real life combat speeds, people would still complain and the reason is simple: both us and the AI fly way faster than was possible in reality, due to the simplified engine management model.

For example, there would be no reason whatsoever to trim a Spitfire's ailerons for +16lbs or something like that which could be held for less than a minute, they would probably trim it for something like +8/+9 lbs of boost which was actually what the engine could do indefinitely without overheating or damage. In IL2 we all fly higher than those limits because the only penalty is a resettable overheat timer that must reach 5 minutes before any damage occurs, the AI doesn't have any penalty whatsoever, so we have to choose between unrealistic trim presets or more manual control inputs at the unrealistic high speeds we attain. Actually, it's not the speeds per se that are unrealistic, it's how long we can keep going that fast that is the problem ;)

yes...true....

In cases where a pilot could ask his ground crew to adjust trim before take-off, we should be able to do the same in game. Obviously as you say there's only any need where the aircraft doesn't allow in-flight trim adjustments, but it saves worrying about what we all consider neutral at combat speed - just allow us to adjust trim when the aircraft is on the ground. May not be possible in IL2, but it would be good if it was possible in, er, IL2 :rolleyes: (CoD)

Adjusting trim settings for combat? Hardly possible imo. In a fight you go from stall speed in tight turns to high speed dives. Your velocity will change every second. The only logical trim setting is the cruise speed. That's the speed range you will be in 90% of your flight.

+1

But just to drop a big spanner in the works, no one has yet mentioned insane roll rates if you fly at 100's on your stick. From memory, IRL, a 109 at 400mph took 4 (four!) seconds to roll 180 degrees. If TD changed the game to reflect RL rates of roll, it would be great. The FW190 would become pretty uber though! Lots of red whiners, lol.

Actually a number of LW pilots claimed the Spitfire guns were better against fighters than the 109 cannon (due mainly to the poor RoF) and the cannon were really only an advantage when attacking bombers.

That's interesting, thanks. It can't be easy to get the damage model from bullets right, in real life if a pilot could still fly home after being shot, they would. In IL2, we'll keep going unless we're on fire (time to rtb :rolleyes:). Cannons obviously do more damage but bullets were still very effective. Both sides were choosing to use bullets at the end of the war when they could have used cannons exclusively if they'd preferred.

Is there any documentation on why they added cannon to the Spitfire, but kept machine guns too (whether they just thought cannons were better, or if the cannons were primarily for shooting bombers)?

As far as I know the only side who prefered lots of MGs were the Americans.
Russians equipped their fighter planes with canons La5/7 Yaks, and their goal was not to destroy waves of German bombers, since the Germans almost stopped using them.

In general, both sides wished to replace machine guns with cannon wherever possible. USN studies showed that one Hispano cannon has firepower equivalent to 3-3.5 .50cal Browning MGs. The Hispano's rate of fire and muzzle velocity are only marginally lower than the Browning M2, making it an excellent weapon with a great balance of ease of use vs damage.

However, in certain cases it wasn't possible. Spitfires for example retained MGs even after the C Wing versions could be fitted with 4 cannon, because there were issues with the outer guns freezing up at high altitude. Eventually they did switch to full cannon armament for the MK21, but this saw only very limited service before the war ended.

US attempts to use the 20mm Hispano were thwarted by their redesigning the gun in an attempt to make it conform to American manufacturing standards. The resulting version had an extended chamber, which caused rounds to misfire, and was also prone to jamming when fitted in wing mountings (although it worked reasonably well when fitted in fuselage mountings, since these suffer less from vibration). Despite the manufacture of large quantities of both guns and ammuntion, the problems were not resolved until near the war, at which point the change would only have caused disruption.

I quite agree. That is why I suggested setting trim to max cruise speed (which I guess correspond to +8/+9 lbs of boost). The very top speed any plane can reach is quickly bled off when one start to turn to aim anyway, I would think the +8/+9 lbs boost speed would make an appropriate compromise. 170 mph is a bit on the slow side though.

Helofly, what do you mean by cruise speed? Fuel economy fuels speed or max cruise speed? I think this difference is the crux of the matter.