Quote:
Originally Posted by gaunt1
The problem is that FM of most fighters are based on the performance of prototypes, not serial production aircrafts.
I dont really think that Lerche's report is biased. Germans had to know about the real capabilities of the russian fighters, which became better and better during the war. I dont think that there were any propaganda in these tests. He also tested the Yak-3, and he praised it. But back to the La-5FN: It was in very good condition, the only defect of the aircraft was the supercharger, probably the second gear didnt work properly, this is why the speed data at altitude is so low. The turning performance in the test is quite accurate I think. Lerche found out that it was similar (or a bit worse) to the Bf-109, just compare the wing loading of the Lavochkin and the Messerschmitt, they are about the same. But ingame, La-5 can outturn even the Yak-3, the best dogfighter of the VVS in RL.
About the LaGG-3, I read everywhere that it was a terrible aircraft. Every pilot hated it. As I mentioned here, the Series4 model ingame is quite well modeled, (maybe except that it should be prone to stall without using combat flaps) but later versions gradually reach the level of the Yak-1B. This never happened in RL. If the LaGG became so good eventually, why was necessary to replace its weak VK-105 engine with the M82? I did some tests ingame, I was flying a LaGG-3 S66, vs. 2 ace AI Bf-109G6. I easily shot them down in 3 minutes. Dont say that its realistic. I tried it against a Yak-9 (1942), it was a tougher fight, but I didnt feel the LaGG inferior. The LaGG never had the performance to do this.
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From my perspective even if the Lerche report is unbiased... which is a possibility (the Germans were sticklers for records and record keeping in general) it's still a matter of the aircraft being operated under wartime conditions by the hostile force which means that not everything is known about the aircraft or how to operate it. I would suspect they would get less out of the aircraft because of that. My example would be the US flight testing of the Zero where the carb was installed incorrectly and lead to Negative G cut off where Japanese versions had no such problem. Purely annecdotal of course but I think the point is valid.
Even if the Lerche test was perfect and unbaised, it would still be problematic to base performance purely on those accounts.
If the current performance levels are based on prototypes that would also be problematic. Most aircraft suffered from prototype to production model.
What can't be used as an argument is you flying against an AI Bf109 and judging the aircraft as "too good". That's a completely biased method of testing. I can go and do the same thing, achieve the same result, and feel totally differently about the aircraft. It works well for trading stories and giving advice to people playing the game but it doesn't work as a flight modeling discussion.
Although I can't speak to how correct or incorrect the late series LaGG-3 is... I can suggest that a little history shows that the LaGG-3 Series 66 was kept in production fairly late into the war, fighting with units on the Crimea peninsula (6 GvIAP if I remember right) and was a very refined model of the LaGG-3 whereas the first M82 engined LaGG prototypes were split off from much earlier examples and production diverged from there. It's not unreasonable to expect that a late model LaGG-3 has at least passable levels of performance but it's clear that the type has reached it's performance maximum where the La-5 design has greater potential.