I think the Me 110...

[Shadylurker]

I was under the impression the 110 was pretty decent early on but was easily out classed quite quickly..?? IDK about out turning.

[Viper2000]

A Spitfire or Hurricane at +6¼ psi and 3000 rpm will only give about 880 bhp at sea level.

With a 2 position prop you might not be able to even get 3000 rpm, in which case, fewer rpm means less power again.

The DB601A's 1 minute rating is 1100 PS at sea level, ie about 1085 bhp; its 5 minute rating was 1025 PS, or about 1011 bhp.



So you really don't want to be caught on the deck in an RAF fighter if the Merlin dragging it through the sky is burning 87 octane fuel, especially if it doesn't have a constant speed prop.

OTOH, if you have 100 octane fuel and a constant speed prop then the Merlin III will give something like 1200 bhp at +12 psi boost and 3000 rpm; the Merlin XII's takeoff rating was 1175 bhp at +12½ psi at 3000 rpm - but it had a supercharger gear ratio of 9.089 to get a higher FTH and make better use of 100 octane fuel. Therefore the Merlin III with a supercharger gear ratio of 8.588 would actually develop more bhp on the deck because it's using less power to drive its supercharger; 1200-1250 bhp is a reasonable estimate.

I think that in all probability if/when we get 100 octane Spitfires and Hurricanes that the 110 will have a rather hard time of it on the deck.

Unfortunately it's not possible to fight at high altitude with CEM at the moment; but if we could then the extra power available to the Merlin at its FTH would make quite a big difference to the performance picture.

So I think that at the moment it's all about waiting for patches to fix the high altitude bug and to give the RAF 100 octane fuel. I don't think that the Bf-110's performance is excessive, though I obviously haven't been able to test properly at altitude, and there are still quite a lot of general performance questions to be answered (see my test flying thread).

[senseispcc]

Originally Posted by Shadylurker

I was under the impression the 110 was pretty decent early on but was easily out classed quite quickly..?? IDK about out turning.

They did well, the Me 110, in Poland but in France they were easy targets even for the older fighters, Ms 406, H75, this planes had more problems with the bombers than the Me110.
In the battle of Britain, the Me 110 did become more or less obsolete. Escort was provided for them very early in the campaign. In Russia they were used has ground attack airplane.
In the game after many try the Me110 has always a very good rear gunner, speed advantage.
Also the Spitfire Mk I and Mk Ia do something very strange that they do not do in any other scenario, the rpm at first normal 2700 fall to less than 2200 in the first 15 seconds, never happens elsewhere. So my Spitfire does not climb at all.

[Viper2000]

I guess you're flying with CEM turned off and so the sim is putting the prop into coarse pitch for you after takeoff. You can get more rpm in coarse pitch by flying faster.

If you want manual pitch control then you need to turn CEM on, but in that case you need to be careful not to over-rev your engine.