And the performance difference between E-3 and E-4 was? ;)

There were more E-4s around by late September than all Spitfire Marks combined...

On 31 August 1940, fighter units (excluding JG 77) reported>

375 E-1s,
125 E-3s,
339 E-4s
32 E-7s on strength,

Most of the E-3s had been already converted to E-4 standard.

By July, one Gruppe (Wing) of JG 26 was equipped with the Bf 109 E-4/N model of improved performance, powered by the new DB 601N engine using 100 octane aviation fuel.

Of course its interesting to note still more e1's than e4's at that point in time.

And..? They only differ armament and arguably the E-1 armament was more practical against fighters. Performance was the same. Ever since the beginning, there seems to be trend that the ration of cannon and machinegun Emils was roughly 1:1.

Some of the photos I have seen hint that the idea may have been that the leader (attacker) flew a cannon armed Emil while he was covered by an E-1 with MGs.

And it is just what it is.

there are still many people here who perpetuate the myth that all 109's were cannon armed during BoB, i know you know better.

I imagine that the performance would actually be marginally better for the E1 no? slightly lighter and marginally less drag from the wings i would guess, maybe you know more on this?

Not sure irl I prescribe to the machine gun version being more adequate against fighters, but certainly in game i do, this maybe due to the fact that many of us have thousands of hours more shooting practice in our virtual life's than real pilots during the battle had.

I'm sure you have read 'Spitfire on my tail' and whilst that prescribes to the leaders having cannon armed versions, I very much doubt that that was a planned policy, merely that the leaders got the better equipment with what was there to go around, and from JG to JG the equipment levels varied due to many reasons including politics.

It also shows in Ulrichs case anyway, that once he got a cannon armed 109, his kills went up.

E-1's were maybe a km/h faster and weighed 35 kg less, giving it marginally better climb. In other words, the differences between an E-1 and E-3/4 were considerably smaller than production tolerance, even if I think that in a computer game a relative 1% difference should be somehow modelled.

thanks JtD. I did say marginally, lol!

The prob is that, E1 and E4 does not differ only by the guns. There was also a range of modification implemented at the level of the units. So 35 kg is a difficult assumption that I don't know were you sourced it from.

Does it include only the canon, the canopy, the added armor etc...

I think that devs should concentrate on what is representative of the period. We don't need E7/N, 100oct and what ever. We hve already seen the mess with the Mig3U and alike. No more!

Sorry for being unclear, it's the difference between E-1 and E-3, speeds as tested by Messerschmitt and weight from the manuals. E-4 might be a bit more again, but values would still be inside production tolerances.

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