[CaptainDoggles]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Snapper

As I see it right now with the current FM's, if any model of 109 meets a Spit I/Ia or Hurricane DH5-20/Rotol in a 1 v 1 with both pilots having equal ability; the 109 will win because it can hold the initiative in the fight.

I don't believe this to be true at all. If both pilots are of equal skill, and the Hurri pilot goes for angles while the 109 pilot goes for energy, it ought to be a stalemate every time, ultimately boiling down to who makes a mistake first. As long as the Hurri has speed and the pilot has reasonable tactical knowledge, the pilot can deny a guns-tracking solution to his opponent in the 109.

It will climb above its quarry, the Red fighter will stall first if it tries to match it. The 109 can b & z at will, the Red fighter can only turn to avoid the firing pass. It can't outrun or outdive the 109, it's only a matter of time when the 109, diving out of the sun, will hit the Red fighter and win the fight. No 109 pilot in his right mind will engage a Red fighter in a turn & burn fight.

Let me turn that around on you. Why would sane Hurricane pilots engage a 109 in an energy fight? Note that I am not advocating racing around the sky hauling back on the pole as hard as possible all the time. But angles tactics are perfectly valid if the situation is appropriate. I can elaborate if anyone likes, but I would encourage those who are interested to pick up a copy of Shaw's book Fighter Combat.

So many times a Red pilot is in a 1 v 1 co-energy encounter, only to have the 109 raise its nose, climb hard away, then hammerhead in the sun and dive back down with guns blazing.

Well first of all, from Co-E if a 109 tries to sustained-climb away he's going to get his plane shot out from under him. It's happened to me plenty of times where I've misjudged the energy states, found out the Hurri had more spank than anticipated, and he's got enough to pull the nose up and hit me. Secondly, the 109 doesn't climb that much better than the Hurri. It takes a good long while to build enough vertical separation to split-S down onto him. Thirdly, 109s are not hammerheading around on top of people when they're coming out of a 240 km/h climb. You hammerhead at the top of a zoom climb, not a sustained climb, and trying to out-zoom a 109E in a Hurri would be like trying to out-zoom a P-47 in a Spitfire. I think you and I both know this is not the way to attack a 109 in clod. Nor is trying to chase him upward in a spiral climb, which is what I see time and again online.

When Blue pilots respond by saying "Don't play into the 109's game; disengage, grab altitude yourself, then come back and do it to the 109". To which the Red pilots reply, "No....give us Spitfire IIa's and YOU disengage, grab some alt, and come back at us".

Here's where it falls apart. 109 vs Hurri is not the same situation as 109 vs Spit2. The Hurri has a performance advantage over the 109 (turn). The 109 has no performance advantages over the Spit2. If you watch (for example) Mr.X's videos you can see that the negative-G cutout is really no concern at all: he pushes the nose forward all the time to get the shot.

The Rotol, if flown well, is a good opponent to all models of the 109, the Ia struggles a bit.

I agree.

I'm aware that the auto-pitch on the E4 is over-hyped and that experten 109 pilots probably stick with manual pitch control for top performance.

I'm sure some do. I myself appreciate the E4 mostly for the decreased pilot workload and am willing to take the performance hit if it means I can spend a little bit more time checking 6 and a little less time fiddling with prop pitch. It's a colossal pain in the butt, even compared to the Rotol because the pitch mechanism is so slow (variable pitch prop vs constant speed prop). I find the Rotol CSP mechanism to be superior, even compared to the E4.

The perception on the Red side, rightly or wrongly, is that the auto-pitch turns even noob Blue pilots into aces overnight. I'm sure they wish that were true! Perhaps a greater concern was that the E4 uber-cannon could knock down a Blenheim before the Blennie had a chance to line up its target.

I think that if those pilots were to fly E4s, they'd soon discover that loading armor-piercing bullets into the MG-17 nose guns is vastly superior to Minegeschoss shells when it comes to taking down bombers. This isn't 1946 and we aren't slinging Mk 108 shells around.

I posted about this a few months back on simhq; if I'm shooting well, it takes only 150 or so rounds of MG-17 to wreck an engine on the Blenheim or the Wellington, which makes the AI bail out and probably renders the aircraft ineffective to a human pilot. No need for cannons at all: I save those for fighters.

Past differences aside, good flying and look foward to seeing you over the Channel.

Likewise. S~