[klem]

I don't know where this idea that the 109 was a better dogfighter than the Spitfire has crept in from. There are many accounts of the Spitfire being superior when in a dogfight against its contemporary 109. Read Al Deere's 'Nine Lives' and his acount of several 109s trying to dogfight two Spitfire MkIs over Calais Mark at the time of Dunkirk, they brought three 109s down. Read Johnny Johnsons's 'Wing Leader' and his early accounts of flying with Douglas Bader. The 109's preferred tactic wasn't dogfighting, it was what we would call energy tactics. The 109's wing loading was far higher than the Spitfire or Hurricane which reduced its turning capability but it had a much better power to weight ratio which is why it could outclimb them. Heinz Knoke wrote in his book 'I Flew for the Fuhrer' that his most reliable tactic for evading them was a spiral climb which would leave the allied fighters clawing for height and risking a stall. Even Adolph Galland infamously asked Goering for Spitfires when told he must fly close to the bombers because he was aware of their superior dogfighting capability. It was not how he wanted to fly the 109.

As for the idea that the 109 was generally the best aircraft in the BoB, that assumes they always had the advantage (which they generaly did due to the enforced defensive tactics of the RAF) but when the Spitfires had the advantage of height etc. the tables were turned because the Spitfire was a perfectly good energy fighter too, it just didn't have too many opportunities to demonstrate that. It was not as well armed as the 109 which is why you could put up a balance of attributes and claim the 109 was better but the 'best' aircraft depended on the circumstances.

Regarding CoD FMs, they need to be realistic as far as possible and provide close relative performance to the real thing although they are unlikely ever to be perfect and we should stop trying to chase an elusive 5% or whatever. In any case pilot skill and opportunity will often negate a reasonable or even large percentage of performance. Just give us FMs as close as you can get.

As for Gameplay and 'historical accuracy' that can only be achieved by mission design and engagement rules, assuming FMs are near enough correct, but this will always be prevented in CoD due to the limitation in numbers the game can support. This is why CoD can never represent the scale of the BoB, the best that can be achieved is a representation of a few of the raids. Mission engagement rules are hard to put in place in a general use on-line server because, for example, most Red pilots are reluctant to fly tight Vic formations, are probably incapable of doing it anyway, and fly combat spread instead for obvious reasons. The kind of scenarios flown in the MMPOG 'Aces High' were the closest I ever came with several hundred participants pre-registered and allocated to Squadrons/Units with clear rules of engagement and a moderator to kick/ban anyone who broke those rules. Oh yes, and you only had one life so you were MUCH more careful about what you did and how/whether you engaged. These take a lot of work to set up, even for a small scale representation of a few raids in CoD. I'm sure the community would really enjoy them but many would not because many just want to dogfight and get kills. You can fly for ages in those scenarios and never see an enemy (as it often used to be in RL) and recent matches between 56RAF and 5./Jg27 on a small scale have left us both searching unsuccessfuly for up to an hour.

So, lets have the FMs as close as possibe including the engines, no daft flight capability with half a wing, 109 pilots suffering and aircraft performance affected by fuel explosions, reasonably balanced AI gunners, etc. etc., and then we'll see how good we are.