Great documentary about the Battle of Britain

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by Hellbender

In that documentary they say the 109 could out-turn and out-run ("They could hit us as they wanted and get away with it every time they wanted") the Spitfire. That doesn´t somehow match with my experience in the game.

There's no point in that documentary where it says the 109 could out-turn the Spit. This documentary was on uk tv some months back. Tom Neal who was commenting about the 109s being able to hit the British and escape when they wanted was largely being modest. If it really was as simple as that, Tom Neal would have died, and the Germans would have shot down more than they lost, but the reverse is true.

Originally Posted by Triggaaar

There's no point in that documentary where it says the 109 could out-turn the Spit. This documentary was on uk tv some months back. Tom Neal who was commenting about the 109s being able to hit the British and escape when they wanted was largely being modest. If it really was as simple as that, Tom Neal would have died, and the Germans would have shot down more than they lost, but the reverse is true.

You cannot deduce from pure and general kill numbers during Bob (and even these numbers can be debated) if the 109 or the spit was superiour. This is utterly nonsense for several reasons:

- The numbers usually given for Bob are total numbers disrespecting types of planes. My bet is that most plane losses on German sides are bombers. So not helpful at all when comparing Spit vs 109 because bombers are no 109s. So you cannot say from these numbers how effective or ineffective the German fighter force really was with respect to the RAF on a fighter vs fighter comparison.
- you would have to compare kills of 109 by Spit and kills of Spit by 109 to get a statement. However most kills in Bob were made by Hurricane. So also if we had a number showing kills fighter vs fighter it would be pointless as we would have to distinguish between the two RAF fighter types. Remember that the Hurricane was the most numerous plane engaged in Bob on RAF side and scored most of the kills. A highly underestimated plane in the Bob celebrations. I have a lot more admiration for the Hurri pilots as they were performing in an inferiour plane.
- comparing pure kill numbers to deduce relative performance leaves out context. Who had the more advantage (for instance altitude, numbers) at the initial stage of a dogfight would likely come out victor.
- comparing numbers leaves out the significance of fighter tactics that are essential in a dogfight.


And even in a 1vs1 dogfight (if we had relevant statistical data to make conclusions) one could only compare if both pilots had the same experience and the same capacities.

So even if a Spit pilot says that he could outturn the 109 it has to be looked into detail. Perhaps the 109 pilot was a novice not very familiar with the plane and therefore did not dare to go close to the limits of stall in order to pull tight. Perhaps he also had not yet gained a good feel for when the 109 turns best.

The same goes for pilots claiming that they could outturn a Spit. If the 109 pilot knew the limits of his plane and could pull it to the limits while the Spit pilot was a novice it is highly believable that the 109 pilot could outturn that particular Spit.

So one has to be very very carefull when just deducing this and that by comparing summary kill numbers and even when listening to pilot narrations.

[Phantom77]

I think we can't tell for sure which plane was superior. Both side will say that our plane was better than the other. As the RAF evaluation of captured 109's , I truly can't believe the results they published cos surely it must be propagada at some point and you can't say to your pilots that their planes are inferior in any way not good for morale. Also they tested damaged planes and was the test pilot really pushing the aircraft to the limits ? Too much variables and the only way to know the truth is to view the BOB live but we can't go back in time so.....