fw 190a5 flight model

[lonewulf]

My information about the fight between No 403 Canadian Squadron and I and II/JG 26 on 2 June 1942 comes from Mick Spick's 1996 book entitled, Luftwaffe Fighter Aces

If that account is correct, Al Deere's squadron (he was a NZer of course, not a Canadian) was first attacked from the rear at high speed by a single staffel and, as the Canadians turned to engage, they were then attacked from above and through cloud by two more staffeln, and then again from above by the whole gruppe. In essence Al Deere was compelled to engage the first attack which was about to overtake his formation, and then when he turned, he was flattened by the 190's waiting above. Tactics, and the speed advantage of the 190, won the day for the Germans.

I used to be a bit like you in that I was always trying to reconcile the IL-2 190 with the historical record. The IL-2 190 just never seemed to be as good as I expected. In truth I think the 190 enjoyed a brief window of superiority in 1942 when it was fast enough to dominate the Mk5. I also think that in part, this happy time' has quite a bit to do with the German's ability to fight the war over France on their terms, and to engage Fighter Command when and if the circumstances were favourable. Once the speed and climb advantage of the 190 was equaled or exceeded by the Mk 9, the contest between the two aircraft was much more equal.

[Gaston]

Originally Posted by lonewulf

My information about the fight between No 403 Canadian Squadron and I and II/JG 26 on 2 June 1942 comes from Mick Spick's 1996 book entitled, Luftwaffe Fighter Aces

If that account is correct, Al Deere's squadron (he was a NZer of course, not a Canadian) was first attacked from the rear at high speed by a single staffel and, as the Canadians turned to engage, they were then attacked from above and through cloud by two more staffeln, and then again from above by the whole gruppe. In essence Al Deere was compelled to engage the first attack which was about to overtake his formation, and then when he turned, he was flattened by the 190's waiting above. Tactics, and the speed advantage of the 190, won the day for the Germans.

I used to be a bit like you in that I was always trying to reconcile the IL-2 190 with the historical record.

Simply consider that the gross mistmatch of all flight sims with the historical record is [B]not[/] the result of ignoring flight physics theory...

The mismatch comes from precisely the fact that they all followed current flight physics to the letter (not a hard thing to do), and it simply illustrates perfectly how wrong our basic flight physics assumptions are for these types of aircrafts (which I believe have specific characteristics compared to jet fighters)...


Your account is very fragmentary for a fight that involved 8 British losses (which is quite a big fight, even in those days).

There is no difference in the tactics in your quote with what he describes being the tactics of the Me-109s (the whole point of my quote).

The whole point he makes is that he observed something different from the FW-190s that day, specifying that the difference was related to the fact that Me-109s usually feared the Spitfire's turning circle, and this is not apparent from the brief description you have: Ie, it is not the same aircrafts that hit them twice, but another group of FW-190s.

There is really not much of an element of "staying" in the fight in the more detailed account you have... In addition, the FW-190 didn't outclimb the Spitfire V by much, especially with its engine de-rated by the Luftwaffe at the time...

As an interesting side note, the same Al Deere reacted in this way when he was told the Spitfire had a superior turning radius to the FW-190A (from a captured example):

"Well turning doesn't win battles."

This is a rather cryptic statement which is commonly interpreted as meaning most "real world" fights involved diving and zooming, not turning...

However, contrary to the received wisdom, the reality of much WWII combat, if you read a large number of accounts, is that the wing-mounted guns have a convergence point, and thus are not even designed for dive and zoom attacks: They are designed for firing for some time at a target that is at a fixed distance: Wing guns are really optimized for turn fighting, because the location and convergence of the guns means you will have trouble placing enough rounds on a slower target if you are closing fast on it...

The only routine exception to this was the Pacific Theater where the Japanese fighters were fragile enough to make diving at them pay off, even with converging wing guns. With most other fighters, you had to pepper them a while to get them to go down (a fact poorly represented in sims I think), so turnfighting was the predominant rule, not the exception... Turnfighting was far more predominant in Western Europe, and grew more prominent still as the end of the war approached: This was because the opponents were similar in performance: For P-47s and P-51s the predominace of turn-fighting is on the order of 90%+ of all combats, this increasing towards the end...

Even the Eastern Front was mostly turn fighting, but more flexible in tactics, with many types having centralized armaments (Yaks, La-5s, P-39s, Me-109s), and the climbing performance being more unequal in favour of the Germans until mid-44.

The P-38 also had a centralized armament, and thus tried to use dive and zoom tactics as well, but the dominance of horizontal turnfighting in Western Europe, from late 1943 onwards, is generally a little appreciated fact of late WWII warfare...

The late war Spitfire, by the time the Mk IX came around, was by contrast almost exclusively used in dive and zoom attacks (in combat accounts): Its wing armament was not well-suited for that, but the velocity and destructiveness of the Hispano 20 mm seemed to obtain a lot instant explosions even on FW-190As, so it seemed to have compensated for the use of dive and zoom tactics.

Such tactics were helped on the Spitfire Mk IX by its world-beating climb rate (the +25 lb/80" Mk IX was the best piston-engined climber of WWII below 20 000 ft.), and its poor sustained low-speed turning performance (which still allowed a better unsustained speed radius at high speed after a dive)...

Consider that when Eric Brown reported he engaged a FW-190A by turning, while the FW dived and zoomed, and claimed this practice remained the war-wide character of both aircrafts for years, it is hardly an impressive account that either pilots were flying their machines at their best: They failed to even get a bead on each other...

A lot of early FW-190A combat accounts show the use of dive and zoom by the FW-190 (precisely in the period of supposed greatest FW-190 superiority): By late 1943 such accounts mostly disppear, because the more intuitively correct way to use the FW-190A (dive and zoom) turned out to be poorer despite the more favourable 1942 circumstances...

Osprey "Duel" #39 "La-5/7 vs FW-190", Eastern Front 1942-45:

P.69 "Enemy FW-190A pilots never fight on the vertical plane.---The Messerschmitt posessed a greater speed and better maneuverability in a vertical fight"

P.65 Vladimir Orekov: "An experienced Fw-190A pilot practically never fights in the vertical plane"


What is intuitively correct and self-evident rarely turns out that way in real life: That is why many WWII pilots will swear by things that are entirely false.

Yes the Spitfire could carve A- a tighter radius at high speeds than a FW-190A: But B- it never gained gradually on it in a slow turning fight: Not one instance of this I have unearthed so far...

There is physical reason why it happens in this counter-intuitive way, and I think it does relate to prop load leverages on the CL and whatnot: Things that have yet to be examined (I actually hope to do so one day). But the basic issue is that counter-intuitive complicated things do happen, and the easy-to-grasp intuitive stuff often turns out to have been sadly mistaken, no matter how widely believed it is or for how long.

Gaston

[lonewulf]

Odd, if Al Deere believed the 190 could stay with, or even out turn the Spit V, isn't it strange that he didn't tell his colleague so when the bloke tried to convince him that the Spit still had a few tricks up its sleeve. Fact is he didn't, did he. He didn't for instance say "Hey, hang on a minute there chum, actually the Spit won't out turn a 190". He just said "turning doesn't win battles". Now of course, that isn't strictly true in any case. If you're engaged by another fighter with less climb, dive and turn than you, chances are, he will be forced eventually to try and out-turn you and die in the process.

You mention Eric Brown. I've read his book Wings of the Luftwaffe several times and I don't remember him ever suggesting that the 190 was a 'turner' (I'm not suggesting you said he did by the way). He loved the aircraft as I recall but regarded it as an energy-fighter pure and simple. Don't you think it strange that if the 190 could out-perform the Spit in sustained turns that Eric Brown would have mentioned it? After all, the Spit was known for its ability to turn. If the 190 out-turned it, surely he would have mentioned it. After all, he flew examples of both aircraft many times.

Maybe I'm missing something here but as we both know, the 190 was evaluated by the RAF and other allied air forces on numerous occasions. The whole purpose of those evaluations was to test the capabilities of enemy aircraft against allied fighters so appropriate measures could be taken to counter their strengths. In all those reports, is there one that suggests the 190 could outperform the Spitfire in sustained turn? If there is, I certainly haven't seen it. However, those reports do mention the 190s advantages in speed and roll etc. Why would they remain silent on any turn advantage it might have if they happily identify its other advantages? These were secret reports after all so what was the problem? Why wouldn't this be mentioned? Or are we to believe these test pilots weren't very bright?

[JtD]

lonewulf, from experience I can tell you it is best to ignore Gaston. The forum has an ignore function, so you can let it ignore him for you.

[K_Freddie]

There's no smoke without a fire.
Gaston has some good points that a lot around here wish to ignore, as his hypothesis doesn't agree with the theorists (we were not there), or the indoctrinated (the P51 won the war) so therefore he's 'shot down'.


The obvious point he's making is that while the theoretical aeronautical formulae and calculations do play a role in the FMs, it's not the final say in the matter and there is a small percentage of unknown flight characteristics that are only known by the pilots themselves - some errant observations like canned flight tests, and others real. A trend is what one should look for, to get a fair idea.

an experienced pilot uses this small percentage to his advantage..

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by k_freddie

there's no smoke without a fire.
Gaston has some good points that a lot around here wish to ignore, as his hypothesis doesn't agree with the theorists (we were not there), or the indoctrinated (the p51 won the war) so therefore he's 'shot down'.


The obvious point he's making is that while the theoretical aeronautical formulae and calculations do play a role in the fms, it's not the final say in the matter and there is a small percentage of unknown flight characteristics that are only known by the pilots themselves - some errant observations like canned flight tests, and others real. A trend is what one should look for, to get a fair idea.

An experienced pilot uses this small percentage to his advantage..

I don't usually ........... but ............

+1

As a mission builder from v1.0 days watching the game change with the patches and new updates,
its clear "game balance" has been a factor in the strange FM's DM's in the present configuration of IL2 1946.

If the game is capable of running real world data if so then let it have it, will the game be fun anymore with this data, I doubt it.

The strange wing pylon loadings and other bomb mg/cannon data etc found in the past in the SFS files bemused many but made sense for "game balancing".

Lets just say the FW190 in IL2 has been the most "adjusted" for FM & DM over the years,



Butcher Bird or Butchered Bird ?





.

[K_Freddie]

Maybe someone would put the 'real' numbers into the FMs and bring reality to the benign term Full Real.

When IL2 came out the axis a/c were the underdogs and the allied superior. The challenge for me was to dedicate my time to the axis a/c an prove to myself that they can beat the allied ones - it was a challenge I enjoyed and for the most part, succeeded.

It the FM numbers were changed for the real, then it'll become a challenge for the Allied jockeys to enjoy. It will not make the game less attractive, but more so.

From most of my readings of WW2 DFs, all pilots crapped themselves on seeing opposition fighters, from then it was down to experience, tactics and FMs. Spitfires wear feared, FW190's simply made pilots sh1t themselves.
The distortion of allied superiority only occurred due to the greater numbers of a/c (and pilots) they had - as Stalin was noted for saying on the 'inferiority' of his a/c 'quantity has a quality of it's own'.

Here's one vote for a new game 'real' FM

[Gaston]

Originally Posted by K_Freddie

There's no smoke without a fire.
Gaston has some good points that a lot around here wish to ignore, as his hypothesis doesn't agree with the theorists (we were not there), or the indoctrinated (the P51 won the war) so therefore he's 'shot down'.


The obvious point he's making is that while the theoretical aeronautical formulae and calculations do play a role in the FMs, it's not the final say in the matter and there is a small percentage of unknown flight characteristics that are only known by the pilots themselves - some errant observations like canned flight tests, and others real. A trend is what one should look for, to get a fair idea.

an experienced pilot uses this small percentage to his advantage..

I do agree most WWII fighter pilots could probably use effectively a 5% advantage in turning performace. Maybe even a lot less, but certainly their flying skill would not erase more than about a 5% advantage.

An often forgotten fact is that all fighter pilots were the very best available among the whole pool of available pilots...

A race car driver probably routinely uses up to less than a fraction of 1% below the actual limit of the car in a turn, on a machine where the "stall" has virtually no warning or "rumble" other than a precise sensation of lateral load he learns to recognize.

If you accept that you take the wingloading of a Spitfire at 140 lbs/square feet, and that of a FW-190A at 215 lbs/sq ft. or even 230 lbs/sq ft. (similar power in the engine), then, for a fighter pilot to mishandle such an advantage to the point of losing a low-speed sustained horizontal turn contest, you would have to assume that a pilot of the caliber of Johnny Johnson is so incompetent that he can lose a competitive edge of over 60%: About 12 times the outer edge of what is even remotely possible...

That is 1200 % over anything plausible.

Yet not only are there several (if not numerous) disparate account of this impossible thing happening (with, additionally, one credible witness stating the FW-190A's superiority in low speed turns was an iron-clad rule vs the Spitfire: John Weir), but there are actually no first person examples anywhere of the "theoretically" more plausible outcome ever occurring...

I have been asking litterally for years now for a low-speed low-altitude turning battle where the Spitfire defeated the FW-190A in a series of sustained horizontal turns: In years nothing has surfaced...

A few examples were provided (by one of the more honest online detractors of mine, since all the others have always provided zip), but these examples where all at very high altitudes or preceded by a massive dive (suggesting high speed on the part of both the Spitfire and its target), and in fairness to him he did accept these objections as valid...

So this monstrous 60% advantage in wingloading somehow escaped all first person narration in actual low-speed combat...

And in the years of reading combat accounts since, only the strongest endorsement ever of my position has so far surfaced: John Weir's unequivoval statement that the Spitfire was out-turned easily by the Hurricane, and the Hurricane in turn was slightly out-turned by the FW-190A...

For the opposite view?: A whole lot of nothing.

The enormity of the Spitfire's 60% wingload advantage is only equalled by the utter discretion from witnesses: And after several years of searching, you have to wonder when something agreeing with current flight physics is ever going to come up...

The mistake is not small: I estimate up to 40% of the actual wing bending during a turn (dive pull-outs don't count) of some these machines (particularly the Spitfire) is not even acknowledged as happening, and the cause is completely unknown even if it was known to happen (which it isn't)...

And it would be very easy to blow my assertion out of the water: All you have to do is provide in-flight strain gauge wing bending data in level turns for WWII fighter types.

Guess what: There isn't any: The strain gauge values were done on the ground...

I would be delighted to be proven wrong by such in-flight WWII data, but my bet is the detractors will come up short on hard data, like they do on everything else...

Gaston

[lonewulf]

An often forgotten fact is that all fighter pilots were the very best available among the whole pool of available pilots...

Yes, yes, that makes sense doesn't it. I mean, what would be more difficult to manage, a large bomber with 4 engines and a crew or 7 or 10 men or a little single seat fighter. Hmmm ... umm ... hold on a minute ...

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Gaston

I have been asking litterally for years now for a low-speed low-altitude turning battle where the Spitfire defeated the FW-190A in a series of sustained horizontal turns: In years nothing has surfaced...

Try this one. It took a bit of looking but I found it again: http://books.google.ca/books?id=HofA...20turn&f=false

The action describes an early Typhoon Mark IB in a low level escort run with other Typhoons. In the battle a Typhoon and FW190 end up in a sea level turn fight and although descriptions of the battle is light... it illustrates that the FW190 and Typhoon had fairly similar turn rates. In this case the Typhoon pilot was still attempting to pull lead when the FW190 stalled with it's legendary wing drop and crashed in to the sea.

By all rights the RAF considers the Spitfire to be much more manoeuvrable in the horizontal than any model of Typhoon or Tempest. It's not a direct comparison (I'll have a look in some other books) but I remembered this story and I think it illustrates that the FW190s high wing loading, powerloading, and other aerodynamic features that make it such a great hunter do not provide for great turn rate at sea level. Particularly with an aircraft as heavy as the Typhoon was. So to lay it out. If a Spitfire is better in the horizontal than a Typhoon by a significant amount and the FW190 and Typhoon are roughly even (slight edge to the Typhoon?) then the Spitfire is going to be better in the horizontal. In my mind almost unquestioningly so given any number of battle accounts from either side on any front where the two clashed.

On a side note the FW190 is much more manoeuvrable than the Typhoon in all other regards. The Typhoon has a slight sea level edge in speed and a slightly better turn, however, it's roll response is one of the worst of the WWII fighters (note: The Tempest much improved on this with an excellent roll rate particularly in Series II models).