Friday Update, April 13, 2012

[Volksieg]

Originally Posted by Madfish

[*]If you want strategy play Civilization V.

I agree with everything you have just said, Madfish.... apart from the above! Civilization IV, The Total War games and Hearts of Iron series..... surely!

[king1hw]

Ok I have said my piece about the speed issue and will just give it a go! I am however logically puzzled by the moves. Anyway see you in the skies and NO LAUNCHER ISSUE. Mabe then those great programers can get busy making amazing servers.

king

[Sutts]

Originally Posted by Osprey

+1

He genuinely is. It's funny how he undermines the graph I posted showing roll rate, but posts and IDENTICAL graph showing roll rate plus some other stuff that nobody was talking about.

Grathos, time to get the tissues out.

I was going to say exactly the same thing Osprey. The actual roll rate graph wasn't cropped at all! Very misleading indeed. NOT.

If we're going to look at stick forces then they're pretty much the same up to 300MPH which is the zone we should be most interested in. Can't imagine much dogfighting going on at speeds in excess of 300MPH.

In terms of roll rate, I can easily believe that the 109 had the edge in the roll at lower speeds. The Spitfire had 13% more wingspan and 39% more wing area so the odds are with the 109 for sure.

It's been said before but I think a lot of the arguments here are caused by quoting performance facts without the full context of speed, altitude etc.

I like this statement which sums up my opinion on the turning issue:
The 109 was capable of turning with a Spitfire, but it could only do this at low speeds where its leading edge slats gave it the advantage. At normal dogfight speeds the Spitfire had the advantage.

[fruitbat]

Originally Posted by Martin77

Me 109 E:
"During what was later called the 'Battle of Britain', we flew the Messerschmitt Bf109E. The essential difference from the Spitfire Mark I flown at that time by the RAF was that the Spitfire was less manoeuvrable in the rolling plane. With its shorter wings (2 metres less wingspan) and its square-tipped wings, the Bf 109 was more manoeuvrable and slightly faster. (It is of interest that the English later on clipped the wings of the Spitfire.)
For us, the more experienced pilots, real manoeuvring only started when the slats were out. For this reason it is possible to find pilots from that period (1940) who will tell you that the Spitfire turned better than the Bf 109. That is not true. I myself had many dogfights with Spitfires and I could always out-turn them. This is how I shot down six of them."
- Erwin Leykauf, German fighter pilot, 33 victories. Source: Messerschmitt Bf109 ja Saksan Sotatalous by Hannu Valtonen; Hurricane & Messerschmitt, Chaz Bowyer and Armand Van Ishoven.

Me 109 E:
"Personally, I met RAF over Dunkirk. [During this] battle not a single Spitfire or Hurricane turned tighter than my plane. I found that the Bf 109 E was faster, possessed a higher rate of climb, but was somewhat less manouverable than the RAF fighters. Nevertheless, during the campaign, no Spitfire or Hurricane ever turned inside my plane, and after the war the RAF admitted the loss of 450 Hurricanes and Spitfires during the Battle of France." In the desert there were only a few Spitfires, and we were afraid of those because of their reputation from the Battle of Britain. But after we shot a couple of them down, our confusion was gone."
- Herbert Kaiser, German fighter ace. 68 victories.

"Unexperienced pilots hesitated to turn tight, bacause the plane shook violently when the slats deployed. I realised, though, that because of the slats the plane's stalling characteristics were much better than in comparable Allied planes that I got to fly. Even though you may doubt it, I knew it [Bf109] could manouver better in turnfight than LaGG, Yak or even Spitfire."
- Walter Wolfrum, German fighter ace. 137 victories.

Which along with the numerous quotes i have in books by RAF pilots (Al Deere, Brian Kingcombe, Johny Kent etc...), saying how they could out turn the 109 in the BoB goes to show only one thing.

That the planes were fairly even and that the better pilot could out turn a worse pilot irrespective of whether they were flying a spit or a 109.......

[Bewolf]

Let's just put it this way, those who got outmanoevered by their adversary didn't go home to tell the tale how they turned worse then the enemy.

[6S.Manu]

Originally Posted by zapatista

and when he was being tasked with protecting bomber formations (rather then go on free hunts where the 109's could build an advantage prior to starting an engagement).....

Followed by:

Of course fundamentally I preferred our Me-109 to the Spitfire. But I was unbelievably vexed at the lack of understanding and the stubbornness with which the command gave us orders we could not execute - or only incompletely - as a result of many shortcomings for which we were not to blame

Martin77 posted real pilots' personal opinions while what you posted is an example of how information can be manipulated.

Originally Posted by RCAF_FB_Orville

Gentle reader, please note that this Hungarian Lunatic Kurfurt-Barbarrossa-Isegrim is an obsessive, compulsive, intellectually dishonest professional LIAR whom has been Permanently life time banned from wikipedia for a variety of offenses, including harassment, and various other flight sim and aviation forums for his habitually mendacious and calculated campaign of utterly unfounded, ridiculous revisionist bullsh*t. He is a complete and utter Menace to the cause of Truth.

Be banned from wikipedia isn't a bad thing... that site is full of BS; for example 10 minutes ago I was searching for the complete Galland's statement about the Spitfires' outfit (but at last I had to search it inside my book) and this is what you find on Galland's wikipage:

From June 1940 on, Galland flew as the Gruppenkommandeur of III./Jagdgeschwader 26 (JG 26), fighting in the Battle of Britain with Messerschmitt Bf 109 "Emils". On 19 July 1940, he was promoted to Major and JG 26 moved to the Pas de Calais, where they were to remain for the next 18 months with III./JG 26 based at Caffiers.[47]

On 24 July 1940 almost 40 Bf 109s of III./JG 26 took off for operations over the English Channel. They were met by 12 No. 54 Squadron Spitfires. The Spitfires forced the larger number of Bf 109s into a turning battle that ran down the Germans' fuel. Galland recalled being impressed by the Spitfire's ability to out-manoeuvre Bf 109s at low speed and turning on to the Bf 109s within little airspace. Only executing a "Split S"; a long curving dive that the Spitfire could not follow, could his aircraft escape back to France at low altitude. The II./Jagdgeschwader 52 covered their retreat, losing two Bf 109s to Spitfires from No. 610 Squadron. During the action, two Spitfires were shot down for the loss of four Bf 109s. Galland was shocked by the aggression shown by the relatively inexperienced and outnumbered RAF and realised there would be no quick and easy victory.[48]

The bolded part is real BS. German pilots just had to point they nose down, while the Spitfire had to make the Split S.

I don't have a fondness for any poster in this discussion, but I would like to know the reason you call K liar. Have you a "case file" about him that I can read carefully?

Because it's very easy to argue with people claiming that the Spitfire was better since "Galland wanted his outfit of it" or "better turn-time = better plane".

[Buchon]

Originally Posted by Bewolf

Let's just put it this way, those who got outmanoevered by their adversary didn't go home to tell the tale how they turned worse then the enemy.

[Al Schlageter]

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

Be banned from wikipedia isn't a bad thing... that site is full of BS;

So now you know why Wiki is full of BS.

[6S.Manu]

Originally Posted by fruitbat

Which along with the numerous quotes i have in books by RAF pilots (Al Deere, Brian Kingcombe, Johny Kent etc...), saying how they could out turn the 109 in the BoB goes to show only one thing.

That the planes were fairly even and that the better pilot could out turn a worse pilot irrespective of whether they were flying a spit or a 109.......

I agree... those pilots where young boys with one life alone, and could not make mistakes as we do continuously.

Yesterday I was playing ROF flying in a Fokker DrI: 1 vs 1 against one of my teammates (same plane) and he was always outturning me. Simply I was scared to pull the stick at full stroke... I was scared by the possible stall... my mate instead was braver or has more experience in that plane.

And I'm sure this is that happened in RL too... how many pilots did really used the full capabilities their planes?

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by Al Schlageter

So now you know why Wiki is full of BS.

Bingo!

But it is nice to know that wiki does bann those they catch doing the things Kurfurst did/does!