What is the best German Fighter?

[inscrutible]

I'm in a game against the AI and its July 1944. Based on Manouvre values, the Me109K looks the best but I only recieved 12 of them. The FW190D looks good of course, whilst the Me109G-14 isnt too shabby. My question though is; is the Me262 any good given that its Manouvre value is only 32? (I note that it does have 4x 30mm cannons). I have about 280 of them in the pool.
Can anyone advise?

Thanks...

[Joel Billings]

Max speed is the most important part of the air combat model (or so I've been told by the programmers), so the Me262 should be very powerful.

[latosusi]

What about Soviet fighter?

[timmyab]

ORIGINAL: latosusi

What about Soviet fighter?

In my experience, in the early game it's the I-153 which shows that the air combat model is as dodgy as the ground combat model.Probably should be the Yak 1.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: timmyab

ORIGINAL: latosusi

What about Soviet fighter?

In my experience, in the early game it's the I-153 which shows that the air combat model is as dodgy as the ground combat model.Probably should be the Yak 1.

Oh? [X(] And I use to replace them as fast as possible. Please, elaborate, what do you base this on?

[timmyab]

Number of aircraft kills.In my current game a unit of I-153s hold the top spot and six of the top ten places.There's not a single Yak 1 unit in the top ten.
I think they may even have been toned down from what they were.In one game I had a single unit of I-153s on 50 odd kills after 8 turns.

[glvaca]

Air group experience is what matters most. This is also as it should. Upgrade that I153 group to something better and they will certainly perform much, much better.
Likewise, a green unit with your best fighters will not perform well in the most hotly contested area's of the map. Put them in quiet spots so they can train up and get an easy kill here or there.
Lastly, a fighter against a transport or bomber without escort will rackup kills quickly. It's when it you're intercepting heavily escorted strikes that you'll see the huge difference between planes/experience. In 1941, it's not uncommon for the luftwaffe to be lagging behind and flying unescorted resupply/bombing mission resulting in obsolete planes making a good showing. Don't delude yourself in thinking that you'll have a chance when the F4's and G2's turn up in strength, you'll just be feeding easy wins to the Luftwaffe.

[glvaca]

On early Soviet fighters, the best are Mig3's, Yak1's, Lagg3's in this order.
P40B's are gold, move these to your highest experienced units first.
The Yak7B also seems to be very good for early 1942.
The P39's should be good if history is anything to go by as the Russians kept these for their Guards units.
LA5 & F's should be OK. The LA5-FN should be a beasts as this was the first fighter that outperformed all types of 109's & 190's.
Late war, LA7's and Yak3's are the way to go.
However, the Me262 should outperform anything the Russians have. As said before, air to air combat is all about energy or speed, kinetic (actual velocity) or potential (altitude that can be converted into kinetic).
The Germans managed to rackup the kills they did and keep an advantage over the Russians because they flew around 5000m, while the Russians seldom came above 2000m. The Russians were also tied up to an unforgiving dogma of close support to the bombers. These made them sitting ducks for what is termed "boom & zoom" attacks by the Germans. Basically this means dropping from high altitude (or the perch) trading in potential energy for kinetic energy, dropping in behind and below your opponents six, attack (never turn hard) and then zoom back up to higher altitude than your opponent. Then repeat. Especially the 190 was very suited for this because of it's very heavy armament as was the Me262.
Don't just think horizontally in aircombat. You need to think 3D, and the vertical is very often where you want to maneuvre. Basically, if I'm 1000m above you, you can't get to me, which means I have a serious and often deadly advantage. Remember, this is prop based, we're not talking about the jet age (well, excpet the 262).

[glvaca]

I'ds like to add that until well into 43, most Soviet planes didn't have radio's. Just like their tanks. This gave the Germans a HUGE advantage as air and tank combat is all about team work. And as such easy communication is paramount. The lack of radio's and for tank combat (for the T34) a 2 man turret helps to explain a lot of the defeats the Soviets suffered until 43-44 and what is often descirbed as German tactical superiority.

[timmyab]

ORIGINAL: glvaca
Don't just think horizontally in aircombat. You need to think 3D, and the vertical is very often where you want to maneuvre. Basically, if I'm 1000m above you, you can't get to me, which means I have a serious and often deadly advantage.

Yeah, I learnt that playing European Air War.Great game.
There doesn't seem to be any great correlation between air group experience and air kills in my game, but I'll try swapping some of my best performing I-153s over for Mig 3s and Yak 1s and see what happens.
It would be good if you could see what type of aircraft your fighters were killing.

[glvaca]

Yes, I'd put that on my wishlist too. After each aircombat an overview of what got killed in more detail. I.e., so many Ju88, so many mig3's, etc...
The cherry on top would be what was killed by what.

[Walloc]

To OP. One thing too note about the Me262 is that as far as i understand it. It only acts like an interceptor, so u cant get it to do escort type missions.
That is ofc one thing to take into consideration, tho that its superior it cant do all missions and there for in some senses has less utility.
 
Kind regards,
 
Rasmus

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: timmyab

Yeah, I learnt that playing European Air War.Great game.

Played that tooo, it was great, but that was years ago. Or is there an updated version?

[Omat]

Hi

In my games the soviet Mig-3 got the largest numbers of "kills" in the first three months. (After three months I start to convert the old planes)

So that correlate with Jeol Billings assertion that speed is a important value.

Omat

ORIGINAL: timmyab

ORIGINAL: latosusi

What about Soviet fighter?

In my experience, in the early game it's the I-153 which shows that the air combat model is as dodgy as the ground combat model.Probably should be the Yak 1.

[timmyab]

It would be interesting if people could post their results on here.Say the best performing Soviet fighter types according to air kills from the first three months of the 41 campaign.
From my experience I've come to take it for granted that the I-153s will perform best.

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas
Played that tooo, it was great, but that was years ago. Or is there an updated version?

No it was years ago.Windows 98.It's one of those games that I still have fond memories of.

[glvaca]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

ORIGINAL: timmyab

Yeah, I learnt that playing European Air War.Great game.

Played that tooo, it was great, but that was years ago. Or is there an updated version?

There's something much better now. IL2 - Sturmovik 1946 is the latest commercial version.
There's a sequel now, SOW - Cliffs of Dover but it has many problems so most of the community is still flying IL2 with mod packs.
For a taste of what it can do check this video I made in preparation of the Normandy campaign I ran about a year ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffDMDmk1SpY

PM if you want the latest version of IL2. I don't think it's being sold anymore.

[glvaca]

ORIGINAL: Walloc

To OP. One thing too note about the Me262 is that as far as i understand it. It only acts like an interceptor, so u cant get it to do escort type missions.
That is ofc one thing to take into consideration, tho that its superior it cant do all missions and there for in some senses has less utility.

Kind regards,

Rasmus

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Escorting fighters seem to get the worst of it being at a dissadvantage as they need to protect the bombers, thus loosing flexibility to attack. Sounds right.