Friday Night Flights

[Helpless]

20 000. Feet. But the wiki said the Ta152H was a high altitude fighter so I thought I would bump to up since I really wanted to dethrone the me262

Ta 152H has max speed at ~30k alt when Me 262 speed advantage is not so big factor.

[Denniss]

Does the Me 262A-2A have pilots with fighter Training ?
Any special reason you chose the FB version with reduced cannon armament over the F Version A-1a ?

Sidenote: I need to fix wrong DT position in the Me 262 recon.

[JeffroK]

Go back to the start, Spit I v Hurri I or Spit Vb v Hurri IIB.

Try some USN Carrier fighters v the Luftwaffe

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Go back to the start, Spit I v Hurri I or Spit Vb v Hurri IIB.

Try some USN Carrier fighters v the Luftwaffe

or for that Mad Max tribute battle, what about B-17 vs Lancaster?

[Helpless]

Bombers don't shoot to each other. You will need to set them as FB first.

[LiquidSky]

I have some plans. I was thinking of a Santa's Sleigh vrs the Valkyries for an all Scandinavian Showdown for example.

Maybe Snoopy and his Sopwith Camel vrs The Red Baron.

I'd have to delve even deeper into the mechanics of the editor and learn how to create airplanes and weapons.

I'm trying to shy away from actual game type matchups. Could be too political. Although I am going to go back and try a few altitude adjustments with Fw190's vrs allied escorts to see if I can fine tune my defence.

[LiquidSky]

Well...its FRIDAY! Okay..technically it is Saturday morning, but it was FRIDAY NIGHT just a couple hours ago! Close enough for me.

I have a more traditional fight for you today. Sporting a brand spanking new MG151/15 and a pair of MG 17's, Friedrick as he was known to the ladies first appeared in April, 1941...Just in time for Barbarossa.
He achieved the highest number of victories achieved on any front (or in any war) with over 70 German pilots achieving more then 100 victories against the hapless Russians.

Speaking of the hapless Russians...I bring you the victim.

The I-16. Nicknamed Ishak (or Donkey) for some reason the Russians liked this 1,941kg funny looking airplane. Armed with 4 7.62 ShKAS machineguns, it was the mainstay of the Russian Airforce despite being introduced in 1936. Over 1600 were available on June 21, 1941...and only 930 were left 2 days later.

So I bring you....a more realistic battle. 144 Bf 109F-2's vrs 240 I-16 type 24's. The Germans are exp 75 and the Russians are 50.

Will it be an upset? Will the Russians be upset? Or my wife who thinks I am cleaning the kitchen? Lets find out!

Ohh...not even close. 8 Bf109's lost (operationally) to 178 I-16's.

[LiquidSky]

Gahhh...running this on the allied turn, and the Russians managed to shoot down a single Bf109. For the loss of 204 planes.

But with the extra operational losses....it does exceed the 100-1 ratio of the actual war.

[Helpless]

Russians are 50

If average is 50 there should be probably lots of 25-30 pilots.

[LiquidSky]

This is the bottom end of the experience barrel

[LiquidSky]

This is the top end of the Russian planes.

So it isn't too bad. The Germans I have much higher..they have 90's and such, and 50 is a bad pilot on that list.

[LiquidSky]

I should add that morale for the Russian side is also very low...hovering around 50, and it is upper 80's for the German side.

All in all it was heavily stacked in favour of the Germans. Better planes flown by better pilots with much higher morale.

All at 20,000 feet.

Was more to satisfy my curiosity of what would happen if the Russians on turn 2+ try to make a battle with the Luftwaffe. Under fictional made up circumstances having no basis in reality. Like what my supervisors at work do.

[LiquidSky]

For fun, I just re ran the combat but I upped the Russians to 90 exp/90 morale along with the Germans.

Still not even a close battle...the I-16 is just too badly outmatched at 20k feet.

Going to try again at a lower altitude to give the I-16 more of a chance.

[LiquidSky]

Now this is interesting. I set the superiority (for both sides) to be 5000 feet.

The I-16's still got their butt kicked, but only by a 2.5-1 margin.

I'm going to have to investigate this altitude thing further...there may be some planes that just don't want to fight high in the sky.





EDIT: When I change the Germans to 25k feet, and leave the I-16s at 5k feet, I lose 19 BF 109's to 117 I-16's.

EDIT the EDIT: For added amusement, I tried again. This time I have the I-16's at 1000 feet, and the BF's at 36k feet.

34 dead BF's to 83 dead I-16's

[LiquidSky]

What I seem to be noticing from this fun little experiment is that:

1) Experience and Morale is very important. Maybe even more important then the actual plane flying.

2) Altitude is important. It pays to figure out what altitude your plane does best at, and if it kind of sucks at all altitudes, then go low.

3) Load out is also important...the more guns the better. If your plane can equip extra cannons or machine guns...then go for it.

4) This serious thinking is hurting my brain....I think I need a more whimsical battle for next Friday.

[LiquidSky]

Welcome to yet another installment of Friday Night Flights.

Tonights matchup is a classic. They met over the skies of Germany, and only one was victorious! Lets see if we history repeats itself.

On the ALLIED side we have the P51D Mustang. Weighing in at a slight 7,635lbs this hunk of junk could barely maintain any altitude with its Packard Merlin Gerbil treadmill engine.
With wings made of paper, the weight of its 6 .50 Browning Nerf guns fire 400 rpg, but who's counting.
Without drop tanks this plane can flee a battlefield up to 500 miles away.

On the AXIS side we have the sexy, the ever popular BF109-G6. This incredible state of the art machinery of flying death comes in at a svelte 5,893 lbs...much lighter then that flying pig P51.
And without any bias...I bring you the results:



Well.obviously the other side must have cheated....we have 80 of the fine BF109G's being shot down for only 68 of the P51Ds. Obviously they cheated.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



What I seem to be noticing from this fun little experiment is that:

1) Experience and Morale is very important. Maybe even more important then the actual plane flying.

2) Altitude is important. It pays to figure out what altitude your plane does best at, and if it kind of sucks at all altitudes, then go low.

3) Load out is also important...the more guns the better. If your plane can equip extra cannons or machine guns...then go for it.

4) This serious thinking is hurting my brain....I think I need a more whimsical battle for next Friday.

fascinating stuff as ever.

Worth thinking about the core issues in Soviet fighter design and tactics. Crudely the Soviets prioritised robustness and potential manouverability plus fire power. Robustness meant they could operate from marginal airfields. Clearly the second was badly undermined by their early/mid war practice of using under-trained pilots. But for their better pilots, planes like the early war LaGG-3 were highly rated. Weaponry really matters, notice this in WiTE too. If Soviet fighters close, they have the weaponry (the 20mm ShVak) to shred almost anything.

Specifically, the I-16 was probably the best of the early generation single engine fighters in Europe but by 1940 was clearly obsolete. In a way they seem to have done better in your tests than I'd have expected.

[whoofe]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



What I seem to be noticing from this fun little experiment is that:

1) Experience and Morale is very important. Maybe even more important then the actual plane flying.

2) Altitude is important. It pays to figure out what altitude your plane does best at, and if it kind of sucks at all altitudes, then go low.

3) Load out is also important...the more guns the better. If your plane can equip extra cannons or machine guns...then go for it.

4) This serious thinking is hurting my brain....I think I need a more whimsical battle for next Friday.

that sounds about right on the experience - every flight sim I have flown in, a veteran flying a weaker plane will still usually defeat a noob in a better plane, because the noobs didn't understand how to conserve energy or how to lead aim in a turnfight.

altitude, firepower and speed were usually the other big factors, rather than maneuverability. If I started with a 2k alt advantage and a faster plane, I could control the fight on my terms, and at worst would end in a draw where neither plane shot down.

[Harrybanana]

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky



What I seem to be noticing from this fun little experiment is that:

1) Experience and Morale is very important. Maybe even more important then the actual plane flying.

2) Altitude is important. It pays to figure out what altitude your plane does best at, and if it kind of sucks at all altitudes, then go low.

3) Load out is also important...the more guns the better. If your plane can equip extra cannons or machine guns...then go for it.

4) This serious thinking is hurting my brain....I think I need a more whimsical battle for next Friday.

If Altitude is as important as your tests seem to indicate and each aircraft performs better at certain altitudes than it sounds like I have 4 choices:

1. Tune into Friday Night Fights every week to obtain your results,
2. Run a whole bunch of tests myself,
3. Figure out how to read code (or the editor or wherever else this info is stored) so I can find this hidden info, or
4. Ask the powers that be to include each aircraft's ideal altitude in the units information window. I think knowing an aircraft's ideal altitude is even more important than knowing it's max altitude.

Choice 1 is a lot of fun but will take some time I expect. Choice 2 is boring. Choice 3 requires too much effort. So Choice 4 is clearly the best choice for me Harrybanana.

[Joel Billings]

Understandable that you'd like the info presented in-game. Here's the editor screen for the P-51D. You can see the key info in the lower left, including the Max Speed Altitude value. It uses the 3 values to create a max speed graph. IIRC this was all new in WitW, and may be why the info is not on the CR screen comparison for aircraft equipment, nor does it appear to be on the unit detail screen. It would be good to get this value onto the CR screen aircraft info as well. It's tough because some of these screens are already full, but it's a fair request. Keep in mind though that you really need to compare the graphs to get a view of how a/c do across altitude bands against each other. BTW, love the Friday Night Flights, thanks to LS for doing them.