Most Overrated/Under rated Plane

[RUPD3658]

We already had a thread on the most useless plane so now here is your oppertunity to sound off on what you think are the most over and under rated planes in WiTP.

For me:

Allies:

Over rated: Corsairs. They are great planes but short ranged. Late in the war I am on offense and have little need for short ranged fighters. They would have been nice to have about 18 months earlier though.

Under rated: Vildebeasts. Slow, ugly, and short ranged but they score a lot of shipping kills in late 41 and early 42 since the Japs play into their strenghths by coming to them; usually without fighter escort. A second pick would be the Hudson due to it's range.

Japanese:

Over rated: The Zero. After the Zero bonus wears off and Allied experience grows it fails to impress. As the war goes on the upgrades get shorter ranges and less experineced pilots to boot! Who thought that was a good idea? The A6M2 is better then the Zeke because of it's longer range and this gets taken away?

Under Rated: The Nell. As good as the Betty but alas, too few in number.

Let the sh*t storm begin!

[CapAndGown]

Range can be overrated. [:'(] Just watch your pilots die in droves from operational losses. I think an ideal maximum range is about 8 hexes. Of course, that means you won't be able to escort from Rabaul to Lunga, but you shouldn't be doing that anyway. A maximum range of over 5 is particularly useless for a carrier plane when all of the strike planes have a maximum range of 5.

My nominee for most underrated plane is the Oscar. They are weak on dishing out punishment, but they can hold their own with most of the allied early war fighters, even the P-40, when flown by the good pilots the Japanese army airforce starts with. They are good for CAPing front line bases while the Zeros are off escorting bombing raids. They may not be able to kill bombers that well, but they can throw off their aim and disrupt their bombing runs. The Oscar, an under appreciated plane.

The TIVa. Looks ugly. Everyone respects swordfish. But what about these guys? In the games I have been in, they seem to score most of the early allied torp hits. They also have a decent range. Too bad their replacement rate is so low (too bad if you are the allies, that is.)

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: RUPD3658

We already had a thread on the most useless plane so now here is your oppertunity to sound off on what you think are the most over and under rated planes in WiTP.

For me:

Allies:

Over rated: Corsairs. They are great planes but short ranged. Late in the war I am on offense and have little need for short ranged fighters. They would have been nice to have about 18 months earlier though.

Under rated: Vildebeasts. Slow, ugly, and short ranged but they score a lot of shipping kills in late 41 and early 42 since the Japs play into their strenghths by coming to them; usually without fighter escort. A second pick would be the Hudson due to it's range.

Japanese:

Over rated: The Zero. After the Zero bonus wears off and Allied experience grows it fails to impress. As the war goes on the upgrades get shorter ranges and less experineced pilots to boot! Who thought that was a good idea? The A6M2 is better then the Zeke because of it's longer range and this gets taken away?

Under Rated: The Nell. As good as the Betty but alas, too few in number.

Let the sh*t storm begin!

For over-rated I'd go with the Lily ... somewhere in either 1.5 or 1.6 the Lily got upped from 3x100KG bombs to 8x100KG bombs .. now my Lily's get 100s of airfield hits per turn !!!

[castor troy]

[/quote]

For over-rated I'd go with the Lily ... somewhere in either 1.5 or 1.6 the Lily got upped from 3x100KG bombs to 8x100KG bombs .. now my Lily's get 100s of airfield hits per turn !!!


[/quote]

I´ve googled 3 minutes and every site about the Lily rated them as followed:

Crew: Four
Length: 41 ft
Wingspan: 57 ft
Engine: 2 Nakajima 14-cyl radials - 1,130hp each
Speed: 314 mph maximum, cruise 217 mph
Ceiling: 33,100 ft
Max Range: 1,500 miles
Armament: Three 7.7mm machine guns on pivoted mounts in nose, dorsal and ventral positions
Bomb load: normal 882 lbs; maximum 1,764 lbs

So 1764 lbs should be 800 kg. I think you should more complain about the bombload of the Allied heavies which, what seemed to be consensus on this forum, are way too high.

[EUBanana]

T.IVa for most underrated. Its an ugly, floating Swordfish, but its got a torpedo, and that torpedo really does work. And being a float plane it can turn up anywhere. Fear!

Most overrated... hard to say. Val? Dive bombers dont sink ships, and its sinkings that count. And that 250kg bomb is a firecracker, not a bomb.

[DuckofTindalos]

Another very underrated plane is the Martin 139. The Dutch don't have a lot of them, but they can cause a lot of damage if bombing at 1000 feet.

[Hoplosternum]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

Most overrated... hard to say. Val? Dive bombers dont sink ships, and its sinkings that count. And that 250kg bomb is a firecracker, not a bomb.

Well they may not be able to sink British CVs or BBs but they can certainly destroy Transports, DDs, US CVs and I think CAs too. Certainly enough tagets to be very useful. Of course I'd rather have another squadron of Kates on each of my CVs but the Val is still a nice plane. The 250Kg AP bomb is almost as good as the Dauntless 1000lber and much much better than the 500lber that really can't do much. I've seen dozens of the 500lbers bounce off BBs, CLs, CAs and even Akagi and the bulk of KB [X(].

So as my most overrated plane I'll choose a catagory of attack against a certain target. Just about all the allied LBA when they decide to hunt IJN Warships rather than the Transports on naval attack [:D] It's heartbreaking to fight through flak, AA and repeatedly hit valuable vessels with no chance to do damage [;)]

Underated? I have to agree with the Oscar. They seem to do pretty well early on and the extra boost in range over the Nate is good too.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Hoplosternum

So as my most overrated plane I'll choose a catagory of attack against a certain target. Just about all the allied LBA when they decide to hunt IJN Warships rather than the Transports on naval attack [:D] It's heartbreaking to fight through flak, AA and repeatedly hit valuable vessels with no chance to do damage [;)]

Yeah. I was sorely tempted to add the Mitchell to that.

a) Cant sink ships unless we're talking sitting ducks (500lb bombs? pff)
b) Range not good enough for base suppression really, 6 hexes? Blarg.
c) Meat for CAP

To take out ships, use a torpedo bomber.
To take out bases, use a heavy bomber.
To be a poor jack of all trades, use a medium bomber.

[shall59]

I agree with EUBanana on the T.IVa. In my war they took out many Jap ships including a CVL. With the risk of somebody hitting me over the head the Buffalo saved my rear in India/Burma; even upgraded some Hurricanes to Buffalos. Once I lost Mandaly they were the only thing I had with enough range to escort my bombers from India to Mandalay and Akyab to keep the Japs from building up air power at those bases.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: castor troy



For over-rated I'd go with the Lily ... somewhere in either 1.5 or 1.6 the Lily got upped from 3x100KG bombs to 8x100KG bombs .. now my Lily's get 100s of airfield hits per turn !!!




I´ve googled 3 minutes and every site about the Lily rated them as followed:

Crew: Four
Length: 41 ft
Wingspan: 57 ft
Engine: 2 Nakajima 14-cyl radials - 1,130hp each
Speed: 314 mph maximum, cruise 217 mph
Ceiling: 33,100 ft
Max Range: 1,500 miles
Armament: Three 7.7mm machine guns on pivoted mounts in nose, dorsal and ventral positions
Bomb load: normal 882 lbs; maximum 1,764 lbs

So 1764 lbs should be 800 kg. I think you should more complain about the bombload of the Allied heavies which, what seemed to be consensus on this forum, are way too high.

Where exactly did you get the complain word from ??? I would characterize my post as observing that a significant change had been made - which re-positioned this bomber in the capability hierarchy.

[mc3744]

I like the Fighter Dutch Demon.
I shot down many Japanese planes with those, Zero's too. Of course the losses ratio against Zero's is not so good, but they manage.

I rather hate the Hawk, they never shoot down anything and always get beaten up [:-]

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: mc3744

I like the Fighter Dutch Demon.
I shot down many Japanese planes with those, Zero's too. Of course the losses ratio against Zero's is not so good, but they manage.

I rather hate the Hawk, they never shoot down anything and always get beaten up [:-]

Really?

I always found the Hawk better than the Demon. I had them heavily mixed with Warhawks though.

[Alikchi2]

If you can get good pilots in the Hawks and Demons, they do very well, I think. The Hawk is almost as good as a P-40 and the Demon has great maneuverability. The difficulty is getting them to survive long enough to gain experience. [:'(]

[mc3744]

IMHO the Demon has the huge advantage of range over the Hawk.
With (3) range the chances to train are few, with (7) you definitely improve the opportunities to train your pilots and get the most out of the Demon.

I've had one Demon squadron in China shooting down dozens of Oscar's, LB and DB. It even managed to stand up against the Zero's. Eventually the Jap player got fed up with it and brought in too many Zero's to confront with.

IMHO (= in my experience with WitP) it's definitely the best Dutch fighter and as good as the P-40, that is if handled by decent pilots.

Brewester's and Hawk's are only good against LB's

[diesel7013]

Me - I love the P-61 - a big long range bomber killer / ground attack!!

[The Dude]

Most over rated - the dutch bombers and Torpedo bombers. And chinese fighters. They always achieve ahistorical results

Most underated-The P47

[Sharkosaurus rex]

I agree about the P-47 as a very under-rated plane. It was very good at high altitude because it didn't lose as much performance at height, unlike many/most other fighters at the tie. The P-47 did excellent work in destroying the backbone of the Luftwaffe. And continued with work in the Pacific too. Once the two 150 gal drop tanks were ready to go in late 1943 the P-47 had a much improved range. But it's final contribution to victory from mid-1944 were over-shadowed by the P51, and a change of role to f/b.

The two most ripped off planes would be the Pete and Hurricanes ranges- too bad no one could read a book!

The most over-rated plane would be early model Tonys- but this one has been covered in a different thread.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Sharkosaurus rex

The two most ripped off planes would be the Pete and Hurricanes ranges- too bad no one could read a book!

Speaking of range, I've been curious about the range of the P-51 in the game. IRL they could fly escort from Iwo Jima to Japan (true?) for the B-29's coming from the Marianas, but in the game they can't reach.

While I'm on the P-51, what units can use the 'B' model? I have plenty in the pool, but can't find any units that can use them. All arriving P-51 units use the 'D' model.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: castor troy



For over-rated I'd go with the Lily ... somewhere in either 1.5 or 1.6 the Lily got upped from 3x100KG bombs to 8x100KG bombs .. now my Lily's get 100s of airfield hits per turn !!!




I´ve googled 3 minutes and every site about the Lily rated them as followed:

Crew: Four
Length: 41 ft
Wingspan: 57 ft
Engine: 2 Nakajima 14-cyl radials - 1,130hp each
Speed: 314 mph maximum, cruise 217 mph
Ceiling: 33,100 ft
Max Range: 1,500 miles
Armament: Three 7.7mm machine guns on pivoted mounts in nose, dorsal and ventral positions
Bomb load: normal 882 lbs; maximum 1,764 lbs

So 1764 lbs should be 800 kg. I think you should more complain about the bombload of the Allied heavies which, what seemed to be consensus on this forum, are way too high.

Where exactly did you get the complain word from ??? I would characterize my post as observing that a significant change had been made - which re-positioned this bomber in the capability hierarchy.

i think because you said it is overated. [;)]

from what you said in your post it sounds like an underated plane!