Regarding some historical discussions (rants) here...

juliet7bravo · Post by **juliet7bravo** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 6:42 pm

Historical Rants...who cares? If you're interested in the subject, read them. If you're not, don't read them. If the poster is a consistent "turnip" or is basing his views on racism (ie. "everything Japanese is/was crap") put him on ignore if you so desire. No one can force anyone to read the posts here.

You're free to post, free to make an *** of yourself, free to not read, free to click that ignore button. You can thank the brown skinny guys of the ALLIED side for that freedom, they fought, suffered, and sometimes died for it.

Thanks to Matrix as well BTW...we supply the (inexhaustible supply of) hot air, they supply the soap box.

Jeremy Pritchard · Post by **Jeremy Pritchard** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 7:01 pm

I think that what this thread is about is important in the eyes of the supporters not because it is just dealing with history, but because issues it talks about might affect the game. There is pressure, on both sides of the discussion, to modify the game to better represent what they view as the correct way thing should run to replicate history.

Brown skinny guys on all sides fought primarily for their nation and their buddies, not for freedom or oppression. Were our enemies as evil as our propaganda makes them out to be, and us so good?

The Allies were not fighting for absolute freedom, just certain freedoms for themselves and a few select peoples. Indeed, the Japanese were fighting for their own set of freedoms as well under the same limitations.

OT

(I just saw a commercial that disturbed me the other day. It was an American 'remember what we are fighting for' commercial, where you have a teen going to a library asking for a book, then being told that it is no longer in the library, the guy is then promptly taken into custody by some FBI type guys, with an end caption of 'don't let this happen'. However, book banning and heavy censorship has been in the United States (and Western World) for decades, and still exists. Although people are not taken into custody, it still exists in some form. I used to work at a Library, and when one girl took out a historical Nazi book, she was given the 3rd Degree by some Librarian about why they were taking it out. There is no need to fear that this above scenario might happen, it already is.)

ReDDoN45 · Post by **ReDDoN45** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 7:05 pm

Propably those US UV-commanders are just to poor... have no problems achieving 1-1 results and one must consider you are fighting the best what the IJN can offer - so a little more respect when US air power doesn´t "instantly" win.

I allways thought in Pacwar the formula was If Rnd (100) < Rnd (33) and Rnd (dur) > Rnd (can), then the aircraft is only damaged... at least as far as I remember from the manual. THough I think your forumla is more realistic and better for Pacwar as still too many B-17´s get destroyed (!!! - not damaged) by Zeros, Ki-43s.

P-39 wasn´t such a poor aircraft as most think - actually it was an excellent aircraft with a few initial flaws. In fact it was better than the Wildcat. The Wildcat was slower than Zero - of course max speed difference isn´t very high, but given the fact that a Zero is much lighter it can accelerate to max speed far more faster than a F4F - very important issue in dogfight, as it means that the actual dogfight - combat speed of the F4F is considerably lower than A6Ms, because of higher drag and less acceleration than A6M.

juliet7bravo · Post by **juliet7bravo** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 8:24 pm

Jeremy...you just earned the J7B turnip award and the "ignore" button click. That's called "freedom of choice", not censorship. As a combat disabled Vet, not "listening" to your drivel is one of the freedoms I fought for, and I'm choosing to exercise that freedom.

"Were our enemies as evil as our propaganda makes them out to be, and us so good?"

Tell it to the dead. You can find 25 million or so murdered victims of Japanese aggression to debate it with. Maybe the victims at Nanking, the ghosts of the babies they caught on bayonets or played "baby baseball" with, the women gang raped to death, the millions of dead Chinese, the victims of biological warfare experiments, or maybe the Allied POW's dissected "live and screaming" at Japanese universities will debate the meaning of "evil" with you...I'm not gonna.

Jeremy Pritchard · Post by **Jeremy Pritchard** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 8:56 pm

If you want to go this route, ok. You tell that to the Native North Americans that were killed by the thousands, men women and children. Put on reservations to wither and die. EVERYONE has their dark past, some darker and more recent then others. If there is a statute of limitations to acts of atrocities, then it is news to me. (so please don't suddenly turn this into a 'oh everybody beats up on the US thread').

Not every US soldier in the 19th Century murdered Indian women and children, and not every Japanese soldier bayonetted prisoners. These are merely generalizations that hide the truth of situations. Japan did not murder civilians during periods of peacetime, just like the United States did not murder civilians during peace time. It is all mixed together in the horrors of war. Japan bayonetted civilians, we bombed them. In the end, they are still dead.

EVERYONE does a good job to convince thier own people that the other guy is the bad guy and God is on their side. It is EASY to believe that we kill and get killed for freedom, while all of our enemies kill purely for greed and for evil. If you REALLY look into the reasons for waging war, they are less benevolent as you make them out to be.

There may be freedom of speech, but you are doing your best to deny our freedom of speech by using tactics of ridicule and belittling, a form of bullying. You are trying to deny people's freedom of speech while hiding behind defending it. Your statement about defending our right to say things is a way to get us to stop saying those thing you don't want to hear, and in fact denying our right. Freedom of speech means open diologue, not merely saying what YOU believe is ok to say, and dare not disturb the status quo too much. I don't want you to stop, but I do beleive that you have to learn to respect other people and other points of view that you might not agree with. There are no absolutes, only opinions and points of view.

Jeremy Pritchard · Post by **Jeremy Pritchard** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 9:03 pm

Originally posted by Reddon45
Propably those US UV-commanders are just to poor... have no problems achieving 1-1 results and one must consider you are fighting the best what the IJN can offer - so a little more respect when US air power doesn´t "instantly" win.

I allways thought in Pacwar the formula was If Rnd (100) < Rnd (33) and Rnd (dur) > Rnd (can), then the aircraft is only damaged... at least as far as I remember from the manual. THough I think your forumla is more realistic and better for Pacwar as still too many B-17´s get destroyed (!!! - not damaged) by Zeros, Ki-43s.

P-39 wasn´t such a poor aircraft as most think - actually it was an excellent aircraft with a few initial flaws. In fact it was better than the Wildcat. The Wildcat was slower than Zero - of course max speed difference isn´t very high, but given the fact that a Zero is much lighter it can accelerate to max speed far more faster than a F4F - very important issue in dogfight, as it means that the actual dogfight - combat speed of the F4F is considerably lower than A6Ms, because of higher drag and less acceleration than A6M.

I am really trying to figure out the Dogfight ability for aircraft as I beleive that a combination of this, along with experience, determines wether or not an aircraft has been 'hit' by a cannon. I think what happens is that the dogfight of the B-17 is too low (it was a fairly fast aircraft), but did B-17's fly at their maximum speed when they are fully loaded? (when combat occurs) I think that increasing the B-17 dogfight will lower the chance that it is hit by cannons from Ki-43 and A6M's, which will mean that there is a less chance that aircraft will be either destroyed or damaged. (I checked the way it figures out destroyed/damaged in my manual and it uses the 60 number, not the 30).

ReDDoN45 · Post by **ReDDoN45** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 9:47 pm

That´s exactly what I have would replied, too. Good Job Jeremy.
Almost every nation has a dark and dirty spot in its history.

BTW I highly appreciate the great job you did for Pacwar and I like the new training rouines for 3.1... the only problem is that now patrol sqaudrons can´t get much higher than 70 (75) as they don´t receive combat experience, on the other hand many appear with 80 exp.

One thing I don´t like so much is cutting Atoll max. size to 2.
3 would be better. The main problem behind that is that you loose the damaged aircraft when transferring an air unit of that base again... this means that when you loose 8 A6Ms, which became damged on, say Kwajalein AF, becasue AF size is 4. That in term means loosing precious experiece, as the unit will then be brought back to 48 with rookies from flight school...

Especially with these new training routines this is evenharder to afford and I don´t allways have AV´s to spare for such air unit transfer job....

Jeremy Pritchard · Post by **Jeremy Pritchard** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 10:14 pm

Thanks.

Atoll size will be reverted back to 4 for 3.2. However, there will probably be swtiching around of max base sizes.

msaario · Post by **msaario** » Sat Aug 31, 2002 11:38 pm

Originally posted by mdiehl
Msaario.

If you can find information on USAAF, RAAF, and RAAF combat losses and vs. what kind of planes for the interval prior to, say, June 1942, and the circumstances of their use, you'd fill in a big blank. Well, for me anyhow... . My **impression** of USAAF results is that they were quite variable in the early going, and mostly on the losing side (but then, that *used* to be what people thought about F4Fs and their pilots). And then, of course, the P39 was a very nice looking, totally inadequate a/c when fighting any first-line fighter. The P400 was worse -- a P39, except often with the O2 bottle missing, with a heck of a cannon -- when it didn't jam.

I haven't followed this thread for some time, so I didn't notice this earlier (not intentional).

All I can say from the top of my head after recently browsing a book about the American aces in WWII that the life expectancy of a fighter pilot in the area was shorter than that of the pilots in WWI (year..?) - so we are talking about weeks.

I'll let you guys know if I find something, however, I may have better sources for German and Japanese than American pilots.

--Mikko

CynicAl · Post by **CynicAl** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 1:05 am

Originally posted by Reddon45
P-39 wasn´t such a poor aircraft as most think - actually it was an excellent aircraft with a few initial flaws. In fact it was better than the Wildcat. The Wildcat was slower than Zero - of course max speed difference isn´t very high, but given the fact that a Zero is much lighter it can accelerate to max speed far more faster than a F4F - very important issue in dogfight, as it means that the actual dogfight - combat speed of the F4F is considerably lower than A6Ms, because of higher drag and less acceleration than A6M.

I think you have the P-39 confused with the P-40. The P-40 was arguably the best fighter in the Pacific in the first year of the war - I think it was Sakai who said that a well-flown P-40 was the most dangerous of the early Allied aircraft. On the other hand, the P-39 "Iron Dog" was slow and awkward, easy meat for Japanese fighter pilots. They were quickly relegated to ground support missions.

mdiehl · Post by **mdiehl** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 2:58 am

The standard P39 was pretty fast in low-altitude level flight, and even faster than the A6M. But, because it lacked a blower it was an acceleration dog and tended to lose energy quickly in combat. It was not the plane to be in with a Zeke behind you unless you had altitude enough to put the nose down and run away. Unfortunately, without a blower it was basically limited to <14K feet anyhow, so one tended to be without altitude or options.

A fun play to fly in flight sims though. The best tactic if you're not bounced is to charge in head on an a little high, open with the .50s until you think you're hitting, then use the 37mm and hope it doesn't jam. If the 37 actually fires, skim above the debris of your target and keep going hexxs bells until you are well clear of the fight, knowing that you "got one and lived ot fight another day." Otherwise just cut and run and take credit for a "possible."

TIMJOT · Post by **TIMJOT** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 6:00 am

I recall reading that the P-39 tested with a turbo-charger actually performed quite well, but for some reason the powers that be decided not to install them on the plane. Does anyone know why?

tohoku · Post by **tohoku** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 7:01 am

Originally posted by juliet7bravo

"Were our enemies as evil as our propaganda makes them out to be, and us so good?"

Tell it to the dead. You can find 25 million or so murdered victims of Japanese aggression to debate it with. Maybe the victims at Nanking, the ghosts of the babies they caught on bayonets or played "baby baseball" with, the women gang raped to death, the millions of dead Chinese, the victims of biological warfare experiments, or maybe the Allied POW's dissected "live and screaming" at Japanese universities will debate the meaning of "evil" with you...I'm not gonna.

I think you have seriously missed the point he was making.

tohoku
YMMV

Raverdave · Post by **Raverdave** » Mon Sep 02, 2002 2:29 pm

Originally posted by TIMJOT
I recall reading that the P-39 tested with a turbo-charger actually performed quite well, but for some reason the powers that be decided not to install them on the plane. Does anyone know why?

Ah this is a good one! When the USAAF originally ordered the first batch of 12 for service testing,(april '39) they also ordered an extra one with out a turbo fitted. While the Army was busy playing with these units and liking what they saw (YP-39A), the NACA (guess who they were the fore-runner to?) got it's hands on the XP-39A and called for over 60 modifications to be made, one of which was the removal of the Turbo Supercharger ! Anyone want to hazard a guess as to why? Well it seems that the thinking of the time was theat the US would never have to face long-range high altitude enemy bomber attacks, and so the only possible missions that the P-39 would face CAS and ship-strike ! Why load an aircraft with a turbo if it is going to spend all of it's working life flying on the deck.:rolleyes:

TIMJOT · Post by **TIMJOT** » Tue Sep 03, 2002 8:48 pm

Originally posted by Raverdave

Ah this is a good one! When the USAAF originally ordered the first batch of 12 for service testing,(april '39) they also ordered an extra one with out a turbo fitted. While the Army was busy playing with these units and liking what they saw (YP-39A), the NACA (guess who they were the fore-runner to?) got it's hands on the XP-39A and called for over 60 modifications to be made, one of which was the removal of the Turbo Supercharger ! Anyone want to hazard a guess as to why? Well it seems that the thinking of the time was theat the US would never have to face long-range high altitude enemy bomber attacks, and so the only possible missions that the P-39 would face CAS and ship-strike ! Why load an aircraft with a turbo if it is going to spend all of it's working life flying on the deck.:rolleyes:

Well that makes some sense in 1939, but by 1942 why where they not put in when there was an obvious need for hight altitude performance?

mdiehl · Post by **mdiehl** » Wed Sep 04, 2002 12:34 am

That's basically the story. A note of detail, NACA's preliminary tests showed that the turbo slightly hampered performance in 1939, (but of course, all the tests were at low altitude for the reasons given by Raverdave) so the turbo was removed. With it, the P39 *in 1939* had a ceiling of 30K feet and a top speed of (IIRC) about 390 mph.

The 1942 P39s were not given tscs (trubosuperchargers) for several reasons: first, a general shortage of same, with tscs reserved for the P40 and newly arriving P38s, second, most of the P39s in critical theaters were in place, and, third, (this is speculation on my part), there may have been space/design considerations that made the problem more complicated than merely adding a tsc to the existing engine. For one thing, the P39 was an unusual a/c, with the engine located *aft* of the pilot. That's a fairly narrow space to accomodate a field-installed tsc I suppose.

In 1942 Bell was asked to reintroduce the P39 with some rounded out f/b capability. It entered production as the slightly larger but generally similar P63, with a tsc and a top speed in the high 390s-low 400s. It bears the distinction, IIRC, of being the only major first-line US made fighter not to serve in combat for the US during WW2 (being primarily used for training and lend-lease).

Possum · Post by **Possum** » Wed Sep 04, 2002 11:21 am

Also remember that in 1939 to 1942 the Turbosupecharger was an export restricted item, no aircraft was allowed to leave the USA if it was fitted with one. For fear that other people would figure out how to make them.
But everone already knew how to make ordinary superchargers, so it seems rather silly to me.
I mean once the idea has been thought up, then it simply a matter of re-engineering an existing supercharger to run off an exhaust gas turbine, rather than a direct power takeoff from the driveshaft.

byron13 · Post by **byron13** » Thu Sep 05, 2002 5:38 am

Originally posted by juliet7bravo
Tell it to the dead. You can find 25 million or so murdered victims of Japanese aggression to debate it with. Maybe the victims at Nanking, the ghosts of the babies they caught on bayonets or played "baby baseball" with, the women gang raped to death, the millions of dead Chinese, the victims of biological warfare experiments, or maybe the Allied POW's dissected "live and screaming" at Japanese universities will debate the meaning of "evil" with you...I'm not gonna.

Originally posted by Tohoku
I think you have seriously missed the point he was making.

Haven't you guys already had this discussion?