Moderators: Joel Billings, wdolson, Don Bowen, mogami
Rommel?Mogami wrote:
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If you ask the majority of war-gamers to name the best German general of WWII you will hear Rommel named quite often. This is what I call the "Familiarity" effect.
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The loss ratios that I posted were a/c losses from engagements where fighters engaged fighters. So this does not count bombers or fighters lost to bombers, ground attack, flak, etc. In fighter vs fighter engagements the USN had a favorable ratio in EVERY engagement in 1942. The USMC slightly inferior when you count Guadalcanal. Very inferior if you count the Midway Brewsters, but I discount that as a 1-off. It was the only engagement with such a lopsided unfavorable (to the VMF boys) result and the only engagement in which American pilots flew Brewsters.My take on this is that the USN/USMC tended to be fighting relativity close to their bases while the IJN was fighting a long ways away. Also, the US put more emphasis on resue operations.
It would not have made a difference unless for some other reason Japanese 80 octane was routinely corrupted with contaminants. The early war Japanese radials were designed to run on 80 octane. Putting 100 Octane in an 80-octane-spec engine does not allow the engine to generate more power. The only time higher octane makes a difference is if the engine is designed to operate at higher pressures and temperatures (like the US ones) thereby generating more HP (it's why the US engines put out 1/3-1/2 again the power of the Japanese ones in 1942... the US engines were designed to use the better fuel). Putting 80 octane in a 100-oct-spec engine causes problems like improperly timed combustion (ping, knock etc), which is pretty bad for the pilot because performance is sub-spec. Putting 100 octane in an 80-oct-spec engine does nothing in particular.Did the "Elite" Japanese airgroups use the 100 octane while the groups that did not produce so many outstanding flyers used 80 octane?
News to me. The biggest consumer of high-octane fuel before the war was the US. The 2nd biggest was Britain. The third, Germany. All three operated heavy aircraft (commerical, transports, seaplanes and, with the US and UK, large bombers) with relatively high-output radials. That may be why some Japanese a/c in the early going also used higher octane fuels. All the major production models fielded by Japan in the first two years, however, ran on low octane fuel. Probably this is a consequence of their being designed in 1937-38. Later war Japanese a/c with higher output engines required higher octane fuels, but the Japanese were not able to provide enough of it, even with chemical additives. Their a/c performance suffered accordingly.Why else would they try to corner the market before the war. (not on 87 octane but 100 octane.)
No. In the US models, neither the Brewster or the P39 were TSC'd. Japanese a/c were not turbo but probably had some sort of high-altitude performance enhancer. Their chief asset given the relatively low energy output of their radials was low weight.About octane vs. power. Weren't most of the aircraft engines in that time turbo or super charged?
That all sounds plaubsible and about right. But the Zeke was designed for lower octane fuel, so she's not going to get any better performance from the 100 Octane. The higher octane fuel allows you to use higher pressures, which in turn provides greater energy.If so the higher the octane rating the more boost you can use making more power. It has nothing to do with engine design in boosted applications. Also engines do perform differently at sea level and at high altitudes. At high altitude engines are more prone to detonation making high octane fuel very useful in search for more power.
All a/c of the time gave pilots the ability to lean out or enrich the mixture.And before we go to lean/rich mixture discussion, at least in Zeros pilot was able to adjust the A/F mixture during the flight (that's how they were able to reach canal, source Samurai by S.Sakai).
No. The other factors that you mention are true at the margins. A low-octane designed engine might indeed see slight improvements at high altitude fro using better than spec fuel. But under most circumstances, higher octane will do nothing for the low-octane-spec engine except wear it out faster ('cause it's harder on seals and lubricants).So octane rating has a lot to do with performance in airplane engines, it's a whole different puzzle than automotive applications.
When we look at specs for fighters and see a figure like 1000 miles operating radius what this wants to imply is two-legged flight of 500 miles maximum at cruising speed at nominal altitude (not service ceiling) assuming good weather conditions (e.g., no head winds, storms to fight through) with an endurance time (for combat) over target of roughly 30 minutes. (NOTE: Mdiehl, I don't have any problem with your given figure of 15 minutes over target as this would in all probability more closely approximate the operational effectiveness of any given fighter on station in the real world; I just wanted to be on record with my preamble for other reasons.)mdiehl wrote:That leaves the canal. Zekes had about 15 minutes of air time over the canal prior to their fly-back point. In contrast, a typical air engagement for any given encounter for a specific pilot rarely lasted more than a couple minutes. Moreover, on one of these occasions, owing to good timing, bad observation or whatever, the 25th AF bounced the cactus guys with very successful results. They had air time enough TO WIN on a couple of occasions. If they were that much better as pilots, or if their planes were that much better, it does not show in the data.
Yes, you were generous.BTW, my kill ratios counts F4Fs at Cactus that were forced to abort (landed due to battle damage) as kills, even if the pilot successfully landed the plane in repairable condition.
Fatigue certainly was a factor. How much due to the long flights themselves as opposed to actual combat time over Guadacanal is anyone's guess and rather moot when one considers the way fatigue and aircraft wear and tear is modeled in the game.Fatigue may have been a factor in the long range strikes from Rabaul. The Japanese pilots who lived to write about it explicitly mention fatigue from prolonged combat, not fatigue resulting from a long flight. In any case, when I hear of very favorable (to the Japanese) raids being staged against PM or G'canal from Rabaul, I know that one way or the other fatigue is not being counted against the Japanese in the game.
) and as I've limited time for games I haven't studied the model from that perspective much to date. Of course I've seen plenty of effects from the USN point of view which lead me to believe that not very much is "right" over there. 
