Unit Depictions on Screen

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: fuzzy_bunnyy

semi unrelated to the discussion at hand, but this shot reminded me of an old problem i had. why in gods name would the germans ever not scrap that 2 factor 2 range FTR? why is it even included in the game?

It's in the game to represent all the obsolete historical aircraft fielded by Germany in September 1939. It's useful as a deterrant to stop the Allies from sending over unescorted bombing raids. When you have sufficient other aircraft then scrap this one... or whenever you lose it in combat, whichever comes first.

[Mziln]

Dont forget how you calculate your air-to-air strength.

If you have a fighter group your air-to-air strength equals:
...The air-to-air rating of your front fighter, and
...+1 for each other FTR, and
...+0.5 the air-to-air strength for each other carrier plane, in your fighter group
...If you are using Option 56 Carrier Plane Units: Instead of adding the usual 0.5, carrier planes add .01 of their air-to-air
...strength as back-up fighters.
...If you are using Option 55 Outclassed Fighters: Back-up fighters only increase your air-to-air strength when their modified
...air-to-air rating is at least half of the modified rating of the front opposing fighter. This does not apply to back-up carrier
...planes.


Note: It is possible that you will not know the strength of your opponents front fighter.

[c92nichj]

ORIGINAL: fuzzy_bunnyy

semi unrelated to the discussion at hand, but this shot reminded me of an old problem i had. why in gods name would the germans ever not scrap that 2 factor 2 range FTR? why is it even included in the game?

If you were playing classic each and every fighter in your forcepool will be used. If playing with PiF you'll never see it appear on the board.

[Zorachus99]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I am still unsure how to do the status boxes, which is the fly in the ointment.

Some sort of dockable position would be nice.

BTW your air units are gorgeous!!! I really don't spend enough time congratulating you on your excellent work.

[Neilster]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

Typo on Pe-2I information.
The text should say 'The Pe-2I's two 1,000hp engines...' not 'The Pe-2's two 1,1000hp engines...'
There are two mistakes in this snippet
Mea culpa [:(]

My info is that the Pe-2I had 1650hp VK-107A donks. There appears to be something wrong with the top speed too. The blurb says 540ph. Is that supposed to be kph or mph? I have a top speed of 656 kph (405mph).

Also, the Pe-2I was a fighter-bomber with a payload of 2000kg and two 12.7mm UB machine guns. On this counter it appears to be a fighter only.

http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/ram/pe-2i.html

http://www.xs4all.nl/~fbonne/warbirds/w ... tlpe2.html

This might be of interest too...

"The British, with a new ally in the war against Hitler, sent a detachment of Hawker Hurricane IIBs to Vianga, near Murmask, and flew top cover for a Pe-2 bombing mission on 24 September 1941. The Hurricane pilots found they had to stay at full throttle to keep up with the Petlyakovs. "

Cheers, Neilster

[Neilster]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The German air units - about half of them. Fighters first. Screen shot #1 of 4.

What I have done with the names is to make the extension a smaller font, but only if an Also Known Name is given. For example, the Emil's have their E-1, E-4, et al in a smaller font. While the Bf 109F-1 has its F-1 portion of its name full size. This will fix the Italian planes too (e.g., Macchi C.202).

It's good to see the Go 229 in the game but the nomenclature "Bat" appears to be a post-war American invention. Also, it was a fighter-bomber with the emphasis on bombing and was capable of carrying 1000kg of bombs. Here it appears to be a pure fighter.

An air to air rating of 13 is far too high as well. The fighter variants of the Me-262s rate 11 or 12 and with its wingspan of over 16m, weight and probable yaw instability there is no way the Go-229 would be a better interceptor than them. My guess would be about 10 as it was super quick and it's pilots could have used energy maneouverability (as indeed, the Me-262 drivers did).

As a side note, aren't twin engined fighters denoted in some special way? The Go-229 was twin engined.

Cheers, Neilster

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: Neilster
My info is that the Pe-2I had 1650hp VK-107A donks. There appears to be something wrong with the top speed too. The blurb says 540ph. Is that supposed to be kph or mph? I have a top speed of 656 kph (405mph)...

Hi Neilster,
I have no doubt that people (of whom you are the first) will find many alternative sources of information which flatly contradicts the information I have collated. Some of the inconsistancies can be explained (eg engine upgrades part way through a production run) while others will be forever a mystery. At this point I'm not looking to re-open the Pandoras Box of juggling conflicting sources of information for individual aircraft. Is your internet source better than my internet source? Who decides?

I put all speeds in kph.

[Froonp]

As a side note, aren't twin engined fighters denoted in some special way? The Go-229 was twin engined.

In WiF, twin engined fighters are denoted by their cost to build. They cost 3BP instead of 2 BP of mono engined fighters.

Also, twin engined fighters who were not very agile or fast (Me110, Whirlind, Me410, Ju88...) have an orange air to air factor, meaning that they are less lethal against other fighters (mono engined or non orange twin engined).

[Froonp]

It's good to see the Go 229 in the game but the nomenclature "Bat" appears to be a post-war American invention. Also, it was a fighter-bomber with the emphasis on bombing and was capable of carrying 1000kg of bombs. Here it appears to be a pure fighter.

An air to air rating of 13 is far too high as well. The fighter variants of the Me-262s rate 11 or 12 and with its wingspan of over 16m, weight and probable yaw instability there is no way the Go-229 would be a better interceptor than them. My guess would be about 10 as it was super quick and it's pilots could have used energy maneouverability (as indeed, the Me-262 drivers did).

The design of the counters belongs to WiF FE.
MWiF is taking WiF to the computer, so the counters are not re invented.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

It's good to see the Go 229 in the game but the nomenclature "Bat" appears to be a post-war American invention. Also, it was a fighter-bomber with the emphasis on bombing and was capable of carrying 1000kg of bombs. Here it appears to be a pure fighter.

An air to air rating of 13 is far too high as well. The fighter variants of the Me-262s rate 11 or 12 and with its wingspan of over 16m, weight and probable yaw instability there is no way the Go-229 would be a better interceptor than them. My guess would be about 10 as it was super quick and it's pilots could have used energy maneouverability (as indeed, the Me-262 drivers did).

The design of the counters belongs to WiF FE.
MWiF is taking WiF to the computer, so the counters are not re invented.

Yep.

However, the details you would like to have changed are pure data and provided as CSV (comma separated value) files, so it would be an easy matter to make the changes if you really wanted to. Each unit/counter has a unique number assigned, so you can open the CSV file using a text editor, do a search on the unit #, and make the changes you want. It will be tedious, and mistakes (e.g., omitting a comma) will be punished by the program failing to load. Nonetheless, you will be able to modify all the numbers and even the unit types (e.g., fighter versus bomber). Features like twin engine are boolean values in the CSV files.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

ORIGINAL: Neilster
My info is that the Pe-2I had 1650hp VK-107A donks. There appears to be something wrong with the top speed too. The blurb says 540ph. Is that supposed to be kph or mph? I have a top speed of 656 kph (405mph)...

Hi Neilster,
I have no doubt that people (of whom you are the first) will find many alternative sources of information which flatly contradicts the information I have collated. Some of the inconsistancies can be explained (eg engine upgrades part way through a production run) while others will be forever a mystery. At this point I'm not looking to re-open the Pandoras Box of juggling conflicting sources of information for individual aircraft. Is your internet source better than my internet source? Who decides?

I put all speeds in kph.

The text descriptions will be available for editing too. They are .TXT files and contain both the unique unit ID # and the unit's name for convenience in locating them within the file.

[Froonp]

An air to air rating of 13 is far too high as well. The fighter variants of the Me-262s rate 11 or 12 and with its wingspan of over 16m, weight and probable yaw instability there is no way the Go-229 would be a better interceptor than them. My guess would be about 10 as it was super quick and it's pilots could have used energy maneouverability (as indeed, the Me-262 drivers did).

The design of the counters belongs to WiF FE.
MWiF is taking WiF to the computer, so the counters are not re invented.

Here are the specifications ADG published with PiF when they created it 14 years ago :

Go229
Weight (empty / laden) : 4,600 / 9,000 kg.
Speed : 977 km/h.
Climb rate : 1,320 m/mn.
Ceiling : 16,000 m.
Bomb Load : 0 kg.
Range : 635 km.
Range with Aux Tanks : 3170 km.
Armament : 4 x 30 mm cannons.

Me262A-1
Weight (empty / laden) : 4,000 / 6,400 kg.
Speed : 870 km/h.
Climb rate : 1,200 m/mn.
Ceiling : 11,500 m.
Bomb Load : 0 kg.
Range : 1050 km.
Range with Aux Tanks : 1050 km.
Armament : 4 x 30 mm cannons.

Me262A-2
Weight (empty / laden) : 4,000 / 7,045 kg.
Speed : 755 km/h.
Climb rate : 1,100 m/mn.
Ceiling : 11,500 m.
Bomb Load : 1,000 kg.
Range : 1050 km.
Range with Aux Tanks : 1050 km.
Armament : 2 x 30 mm cannons.

[Neilster]

ORIGINAL: Greyshaft

ORIGINAL: Neilster
My info is that the Pe-2I had 1650hp VK-107A donks. There appears to be something wrong with the top speed too. The blurb says 540ph. Is that supposed to be kph or mph? I have a top speed of 656 kph (405mph)...

Hi Neilster,
I have no doubt that people (of whom you are the first) will find many alternative sources of information which flatly contradicts the information I have collated. Some of the inconsistancies can be explained (eg engine upgrades part way through a production run) while others will be forever a mystery. At this point I'm not looking to re-open the Pandoras Box of juggling conflicting sources of information for individual aircraft. Is your internet source better than my internet source? Who decides?

I put all speeds in kph.

In this case it appears so. I know a reasonable amount about WW2 Russian aircraft but I was attempting to appear humble when I said "my info is..." The data you give is consistent with earlier models of the Pe-2. The Pe-2I was a considerably cleaner aerodynamic design from late in the war that used late-war engines and had a late-war top speed; hence it's air-to-air rating of 6. The top speed of 540kph (333mph) you quote does not gell with this. Mine does.

I'm not denigrating the hard work you did on these blurbs. I'm just saying that there appears to be a clear problem with this one and have provided two quite exhaustive sources to back my argument. Can you provide a source that says thet the Pe-2I used 1000hp engines? Even the earlier models of Pe-2 used VK-105 engines of at least 1100hp.

Cheers, Neilster

[Neilster]

Go229
Weight (empty / laden) : 4,600 / 9,000 kg.
Speed : 977 km/h.
Climb rate : 1,320 m/mn.
Ceiling : 16,000 m.
Bomb Load : 0 kg.
Range : 635 km.
Range with Aux Tanks : 3170 km.
Armament : 4 x 30 mm cannons.

Well that bomb load is plain wrong. Here's the Go 229 (Ho-229) entry on Wikipedia, with my emphasis in bold.

The Horten Ho 229 (often erroneously called Gotha Go 229 due to the identity of the chosen manufacturer of the aircraft) was a late-World War II prototype flying wing fighter/bomber, designed by Reimar and Walter Horten and built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik. It was a personal favourite of German Luftwaffe chief Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, and was the only plane to come close to meeting his infamous performance requirements.

Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Variants
3 Specifications (Horten Ho 229A (V3), manufacturer estimates)
4 References
5 External links
6 Related content



[edit]
History
In the early 1930s, the Horten brothers had become interested in the flying wing design as a method of improving the performance of gliders. The German government was funding glider clubs at the time because production of powered aircraft was forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. The flying wing layout removes any "unneeded" surfaces and, in theory at least, leads to the lowest possible drag. A wing-only configuration allows for a similarly performing glider with wings that are shorter and thus sturdier, and without the added drag of the fuselage.

In 1943, Reichsmarschall Göring issued a request for design proposals to produce a bomber that was capable of carrying a 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) load over 1,000 km (620 mi) at 1,000 km/h (620 mph); the so called 1000/1000/1000 rule. Conventional German bombers could reach Allied command centres in Great Britain, but were suffering devastating losses from Allied fighters. At the time there was simply no way to meet these goals — the new Jumo 004B turbojets could give the required speed but had excessive fuel consumption.

The Hortens felt that the low-drag flying wing design could meet all of the goals: by reducing the drag, cruise power could be lowered to the point where the range requirement could be met. They put forward their private (and jealously guarded) project, the Ho IX, as the basis for the bomber. The Government Air Ministry (Reichsluftfahrtministerium) approved the Horten proposal but ordered the addition of two 30 mm cannon, as they felt the aircraft would also be useful as a fighter due to its estimated top speed being significantly higher than that of any Allied aircraft.

The first Ho IX V1, which was an unpowered glider, flew on 1944-03-01. It was followed in December 1944 by the Jumo 004-powered Ho IX V2 (the BMW 003 engine was preferred but unavailable at the time). Göring believed in the design and ordered a production series of 40 aircraft at Gotha with the RLM designation Ho 229 before it had taken to the air under jet power. The program was undeterred when Ho IX V2 crashed due to engine failure on 1945-02-18 after only two hours of flying time. In fact, an order was put in for further prototypes and 20 pre-production aircraft. On 1945-03-12, Ho 229 was included into the Jägernot-programm for accelerated production of inexpensive "wonder weapons."

During the final stages of the war, the US military initiated Operation Paperclip which was an effort by the various intelligence agencies to capture advanced German weapons research, and to deny that research to advancing Soviet troops. A Horten glider and the Ho 229 V3, which was undergoing final assembly, were secured and sent to Northrop Corporation in the United States for evaluation. Northrop was chosen because of their experience with flying wings — inspired by the Horten brothers' pre-war record-setting glider, Jack Northrop had been building flying wings since the 1939 N-1M.

Northrop's small one-man prototype (N9M-B) and a Horten flying wing glider (Ho IV) are located in the Planes of Fame museum in Southern California. The only surviving Ho 229 airframe, the V3, is located at the National Air and Space Museum's Paul E. Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland. Several partial airframes found on the assembly line were destroyed by American troops to prevent capture by the advancing Soviet forces.

Ho 229 was of mixed construction with the center pod made from welded steel tube and wing spars built from wood. The entire aircraft was covered with carbon-fiber impregnated plywood panels. Whether this was done for reasons of stealth or simply because late-war Germany experienced shortages of metals and Hortens needed to reinforce the plywood for trans-sonic flight is a matter of largely unreferenced debate and speculation. Control was achieved with elevons and spoilers. The aircraft utilized retractable tricycle landing gear and a brake parachute for landings. The pilot sat on a primitive ejection seat.

[edit]
Variants
Ho IX V1
Unpowered glider, 1 built.
Ho IX V2
First prototype, 1 built.
Ho 229 V3
Revised air intakes, engines moved forward to correct longitudinal imbalance, 1 captured in production.
Ho 229 V4
Proposed two-seat night fighter, not built.
Ho 229 V5
Proposed two-seat night fighter, not built.
Ho 229 V6
Projected definitive single-seat fighter version, not built.
Ho 229 V7
Projected two-seat trainer, not built.
Ho 229A-0
Projected expedited production version based on Ho 229 V3, not built.
[edit]
Specifications (Horten Ho 229A (V3), manufacturer estimates)
Data from The Great Book of Fighters[1]

General characteristics
Crew: One
Length: 7.47 m (24 ft 6 in)
Wingspan: 16.76 m (55 ft 0 in)
Height: 2.81 m (9 ft 2 in)
Wing area: 50.20 m² (540.35 ft²)
Empty weight: 4,600 kg (10,141 lb)
Loaded weight: 6,912 kg (15,238 lb)
Maximum Take-Off Weight: 8,100 kg (17,857 lb)
Powerplant: 2× Junkers Jumo 004B turbojet, 8.7 kN (1,960 lbf) each
Performance
Maximum speed: Mach 0.92, 977 km/h (607 mph) at 12,000 m (39,370 ft)
Combat radius: 1,000 km (620 mi)
Ferry range: 1,900 km (1,180 mi)
Service ceiling: 16,000 m (52,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 22 m/s (4,330 ft/min)
Wing loading: 137.7 kg/m² (28.2 lb/ft²)
Thrust/weight: 0.26
Armament
2x 30 mm MK 108 cannon
R4M rockets
2x 500 kg (1,100 lb) bombs

I don't think it's erroneous to use the Go 229 nomenclature (as stated at the beginning of this entry) but this aircraft was clearly a fighter-bomber and it's a pretty serious hole to have this counter with a ridiculously high air-to-air rating and no air-to-ground rating. I'll be changing the CSV file.

Cheers, Neilster

[tigercub]

just a note-Can but only agree with the Go229 rate at 13 a tad high,allso i see the BF109/G1 rate as a 5 this was the first production ME109 to do 400 mph [feb/march 1942] and was the fastest climbing figher in the world at this time.This with the FW190 were the 2 best fighters flying at this time.

[Neilster]

ORIGINAL: tigercub

just a note-Can but only agree with the Go229 rate at 13 a tad high,allso i see the BF109/G1 rate as a 5 this was the first production ME109 to do 400 mph [feb/march 1942] and was the fastest climbing figher in the world at this time.This with the FW190 were the 2 best fighters flying at this time.

Yes, it doesn't look quite right when it has the same air-to-air rating as the E model from two years before. I can only think it is supposed to represent the G-1/Trop, although the paint job doesn't seem to indicate that.

I've read that many Luftwaffe experten considered the F model to be the deadliest dogfighter of all the Me-109s. The flying characteristics of the later models were nasty even for the experienced and often terminal for those that weren't.

Cheers, Neilster

[Greyshaft]

ORIGINAL: Neilster
Can you provide a source that says thet the Pe-2I used 1000hp engines? Even the earlier models of Pe-2 used VK-105 engines of at least 1100hp.

You're right about the 1,100hp engines. The typo I made in the original was to add an extra zero at the end of '1,1000hp' rather than adding an extra 1 at the beginning. The position of the comma should have told me that. [8|]

Information about the Pe-2I came from http://www.vectorsite.net/avpe2.html among other sources. I concur with the authors observation...' Trying to document aircraft is troublesome -- if you read three different sources you usually get three slightly different stories -- but in the case of Soviet aircraft the stories are often wildly inconsistent, and some sources even contradict themselves. '

[Shannon V. OKeets]

First of 2 screen shots of some of the Commonwealth air units (WIF FE counter sheets 1 and 2).

The top 3 on the left are Australian. Beneath them are Canadians. The fourth unit on the top is Indian. The Corsair is from New Zealand and to its right is a South African Spitfire. The bottom row are all Commonwealth.

Obviously I have to add the 3 letter country designation (e.g., CAN, AUS) I have for the land units to the air and naval units too. For the fighters it fit under their tail. For the naval air it will be under the air-to-air number. The bombers are going to be a hassle but I think I can get it in above the tactical factor. The Mk. X Lancaster will have to have the Mk. and X on the same line though. Mercifully, none of the minor powers or commonwealth members nations have Carrier air units or ATRs. So only the bombers may required fudging around. The naval units will be easier (for the most part).

[Shannon V. OKeets]

2nd in a series of 2.

The reson all the units have the red status indicators is because they are out of supply. I have placed them in the middle of Russia for ease of layout.

None of these units has rounded corners. I haven't gotten to that yet for the counters with bitmaps. However, if you look closely you will see that the shadiows are rounded - and that I have reduced the amount of rounding on them from the screen shots I was showing earlier to day.

The British sure start the war with a lot of wimp bombers.

[Froonp]

I don't think it's erroneous to use the Go 229 nomenclature (as stated at the beginning of this entry) but this aircraft was clearly a fighter-bomber and it's a pretty serious hole to have this counter with a ridiculously high air-to-air rating and no air-to-ground rating. I'll be changing the CSV file.

I looked at Il-2 Sturmovik the PC simulation game, and the Go229 is proposed zero ordonnance possibilities when you fly it. You cannot load any bomb on it.

I think that, even if this is right that the Go229 was designed from the start as a fighter-bomber, it could simply have been rushed out in operations in fighter only mode first, being added the ordonnance capacity later, as the Me262 was.

This is a plane for which only 1 exemplary was actually flown, for 2 hours as the Wikipedia is saying (not the most reliable source about planes). So anything that can be written about it is from the "what if" / "suppositions" domain. So I believe that it is credible that the WiF game put it as a fighter only plane. Fighter-bomber version could have been developped thereafter, with less air to air factor and more tactical factors.

About the 13 air to air factor, I do not think that it is ridiculously high.

The best Me262 is at 12, and the designer simply believed that the Go229 was +1 compared to the Me262. +1 is not ridiculously high.

As a comparison, the Mig-15 & Grumman F9F Panther are rated at 15 on the PatiF / AiF countersheets, and the North American P-51H Mustangs are rated at 10.