Matrix Games Forums

Why is Me109 Endurance = 187? It has armor rating of 1, is the fastest fighter by Japan in the early war, and has a manuver rate of 33 (5 points better than the A6M2 Zeke). By reference a Zeke has an endurance rating of 575. And durability for a Mike is 12 while for a Zeke the durability rating is 10...

And an Axis Hawk is faster than a Nate or Claude, has an armor rating of 1, and has an endurance rating of 150. A Claude has an endurance rating of 295...

I guess I should also verify something else. Endurance is used as a check to see if a plane makes it back home after receiving damage (operational or flak) right?

If a Zeke with an endurance of 575 and a Mike with an endurance of 187 take the same amount of damage from flak the Zeke has a better chance of making it home and flying the next day (by about 300 points) - right?

Endurance is the amount of time the aircraft can fly isn't it? The Hawk and Mike are essentially Western planes and sacrifice range for armour as they were not really designed with the Pacific in mind. The Axis Hawks are essentially P-36s I believe, but the plane art does not show this.

That question about durability after damage is a good one. How does the game decide which planes make it home?

Endurance is the amount of time a plane can stay in the air. It is misleading whenever there is a drop tank - and the A6M2 has a 330 litre drop tank - so it actually flies longer than the stated endurance.

Durability is a function of several things - in RHS - a published formula you can look up threads on. It starts with the empty equipped weight of the aircraft (actually the square root of EEW / 1000 pounds) - also the type of construction (all metal, partial metal and fabric, non-metal, any of the above with armor) - also the number of engines and the number of pilots on board. All this is multiplied by K (Constant) = 2. So the difference between A6M and Me-109 is essentially armor - times 2.

There are several Hawks - and I don't know if the art you see is the right one - or not. The name was very popular in the 1930s - as were variants of it. There were three different ones in RTAF - so surely SOME of them are the right art!

Endurance may be checked to see if a plane gets home. But it will probably be something like

starting endurance

minus that used to get to the fight

minus that lost due to damage

= remaining endurance

is that enough for the range required to get home????