Spitfires are the bomb diggity,
I always Spitfire.
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then you have the sea fury missing 700 horsepower and having the same pitiful flaps of the tempest…
It would be interesting if someone made a suggestion regarding the Spitfire MkVc and Troop. Both Spitfires had C-type wings, which allowed them to be armed with all the aforementioned weapon types, carrying either only 7.7mm machine guns, machine guns and two 20mm cannons, or all four 20mm cannons. The suggestion would be to at least make it optional to replace the four 20mm cannons with two 20mm cannons and four 7.7mm machine guns, with the difference compared to the MkVb being that the C-type wing accepts ammunition in 120-round belts of 20mm ammunition instead of 60-round drums.
As a historical note, the Spitfire MkVc with four 20mm cannons were very limited, being used only in the siege of Malta, and being modified to go back to carrying only the two 20mm cannons and the four 7.7mm cannons.
the spitfire lf mk9 is at 6.0 now so it’s balanced.
Spitfires can usually out-climb, out-dive and out-turn everything they face, or at least 2 of the 3.
Pretty easy to see why
Like I said, that’s the sole reason why they’re so massively overtiered. The average War Thunder pilot is absolutely awful and thinks that a turnfight with a Spitfire is the brightest idea.
The real power of a spitfire is it’s climb rate. Most people die to spitfires misjudging their speed and thrust, not by turn fighting them.
A 1.7 He100D-1 is a full 100 km/h faster at altitude than a 5.0(!!!) Seafire Mk III, let alone anything at 5.0.
So? The Sea Fury is worse than the FW190 A1 and it sits at 5.7, the J5N1 is worse than the XP50 and sits at 5.7 as well, the N1K2J is way worse than the Spitfire Mk9E and it sits at 6.3 so what?
You claimed the Spitfires have among the best flight models, in actuality they have:
- Awful top speed.*
One of the fastest props in the game is a Spitfire. The Griffons are faster than anything else that is not a Bearcat.
- Awful performance at high altitude.*
No? Only the LF Mk9 kinda “suffers” at high altitude and yet it still outperforms the DEDICATED high altitude N1K2J and the I225.
- Compresses at high speeds.*
Use rudder to compensate, and use full real controls plus trim to overcome dives. It’s what I use on the I225 to outpull while “compressing”, not that the plane actually compresses cause it doesn’t even need trim to pull 8g’s at 800kmh, you just need full real controls to disable the instructor.
- Extremely fragile airframes.*
Higher rip speeds than 109s btw.
- Overheating engines.*
Only good point.
- Poor energy retention characteristics.*
Eh no.
- Mediocre roll rates.*
They still roll better than most things.
The Yak series of aircraft are better across the board to a equal BR Spitfire in the vast majority of cases. Even something like the Ki-44-II (that also has overbuffed guns) does practically everything better than Spitfires which are at a higher BR than itself.
They are not. And I can tell you’re stuck at low BR spitfires and yaks. Also, your KD’s on spitfires are much higher than on yaks. Wonder why?
…i want to point out that the Spitfire is a classic case of historical fairy tale telling based on propaganda and not on irl achievements.
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What most people fail to understand is that the only real world achievement they can claim undisputed is that they were the allied fighter with the highest A2A kill claims.
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And Spitfires fought the Germans during their peak times whilst the totally overrated P-51 could despite having between 10-20:1 numerical advantage just ~ 5,000 kill claims vs 2,500 losses.
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But - these ~ 6,300 Spitfire kill claims in the ETO/MTO were accompanied by ~ 3,000 losses due to all causes. And that they got clapped in the Pacific as soon as they met even remotely skilled IJN or IJN pilots is usually not mentioned and talked about as there were just a few Spits active there.
You might argue that the Germans lost at least 3,000 Bf 109s (and most of their pilots) just due to take-off accidents (you find this number rather often in books) but this not change the fact that the RAF Fighter Command was unable to achieve even a 1:1 k/d ratio vs Luftwaffe fighters until 1944. Just read some books from D Caldwell - you don’t have to trust me.
This is actually not correct.
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The UK had simply not the technical possibility to add nose mounted guns with Merlin engine. Nose mounted guns depend on the engine design (shooting through propeller shaft), possibilitiy to syncronize the cannons/guns and the willingness / technical possibility to install them.
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Just do some research about the struggles of the RAF FC to determine the most effective gun convergence during the BoB - the official order was finally to use 250 yards (220 m) to overcome the systemic disadvantage of guns spread all over the wings.
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To be fair: It is true that the US found out that their average pilot benefited from pre-determined hitbox zones 300-400 yards in front of their fighters which was suited to get kills just by spraying a lot of bullets in this area.
But they ignored that the French Hawks (with center and wing mounted guns) had the best k/d ratio vs the LW in 1940 - and was evaluated by the RAF and assessed as superior CQC dogfighter ahead of Spitfires and Hurricanes.
That the USAAF/USAF was unable to implement 20 mm cannons in their fighters is another story, most people ignore the fact that the few cannonstangs in RAF service received British Hispanos because the US built version of the same cannon was crap.
I would even argue that that the Spits and GB aircraft in general had always certain privileges in wt - the way too optimistic FM of Spitfires is just the most obvious.
Even admitting that a lot of irl drawbacks of Spitfires can’t be implemented (like physical power to use control surfaces, sitting pilot position) without changing the game completely (simulation of pilot fatigue in longer fights, way lower g-force resistance of players) there are certain things most people are not aware of:
- The UK nightfighters and the the 2 US P-61s have an 2 km air superiority fighter spawn - whilst the 3 (4 if you count Ju 388) German night fighters have just an 1 km strike aircraft spawn - despite they have similar or worse climb rates. This is doesn’t look like an accident…
- The most successfull British fighter regarding kills per spawn and kills per death is (surprise) the Mosquito NF MK II - far better than any Spitfire at any BR.
- UK is the only nation in wt having twin engine dayfighters at Rank III or higher with an air superiority fighter spawn at 2 km (1 x Mosquito, 2 x Whirlwind, 2 x Hornet and now 1 x Welkin) - by accident?
Just a few months ago I read a book about the Bf-109 and Fw-190, and it states that the Spitfire and Bf-109 were more or less evenly matched, with the Bf-109 being slightly inferior until the arrival of the Spitfire MkIX, after which they became more evenly matched and offered better odds against the Fw-190. The biggest problem for the British was that until almost 1943 they used air combat tactics from the First World War, until they finally changed their tactics by simply copying the tactics used by the Germans, and only then did the losses begin to even out somewhat.
On the other hand, what I mentioned in the other post is historical fact, since Malta’s desperate situation led to two of the 20mm cannons being removed from Spitfires equipped with four, and those two were given to other Spitfires that needed them. Also, the Spitfire’s C-wing configuration allowed for different weapon combinations, the most common being the four 7.7mm cannons and the two 20mm cannons, which carried more ammunition than those on the B-wing configuration.
This true (regarding direct performance comparisons) but as mentioned earlier the discrepancy of irl and the wt gaming experience is mainly based on things wt has not implemented (physical power to use control surfaces and g-force resistance). That gaijin has the habit to nerf German aircraft is just widening this gap.
I do not agree regarding your second (tactics) part.
Hidden as imho off-topic:
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The RAF FC changed their 3 plane formations to classic four finger setup at least late 1940.
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But: The UK wasted a hell of excellent pilots during their “Leaning forward into France” campaign which was aimed to force the LW to a reaction.
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That these “Circus”, “Rhubarb”, “Ramrod” and whatever sorties were low alt missions explains why most of the Spits had Merlins with optimized engines for low altitudes and even the moderate success of used Mustangs.
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The idea of sending out one or two medium bombers as bait with up to 70 (!!!) fighters as escort looks good in theory but did not work.
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The JG 26 and JG 2 only reacted if they had a tactical advantage or there was actually a threat (see Eindhoven Raid by US medium bombers). That explains the very high losses of the RAF FC (most publications state a 4:1 K/D ratio for the LW until the end of 1943) in these raids which had btw no actual value regarding produced damage of the involved bombers.
The Germans learned this tactic (react just when necessary) when they came in with up to 700 Bf 109s at once in order to fight the RAF FC. The Brits could determine if bombers were part of the force and chose not to react when just fighters were coming in.
If you have the chance to read Bud Anderson’s memoirs: He described similar attempts by the USAAF - up too 100 P-51s played bomber (flying very slow) in order to provoke a interception by LW fighters…
The problem is that some planes don’t have their rudder compression modeled correctly, and when you add that to the G-forces, it doesn’t affect them as much, meaning some planes don’t perform nearly as badly as they should. Meanwhile, other planes are severely hampered, such as the Fw-190, which was supposedly practically identical in mobility to the Spitfire except for sustained turning. In the game, the Fw-190 is literally a brick that barely turns and can’t follow enemies when they evade your attack.
Regarding hunting strategies, the British based theirs on the German ones, but they were still less flexible than the Germans, and in Africa they were still using old hunting tactics, so in the early stages of Africa it was a drain on the DAF (Desert Air Force).