Yeah, in active dogfighting (rather than running away/building initial position) MECing PP in a 109 is suicidal. I know some crazier who have enough self-awareness to keep it up by setting it to like 69% or so and enabling manual prop pitch while going into a vertical WEP stall climb and then going back to auto when they roll over onto the enemy but…
More often than not I rip my flaps against sufficiently competent enemies as is lmao. Only takes forgetting during one loop and boom, flapless. Losing engine as well would just be awful.
Radiators tho you can open to 20 or 40% and forget. You can even like toggle between auto and manual there as well to minimize thinking. Manual rads for WEP, auto for combat power. Forgetting to toggle it down from manual only causes issues with drag so not immediately lethal.
I mean with 109G2-trop I just leave it and it’s fine. 109Fs I have to keep watching out for it which is a bit annoying. Couple that with the fact that when I win a dogfight it often comes to nothing thanks to the MG-151 it sucks.
lmao that’s crazy bro, they’re literally fine and balanced where they are, American props are literally so low br it’s laughable, f4u4, f8f, p51h5 to name a few…
Whilst you are not wrong about 5.7 - 6.3 US aircraft - i see it from the perspective of lower BRs and in connection to the purpose of this thread (109s & 190s).
So when i have massive issues fighting A7M2 & Ki-84s in a 4.7/5.0 P-47 even above 6-7 km where i should outperform them substantially i see the average 109 or 190 pilot having way more issues fighting them.
They simply lack 3.400 rounds of API-T which you can spray at very long range (800m convergence) and set a fire with a lucky single hit. Their MG 151s are way inferior to Type 99s Mod 2s.
Genuinely just a big skill issue. 109’s and their variants are arguably the best planes in prop ARB. They do almost everything well and most importantly, have incredible climb rates.
some 109s are good yeah like the E series
F2 and F4 are also quite good
but for me G2 and the 109Z are the last good 109s
G6, G10 and G14 i dont know much about since they feel sluggish for me so i dont really fly them
the K4 is a good climber yes, if you sideclimb that is. most planes you face outclimb,outrun and outturn you. the Superstang, F2G1, Yak3s and the spitfires
and since you have handcranked flaps (sometimes i deploy flaps and forget theyre handcranked and by the time theyre deployed the enemy is on you already) its just better to keep on flying or if you know what youre doing deploy them already BEFORE the merge begins
could be a skill issue on my part yes, alot of new and better planes have been added since ive last flown the K4
People who perform/have performed badly in a 109 will naturally be drawn to this thread. It’s an objective fact that 109’s are some of the best props in the game.
…i am a little bit confused. I invite you to take your time and read this whole thread.
You will find a lot of actually experienced pilots expressing their observations which contradict your opinion. So if successful pilots reject or question their competitiveness it looks extremely strange that you call that a “big skill issue”.
As written earlier - i personally don’t like 109s, but i fight with or against them at almost any BRs almost daily. Even if they were flown by very good pilots they have usually a hard time against very stiff opposition.
The only plane i would call really good is the E-7 - i see from time to time outstanding pilots flying the JP premium version.
The planes on their own are not bad - they are simply outperformed by real meta planes like Yak-3/Yak-3Us, Ki-44s, Pyoerremskis, I-225s, F-4U-4b, P-51-H-5…
spit fire beats 109 in basically every aspect but energy yak is same way even late american props like F8F can beat a 109
109 is no where close to other fighters especially at higher tiers
there are some exceptions like the E seires which are fun a low tier g2 also very great fun but its hard to use energy advantage without spending a long time side climbing wasting a good quater of the match
for late G models of 109 and even the K4 to extent your speed is worse your althitude performance is worse your acceleration is worse your guns are garbage
@REO_Speedwagon you are so goddamn right here. When i go 1vs1 against Bf109F, G, K or Fw190 and we both have the same energy state i know that there is 95% propability that I would win this fight. Early Messerschmitts (E1, E3, E4) are quite fast and nimble, but F, G, K versions are just pathetic. These machines don’t like to turn horizontally, they don’t like to turn vertically, you have to always have great energy advantage when you attack someone. Man, in last three days i was playing Bf109G-6 and it wasn’t pleasant experience at all.
I couldn’t won a fricking horizontal turnfight with P-51-D20, one of the worst Mustangs!!! Another time when i was doing energy trap and i was going down to stalled enemy i couldn’t pick my nose UP - when Bf109G dives it takes so much time to point your nose up that reminds me MiG-3 - what the hell? And the guns man, they are fu***** horrible. Poor ballistics, poor damage. Enemies cut your plane in half after 1-2 hits from their 20 mm cannons, but you must hit at least couple of times to score “critical hit”, despite 30g TNT equivalent in minenshells. And of course Snail doesn’t want to fix this bug - but hey, russian SPAA which has exactly the same MG151/20 has properly working minenshells XDDDD.
For me Bf109s (F-G) would be quite decent planes if three things will be fixed:
Faster picking the nose up when ending loop - i don’t know how call this? Faster vertically turn time? Now it is just funny that picking your nose up is real struggle.
Minenshells should de more damage than other nations cannon’s HE shells. Why 30g TNT is worse than 13g? Only Snail knows.
Horizontal turn time - it turns horizontally like a fat American plane.
Literally all the Bf-109 has to do is wait for the F8F to dive on one som1, and then all of a sudden the F8F is even more of a free kills than a bomber.
Well u can’t dive with him, u rip before him, and u can’t pull as well in a dive, since ur pilot gets knocked out when he gets G suits. Not saying 109s can’t deal with F8Fs, just saying, actually yes most 109s can’t deal with F8Fs, in that BR range G-14 can’t do anything about F8F, G-10 is slower and rips too fast, however K-4 does roughly fine, except the advantage is not so large as many thinks ‘Oh u can just simply out manoeuvre him’. The guns don’t help either.
WTF is 403 error now?
You should try it in custom battles, the 109 K4 can hardly do anything against a bearcat.
The only think which worked, and only work if F8F is too passive, is to doge the first 2 angle the bearcat will have and go sustained from hear, using the power of the K4 and lack of energy retention of the bearcat to slowly outclimb it. But even in this case, the bear can just go down, pick up speed, and cut in the 109 path to get a free shot.
Literally all the Bf-109 has to do is wait for the F8F to dive on one som1, and then all of a sudden the F8F is even more of a free kills than a bomber.
It’s true for every plane in the game, If you give your enemy altitude and position you will lose. Now what happens in the bearcat doesn’t give you a free kill? You will lose as long as the bearcat pilot has any semblance of skill