Bf109s and FW190s are the worst experience i've had in this game

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
35

Yes - but have in mind that experience does not help you when the game play in Air RB is determined by random (?) factors like nation allocation, skill distribution between teams and how many players are on pure selfish grinding tours and do not care about match results or prop game play in general.

  • If you try to analyze the prop BR range 3.3 to 5.7 it is obvious that German aircraft are not really competitive in the sense of having a real op fighter like other nations.

  • From a pure performance perspective German fighters are not bad, but it takes way too much effort for the average player to make them work, similar to certain US aircraft.

  • The shift from structured game play in the 12 vs 12 axis vs allies world to low altitude bar fights with infinite head-on attempts on both sides is detrimental for the necessity to invest time to learn the strengths & weaknesses of own and enemy planes.

  • I mean if u compare 2018/19 with today it is obvious that gaijin caters primarily USSR, US & CHN players with undertiered aircraft - imho to accelerate their grinding progress to the highly profitable supersonic market as they simply offer way more ways to spend money - and look like much bigger markets.

  • Nations like the UK remain (almost) unchanged (except Hispano buff) same as JP (they got a nice buff of their 12,7 mm Ho-103), Italy has still too much skilled players on average - and German teams are often pure tankers used to fight single CAS planes at low alt.

  • If you then see that Germany has zero guaranteed kill planes with air spawns like a P-38 or a XP-50 available it is obvious that this is no accident.

  • On top of that you can fly almost every non-German plane with infinite WEP settings whilst your 109 gets just in theory the maximum performance as gaijin still sticks to their imho flat wrong interpretation of the “Einheitenverstellgerät” in 109s (F, Gs) which causes engine overrevs when you fiddle too much with prop pitch despite this was technically impossible.

  • And that the 190 As got severe nerfs of their FMs and all of the 190 familiy suffer from excessive engine wear over time (ur “white” 83° oil temperature switches to flashing “red” in longer matches) just round up these nerfs.

  • The transformation of the previously best 20 mm in the game to a low range & rather low damage output cannon is just the cherry on the cake.

But - to be fair:

Gaijin forgot to nerf the Br 3.3 Rank III 410 A-1, u can fly this plane with 90% prop pitch and infinite WEP without overheating.
It climbs like a rocket and is fast enough to outrun and outdive most of its opponents - whilst the air brake helps a lot vs aggressive P-38s and USSR fighters. The defensive 13mm are effective up to 1.4 km - the plane is currently the only German plane i use frequently and it is actually fun to play.

Fully agree #2.

It feels like that every match is la full uptier - even if the opponents have the same BR. It reminds me at flying the Italian P-47 in constant full uptier loops paired with a German fighter/attacker and 4 Ju 288s. U could not afford the slightest mistake - whilst your opponents got away with multiple mistakes based on their superior plane performance.

Have a good one!

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36

Never played Germany but I gotta admit I haven’t been threatened a lot by German fighters since I reached Rank 4

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37

P-51: just good when going fast
A6M: slow, u’re always faster than them
Yak-3: a tricky target, but u can get them if u’re smart

the Fw-190 is a very difficult plane to flight, and in my opinion is very bad.
but the Bf-109? nuh uh, very good and probably the best plane of Germany

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38

but the Bf-109? nuh uh, very good and probably the best plane of Germany

Yeah, not like they have much to choose from, compared to other nations i.e. USA you can choose from F8Fs, F4Us, P63/39, P51s, P47s. With Germany is basically a Bf109 and Fw190 and realistically, it’s between Bf109 variants.
Calling a Bf109 “probably the best” German plane is not really an achievement when there are only to planes competing for the title and one of them is a disabled kid

Shoutout to the Ta 152H, the only threatening plane in the German tree

I also want to mention that last night i finally started grinding the Japanese props and i’m playing the Ki 44 II and that plane is what every Bf109 dreams to be, i’d rather play that at 5.7 than the K4

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39

Try the TT B7A2 - i can’t remember when i got killed by a (German) fighter flying it. Just keep your alt advantage & avoid head-ons. It outturns everything German - except very rare 109 E-4s and a very good flown Bv 155.

It makes a hell of fun to clap Yak-3s and Chinese Ki-44s in it. Have in mind that your crew skills should be optimized for turnfights and the plane is rather stiff.

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40

I’m aware of these broken “bombers” that can dogfight better than specialized fighters, SB2C is just as disgusting.
Currently i’m aiming for the J2Ms because i think they look very cool.

41

Honestly, I feel like the SB2C could def go up in BR and have its bomber spawn swapped to a striker spawn and be fine, after it became my first plane with a full 2.0K/D with a substantial enough amount of kills. Honestly, as bad as I feel using OP vehicles, if I have it and it’s a viable grinder I will use the hell out of it

42

I CAN understand early Fw 190s being bad planes, because they’re. The Anton variants are just underpowered mainly for the reason that they just overheat incredibly quick with WEP and even MEC can’t mitigate that. I still don’t know why Gaijin has such a hate boner for them that they literally nerfed them based on a “I just feel they should be overheating more” report. They’re still one of the best GRB planes to include in your lineups due to their top speed, acceleration and armaments.

The Doras tho? They’re literal powerhouses. You get some mad P/W ratio, you have several very hard-hitting guns with tons of ammo, the plane is perhaps the most armored fighter when it comes to fighters in general, you can actually maneuver well at altitude without much lock-up (if you use the D-12/D-13), your roll rate is the literal best in the entire game, your energy retention is one of the best, your landing flaps can make you turn like a Spitfire and the dive performance is literally unrivaled by anything you face. It’s an excellent plane, because you can abuse those characteristics that other planes don’t excel at.

You’re being followed? Use your great energy retention and turn rate to literally dodge every single shot. You’re about to headon with another plane? Do it, because your guns will hit MUCH harder and you’ll be able to dodge quicker due to the amazing turn rate. You’re getting dived on? Dive aswell and do a reverse on the guy, use your flaps aswell to abuse the turn rate it gives you.

These are not even all the tactics you can do in the Fw 190 and if you can sideclimb long enough to get up to altitude, the enemy team will literally not be able to do ANYTHING against you until they climb on the same altitude (for which they’ll have to divide up and sideclimb alot), especially because your dive performance also allows you to BnZ better than even American planes. They also can’t simply run away, because your top speed and acceleration is amongst the best.

It takes time and patience to master the Fw 190s and in a way is also dependant on your teams to give you some time to sideclimb at the beginning of the game, but the main reason they’re so damn good is because they have an answer to every single opponent they face, even bombers fear you due to your armaments and ammo capacity. There’s not a single situation when you would just straight up say “damn, I literally can’t win anyhow” and even if you’re not confident, you can still just head-on them and turn their planes to shreds if they get hit even just once or twice while they’re either forced to sparingly use their guns due to low ammo or they only have 50 cals. Even in matches when my team loses in like 5 minutes, I still can sometimes drag out the match by abusing the enemy team’s impatience and most of them having a lower altitude and atleast drag down with me 2-3 players. It’s such a fun and unique plane, quite literally feels like playing an early jet, but as a prop.

43

your landing flaps can make you turn like a Spitfire
great energy retention and turn rate to literally dodge every single shot

I’m sorry, we must be playing different games

2 Likes
44

I feel it might be vital to clarify what control set-up one uses there.

Bf109s handle very nice without instructor, the instructor kind of handicaps them. Most planes are far more maneuverable with proper stick & rudder (in exchange for much worse aim and a chance to kill yourself).

Same deal with mustangs.

Took out my fw190 A4 in sim by accident (wanted g14, didnt read lobby BR bracket).
It felt quite nice to fly and handle. I quite liked having responsive controls even at 700 km/h.

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45

Check in test flights just how much the flaps affect your turning ability. Takeoff flaps already help a bit and can be used for up until around 800 km/h, so you can use them when you don’t want to slow down as much or not in a hurry. Landing flaps on the other hand break at around 330 km/h if I remember correctly, but you can take them out for a few seconds to get a massive boost in turning, but you do have to be careful not to break them, because if you do, you’re going to severely limit your capabilities. When you’re going slow and not risking breaking them, the power output the engine can do actually causes even your sustained turning radius to be better than if you tried turning without flaps constantly, even Defyn notified that. So basically, think about takeoff flaps as soft flaps and about landing flaps as hard flaps.

It’s also important to learn this, because the Ta 152 H-1 has literally the same principal when it comes to flaps, even more so than the Fw 190 D (tho you can use combat flaps in place of takeoff flaps on that atleast). That one definitely can outturn a Spitfire.

46

I think it’s safe to assume we’re talking about RB here and not SIM, although i’m aware you can switch controls to full realistic mid-fight, it’s not really viable and will get you killed.

I know some planes turn better with full realistic controls , such as Fw190 and F4U and the Spitfire will enter a spin if you pull too much. I tested them many years ago.

Playing RB and saying a FW190 can outturn a Spitfire is simply misleading and will get players that don’t know any better killed. As of current meta, the Fw190 stands 0 chance against a Spitfire

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47

All this talk about how great a Fw190 can turn, reminds me of this video

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48

Doras were always support fighters and need a living team to be somehow successful. The ability to score a kill is based on the cooperation / mistakes of their opponents, basically you can quite successful zoom across the map and collect cheap 3rd party kills or stall out some rookies, but Doras are no solo planes.

Yes, you can energy trap some rookies in US premium Spits or F8Fs (above 6-7 km) but you are imho way too euphoric regarding their actual combat effectiveness. A good flown P-47 D-28/30 kills a Dora every day of the week. He tries to roll? Throttle down and/or use air brake. You might be able to out-dive some USSR planes, but at the end of they day they can just run.

Their main strength is the ability to turn into you in head-ons (with high speed & flap usage) for snap shots and the lack of compression at very high speeds.

But every experienced player is able to avoid those head-ons - and imho just a small fraction of players is able to utilize the excellent roll rate.

Flying non-meta planes gives you a challenge - and equals the playing field vs the sheer masses of rookies in better performing aircraft. Getting kills became way too easy (compared to 2018/19) due to the severe experience drop in Air RB and 16 vs 16. So you can either farm clueless rookies with meta planes - or give them at least a fighting chance if you fly a non-meta plane.

The downside of flying non-meta planes is obvious - as soon as you face a decent player you have serious issues and often u are forced to land and leave if they they refuse to make mistakes.

I aced the UK P-47 D-23 and the US F6F-5 in Air RB because they fly great with a HOTAS without instructor, are very stable and need a lot of patience & experience to make them work - and you are not totally helpless in full uptiers even vs similar experienced players.

Nothing better that have a nice fight (undisturbed) with an experienced pilot in a Yak-3 in the Hellcat (a beast) or play 1 vs 4 with the P-47 on Pacific maps. Your Ki-44 II is way too slow above 6 km…

You don’t need FR mode in Air RB - it’s an overkill.

Use a HOTAS and Simplified Flight Controls (SFC) and disable the instructor slides - but keep the main slider at “on” to use the auto-trimm function. U won’t have any accuracy in head-ons (and there is no point & click on 15 ground units in a straight line) but your plane is able to be flown to its full potential.

So if you wan’t to have fun flying - use a HOTAS even in Air RB. If you fun is connected to your kill score - use mouse aim.

Have a good one!

49

I think the bf109s and fw190 are mostly fine except for the A5 planes (and maybe the bf109G10 being overtiered).
Since the flight model rework they are one of the worst planes at their brs. I dont know why gaijin did this to them. They didnt overperform before on a historical or ingame basis.

I hope they add the G-series of the fw190 in the future. Would be nice cas planes in grb. The G8 could take 250 kg bombs on the wings and one 500kg bomb under the fuselage or one 1800 kg bomb. Sadly most cas fw190s are missing somehow.

50

Thanks for the input, but i’m really not into planes that much to justify buying a joystick, especially for some planes that i don’t like in a game mode that has basically been forgotten by gaijin

1 Like
51

no merge on mig 15 weird ahhh dogfight

52

Ta-152 fucks. one of those “Suddenly death” kinda plane.

53

A plane that need a huge energy advantage over its opponent to have any change is just a bad aircraft. For example: The italians produced way better aircrafts than the germans in WWII, but were to expensive to produce, so they stick to the bf (this is documented btw).

The moment you dont have a huge energy advantage, especially in ground RB, were you dont have time to climb to 5000 meters, lol, you are dead.

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54

You know you can generate that energy advantage in a 1vs1 dogfight? Late Bf109s do suffer against griffon spits, but merlin spits? Unless it’s a japanese plane, all you gotta do is wiggle your tail appealingly in front of the spitfire so that it latches on and turn while climbing, alternating between steeper climbs and lower rate turns and higher rate turns/shallower climbs to keep making your opponent think they’re just about to get lead on you.

I’ve had the situation is question come up multiple times in Bf109F4, Bf109G2/trop and Bf109G14 and it works quite reliably.

Its main weakness is third-partying, but that’s the case for any kind of dogfighting maneuver that brings your speed under 350 km/h or applicable speed for your BR.

Second weakness is it requires good situational awareness. If you misjudge your relative energy with the spitfire, you can die easily. Meaning - you’re 300 km/h and get spooked by a spitfire that’s also at your altitude so you do the tried & true lure and get confused as it can do both rate and climb at once. What happened? The spitfire was flying at 450 km/h and could cash in that extra speed (this is how I died in a recent game in fact).

Its other weakness is that the spitfire can be smart and not follow you. Now you might ask, “if a method requires my enemy to make a mistake, it’s not a good method.” Counter-point: Merlin spitfires can only beat you if you don’t realize it’s a spitfire and try to flat-turn rate fight it because they’re lack the speed to force the engagement.

Play with this tool. Compare the Bf109F4 with the Spitfire Vb, the G14 with the Spitfire Vc

This tool, ignoring prop efficiency and drag, tells you your plane’s energy generation and supercharger gearshifts/gaps. Prop efficiency comes up under 200 km/h with late bf109s as your propeller blades are too small for the engine power you can output - you might notice WEP doesn’t work as well at such speeds - the blades stall, more or less! There’s ways around it by messing with prop pitch but that’s quite dangerous and advanced.

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Engine = dead corresponds to 75% or higher.

The prop pitch trick is more viable in cockpit view with VR/headtracking to keep an eye on engine RPM or with WTRTI displaying engine RPM. You must not let it go above 3200, ideally keep it at 3000 to be safe.