The XP-50 has slightly better turnrate than the Bf 109 F-4, as seen in the old Beer Thunder video where squish takes XP-50 up vs Bf 109 and whoever is playing the XP-50 consistently wins, showing that the plane is better even accounting for minor differences in pilot skill. Essentially the XP-50 is a better bf 109 F-4 considering that while it has less ammo, its guns are much more effective than MG 151, which is the saddest gun in the game right now.
This is a vehicle that has no business being below BR 4.0 even with a ground spawn. Meanwhile, the early P-47 thunderbolts with much worse climb are stuck with a ground spawn and therefore complete early-game irrelevance despite having worse flight models where it counts.
I just played a 5.0 game in Air RB (I was flying the Me-410 but it might have been a 5.3 game). 2 players spawned XP50 on the opposite side. They climbed fast above 13000 feet and proceeded to clean the entire map. They literally killed all of us and stayed well above, diving just enough to get the top of the melee. We destroyed the rest of their team but we all died. There was, quite literally, nothing at all we could do, since they could outclimb and out turn all our planes.
In my opinion, it could very easily be at 5.0 or 5.3 and still perform well, but not higher than that, due to encountering early jets and very powerful post war props with higher performance and loadout. But I don’t think anything WWII can beat it, except maybe J2M’s and the like (and we know these are also horribly overpowered in the current meta).
the XP-50 in the hands of good pilot is a destroyer. but they usually aren’t. they have limited ammo for their 20mm, after that they only have 2 .50 cals for attacking, really doesn’t turn faster than other planes of its BR. only place it does insanely better is climb rate, where I can agree that the removal of its air spawn is a good idea to balance it. doesn’t belong at anything higher than 4.3
…it is obvious that your team full of tankers made almost all possible mistakes at once vs another team of tankers.
I saw some classic mistakes like:
Not climbing as a group, with correct (=optimal) climb speeds
Going for bombers instead of focusing on actual threats like 3 XP-50s
No attempts to split up or isolate enemies
No attempts to reduce their energy advantage (shallow high speed dives)
No attempts to sideclimb / outclimb them
Accompanied by individual things like:
Your 190 D-9 stall climbed into enemies approaching at high alt and was basically a stationary target…
Going with your Me 410 B-6/R 3 into an Air RB match and trying to stall fight a higher and faster XP-50 is like going just with a knife to a gun fight
A single 109 was higher at the end and went for a B-17…
I do agree it is looks not really fair to face 5 (3 XP-50s, 1 P-61 & 1 VB 10) air spawn planes, but nobody forced your team to stall climb into higher enemies.
The other team was not really good - but as soon as you allow enemies to dictate the fight and accept their terms to fight you get killed no matter what they fly…
Had we not climbed, it would have been the same. They could have stayed high and our only plane that could outclimbed them didn’t have the skills to take them on solo. About my own attempt, it was pretty close. Had I better optimised my climbing, I might have had a chance against the first XP50. But that was too late.
Without dragging this too far away from the topic - it looks like we have here a misunderstanding:
I gave a feedback how you climbed and not that you haven’t climbed at all.
So all planes have optimal climb speeds in which the most amount of engine power can be used to climb. Too steep: Increased AoA = higher drag = less climb rate; too shallow: Increased drag due to higher speed = less climb rate.
And the climb path plays a role too - so climbing away from enemies won’t reduce their altitude advantage, but it increases the chances that some of your team can outclimb them. The key is too keep the distance as long as possible outside gun range, but inside spotting range.
So in order to fight XP-50s effectively you need a living team - and stall climbing into them is the best way to play 1 vs 10 after 6 minuets (had this yesterday).
And the main reason for climbing in props is to gain positional advantage in order to have the possibility to dictate / dominate a fight.
So as you can’t neutralize the combination of air spawn and good climb rate of XP-50s early game - your main goal is then to reduce this advantage - so playing around their strengths, to exploit their weaknesses and to reduce their initial advantage.
And in order to reduce energy advantages of XP-50s you need to force them to waste energy: By diving on you.
Due to the low rip speed of ~ 700 kmph combined with high compression you can survive very long in a 190 or 109 - so in order to have this opportunity to drag them low (and the end goal is to bring them lower than friendlies) you have to be able to assess enemy air speeds (and energy states in general).
And (as stated in my 1st post: No offense) this was not a personal thing. These were just basics of aerial combat - but they show just the main issue of Air RB - too many players in the lobbies without the necessary experience or patience to deal with challenges.
That’s why dedicated pilots are just frustrated to see such things almost every match: Tankers dominate Air RB - and even if they have fighting spirit in their own mode: Their actions in Air RB influence the numbers game like hell - and reduce the outcome of most matches to a random event.
Its called baiting. It’s a patience test. Many will dive if they get tired of you not going to their terms. Seen it happen plenty and it results with either you(not you but a player) dead or them being dead.
Yeah but not really vs planes without compression issues like I-185s or 190s as their very good high speed stability allows them at least one good shot if your own speed is too slow - 190s can pull these insane snap shots…
The XP-50 is absolutely awful to play against, particularly in a bomber when no allied fighters have managed to climb up to your spawning altitude. Your options when playing against USA are either to turn back upon spawn to wait for friendly fighters to climb (giving enemy bombers an innate advantage when it comes to scoring tickets) or risk dying helpless to an XP-50 (giving enemy bombers an innate advantage in tickets plus the tickets lost in your death).
Simply climbing yourself would work usually against most enemy fighters/interceptors, but due to the unfair and unbalanced air spawn the XP-50 gets, it can easily catch up to a bomber and get free kills before the bomber has had time to drop their ordnance and before the bomber’s teammates can help them.
Makes me consider to just J out every time I play a bomber against USA in this battle rating. Ruins the game.
Imho you are not really wrong with your assessment, but imho you are way too pessimistic regarding your chances vs an XP-50.
I see them daily murdering rather clueless bomber pilots - but i see also a hell of XP-50s dying to return fire. And you B-26 C is not really helpless. You outrange all incoming shells if you keep your speed high - or use it as a fighter like this guy:
Oh that’s far from the only bomber that’s easy prey for the XP-50 with very little in the way of defense. Also I would hazard a guess that the skill needed to fire accurately with defensive gunners is substantially higher than the skill needed to get easy pickings out of bombers with an XP-50.
Your comment was way too mature for the average bomber pilot. So i became interested and looked for available replays - to see how you fly - and i skipped through a replay with a B-26 on a desert map. And my first impression was confirmed - way above average, good route to drop, no enemy threats.
To control a bomber as in the vid you need to switch to simplified flight controls and to fly with your joydtick or keyboard whilst using the gunners with your mouse.
Have a good one!
PS: Switch off “joining running battles” - late spawning in a bomber increases your chances to get intercepted before dropping…
I do use keyboard controls and aim with the mouse, it’s just that there’s so much more physics involved when shooting at a direction other than the one you’re flying in, thus much harder to hit with gunners than to hit with nose-mounted weaponry.
I.e. the skill required to deal with an XP-50 in a bomber is significantly higher than the skill required to take a bomber down with an XP-50. And considering the unbalanced airspawn, this will be the scenario you often find yourself in playing against USA in this BR range, since no allied interceptors or fighters have the ability to match the XP-50 in altitude at that point, hence no chance of backup for the bomber unless the bombers hang back to wait for backup to climb (which the enemy bombers don’t have to bother doing).
