Simply making everyone here see why the previous exchange appears so weird, as if me and Flip are responding to entirely different messages, some of which are now deleted.
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Hahaha, sry man but smn wasnt adding up
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No-one is wrong. The plane is overperforming no matter what fuel load you consider. The sources indicates the irl spit weighed 3281kg. If a 3288kg spit (25mins of fuel in game) performs demostrably better than a 3281kg spit, the point is made.
No need to split hairs with the weight or fuel minutes etc.
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Apologies for the drama in here.
I made some typing mistakes and they honed in on them.
My reflexes typed up something while I was watching a film at some point and I deleted that off-topic post cause my brain was wandering for that post.
I came here on a fact-finding mission and to see if I could support this cause, and I mistyped many things.
My bad.
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No need to apologise. Matters such as this naturally attract drama, no hard feelings
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I can confirm that I tested the climb with 0% radiators. This is why I took time finding a source that explicitly stated the irl aircraft had shut rads
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That’s good to know, but even IF you had your radiators open, this would still mean the LF Mk IX was overperforming as your climb would be worse with them open.
I’ve had suspicions that the Spitfires were overperforming before, and this might apply to other models as well.
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i thought most spits are underperforming, in turn rate, oil temp, energy retention and engine boost to name a few, quite a wild assumption to say theyre ALL overperforming just because one is.
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I believe their turn rate is overperforming due to pilot acounts in the BoB and the russian pilots who used them saying they weren’t very maneuverable. Both of these are very weird claims when comparing them in WT because the spitfire easily outturns 109 E/Fs and Yaks (who instead have to play energy), but I haven’t seen IRL turn rate testing graphs or numbers. So until then it’s just a suspicion.
As for temperatures, that’s a very common trend. Bearcar and Tigercat suffered from overcooling at high speed, yet in-game they overheat. Fw190 cylinder head temp issues were fixed in the early A models, yet in-game the oil just refuses to cool down. There’s more examples, but it’s not worth mentioning them.
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From A. Price’s “The Spitfire Story” we can find a typical turn radius of a Spitfire Mk.Vb, which was right below 1000 feet, compared with Fw 190’s 1450 feet. I guess similar measurements can be found for 109s from German trials.
The Soviets measured the minimal turn time, and for Spitfire LF Mk.IX the time was 17,5s
Considering the performance of many aircraft, most in the game are overperforming in certain aspects. What comes to mind quickly is the higher-speed handling of A6M or Bf 109. Or, in case of the latter, the flatter speed in general (which was irl limited to 750 kmph, while it’s 794 in the game).
Ideally it’d be cool to see all aircraft perform exactly the way they did in reality, but that would be hard and would likely disappoint a number of certain fans. Another problem would be the discrepancy between different tests of similar models, as it was with Bf 109G in Germany, Finland and USSR.
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But at what speed, altitude, and weight? Was it sustained or instantaneous?
There’s plenty of finnish pilot accounts that detail them going MUCH faster than that, and while compressibility is a very serious issue, its not a death sentence by any means. High speed handling of 109s is pretty accurate at the moment.
IMO this should only happen if the Zeros ever go down in BR, as I feel that gaijin would be all too happy to leave them overtiered afterwards, like they did with the Ki-43-III.
It would, but it’s a disservice to everyone else when their favorite aircraft can’t perform as it did IRL because something else is overperforming. Or, if you’re a Fw190 fan, watch as gaijin does everything in their power to ruin them.
Allied tests of 109s are notoriously unreliable, due to using previously damaged airframes and either not disclosing or using the wrong engine settings. This also applies to the Aleutian Zero and I assume many others, where the mechanics that repaired them, however good they may be, don’t have access to factory parts or manuals.
This would be different for finnish 109s, russian Spitfires or Aira/Kingcobras since they were supplied with those things, of course.
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The Price’s quote is from measurements at 20000 feet. The Soviet ones – hell if I know.
The best they tended to describe maneuverability was “(Plane A) gets on (Plane B)'s tail in 4 horizontal turns.” Hardly ever do they measure the turn performance with such details.
Still, they had a table in the article comparing Spitfire Mk.IX with other contemporary (mid-1942) fighters. Remind me to send it tomorrow even if just for reference.
Yes, and high speeds were also achieved during testing (Test Report Nr. 109 05 E 43; Date 15.4.43)
Yet, there are multiple accounts of written documents limiting the dive speed to 750 kmph IAS, caused by reoccurring wing breakages.
Spoiler
True, I’d happily see Zeroes face proper competition (balance-wise) for the price of not handling like UFOs in a dive. The real trouble would be teaching the average playerbase not to dogfight with a zero.
Good morning folks, here I am back again and I’ve got the table with me!
The table: "Maximum speeds and maneuverability coefficients of fighters
The planes (from left to right): Spitfire Mk.IX, P-40E, P-51, P-39, Bf 109 G-2 without gunpods, 109G-2 with gunpods, Fw 190 A-4. The last column is the average of all the machines listed.
The measurements (from top to bottom):
- Maximum speed at 5000m
- The “Aircraft acceleration” (perhaps zoom-climb) from 5000m in the span of 60 seconds
- Turn time in seconds
- Horizontal acceleration (during a turn) (m/sec)
- Turn radius (meters)
The lower sub-table deals with the weaponry, but I’m not sure it’s as interesting considering the topic of performance
Yeah, figures.
And I had forgotten yesterday, but the spitfire’s wing itself is also a big reason for my doubts about its turn performance.
The wing root has the same profile as the 109, NACA 2300. Spitfire’s wing gradually transitions to NACA 2200 at the wingtip which is more symmetrical and doesn’t provide as much lift. Its wings have a significantly lower thickness ratio than the 109’s, some twist at the wingtips to improve stall behaviour, and a lower aspect ratio. Of course also no leading edge slats.
All these factors mean that the only advantage of the Spitfire’s wing is in wingloading, and it has to compensate for everything above. Wingloading isn’t everything, but it’s obviously important - and so is aspect ratio and having leading edge slats.
So again, I don’t have turn performance data to prove conclusively that it is overperforming, but I’m seriously doubting it is accurate at the moment.
Even then I don’t think it would be as bad of a nerf as some claim. Sure, the Zeros were quite bad at high speeds, but for our purposes in WT not that bad. According to the Planes of Fame guys, who had the Zero designer himself help them with restoring their A6M5, it only starts having issues at about 450kph, and some speed above that it was pretty much over for it. But below 450kph it’s the worst thing you can meet.
Well, I’ve provided what I had on comparing Mk.IX with a G-2, but there is plenty of similar comparisons between Mk.I and Emil and so on. As far as I know, the Spitfire still provided a tighter turn and lesser turn time than any contemporary 109.
The other problem is, it’s currently capable to perform near similarly at speeds closer to 650-700 kph
Those are done on damaged 109 Es, and I know at least for the tests with F models that the engine settings are undisclosed.
Also, that russian chart gets really weird the longer you look at it. Here’s the automatic translation:
For one, the engine output numbers are all over the place. I mean, 109 going from 800hp to 2200hp by adding gunpods? A P-40E pushing almost 1800hp, while the P-51 (assuming an Allison model) doesn’t break 1400?
A P-40 beating a 109 G2 on turn time looks optimistic, and top speeds for both the 109 and 190 look way lower than what they should be.
Yes, but with their crappy engines the Zeros don’t spend much time at those speeds.
Also sorry for noticing it late, but I have yet to see even a single Soviet report calling the Spitfire “not maneuverable”. Their most common nitpicks to the aircraft were:
- Poor taxiing performance at unprepared frontline airfields (and this moment was questioned by some more experienced pilots who said the plane “was shaking less than it seemed to”)
- Not high enough maximum speed at lower altitudes. Some sources claim that La-7 was almost 100 kph faster than Mk.IX at ground level, although I’m feeling sceptic about the discrepancy being this high due to Lavochkin’s infamous overperformance at trials.
As an example, not even late-war and post-war productions of La-7 achieved the 630 kph at ground level shown by the test aircraft.
And still, the Soviets considered the Spitfire to be the best high-altitude interceptor they had, having it sent to the Air Defense squadrons. That was both for its ceiling and climb rate, as well as the cockpit having better instruments for flying at worse conditions.
Also, while I remember it, the Spitfire outclimbed all Soviet types to 5000m. The time to reach 5km with WEP was 4 minutes square for Spitfire, and the best La-7 got with WEP from the table above is 4,3 min.
You can easily look up the German trials of 109s if you’re that uncertain about the others’ trials.
These are for armament, meaning the (perhaps) combination of kinetic and chemical energies of ammunition fired in a certain timespan.
Ah, I guess the numbers just lined up for power output on a few aircraft. But the top speeds are still way off.
Of course I am uncertain about trials done with damaged airframes. But IIRC stall speeds can also be compared, and that would rule out battle damage entirely.
To be honest I’m getting a bit tired of debating theoretical airspeeds when we have plenty of information from the trials, most of which were conducted by Messerschmitt AG. The website in general is a treasure trove of performance sheets, highly recommend it. Just don’t forget to also look at the altitude and settings at which the speeds were measured. From a quick glance I found Rechlin trials of Bf 109 G-1 with 622 kph TAS at 5000m, which is pretty close to the 610 kph achieved by the Soviet-captured Bf 109 G-2. But there are also trials where different modifications didn’t even cap the 600 kph mark at 5km.
Another point for your confusion could be the engine settings, since Gustavs had their engines capped at 1.3 Ata for quite a while, approximately until the 2nd half of 1943 to early 1944. That was caused by constant engine malfunctions at 1.42 Ata until it was finally fixed.
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