The Bf 109 Es are underrated

Game Discussion General Discussion
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I mainly play RB/SB ranks 2–4 because I love piston-engine planes. Here are a few issues I’ve noticed.Germany basically has no real turnfighters at ranks 3–4. The F-4 is okay, but its turning is downright awful.Meanwhile, the Bf 109 E-4/E-7/T-2 have BRs that are way too low. Their climb, speed retention, and guns are pretty similar to the F-4, but they turn circles around it. Honestly, only a handful of planes can beat them in a turn fight.
Also, for some reason, the German tree attracts tons of new players. But German planes (especially later ones) want BnZ / energy fighting, which actually takes decent game sense and isn’t noob-friendly.

I think that’s a huge reason why the German tree performs so poorly overall.That’s exactly why the Bf 109 E series needs to be bumped up in rank and BR.

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Agreed, they actually dogfight super well because they’re so light

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Yes, E-series is peak Bf 109 experience. F1/F2 is peak Bf 109 energy-fighter experience. Everything past it suffers. F4 has to compete vs Yak-3 at 4.0
Yak-3 is like Bf 109 F4, only better in every way, sans rip speed, it would work just fine at 4.7
But sits at 4.0 because seal clubbing Germany is critical.

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My personal bf 109 list →

  1. Bf 109 e7
  2. 109 e3
  3. 109 e1
  4. 109 g14as
  5. 109 g2/trop
  6. 109 g6

Can’t think of any other relevant 109.
E3/e7 just fly the best imo, they feel basically the same

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Isn’t G14 essentialy a G6 but at 5.3?
I know AS has improved speed and high alt performance. But I can’t see a reason for G14 to sit at 5.3 when G6 is 4.7.

To me E and early F BF 109s are good. G2 is just a worse F4, and F4 has to fight Yak-3 while having no real advantage, so I would ignore these. Then G6 because it can kinda defeat Yak-3 is played very skilfully and can do some funny stuff to other nations via energy fighting. Everything past G6 is mostly pointless, especially due to Yak-3U and Lf Mk IX infestation.

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Ngl I thought the g14 and g14as were the same, only played the as in the italian tt. Lemme take out the base one.

Agreed

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If i hadnt have played the BF109s myself id believe this is a bait post from how often german mains whine about the plane.

They feel great to play and hit hard while not being a braindead one trick turnfighter like the japanese props. Decent turn, good speed and can take a workable amount of punishment

the Emils are the peak of those qualities i must admit though, germany falls off a bit because the luftwaffe fell off after 1941.

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I mostly agree, but I’d put the Bf 109 T-2 at the top.
The T-2 can shake off pursuing Yak-3s super easily and keep on the tail of Spitfires and Typhoons without much effort.

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G-14 AS is worse than G-14 below 5 or 6000m and the G-14 is practically identical to the G-6 at 4.7 because the G-14 is just the standardization of the late G-6 and we only have the best performing G-6 in the game.

The early G-6 is probably worse than the G-2 because it just got weight and MG 131 bulges without any performance upgrade.

The G-14 AS has the more aerodynamic fuselage, without bulges. But that isn’t even modeled in the game 😑

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Ill be honest ive never seen anyone really talk about how much of a monster the hawker typhoon is, that thing turns HARD. However as soon as you change direction they are stuffed, that roll rate is very poor. Just change the direction of turn a couple times and they are going to fall off your tail or overshoot

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Right, I was utterly flabbergasted the first time I witnessed a Hawker Typhoon turning.
But can you believe it?
In my Bf 109 T-2, I pursued a Hawker Typhoon that was desperately trying to escape with a right turn — and I was able to maintain almost exactly the same turning radius.

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that sounds about right the T2 is always a surprise to turnfight. However, the typhoon’s rapier sabre engine has close to double the horsepower. still wouldn’t call it all too balanced from that, especially with how hard the ground belts on hispano 20mms hit sometimes. It can outrate you eventually, especially if they slowly increase the altitude they are turning at, they wont bleed energy while the 109 will.

If only the typhoon had better roll and yaw, it would be a 4.7 for the early (rare premium) and 5.0 for the tech tree late

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To engage turn fighters like Spitfires or Yak-3s at low altitude, the Bf 109 G-6 would need special measures such as power-boosting systems like GM-1 or MW 50 to forcibly convert its energy disadvantage into an advantage.Unfortunately, though, these don’t appear in the game.

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So yeah, 2 BR steps up for no advantage whatsoever. Briliant.

And some guy argues with me WW2 BRs are not “dead in the water” in some other thread, lol. It’s been basically “play OP planes that will never get balanced or suffer” hellhole for quite some time.
6.0 used to be fun BR range, but now with all-airspawn, playing Ta-152H feels like playing G.55 S1 in full uptier.

At least AS now indeed has “some advantage”, because with all-airspawns you can get awfully high…

…only to watch your team getting roflstomped 2km below you.

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According to Jukka Raunio’s book, Finnish Air Force test flights showed that early G-6 was 20km/h slower at sea level and 16km/h slower at 6km than G-2.
Also, both ingame Finnish G-6’s are ahistorical, they never had the 1800hp DB-605AM(/w MW-50) installed, only the earlier 1475hp DB-605A-1

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yea its kinda sad (but also a godsend) that the TA-152 doesnt get a free win card because its in space as soon as the match starts and is now kinda dead.

the early griffon spitfires have a lot more value as their engine advantage over the merlin 66 actually plays a part now.

If fighters are to get airspawns (which i overall disagree with, i like the scrambles), strike aircraft, air defence fighters and bomber spawns need to have their spawn speed and altitudes improved where applicable

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In Arcade, there are a great many of the lower BR planes that are now playing way above their rating.

This due to the last two times they have “sped up” the game.
Faster is not better, it’s just faster that’s all. Tail Spin was ok as a one time event,
but regular/dedicated AB players don’t really want that all the time, and we are close now.

We had a sped up with the last Update(which was not needed at all) but the one previous
to that one, a good while back. That is the one that changed things drastically.

There was a complete change to the power to weight ratio and MANY older, lighter
planes got really BIG buffs from that.
Each series of 109’s going up become slightly heavier and even with the better engines,
they still cannot perform as well as older models. And it’s not just 109’s . . .
La-5’s out fly La-7’s . . . easily now . . . I could list more, but . . .

The point being, these unrealistic changes, for whatever reason they did them, are just
not beneficial to the game and one of the side effects also is that it makes more and more
planes pretty much the same thing . . . . flight model wise.

Couple that with the Severe Damage mechanic and poor hit detection and what
we are experiencing now is very close to just an RNG interactive cartoon with
the same planes with different skins . . .
Granted not all planes perform the same, but it keeps getting closer all the time.

I personally would like to see a more consistent hit detection . . . knowing where to shoot
rather than just mashing the fire button and hoping RN Gebus blesses me.
Back to a normal speed of the game(just move the spawns back where they were already)
and planes keeping their individual characteristics they have had in the past.

Seeing a regular amount of 2.7’s and such in my 4.7 matches(even uptiers) that can keep up
(easily) and have old, outdated guns and ammo that do just as much if not more damage
takes away a great deal of “vehicle accuracy” and changes the game in a bad way . . to me.

Just set things back to where it was when we had a “game” and just . . . . let us play.

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Makes sense, considering that the G-6 only received MW50 in 1944.