I dont really know. I would say maybe. Back then you really had to grind through the tt. Stuff cost more. And all premiums were props.
Well, most US props aren’t modeled correctly so there’s that problem. Then there’s some fighters from other nations that are overperforming - Russian Yaks, for example. Stupid UFOS - Then there’s the BR issues and compression that further exacerbate the issues.
Now, player quality has gone down throughout the years and that’s just how it is. Modes are stale and maps are garbage so many people rather go ADHD-mode to get their kill or two, die and move onto the next match to maximize their time in this game of immense frustration and grind.
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Wow, one plane, you sure showed me? Now do a one circle turn fight against a La with a P-51. Oh wait, you can’t! Because 99% of American props cannot do turn fights! It’s almost like I was referring to the general American playstyle, and not an obscure plane that is the literal definition of a diamond in the rough!
For anyone who has issues with overshooting:
You can try to deploy flaps, and take down throttle (duh) but if you play with bnz fighters, I recommend setting a keybind for radiator and propeller pitch. You can effectively slow yourself down with the amount of drag these can create, and I don’t think they can rip like flaps can. Make sure to return their to normal afterwards though. :)
P-51/Mustang MkIa Personal experience:
Can beat Bf109Gs when starting at equal energy at equal altitude with aggressive lead turn.
Can beat I-153 in looping fight.
Can bea La-F5n in scissors.
More showcase of the razorback Mustang:
P-51D5:
Can beat Bf109K4 when starting at equal energy at equal altitude if the Bf109 makes the mistake of taking the fight downhill.
More showcase of D30 mustang:
I don’t fly P-38s, but they’re mentioned in hellcat video as flap fighters.
F4U-4 Corsair:
Able to dogfight with any Bf109
Refuses to stall at low speeds
Very good high-speed roll
Showcase by Squishface (also slight talk about Hellcat):
I think I can quite trust Squishface and IdahoBookworm on U.S planes being pretty versatile.
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Cool, still doesn’t change the fact that in general you don’t dogfight with them. Some people have six fingers on a hand, it doesn’t mean the average person has five
I mean, congrats? Some sweaty YouTuber with a whole VR setup can beat little Timmy playing on his Xbox. I mean, if I spent a few thousand quid, I would hope I’m better than some guy that just got off work and trying to relax.
“I can beat him if he takes it downhill” wow, you mean to tell me when someone does something that plays into your playstyle, you win? Shocker! What if he goes up, yeah, you’re screwed because he has a low stall speed and can turn it around a lot better than you.
P-38 is an interceptor, you can’t turn fight in that thing. I would know, I tried before, it doesn’t turn. Maybe if you go Mach speed it’ll turn fast.
Okay, F4U can turn, congratulations, you found one of three planes that can dogfight in America.
With aggressive flap use you can hang with 109s and the like. The Bearcat, once you’ve dragged someone as slow as you, has extremely good flaps and so much power that you can beat many aircraft you have no right to be dogfighting against like La-7s.
Ah yes, as long as you turn your flaps 15° inward, on the day of the Summer Solstice, while drinking a Gatorade that was blessed by the Aztec gods on a rainy Saturday afternoon, you too can dogfight in a P-38 boom wing thing.
Okay, so you need to do a very niche play, that involves not getting shot while you are actively slowing down, trying to get some random to go as slow as you, and you have a chance. Wow, or I just don’t dogfight in an American plane because why would I try to do a niche strat that very rarely ever works besides a YouTube compilation of a few good recordings over an entire day.
Seriously, all you are doing is digging a bigger hole. American props, in general, do NOT dog fight. I could care less about some niche setup that you can trick a level two noob into. Majority of the time, you are not dogfighting, you are boom and zoom. Why? Because American props cannot dogfight.
I can go into a Russian prop and dog fight most of the time, because that is what they’re good at: they’re good at all playstyles. I can go into a Japanese plane and dogfight. Why? Because they excel at dogfights, you don’t need a niche setup that most people can see from a mile away. British, same thing as Russia. Why? Because I don’t need to set up and make people slow down to turn fight them.
You’re the one that bombs in sim and calls people who dare play the game “sweats.”
I’ll take the word and demonstrations of Squish and Idaho over yours.
Yeah, I do something that gets me to the top quickly instead of wasting my life away “grinding” every individual plane. Still doesn’t change the fact I spaded every American prop and went on numerous breaks because of it.
I mean cool, your YouTuber says one thing. You know what else YouTubers say? The J35X is the best premium, the F4S is the best premium, Russian bias is real, Germany suffers, and on and on and on. People hype up the countries they’re good at and call everything a skill issue if you disagree with them. I’m being sincere when I say that American props are terrible at turn fighting. Sure, you can set up a trap, but that doesn’t change, in the grand scheme of things, that American props are generally bad when it comes to a 1v1 turn fight.
If we are talking two average players, one American, the other one that is playing a non-American plane, majority of the time, the non-American will beat out the American plane in a turn fight. Why? Because America relies on speed, energy, the whole shebang, America bleeds speed and bleeds speed fast. Other countries, for the most part, don’t lose speed as fast or have a low stall speed to where it doesn’t matter, because they can go slow but still be productive.
While Idaho is biased towards allies, when I see squish in lobbies lately he’s in the fw190. I don’t think he’s at all biased towards america.
Yes, flat-circle full-elevator ring round the rosey. Descending spirals are a thing. Scissors are a thing.
Thus, you don’t spend time with planes to make an effort to familiarize with them and act as dimissive of being provided evidence and demonstrations like a Hungarian politician.
He’s playing the meta, he’ll praise the Big Three. Typically how it goes, but then again, I’m not typically a fan of YouTubers in the first place. I’ve lived through the Call of Duty “best classes” phase of YouTube, so I usually take their opinions on anything as a grain of salt.
I’m talking ring around the rosey when I talk about dogfights. I’m aware other styles exist, but I usually call them as they are. What I’m getting at is America doesn’t like going around the carousel, they bleed speed and fall out of the sky like broken birds when they’ve gone a full 360° (exaggeration, but not really).
Instead of trying to play psychiatrist, allow me to tell you why I “bomb to the top” in Sim. I’ve grinded out four tech trees in air all the way to Rank 8: Sweden, Britain, Russia, and Israel. I have also played Props to Early Jets in Italy, America, and China. I realised there are certain tiers that I don’t like, so I skip them. I abhor early jets, I’ve played it in the F-80, F-84, MiG 15 bis, Vampire, and more, and I found I generally dislike it, so I would rather bomb mindlessly in Sim to avoid it. I found I don’t really care for certain planes because it’s not my playstyle, hence why I don’t enjoy American props and would rather bomb than play them anymore. I found that there’s a few things I do enjoy, like the MiG 21, MiG 23, F-16, and generally any Rank VIII fighter, so I bomb to get those, instead of grinding aimlessly “the right way”, because I already did that, and I didn’t like it.
That is how you play the game yes, you want to fight using YOUR advantages and not someone else’s. This involves dragging them into your combat envelope. If you cannot do this, then it doesn’t matter what you play, you’ll always have the short end of the stick.
A Zero or most japanese props may be incredible in a dogfight, but they:
I’d rather have a jack of all trades plane like the Russian props over an American prop where I have to put someone into a trap they can see from a mile away. I mean, there’s a reason why I specifically target American planes, and that’s because I know I can out turn them and generally outfight them by doing anything but a head on.
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There is no need to turnfight in Air RB. You play to get the energy advantage which allows you to dictate the fight. US props = u play energy and BnZ & BnRun.
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The P-36, the P-39, the P-39 A-5 and the F6F are very good turnfighters (just avoid JP planes, Spitfires and Bv 155s); the only drawback of the Hellcat is the massive energy loss if you fight vertical instead of horizontal.
You beat even stuff like Yak-3s or B7A2s in it; the only challenge is to get the right setup for your fights meaning that you have either the energy advantage or you make the fight very fast and enforce an overshooting.
Regarding P-51 A & B/C models & F4U-4:
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The Cannonstang is at least in Air RB a free kill for every somehow experienced pilot - the plane has (like all P-51s) an impressive 1st turn at high speed - that’s all. It sucks above 4 km alt and is no real threat if you are able to make him slow and avoid getting “air braked”.
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The B/C models are imho a much greater threat as their sustained turn is good enough to be somehow competitive if their pilot is able to keep the speed high.
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There is a reason why the F4U-4 was 2 or 3 years ago at 5.0 in Air RB. Everybody who has watched any of the vids by DEFYN or (years ago) AdamTheEnginerd Is aware of the good high speed roll and the very good flaps - but i would argue that a properly flown 109 G-6 beats it any day of the week. Very good F4U-4 pilots use the landing gear as air brake which can cause serious issues if you overshoot, but those pilots are very rare.
Regarding “general American play style” and dogfight / turnfight:
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I met today a rather experienced P-51 D-10 pilot whilst flying the UK P-47 - and agreed to team up. We played 9 matches; just one ticket defeat on New Guinea, none of us lost a plane and we carried 5 of those matches as last guys alive.
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All without real coordination and no turnfighting, just by playing with experience, BnZ, BnRun & bait & switch. The sole guy able to survive (as last players alive) 1 vs 2 was an exceptional Ki-43 III pilot on Guadalcanal - all 3 of us ran out of ammo after 22 minutes :-)
Imho you just mix up dog fight with turn fight - if you look up the difference you might agree that a determined BnZ attack brings you in close range to your target - the definition of dogfight is a close combat range fight.
So as writter earlier, the game set up of Air RB is not really supporting the average US fighter with airfield spawn and making US planes work is (with a few exceptions) no easy going and requires time & experience.
Ranting “US planes are bad” is somehow comprehensible but often based on rather weak teams which die in minutes or the lack of experience of their pilots.
Have a good one!
I never once said American planes were bad, I said American planes are bad at turn fighting. I think I made it quite clear that Americans excel at boom and zoom and boom and run. Yes, there are instances where you can win a turn fight, but they are not reliable all the time. I can dogfight in a Canberra, doesn’t mean I am going out of my way to dogfight everyone I see in it.
Props to you on your teamwork, but that is how we are supposed to play: as a team. It would make sense that two stiff fighters with a semblance of teamwork could hold off against a slow opponent. Still, I’m impressed, but that’s just because you found the only person in War Thunder that isn’t kill hungry and actually tried playing as a teammate and not a rival for the leaderboard.
I would argue it was the other way around as the P-51 scored at least 20 kills and i just 6 - the P-51 D-10 is way more agile, faster, climbs better and has a much better energy retention, so my job was rather to cover him as he could take way more risks. P-47s lose their energy advantage quite fast if you over-commit, so you have to play the 3.7 P-47 rather in a strict BnZ role whilst your primary task is to keep your team mate(s) alive.
But if you play just for fun things like leaderboard position or kill numbers are not decisive :-)
Most of the time, I’m playing to spade or grind, so that may be the difference here. I think the only time I actively try to be a team player is when the chat is filled with funny people or when I have a friend on and he’s suffering the Phantoms.
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This isn’t the case, though, or at least hasn’t been the case for the past 3-4 years that I’ve been playing. Although I assume not all of these have airspawn, but the list of most interceptors and strike aircraft are:
Germany:
- 6 interceptor, none of which from what I remember are terrible
- 14 strike aircraft, of which only a few are bad (i.e. the handling of a boat)
UK: 11 strike aircraft, of which all are good from what I understand
Japan:
- 8 interceptor, all of which have good handling
- 3 strike aircraft, all of which have good handling
USA:
- 6 interceptors, of which 4 of them are P-38s (and those being two pairs of nearly-copy-paste), and one of the remaining two faces jets 24/7
- 9 strike aircraft, of which only 4 are decent
I really wish planes that were interceptors actually got interceptor air spawns, like the P-47s and P-51s.
I guess that’s true, but some aircraft just have the climb rate to keep up even with a decent angle zoom and unless you have >2.0-2.5km before they can turn around they can still just spray at your general area and you’ll have to waste energy dodging bullets.
Ok, I don’t want to be that guy, but that’s about 40% of enemies at prop BRs.