Why is the P-51D such a nightmare to play?

[DocProfit]

1. Forced to take 31 mins of fuel (in a game mode that lasts max 25mins, but often is over in 15 mins or less).

2. Wasn’t designed for rapid climbing (like BF109), or excellent flat turn (like Zero). It was designed for speed and long range, which doesn’t translate well into War Thunder’s ‘charge in and dog fight’ meta.

IRL it would have climbed up to 24,000+ ft at it’s leisure, over friendly air space.

Then flown to Germany with the bomber stream, fighting with the alt advantage (mostly), against enemy fighters that were primary targeting the bombers, not them.

This is were it excelled and helped win the war.

[SneedSellsFeed]

It isn’t a nightmare to fly? It’s quite enjoyable. The P-51K is my favorite.

[BillyBobDa3rd]

What makes that variant different from the D’s and H?

[SneedSellsFeed]

I’m pretty sure it’s a carbon copy of the P-51D-30. But in the Chinese tree - my favorite tree.

[BillyBobDa3rd]

oh ok. Little disappointing…

[SneedSellsFeed]

It’s a great plane

[BillyBobDa3rd]

Yeah I love the D-30, I didn’t realize that 51’s can still be great at 5.0 and higher until I got absolutely smacked by one and tried it after.

[BillyBobDa3rd]

Do you actually use it at 10.0?

[SneedSellsFeed]

Of course not, haha. I barely use any CAS as I prefer killing CAS players (they’re lower than dirt).
I just wanted to show what it looks like and its stat card.

[BillyBobDa3rd]

Oh okay. :)

[SwatPl]

Had you used charts from old forum? (impossible, they gone)
Had you used WTRTI and tested each one yourself? (as a WTRTI user i know you did not)

How then did you gathered your flat out wrong data?
Let me guess. Stat cards?

I had not tested all those planes myself as i don’t regularly fly some of them, so i can only correct some but:
You say F4 climbs 20m/s, well it climbs 24m/s

You say P47RE climbs 10m/s(!), well it climbs 16m/s and then 18m/s after 2000m (super-turbocharger is not working properly below, about 2000m) (In all fairness, i heard it recently got engine HP nerf, this might be outdated)

You say P51C climbs 16m/s, i admit, i had not tested the C10 but C11, yet it was climbing between 19 and 20m/s

And f8f, huh? only shy 28-29m/s, and not 25m/s. To compare, K4 does 27-28m/s and is 5.7 and i should not start that f8f with flaps is one hell of a turn fighter, but with horrendous rudder, must admit.

With fw190a1-4 i no longer know, it used to climb between 16-17m/s but it had reworks on it, and is quite bad rn. A8 climbs 18m/s tho.

P38LO? Plane that outruns Narval & La9 on deck? Plane that can out-turn huge bulk of competition due to fantastic flaps? It sure is a challenge to aim properly due to poor nose control ability, but you boost both fantastic turn rate as well as roll rate of a 190 (weakness being rudder) it’s just, first you need to have flaps button binded, as that is not done by game by default. And let’s not even mention that, that thing has air brake while being a fighter, opening whole chamber of opportunities in defense flight.

“Anyways I’m going to go to sleep now but yeah as you can see my suggestions are reasonable.”

Yes my friend. Go sleep. Wake up. Think it over. Play 1000 more battles. You will understand yourself that you not reasonable, not quite.

Stat cards are a lie.
Only thru WTRTI you can obtain true data. Plane climb rate, HP, RPM and it’s weight, as well as amount of degrees in turn per second, and it’s sustained turn rate.

[SwatPl]

You know that engine RPM and propeller cause roll into the propeller turning side? That rudder here is to counter right tilt roll that your engine is causing.

Some planes like A7M or C202 (some Italians) has their whole rudder of center to counter the propeller caused roll.

Don’t believe me? Climb up, accelerate yourself, put at shallow dive, turn off engine. Rudder will straighten up, or, even better, go do simulation battle, where there is no instructor and you have to counter engine caused roll yourself.

[eqS729gYidXuT2BN]

Do people even bother reading replies anymore?

@dоt

If you want to look at actual FM data, you need to look within the flightmodel folder, there you have a fm folder that contains the actual FM. But, in there you need to ignore everything under "Passport". The flight performance itself is calculated using everything at the beginning of the file (top to passport). See for example the P-47D-28 . It does NOT contain any “climb speed” or “top speed” and whatnot. Those are calculated by the game engine when fed all the information.

@SpeclistMain

I knew about the fm files but assumed the values within the main file were a combination of the information given within the fm file (where the fm file wouldn’t actually be used in game, where it was just a list of base values that were fed into a function by the devs to create the main .blkx within the flightmodels folder), kind of like the flightmodels file was the output of compiling (as an analogy) the fm file.

[quartas121]

Nah I love good CAS players. Such an asset to the team, blowing up tanks you didn’t know we’re there before they can kill you, or helping clear out points

[Mofker]

To no ones surprise. The BR changes and recent updates have not improved the gameplay loop for American props in the slightest. It’s almost like the issue doesn’t lie within the BR rating but rather with the laughably bad and inaccurate flightmodels/instructor and the low-alt dogfight meta.

American props will always lose unless paired up with a nation that can carry them and stomp the competition (USSR/Japan)

The meta needs a change. American mains are tired of climbing because they’ll be the only ones left against an entire enemy team by the time they get to battle. And then they’ll still lose because everything outclimbs them and can catch them no matter where they go. It’s much easier to just fly straight forward, hope to get someone in a head on, die and then queue for a new match because of the “soon I will unlock a jet and things will be different” mentality.

The fact that this mentallity is the norm really proves how awful the current Air RB meta is.

But hey. Keep lowering their BR and soon we’ll see Mustangs lose to Biplanes.

[Real_K_Soze]

@Mofker

The BR changes and recent updates have not improved the gameplay loop for American props in the slightest. It’s almost like the issue doesn’t lie within the BR rating but rather with the laughably bad and inaccurate flightmodels/instructor and the low-alt dogfight meta.

The issue is based on average pilot experience.

I got 3 base related special & daily tasks (2 x kill 20 bases, 1 x kill 6 bases) in a row - 39 matches: 30 wins, 9 defeats whilst playing the B7A2, the D4Y3 and the war bond UK P-47.

The defeats were either based on steamrolls or ticket defeats.

If i see experienced pilots flying out the CHN or French P-51C - they have zero problems with the FM, instructor or the low alt dogfight meta. They just perform well and clap the US boys flying the same hardware.

@Mofker

American mains are tired of climbing because they’ll be the only ones left against an entire enemy team by the time they get to battle.

US has the highest number of air spawn planes - stuff like P-38s is a pain in to fight if flown properly. Same as a P-51C - they are way too fast, and if they learned energy management even P-51Ds are a pain to catch.

As long as 70-80% of US players have no clue about ACM and attack the wrong targets (=bombers or strike aircraft) or use their fighters for base bombing this prediction is not totally out of range:

@Mofker

Keep lowering their BR and soon we’ll see Mustangs lose to Biplanes.

[RunaDacino]

@Uncle_J_Wick

As long as 70-80% of US players have no clue about ACM and attack the wrong targets (=bombers or strike aircraft) or use their fighters for base bombing this prediction is not totally out of range:

I’ll echo this.

I’ve had times I cheered because my team climbed with me, then they spotted a wyvern or a ju or some other attacker/bomber and suddenly 5 planes all broke off to give chase. I’d understand 1-2 planes, but five?

I imagine the grind contributes to that behaviour though, so I do not entirely blame them - getting a bomber kill can make the difference between measly 300-400 RP and actually getting over 50% battle activity before dying. Problem is of course, if people stayed together we’d die far less often.

ACM/Defensive flying is another thing. People fly in straight lines or just roll their ailerons when attacked. This is nice as an attacker, as it’s easy targets. It is less nice if it means your teammates disappeared while you were busy energy fighting someone.

Warthunder seriously needs to improve its tutorials. They don’t even work right as is -

Behold, the quality of tutorials - a most joyous, thrilling experience while I was learning mouse joystick:

There should be a tutorial about how to perform the basic maneuvers (yoyo, switchback/pitchback, barrel roll/lag displacement, scissors), maybe using those “hoops” the landing tutorials use or I don’t know.

[Real_K_Soze]

@RunaDacino

Warthunder seriously needs to improve its tutorials.

Yes - an No.

Yes for more complicated stuff like radar modes or defensive flying vs incoming missiles, but also

No for basic stuff like ACM or knowledge about strengths and weaknesses of own and enemy aircraft - it needs no effort to go to yt and find a lot of helpful stuff.

But without passion for flying / ACM and the willingness to invest some time to learn basics i see no need for excessive “hand holding”…

@RunaDacino

I’ve had times I cheered because my team climbed with me, then they spotted a wyvern or a ju or some other attacker/bomber and suddenly 5 planes all broke off to give chase. I’d understand 1-2 planes, but five?

My personal highlight last year (regarding US teams) was to witness 7 of my (assigned) US team going headon with a He 219 - ofc all 7 went down.

Followed by a F4U-4b and a US premium Spit dying to return fire of ai gunners of a bot Ju 288 above their own airfield - the Ju 288 was already burning and peppered by af aaa, but both managed to get killed… (and i watched the replay to report the bot - he was in bombardier view).

To be fair - USSR players tend to do the same things, but their 20 mm have a way higher instant kill probability…

[BillyBobDa3rd]

@Uncle_J_Wick

My personal highlight last year (regarding US teams) was to witness 7 of my (assigned) US team going headon with a He 219 - ofc all 7 went down.

Followed by a F4U-4b and a US premium Spit dying to return fire of ai gunners of a bot Ju 288 above their own airfield - the Ju 288 was already burning and peppered by af aaa, but both managed to get killed… (and i watched the replay to report the bot - he was in bombardier view).

Lmao, that’s awesome XD
Peak US teams right there

[FlipAllTheTables]

It did drop to 4.0.

The one that wasn’t dropped was the D-10, because people rightfully complained as it has far better performance than either the D-5 or D-20.