Yak 3U Overpower!

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
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Anyone that hasn’t played the Yak-3U doesn’t really understand how powerful it actually is. It’s really easy for people to say moronic things like “just BnZ it” and “don’t dogfight it” when they don’t have any context about its performance number or understand what it is actually capable of doing.

The Yak-3U…more than any other plane in the game…is especially suited to the 16v16 furball meta due to its combination of maneuverability, speed, and energy generation. The plane turns incredible well while also maintaining high speeds; this is unlike Japanese airplanes where…yes they turn well…but in a lot of cases they are also effectively rotating-in-place. With changes to real-shatter the Yak-3U also has very effective guns for targeting other fighters.

Here are some charts that showcase what the Yak-3U can do besides turning.

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The Yak-3U out-paces every German fighter in the game in climb rate all the way to 6000 meters. It also out-paces every US fighter that isn’t the P-51H-5 or the P-38K. This difference is especially pronounced in a race to 3000 meters and lower where most gameplay takes place. In effect the Yak-3U recovers energy faster than most fighters at low altitudes.

So…maybe it’s just a turn fighter and you just need to stay faster than it? Well…not exactly…because it is also a fast boi.

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On the deck the plane accelerates better and is faster than the Bf.109 K-4…and is basically on par with the P-51 D-30. The P-51 D-30 can eventually out-pace the Yak-3U in a straight line but it can only run away at a snails pace. And if the Yak-3U puts itself into a climb…the P-51 D-30 will never be able to turn around and engage without a massive energy disadvantage.

Also this story doesn’t really change that much with altitude.

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Even at 6000 Meters the Yak-3U is still plenty fast; even in the best case scenario the Bf.109 K-4 and P-51 D-30 are around 25kph faster than it. Yes…technically a coordinated group of K-4s or D-30s or any of the fast planes might be able to give the Yak-3U a run for the money; but on the same hand a coordinated group of Yak-3Us can most likely stomp any team into oblivion.

There are a couple of planes out there that can counter the Yak-3U…but mainly in theory. I think the new F4U-4B flight model is actually faster than P-51 D-30. Planes like the Hornet and He-162 can also just stay permanently fast. Or the P-59 can just run it down and turn fight it and probably win. But none of these planes will counter it on a consistent basis.

In all honesty the Yak-3U is a very good candidate to be at BR 6.0 due to it’s performance and how well it fits the gameplay meta. I would also make the same for planes like the F4U-4B.

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43

It needs speed for a high turn rate, it will bleed speed if turning to tight. They are a good candidate for rope n dope

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The Yak-3U doesn’t really bleed speed for its turn rate. It’s part of the reason that it is as good as it is.

The only planes that can reliably rope-a-dope the Yak-3U are planes that already have air spawn and high climb rates like the Hornet or P-38K.

And even then those planes compress badly at high speeds so the Yak-3U can just counter it by diving or just not being suckered into an obvious energy trap.

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45

How do you obtain data like that. Did you use some sort of software or did you look at the game files? Some sort of mod?

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Short version:

Imho not valid - the 109s suffer from severe overheating, advantages by WEP usage are just theoretical as even with 100% rads the 109 engine is cooking with WEP.
Managing the overheating with radiators and prop pitch (in order to create “infinite” WEP) is impossible as you will overrev the DB 605 (but just when in German plane, not in IT/SWE planes with the same engine). In contrast: You can fly the Yak-3 with 97% power without overheating with AEC.

Long version:

Summary

The main reason why i never liked 109s is their engine overheating on medium and hot maps. IIrc the DB 601-605 engine family are the only engines you can kill with MEC due to overrev whilst trying to adjust the Prop Pitch in order to find a sweet spot allowing you to use WEP for longer periods - your only tools are engine power and radiators. And rads produce drag like the Chinese Wall…

As a fun fact you can adjust prop pitch in these engines as soon as they are not in a German aircraft - i fly the B-18B (just rads to 50%) and the SM 92 (rads 50% and 75/80/85 PP) with infinite WEP (=the whole match) below 6.500 meters and above you can use AEC with infinite WEP without overheating. There are similar solutions for all non-German aircraft with these engines (almost all relevant IT props, J 21, PM-1, Ki-61).

So your argument that a higher BR might be justified for 109s as their WEP is longer available as it should be be is imho not convincing - show me a 109 able to fly with WEP for the irl 10 minute timeframe without engine damage and we can talk. The G-10 was the only 109 which was able to fly for around 5 minutes with WEP in the initial climb phase - and faced then the same problems.

In any case - have a good one!

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No. This is just data from manual testing and plopped into an excel spreadsheet. There is a program out there that can do similar things based on the in game files but it’s mainly works for jets and not props.

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WEP restrictions are always based on heat or ADI quantity carried, in a scenario like WT where mechanical faults are nonexistent.

AFAIK WEP limit on the late 109 Gs with MW50 was up to 10min straight, and if you’re carrying 20min fuel you’re gonna have like ~5min left after that due to severely increased fuel usage during WEP.

The Yak3U is not a fair comparison to the G10, the 3U pretty much always has the trifecta of advantages - speed, climb, maneuverability. Speed and climb might change when you’re up nice and high, but I doubt it’ll be by a big enough margin to matter.

Every russian WW2 aero engine had reliability and longevity issues. The VK105 was based on the Hispano-Suiza 12Y, which was lightly-built for the older, lower octane avgas (80 octane, in fact). Its design was unfit for big power increases.

Bigger for the same weight due to the absence of radiators, coolant, and coolant lines.
VK105PF2 (as on Yak3) had a 5min limitation on its max boost setting (1150mm Hg), akin to WEP.
And for its 35L of displacement (very close to what the DB601 and 605 had) it was only making as much as the de-rated DB605 during its worst period.

We can argue weight, but if given the choice they would 100% have gone for a heavier, more powerful engine with the same displacement.

See above. VK105 was based on much older engine design which necessitated lighter construction.
Also, most of those engines had no issues taking some stupid amounts of boost - there’s no shortage of tests done on Allisons, Merlins, R-2800s, etc going well above their operational boost limits with no issues.

I’ll add a few more to your list just for the hell of it:

DB 601, about 610kg and 34L displacement
DB 605, about 765kg (wikipedia is the source so not sure on that, but seems plausible) and 36L displacement
Jumo 211 (captured), 35L and 659kg
Jumo 213, 35L and 1040kg - this number is from a german manual but it is such an outlier that it is likely accounting for extra equipment the others aren’t.

801 and ASh-82 have a common ancestor, and the 801 was quite unimpressive on its own. It didn’t take well to MW50 injection, which caused cracks in the cylinders and heads. The Nakajima Homare was based on the Sakae (also relatively unimpressive), but it’s 2000hp coming out of 36L. Reliability issues were down to fuel quality and octane rating, which suffered even more than german fuels.

Comparing displacement is always helpful to figure out roughly how advanced an engine is, but unless you have to work around a massive engine (MiG-3, J2M) it’s almost always worth the tradeoff to add some weight in return for power.
Merlins on P-51s and Spitfires compensated for this largely by very good fuels which were entirely unobtainable for everyone else - exclusively 150 octane at one point, whereas the Jumo 213 was making its 2000hp on the equivalent of 100 octane fuel.

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Overheating is quite tame on the MW50-equipped models (G6 onwards), while the F4 and G2 especially love to cook. This is actually right as the 605A had severe overheating issues especially on its original 1400-something hp rating. Not entirely sure on the 601E, but it’s plausible.

Redesigns to the oil system and addition of MW50 (which has a cooling effect due to evaporation) solved this problem.

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You see, Yak-3U(fo) uses gravity slingshot just like space craft and satelites in order to achieve high speeds and sharp maneuvers. When Yak plane starts turning, it generates a small black hole in the focal point of the Yak, making it slingshot so the more you turn, the faster you get.
It will never be not funny when you are 1km above a Yak3U going 400kmh in a straight line with your Bf 109K4, he pulls straight up for you, then makes two 360 degree turns only to end up on your tail at the same speed. 🤣

On a more realistic note, go watch all 3 parts Luftwaffe General: Adolf Galland Documentary (specifically part 1 and timestamp 22:17-25:40). It’s available on Youtube. He says there that Soviet aircraft posed little to no threat and many pilots quickly ramped up over 100 victories. They were shooting down so many Soviet planes that they had to adjust the scoring requirement to recieve Iron Cross and that downing 4 Soviets had the same value as downing 1 American plane.

In conclusion, if Soviets had IRL FM of the ingame Yaks, the war would have been over in 43’ with just a dozen of them 🤣

4 Likes
51

Despite your overall post was nailing some important points (and most forget that Yak-3U is postwar, no WW2 combat) i kindly ask you to check your statement above - imho you mixed up IC and KC.

Imho you refer to the point based system for receiving the Knight’s Cross (KC, and its several / “higher” variants) - and not the Iron Cross (IC) 1st & 2nd class. Iirc correctly you needed 1 kill for IC 2nd class and about 7 for the IC 1st class.

What definitively changed was the point based system and the kill threshold to receive the “lowest” Knight’s Cross for pilots active vs USSR and Western allies.

It is quite hard to find reliable online sources for the system / kill threshold itself but if you check when (an with how many kills) several pilots at several stages of the war received a KC at different theatres your overall message is somehow correct.

Iirc LW pilots needed mid to late war about 25-40 points on their Western Front for a KC and about 70-100 on their Eastern Front.

The point based system run in parallel to kill tracking.

They tried to consider the difficulty to achieve kills and the strategic / tactical importance of their victims. As enemy fighters weren’t seen as a threat they got 1 point for a fighter kill, but more points (depending on number of engines) for a bomber kill, even the separation of a bomber (shooting out of the combat box) was rewarded with points (but not as a kill) if they were willing to do the paper work and could present a witness.

An example out my memory:
If you ever found LW kill claim lists online you saw strange things like “HSS” or “e.V.” on those lists. In one memoir i read that they got 3 points (but no kill) for shooting out a bomber out his formation (=HSS) whilst the final destruction of such a bomber (=e.V.) got rewarded with just 1 point (and a kill) as killing those crippled guys was assessed a low effort.

Have a good one!

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I didn’t say it was a fair comparison mind you. I think the Yak 3 U is too good. I have already expressed that. I said it’s a more fair comparison. Both perform decently at altitude. Their speeds are also more comparable. I hope you didn’t think I said they were comparable, the yak 3 U is better but the difference between it and the G 10 is smaller than the G10 and base yak 3. Base yak 3 looses too much engine power at higher altitudes and I have no problem killing them in any competitive American or German prop (p51ds and FW190s respectively) if I am given the room to separate and bring them above 4KM high. Just yesterday I dog fought / energy fought a yak 3 at 4KM in my P51D30 and it was clear as day how much he was struggling with engine power.

I’ll admit all the sources I looked at were secondary and online. But I have overwhelmingly seen the M 105 was reliable. I have also seen the M 107 was unreliable so I thought maybe you mixed up the two. Which is why I was asking for a source.

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That is what it came off as. “More fair” isn’t saying much when the 3U absolutely has a huge advantage over the G10.

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Right now i saw a yak 3u video from DEFYN.
Gezz It can turn 9g without lose much energy. i dont know why yak3u are not 6.0 Br

watch minute 9:09

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55

All yaks are utterly ridiculous.

The Yak3 series specifically.

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56

If it wasn’t for the singular 20mm, they’d all be at higher BR’s.
The Yak-1B especially is a real menace at 3.0.

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57

the yak that somewhat struggles the most is the yak3p and yet it’s not even bad for the BR, it’s the master baiter and deals marvelously against japanese aircraft.

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you can win 99% of dogfights in a yak3p.

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Spitfires and j2m’s outdogfight it easily. But still it does win most of the engagements unless you commit to the enemy’s strength; the f8f wins the rolling scissor, the ki84 wins the horizontal and vertical at slow speed, the k4 wins the vertical and can reverse it, the spitfire lf mk9 out turns, out paces, out climbs and out does your yak3p below 500 ias very easily. The yak3p is the master of furballs because it’s a squirmy rat that sweeps in never losing any energy. However it has handling issues that la-7 completely lacks at the expenses of better energy retention and overall more ease of aiming. It’s an amazing aircraft and despite i’m negative in it i’ve gotten back to it and did pretty well in these last matches (most of my deaths were literally reaching no exceed airspeed and crashing back then)

needless to say except the spitfire and the ki84 the yak3 does outdogfight most things it faces. My point on it’s struggle is the rudder issues, it responds later and makes me miss my shots. But tht’s a skill issue.

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Rudder issues?
Have you ever flown a p51?

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yes, and an f8f/ki84 💀these are worse but at least it’s bad enough to notice

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my yak-3 acts weird.

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