P-40E first impressions

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Yes you must be doing something wrong it's slow but not that slow :D

[Reflected]

IT's a great attack plane and interceptor, and surprise attacks on 109s work very well. But once you are in a dogfight 1 on 1, there's nothing you can do. It cannot climb, or turn, it's slow, a flying coffin 

[Blooddawn1942]

Yes. Thats true. But if You get a aim, it will shred anything within seconds. The armarment is awesome!

[=TIA=TBear]

Yeah...those hi rate of fire guns are good for hi lead snapshots, to paint the enemy plane with bullets...perfect for USAF style energy fighting...with some good training in it can be very effective.

Edited October 1, 2015 by =TIA=TBear

[-TBC-AeroAce]

BoM P40 is proof turds can be polished lol

[216th_Jordan]

Hi guys, during my yesterday flights, it was really difficult to get the anemometer above the 200 mph. I was with 2500-2600 rpm. What I'm doing wrong? Is that slow in level flight? Maybe incorrect prop pitch?

 

forgot to raise gear?   Happened to me once and i was wondering for 10 minutes why i couldn't get faster..

 

 

Regarding P-40: I faind her rather difficult to fly, she enters a spin fastly if you do some rudder working too much and i even stalled her in greater speeds without recovery beyond 1500 meters dropping. The more fuel you got the more difficult it gets, especially on landing approach, I would surely not give that plane to a newbie..

Edited October 1, 2015 by Jordan

[-TBC-AeroAce]

I entered two unrecoverable spins from about 2000m. U retard the spin in one direction and then started spinning in opposite direction over and over again. Was quite scary

[Blooddawn1942]

 

 

 

Regarding P-40: I faind her rather difficult to fly, she enters a spin fastly if you do some rudder working too much and i even stalled her in greater speeds without recovery beyond 1500 meters dropping. The more fuel you got the more difficult it gets, especially on landing approach, I would surely not give that plane to a newbie..

The rudder seems to be incredible effective, for sure.

Performing a vertikal turn/Immelman requires maybe half rudder input to do this maneuver in a clean way.

 

Regarding the flightcharacteristics with lots of fuel: thats matching with what I've read.

 

In the P-51 it was even strictly forbidden to perform any aerobatics, as long as the fuselage tank is not emptyed.

This is something that DCS has not moddeled right for their P-51.

[Dakpilot]

Interesting vid mentioning spins general handling and such here

 

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/18471-p-40e-mixture-auto-lean-auto-rich/?p=289845​

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Jade_Monkey]

Hi guys, during my yesterday flights, it was really difficult to get the anemometer above the 200 mph. I was with 2500-2600 rpm. What I'm doing wrong? Is that slow in level flight? Maybe incorrect prop pitch?

Same here

[Finkeren]

Hi guys, during my yesterday flights, it was really difficult to get the anemometer above the 200 mph. I was with 2500-2600 rpm. What I'm doing wrong? Is that slow in level flight? Maybe incorrect prop pitch?

If you're doing 2600 rpm with fully open throttle (or close to) there's nothing wrong with your prop pitch. Did you set your mixture to auto rich (around 66% you have to look at mixture control while you set it to get it right) ? Maybe you were accidentally running lean? Edited October 1, 2015 by Finkeren

[Y-29.SugaBizkit]

If you're doing 2600 rpm with fully open throttle (or close to) there's nothing wrong with your prop pitch. Did you set your mixture to auto rich (around 66% you have to look at mixture control while you set it to get it right) ? Maybe you were accidentally running lean?

 

 

Yeah make sure you check that.

 

Plus make sure this beast is always trimmed. I was seeing a difference of upwars of 20 mph properly trimmed vs not trimmed

[216th_Peterla]

Hi guys, I will try later a couple flights following your recommendation and checking everything. I forgot to mention that I was flying full fuel and maximun external loadout but I guess that this will compromise more the handling that the forward speed.

Edited October 1, 2015 by peterla

[Reflected]

I still find it hard to believe that six .50 cals were such a devastating firepower, especially compared to other guns in game. Not saying it's not correct, I'm just surprised.

[ShamrockOneFive]

I still find it hard to believe that six .50 cals were such a devastating firepower, especially compared to other guns in game. Not saying it's not correct, I'm just surprised.

 

That single UBS on the LaGG-3 was devastating so I figured scale that down to 85% and add 5 more and that's what we would get. Its still surprising how much they chew up enemy aircraft but compared to the other weapons in this class it feels fairly similar. Just in large numbers.

[BeastyBaiter]

Agreed, and we must also keep in mind that with the exception of the Fw-190, the other planes in BoS/BoM were all considered to have relatively light armament. A single 20mm cannon + a couple 7-8mm LMG's was about as light as it got during WW2.

[VBF-12_Snake9]

The p40 is how I remember high defection shooting to be.  It's wonderful.  It's also one of the easiest planes to land in BOS.  Don't know what others are talking about.  It has toe breaks, and built like a rock.  You can bounce that thing like a basketball then slam on breaks.  Even damaged it's easy to land.   

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

I wonder Winger if there will be a day when you will not be complaining

 

 

 

I now got twice hit by a P40 in my Focke. Both times only for a very brief moment. And both times i was fatally damaged.

That means you were on the receiving side, to give a specific opinion would be fair if you would try to fly P-40 as well and see for yourself the effects. Besides, its not that a brief moment. In reality about 60-80 rounds was totally enough, so to get it properly you should understand how many bullets are shot every second. You have 6 Brownings and each had a cyclic rate of 750–850 rounds per minute. So that brief moment might be just enough if well aimed or just lucky your opponent was.

 

 

 

A hit from all 4 20mm cannons plus the MGs of my focke quite often do NOT do fatal damage.

But it usually gets me out of combat, I found P-40 engine and cooling to be extremely prone to damage, even silly gunners from Ju-87 or Ju-52 can cause a heavy damage on it despite firing just a low caliber machine guns. Sure, I can fly a bit more and maybe even land safely but performance drop is noticeable and since then I'm not capable of continuing the fight.    

 

 

 

Another act of balancing/raising customer satisfaction.

Another quick assumption, but can you prove it ?

If you feel something is wrong than please care to provide some research on the topic. I was surprised that AN/M2 Brownings are so effective here too, but did not jump into conclusion like you. 

[Dutchvdm]

+1 There is always at least one thing thats totally overdone. I now got twice hit by a P40 in my Focke. Both times only for a very brief moment. And both times i was fatally damaged. A hit from all 4 20mm cannons plus the MGs of my focke quite often do NOT do fatal damage. I dont say never but quite often the opponent keeps flying/fighting for a very long time.

But i guess the plane has to be made attractive to our new western simpliot targetgroup.

Another act of balancing/raising customer satisfaction.

*thumbsdown* if it stays like that. If it gets fixed one day i get it. We need more satisfied customers and with that active players.

 

Yesterday i was fighting in QMB with a F4 against the P 40 and in head on passes they got me a few times (4 or 5). Only in one instance i got really serious damage (engine failure). All the other times i could fight on. Against the P 40 50 % of the time i got an kill in one burst.

 

Grt M

[AnPetrovich]

I may have missed something with earlier releases but the P-40 seems to be the first aircraft where the magnetic compass is modeled correctly: Try a turn to a heading, say from 270 degrees (W) to 90 degrees (E), and compare the compass reading with the reading of the DG (directional gyro) - you will experience magnetic dip, see for an explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_compass_turns. What an awesome addition to the flight model!

What you are seeing is the directional gyro lagging behind the magnetic compass. It's something I asked about during testing, and as Petrovich wrote, it is the directional gyro lagging behind the magnetic compass if the plane's angle of bank is more than 55 degrees.

You are both right, guys.

If the aeroplane's bank is less than 55° - the directional gyro is working pretty well, and you can notice a bit difference between the directional gyro and magnetic compass, which has a smooth lag.

If the aeroplane's bank is more than 55° the directional gyro gets random lags and rotations, and it needs a time for recovery to normal work.

[Guest deleted@50488]

Il2 is getting towards perfection!

 

This P-40e spoiled me :-)

 

Details like the MP variation with prop rpm, bellow blower kicks in are modeled, and I just don't know why there is that weird transition from being able to use the prop rpm axis for a while and then it reverting only to either manual, control by the same prop pitch keys used for the german fighters, or automatic... It'll probably get addressed in an upcoming patch.

[Falco_Peregrinus]

My first impressions:
First of all, I always liked the P-40, especially the first versions B and C, the Tomahawks.
 

I think the P40E is well modeled. It's surely not a pure fighter, but more of a fighter-bomber or a classic anti-bomber war machine. In these roles it really shines.

 

But it's hard to understand what the engineers wanted to achieve with the plane, and which characteristics they were after, or why they created something with such a bad weight-to-power ratio.

 

 Armament is indeed potent, but I find it really difficult to place my shots under deflection, as the view "under the gunsight"

is really restricted and narrow. It's quite hard to see where the shots are landing in a turning maneuver.

I much prefer the 4 x 12,7mm with the additional ammo than the 6 x 12,7mm. The plane is lighter, there is more firing time and the power is still something to be afraif of.

 

As I said many times before, I just don't understand and/or like wing-mounted guns. Call me crazy, but I much prefer the 2 x 12,7mm in the cowling of the C.202 or a single 12,7 Berezin, than the 6 x 12,7mm mounted on wings than the P40.

 

I find the plane generally stable, but quite unstable on the vertical axis under some circumstances, weird. 
At speed it is generally good. It's not slow, but the feeling is like driving a train; lots of weight, lots of inertia.

 

The "feeling" is to be piloting a plane which "doesn't have an engine", and I can't understand what good points a pilot could use in flying it.

 

Visibility is really good! 
Spins are dangerous and vicious. Sometimes they are hard to predict under some weird flying.

As a ground attacker though... this thing is a beast! 
 

Edited October 2, 2015 by Ioshic

[Finkeren]

After a lot more flying time in the P-40 I definately get the point about the vicious spin characteristics. I don't find the plane to normally have a particularly aprupt stall, but once you get into a spin you're fighting a losing battle.

 

Also, while the P-40 could potentially be a good 'bomber killer' with its sturdy construction and heavy anti-aircraft armament (which is particularly effective when it can be properly aimed, which is much easier against a formation of bombers) it's just not an overall good interceptor. The horrible climb rate and low climb speed, means that you basically have to start out in a higher postition than the bomber formation to effectively intercept and attack them. In quick missions against He 111s, I found, that if I got unlucky and lost energy or altitude after the first pass, it was a long and laborious process to regain a position where I could safely attack from. I didn't particularly fancy attacking from slightly below while trailing the He 111 with only a very minor speed advantage (at the most efficient climb angle the He 111s almost outran me). I then tried setting up missions, where my flight of P-40s started out 1000m below the Heinkels, and it took us a full 15mins to get into a good attacking position, which is completely unacceptable for an interceptor.

 

I think Ioshic initiates a very interesting discussion, when he basically asks "what were they thinking with this?" I honestly think, that the P-40 is something of a design mishap, similar to the LaGG-3 (though obviously with much better 'production value') Both are designs that turned out significantly overweight for the engines available and their performance suffered as a consequence. Both planes went through a long process to try and salvage the designs, both of which had many useful elements, though obviously the LaGG-3 ended up in a better place than the P-40, which never really got in among the top teir WW2 fighters but found its niche as an impromptu fighter bomber. The reasons behind the design flaws were different though. In the case of the LaGG-3, it was mostly a problem with wanting to make a heavier mixed construction (for economical reasons) along with poor craftmanship and (initially) over-heavy armament that hampered the design. With the P-40 it seems to have been more a case of wanting too much at one time. It's really hard to make a fighter that's both well armoured, sturdy construction, heavily armed with lots of ammo, a wide range of payloads, agile in a dogfight and at the same time having high performance with good climb rate and energy retention. The end result was a fighter that achieved most of its goals but ended up severely underpowered and IMHO also a bit too large in overall dimentions. Luckily for the P-40s reputation (and the Curtiss Wright Corporations bottom line) it found lots of use in more remote theatres (often against less high-performance fighters) and as a solid fighter-bomber. The LaGG-3 never really had that opportunity, being by design a pure fighter (it really never was much good in ground attack, at least historically) and continuously being deployed against some of the best fighters in the world. For the Lavochkin design team, there really was no sustitute for major design changes, and the breakthrough only really came in the form of a different engine with higher power output.

[Freycinet]

You can certainly see why Marseille had a field day against Kittyhawks in North Africa...

[LukeFF]

 

 

I just don't know why there is that weird transition from being able to use the prop rpm axis for a while and then it reverting only to either manual, control by the same prop pitch keys used for the german fighters, or automatic... It'll probably get addressed in an upcoming patch.

 

? You sure you aren't pressing a key by mistake?  

[andyw248]

... It lands like crap but i got used to it...

 

Fly steep approaches. On final approach, keep her attitude steady at about 115 - 120 mph, control the sink rate only by adding/reducing power, maintain a bit of power during the flare, and you will touch down at 85 mph with a greaser.

 

During rollout, apply only tiny amounts of rudder to keep her rolling straight.

[Jade_Monkey]

I find this plane is very vulnerable once in a dogfight. Just cant turn or climb without losing all speed.

 

Any advice?

[-TBC-AeroAce]

Don't dogfight

[Finkeren]

I find this plane is very vulnerable once in a dogfight. Just cant turn or climb without losing all speed.

 

Any advice?

Don't dogfight.

 

EDIT: Lol, only saw AeroAces comment just now

Edited October 2, 2015 by Finkeren

[Reflected]

I just flew the DCS P-51 Mustang for a few hours. Those 6 .50 cals seem quite weak, weaker than the BoS 109's 2 MG-s.

 

Same armament as the BoS P-40, yet the complete opposite effect. I've never fired 6 .50 cals in combat, so I have no idea which one is correct, but one thing is certain: either BoS or DCS got it VERY wrong...

 

(not complaining, don't misunderstand me, just thinking loud)

[Finkeren]

I just flew the DCS P-51 Mustang for a few hours. Those 6 .50 cals seem quite weak, weaker than the BoS 109's 2 MG-s.

 

Same armament as the BoS P-40, yet the complete opposite effect. I've never fired 6 .50 cals in combat, so I have no idea which one is correct, but one thing is certain: either BoS or DCS got it VERY wrong...

 

(not complaining, don't misunderstand me, just thinking loud)

 

Obviously, I'm quite biased, because I'm not really very impressed by the WW2 experience DCS has to offer, but I think BoS has by far the best and most realistic DM ever seen in a WW2 flight sim.

 

Note that by 'best' I don't necessarilly mean 'most detailed'. Both DCS and ClOD model intricate damage to a load of different avionics systems that BoS doesn't touch, but both fall short from creating a real sense of dynamic and life threatening damage. The damage model and (most of) the visual effects in BoS come very close to recreating the types of damage we see in historical gun cam footage. The damge feels very dynamic and varied. You never really know which of the next rounds that hit you will be the one that takes you out, and that creates a very real sense of urgency and immediate danger, when you're under fire. On the other hand as the attacker you can never rely on a single lucky hit to do the job for you. If you 'spray and pray' you're wasting your ammo. In both ClOD and (especially) DCS you get the feeling, that you're really chipping away at your opponents 'life bar' (even though in reality that isn't the case) and you don't get the sense, that any of the weapons pack much of a punch (haven't experienced the MK 108 in DCS, so maybe I'm  wrong there).

 

I'm not sure, if I think the .50cals in BoS are fine or maybe a little too powerful, but they are certainly not far off the mark.

[Reflected]

 

I'm not sure, if I think the .50cals in BoS are fine or maybe a little too powerful, but they are certainly not far off the mark.

 

Based on all the strafing guncam videos, I'm inclined to believe that BoS is closer to reality than DCS in terms of .50 cal effectiveness, but probably still overdone a little.

 

If only they would re-work the fuel and coolant leak "smokes"...

[Matt]

In both ClOD and (especially) DCS you get the feeling, that you're really chipping away at your opponents 'life bar' (even though in reality that isn't the case) and you don't get the sense, that any of the weapons pack much of a punch (haven't experienced the MK 108 in DCS, so maybe I'm  wrong there).

 

Last time i flew the 109 K, the P-51 regularly survived multiple 30mm hits. Though they could've fixed that.

 

Of course it's not really fair to generalise about something like this, because the DCS modules are often made by different developers, but the damage model (collisions and weapon damage mostly and how damage affected flying) left a lot to be desired in the WW2 modules released so far.

 

We also don't know if the BoS representation is final. It's early access in BoM after all.

Edited October 2, 2015 by Matt

[Finkeren]

We also don't know if the BoS representation is final. It's early access in BoM after all.

 

History has shown, that few things in sims like these are ever 'final', so we propably shouldn't expect them to be.

 

I really hope they don't touch the DM too much in the future though. I think they've struck just about the right balance how it is now.

Last time i flew the 109 K, the P-51 regularly survived multiple 30mm hits. Though they could've fixed that.

 

Ouch! That's pretty devastating (or rather not....) I don't get how modelling so detailed can result in such uninteresting DM.

[216th_Peterla]

I figured out the problem with my low speed  . I was flying full real without warm up engine. The engine was too lazy to go full power. Now is another thing. Nice bird to fly.

[Habu]

Hi guys!

I wanted to reproduce the cockpit of P-40E. It was really hard, i'm the russian and don't know english so good. But i tried very hard to make this. If you will find mistakes or inaccuracies in the text, please write. Then I want to translate this in russian for forum to help our pilots better to use this plane

Good work Zep.

 

On point 48, it's a command which fuze on or off the bombs. It's the first plane where we have a physical lever displaying if bombs are fuze on or off.

Pull : Fuze on

Push : Fuze off

[69th_chuter]

My first impressions:

First of all, I always liked the P-40, especially the first versions B and C, the Tomahawks.

 

I think the P40E is well modeled. It's surely not a pure fighter, but more of a fighter-bomber or a classic anti-bomber war machine. In these roles it really shines.

 

But it's hard to understand what the engineers wanted to achieve with the plane, and which characteristics they were after, or why they created something with such a bad weight-to-power ratio.

...

 

 

Actually, the basic plane is a P-36.  This was the original intent and it was awesome against other 300mph aircraft.  As time went on and other air forces technology advanced the P-36 found itself literally falling further and further behind due to its limited top speed (310mph).  A fighter pilot will gladly trade maneuverability for speed (in RL) as then he can chase down running enemies or run from them, either way he dictates the engagement.  So, the P-40E was 45mph faster than the P-36 but gave up something in nearly every other performance category to get it.  Was it worth it?  Maybe, against 330mph enemies:  definately; against faster enemies:  it probably felt better than being stuck at 310.  I've always thought of the P-40N as the Curtiss 109K.  (Or was that the Q?  No, that was the rubber-band powered Mustang - lol.)

 

Also - this is where the P-40s directional instability comes from.  The Allison (on the B/C) moved the propeller forward (destabilizing all by itself) about three feet and moved the aerodynamic center (particularly yaw) forward because of the longer cowling.  The larger scoop on the D+'s made it worse.  The even bigger scoop on the F/L's (Merlins) even worse.  The broader chord fin and dorsal extension on the Late E's and K's helped, but the 26 inch rearward movement of the fin combined with changing the rudder trim+boost tab to a trim+anti-boost tab developed for the Merlin types was standardized for all subsequent types.

 

(When the Mustang added the dorsal fin extension it switched the trim+boost tab to trim+anti-boost tab as well.)

Edited October 3, 2015 by chuter

[IIN8II]

[6./ZG26_Emil]

 

Nice tease I thought it was a video :D

 

Are you doing one for the P-40?

Edited October 3, 2015 by Nikko

[Y-29.SugaBizkit]

 

 

 

Oh man where is that skin at.

 

So nice