FW 190

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

This is just an example of "securing doxa" though, there's that story already in 1945 when a pair of Bf-109s went up to strafe 16 GIAP's airfield and only two P-39s piloted by recently-arrived officers were up. Manoeuvre, manoeuvre out, one P-39 has a German ace right on this dead 6 and his buddy, a novice, runs to help. The Lieutenant comes in head-on and lands a 37mm shot straight at the 109, which crashes into the airfield. The pilot survived however, and as they went to speak to him he (apparently knowing 16 GIAP was based at that airfield) requested to meet whomever had shot him down. Pokryshkin and co. point him out to the young fellow, looking shaken and in utter disbelief that his last-ditch attack had worked. The experience German looks outraged and goes, "that's impossible! Only Pokryshkin could have shot me down!"

 

Or that story Golodnikov tells of the German pilot who could not believe he had been shot down by a short, chubby and drowsy Russian pilot.

 

There was also Grislawski's old friend from flight school who volunteered to fight on the East because he thought he was indestructible against these lousy Soviets, despite Grislawski clearly advising him that he was deeply mistaken.

 

Factually some German officers were blind to operational realities, and many believed up until the end that Germany was one counter-attack away from winning the war. You can call it morale, but when you underestimate your enemy it becomes dumb courage.

[unreasonable]

@Lucas_From_Hell  

 

All of these stories, even if taken on trust, relate to personal or racial beliefs, prevalent at the time and of course we now know these beliefs were absurd.

 

This is quite different from the La5 - La5FN story, which is essentially a case of mistaken identity of an aircraft type.

 

A completely different issue, and lumping them together is perhaps a symptom of the "doxa" that LW pilots were so full of themselves that they were incapable of rational thought.

[SOLIDKREATE]

The 190 is meant to be flown fast and as a B'n'Z bird. Do not turn fight with it and stay above 380kph.

[Dr_Molenbeek]

The 190 is meant to be flown fast and as a B'n'Z bird.

 

No.

 

Please no.

 

Stop with this.

[LukeFF]

No.

 

Please no.

 

Stop with this.

 

What, it's supposed to be flown like an I-16?

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Like any other fighter that rolls better than anyone and turns well above 300km/h, no need to be so conservative with it.

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

What, it's supposed to be flown like an I-16?

Depends on how you fly the I-16

 

Have to agree with Hairy, the Fw-190 is a multi purpose fighter. It opens possebilities for tactics you can't pull off in the 109 but pays for it with worse low speed stability and stall fighitng capebility.

 

Every manouvre is a sacrifise so it's always important to know when to perform it to make it worth it. It's not limited to dive - climb attacks if you know how to play your aces.

 

Hairy knows very well how to handle it if you watched his videos.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Is it just me or it kind of parallels with the MiG-3 tactically - fast, rolls nicely and turns well when energy-efficient; the second you lose speed and get bogged down in a silly stall fight you're toast though?

[Dr_Molenbeek]

Is it just me or it kind of parallels with the MiG-3 tactically - fast, rolls nicely and turns well when energy-efficient; the second you lose speed and get bogged down in a silly stall fight you're toast though?

 

Yes and no.

 

Yes because it is underperforming at the moment (climb rate), so stall fighting against Russian fighters in Fw 190 is hard, very hard (to not say impossible above a certain altitude in winter).

 

And no because... if the 190's climb rate was correct, it would be somewhere between 109s and Russian fighters in term of stall fighting abilities.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Ze_Hairy

[Dakpilot]

What, it's supposed to be flown like an I-16?

 

Well some people who are very critical of the FM's and claim to want only historical results (which surely we all do) actually believe (believed?) that the FW-190 should outroll the I-16..because it was not a very maneuverable aircraft...while claiming the Dev's have no credibility

 

There have been a some very good points made in this thread but also a huge amount of speculation and 'popularist' hearsay.

 

Eric Brown first flew an FW190 (A4) in 1944, and wrote his books much later, first in the sixties, there are many other accounts and books written by test pilots who flew them for 100's of hours at a time more critical, and when the realities were more current

 

The domination that the FW-190 experienced in late 41/42 in western Europe had little in common with actual tactical usage on the Eastern front, what transpired in England and France then,has led to a lot of mis-conceptions 

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Wulf]

 

We all love this sim or else we wouldn't be here reading the forums.

 

I think our axis driver friends may have a point about the roll rate of the LaGG and La, but we may also have a point on the roll rate of the 109.  With the dev's addressing the flaps of the Yak and other aircraft, I think it shows that the issues discussed in this thread will be looked at, and if found to have merit, fixed.

 

The Dev's want to make money too, and there is no money for them with such a niche community if they don't keep things as accurate as possible.  And that is, after all, what all of us want, right?  The most historically accurate sim possible?  And that makes me think, how can we say we don't already have it?  Can updates be made?  Yes and they are made, but that doesn't change the fact that we might already have the most historically accurate sim available.  And with every update the Dev's release it just confirms that status and raises the standard.

 

So, complaining about things doesn't help, it just makes people angry and then we get a thread like this.  And when inevitably the Dev's lock it, it will just overflow into a new thread or a new forum (like simhq) and be called evidence of Dev bias.  All that we really need is some trust and patience.  Trust the Dev's are looking, or will look, into your criticisms and be patient.  What have the Dev's done to make us think they wont?  Can we still make criticisms?  Yes, and please do, but please don't complain about the sim in them.  All it does is poison the community and that results in stunted growth or maybe even death of it.

 

Seriously, lets grow the hell up.  There are issues, I agree.  We all agree on that.  However I also don't think it's so cut and dry.

 

The way I see it, if you got an enemy on your six you already screwed up.  It is exponentially easier to chase down an aircraft that is better than yours than to get one off your six that is worse.  The reason is the nature of the fight, slowly (or quickly) devolving into turns and evasions, attempts to turn the tables, etc... all of which cost energy.  And isn't that the biggest advantage in a dogfight, energy retention?  So if you burn your energy trying to get someone off your six or kill someone on your twelve, aren't you potentially setting yourself up for failure?

 

 

I agree with much of what you say and I absolutely share your concerns about the rolling performance of the in-game Bf 109.  In my opinion, roll-rates in general need to be reviewed because roll-rates are critical to aircraft performance. Where we differ is our views on what we as consumers should do about it.

 

If the devs adopted a more open-minded approach to change I would be happy to just leave them to it.   But for whatever reason they appear determined to portray their FMs, not as works in progress, which of course they are, but as 'complete and correct' unless proven otherwise.  And when I say proven, I mean to an evidential standard that, for all practical purposes, is going to be beyond the resources of the wider community.  Whether intended or not, this situation serves to shield ongoing absurdities from critical review.  If as a community we just turn a bling eye to the obvious and just go with the flow, some of these issues may potentially never be resolved because there will always be competing demands on the devs time.  Discussing these issues publicly doesn't of course mean they will be fixed but it does impose an additional discipline on what if anything the devs choose to do about them.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Wulf

[Wulf]

Well some people who are very critical of the FM's and claim to want only historical results (which surely we all do) actually believe (believed?) that the FW-190 should outroll the I-16..because it was not a very maneuverable aircraft...while claiming the Dev's have no credibility

 

 

Cheers Dakpilot

 

 

OMG, he sounds like a real bastard!   Get a spotlight on the swine and drive him into the open.  Name and shame I say........................

 

Um... and so what if Eric Brown first flew the 190 in '44.  What has that got to do with anything - weird??

[DD_Arthur]

 

Um... and so what if Eric Brown first flew the 190 in '44.  What has that got to do with anything - weird??

 

It means it's all been lost in "populist" translation and you're suffering from a lot of misconceptions based on speculative hearsay - got it?  

[Wulf]

It means it's all been lost in "populist" translation and you're suffering from a lot of misconceptions based on speculative hearsay - got it?  

 

No, as it happens, I don't "got it".  If EB had only flow the 190 and nothing else  then yes, his observations wouldn't mean all that much because he'd have little if any reference on which to make comparisons.  But that's not the case is it.  Brown flew pretty much all there was to fly (including numerous Russian fighters) so if anyone has a reasonable idea about the comparative performance of WW 2 fighter it's probably him.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't view his comments with a critical eye but it would be just plain foolishness to simply disregard them - unless of course his comments conflicted with one's own personal agenda then maybe you'd just ignore him or perhaps seek to belittle his achievements in some way.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Wulf

[DD_Arthur]

No, as it happens, I don't "got it". 

 

Hmmm...tough one eh?  Ok; try this:  Take a deep breath, close your eyes, stick a finger in each ear and repeat

 

"There is nothing wrong with the flight model. There is nothing wrong with the flight model. There is nothing wrong........."

[Dakpilot]

Hmmm...tough one eh?  Ok; try this:  Take a deep breath, close your eyes, stick a finger in each ear and repeat

 

"There is nothing wrong with the flight model. There is nothing wrong with the flight model. There is nothing wrong........."

 

Not what I am saying at all...but some peoples expectations of what the flight model should be will  not match its real life performance

 

I am also not discrediting Eric Browns experience,  just think a few quotes should not be considered lore, there is a lot more information out there...

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[LukeFF]

 

Yes because it is underperforming at the moment (climb rate), so stall fighting against Russian fighters in Fw 190 is hard, very hard (to not say impossible above a certain altitude in winter).

 

And no because... if the 190's climb rate was correct, it would be somewhere between 109s and Russian fighters in term of stall fighting abilities.

 

 

But, why in the world would one want to stall-fight in the 190? That doesn't make any sense at all. 

[JtD]

Same reasons you'd do it in any other aircraft. Mostly to shoot an enemy down or to avoid getting shot down.

[Guest deleted@50488]

What's stall fighting ?

[Dr_Molenbeek]

What's stall fighting ?

 

An use of your energy/altitude advantage or superior climb rate/acceleration in order to make an opponent stall using vertical maneuvers.

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

Stall fighting isn't limited to the vertical although it's the common case.

 

You basicly try to lure your enemy into a stall, be it an accelerated or low speed stall, by manouvering in a certain way. That often forces you to fight on the edge of your own aircrafts performence though and that's where the Fw-190 with it's compareably high stall speed has a weakness.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Stab/JG26_5tuka

[Tomsk]

That's really interesting, I had heard a completely different definition of "stall fighting". Which was that it was often the result of a prolonged turn fight, riding the edge of a constant stall trying to turn tighter than your opponent. In my mind at least it particularly refers to a particular style of fighting where you just put your lift vector on your opponent and pull back on the stick for all your are worth, hopefully without stalling the plane.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Same here, I've mostly seen it used to represent the 'beginner' air combat repertoire - after that ugly head on pass, they pull hard towards each other horizontally or downwards hoping to get an angle, then both try to squeeze a tight turn radius despite being severely below corner speed, to the point where both are some 500m apart, agonisingly slow, looking at each other from a distance praying their magic turn will work... Then one (or both) stalls, and whomever spins a little less runs towards the other and gets a kill, after 5 minutes of this.

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

Well you could argue about definitions (and tbh I haven't looked any "offitial" definitions up) but that's basicly a method of combat.   In the pacific Hellcat pilots used to fight against Zeros effectively in the early phase by luring them into a climb race and waiting for them to stall. The Zero pilots by that time were not used to the Hellcat but the worse climbing Wildcats so they though they were easy prey, which turned out to be the opposite way.

 

You can also lure the enemy into a low speed (horizontal) turnfight and wait for him to overpull and stall out. That works very well in the 109 against the La-5 for example. In the 190 you want to avoid such situations though.

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

Both definitions are sound

 

The Hellcat situation is that rope-a-dope playing on the foolish that never gets old. One that I love here is to dive on a 109 and if unable to get a shot or if I miss, just zoom and wait until the pilot thinks his climb rate will be enough to catch a 600km/h enemy from the lazy 350km/h he has. Worked a couple of times, but in the majority I screwed up the second pass and it ends up with both disengaging rather than taking it down to the weeds.

[Tomsk]

The Hellcat situation is that rope-a-dope playing on the foolish that never gets old. One that I love here is to dive on a 109 and if unable to get a shot or if I miss, just zoom and wait until the pilot thinks his climb rate will be enough to catch a 600km/h enemy from the lazy 350km/h he has. Worked a couple of times, but in the majority I screwed up the second pass and it ends up with both disengaging rather than taking it down to the weeds.

 

My time in ermm ... a popular WW2 MMO flying game thoroughly dissuaded me against using rope a dope maneuvers. Too many of the planes in that game had a remarkable helicopter ability and were well up to taking accurate shots at you whilst flying straight up at less than 20kph. Rope-a-dopes probably work better in BoS ... I shall have to experiment :-)

Edited February 21, 2016 by Tomsk

[216th_Lucas_From_Hell]

If you need some help practicing let me know, I can fly target for you on a server so you can drop the habits from WT.

 

Currently I'm struggling with deflection shots time and again, back in the old Il-2 one had to take a whole lot of lead to hit a bandit and these habits that are over a decade old start biting twofold - I end up firing slightly above the enemy, and the evasives that worked there bit me in the arse, particularly against the AI (which even on Average is killing me more often than players - human psychology can be played upon, but the AI sees through ). Time and again I see a 109 coming behind me and I throw a few angles to mess up his shot only to see the stream of bullets cripple me in no time. This has forced me to fly better though and stop relying on lazy jinks.

[GP*]

What's stall fighting ?

Continuous vertical / climbing maneuvers. Whoever falls off first is (typically) immediately defensive.

 

No, it's not a noob tactic. It takes quite a bit of skill, because you must assess both your energy state continuously as well as the energy of the bandit. If you go uphill and fail to realize that the bandit has a lot of energy, you're probably going to get gunned as you're low speed and nose high...meaning you have little ability to jink as you realize he's approaching a gun solution. If done correctly, you'll go uphill, your opponent will be unable to follow, and you now have vertical turning room / potential energy in your favor.

 

Note that the bandit doesn't actually have to stall for it to work. It's just that typically people will continue to point until the bitter end, fall off, and then go defensive.

 

The best part about this is that you don't have to be a great turner to pull it off. That's why planes with great climbing abilities (109 and, IRL, 190) excel at this. It's often called energy fighting, which is really a more broad tactic than stall fighting, and often incorrectly referred to as BnZ by pilots who don't realize this is what they're doing.

[Tomsk]

If done correctly, you'll go uphill, your opponent will be unable to follow, and you now have vertical turning room / potential energy in your favor.

 

I'd call that a "rope a dope" :-)

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

It's often called energy fighting, which is really a more broad tactic than stall fighting, and often incorrectly referred to as BnZ by pilots who don't realize this is what they're doing.

Those "definitions" are pretty ackward in the first place since aerial combat is nothing as clearly divideable. A pilot always has to adjust his tactics to the current situation which is a flurent and ongoing process and you'll end up doing what your instinct suggests, not "I've read in this situation I must energy fight because...".

 

In my book stall fighting is describing the intentional attempt to reduce your enemies energy to give you an relative advantage. If you climb straight up and an enemy follows you in that climb you don't do that as the enemy just converts his kinetic to potential energy. However, with certain manouvers like the spiral climb in a rope a dope or carefull low speed manouvers you can force your enemy to drain more of his energy and eventually stall the airplane giving you the upperhand. That can be in the vertical or horizontal.

 

That's just for me though and I leave it to everybody to make his own mind about it.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Stab/JG26_5tuka

[GP*]

You guys are right. I mean, what do I know...

[Tomsk]

You guys are right. I mean, what do I know...

 

Not at all, it seems it's just people use different names for the same things. Both meanings of "stall fighting" seem to be in common use, so both are equally valid :-)

[Wulf]

Not at all, it seems it's just people use different names for the same things. Both meanings of "stall fighting" seem to be in common use, so both are equally valid :-)

 

 

That sounds like the sort of crap they teach kids in schools these days - 'there are no wrong answers and everyone gets a prize'.  If the term "stall fighting"  can have a range of different but nevertheless valid meanings, depending on who's telling the story, definitions have no meaning at all.

 

My understanding of stall fighting relates to vertical maneuvers only.  I don't think running our of lift in a turn fight constitutes "stall fighting" but that's just my understanding and I may well be wrong.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Wulf

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

My gosh, I just explained what was my conception behind the term to clarify what I meant with "the Fw-190 is not good at stallfighting". If, for you, this includes only vertical fighting, than this statement is false because the 190 performs well vertically (not as good as the 109).

 

Nobodys trying to be a smarta$$ here...

[II./JG77_Manu*]

 

 

this statement is false because the 190 performs well vertically (not as good as the 109).

That statement is ony true for pre-G6/A5 times. After that i'd prefer the A5 for vertical dogfighting ala hammerhead and co anytime over a 109G.

[Crump]

It's funny that virtually every Fw-190 ever modelled in any game/sim (except for the Fw-190D, always) is, according to these types, a flying coffin. Makes one wonder, is it really possible that every single quality FS developer got the aircraft wrong and Winger is somehow right?

 

I do not think it has anything to do with Focke Wulf or aircraft performance.  For example, when you have developers who claim a propeller that performs some 25% below what is considered normal for a propeller and then has no idea what a blade element theory analysis is or the fact a simple analysis does not support this "trick".....

 

http://www-mdp.eng.cam.ac.uk/web/library/enginfo/aerothermal_dvd_only/aero/propeller/prop1.html

 

When the original documentation from the propeller designer and aircraft manufacturer do not support this "trick" either of well below average efficiency....

 

It is pretty obvious where the error lies....

 

Here is a tactical trial conducted by the Luftwaffe between the FW-190, Bf-109G, and various Italian designs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JG13_opcode]

What's this about the prop not performing well?

[DD_Arthur]

What's this about the prop not performing well?

 

Nothing to do with this sim.

[JG13_opcode]

Ah, okay. I'd be interested in seeing analysis if it were, but if it's just rehashing something from 1946 or CloD, well.... 1946 is an old engine and CLOD was just a really bad game overall.

[MiloMorai]

Ah, okay. I'd be interested in seeing analysis if it were, but if it's just rehashing something from 1946 or CloD, well.... 1946 is an old engine and CLOD was just a really bad game overall.

 

Just another dig at DCS by the only aeronautics expert in the world.