P51, if you like it , you must see this video.

[SCG_motoadve]

 

[Bremspropeller]

Thanks for sharing!

[Sotka94]

Great video!

 

I was never all that interested in the Mustang and the Thunderbolt. However, with Bodenplatte versions of them drawing closer, and having read more about them, watched videos, stared at pictures... now I'm so excited to fly them the wait seems interminable. Hopefully we'll get the P-47 inside a month, and the P-51 can't be too many months away at this point...

Edited October 1, 2018 by Sotka94

[sevenless]

Great vid!

[P51DMatt]

I just adore this video! ❤️

[wolfbojan189]

Great !

[FTC_Riksen]

Looking forward to flying it in the sim

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

It was the fighter that had it all !!!!!!!!!!!!

[ITAF_Rani]

Cool cool cool...!!

I' m looking forward to do aerobatics with the "Cadillac of the sky"

[TWC_Ace]

On 10/2/2018 at 4:22 AM, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

It was the fighter that had it all !!!!!!!!!!!!

Except the climb and slow/low maneuvers....at least compared to Dora....

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

1 hour ago, blackram said:

Except the climb and slow/low maneuvers....at least compared to Dora....

I agree, the Dora was at the pinnacle of German fighter design coming late in the war, but as always " To little to late "

[GP*]

I'm glad folks are enjoying this video for the footage it has and the anecdotes in it, rather than focusing on "omg [the F-15 pilot] didn't know the Merlin was British and the designer was born in Germany" like most comments for this video (YouTube etc). 

 

Max Moga on the other hand...fair game.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

P47 pilots called mustang flying can I wonder why?

[TWC_Ace]

1 hour ago, Go_Pre said:

I'm glad folks are enjoying this video for the footage it has and the anecdotes in it, rather than focusing on "omg [the F-15 pilot] didn't know the Merlin was British and the designer was born in Germany" like most comments for this video (YouTube etc). 

 

Max Moga on the other hand...fair game.

What i learned yesterday is that a canadian born engineer who worked in Mitchell`s team on a first spitfire saw a shape of the wings on drawing boards when he was working in Germany..the original idea was a german design (also Gunter brothers used it before they even joined Heinkel).

now, you have it

?

Edited October 3, 2018 by blackram

[LeLv76_Erkki]

I liked P-51 a lot in 1946. Flew it a lot on Warclouds. It wasnt as easy to fly as or as powerfully armed as Spit and thus never very popular... And the constant whine about 50 cals and cog shift that should make P-51outturn 109s was unbearable.

 

I expect it to be even harder to fly in the upcoming BoX incarnation, and that much more rewarding to succeed in. Not quite my favorite WW2 fighter but very high on the list.

[69th_chuter]

39 minutes ago, blackram said:

What i learned yesterday is that a canadian born engineer who worked in Mitchell`s team on a first spitfire saw a shape of the wings on drawing boards when he was working in Germany..the original idea was a german design (also Gunter brothers used it before they even joined Heinkel).

now, you have it

?

 

Mitchell's S.4 Schneider Cup racer from 1925 is credited as being his first go at an elliptical wing.  ?

 

http://www.air-racing-history.com/aircraft/Supermarine S.4.htm

[LeLv76_Erkki]

Spoiler

 

 

At 5:50 two P-51s, Strega and Voodoo, entering Renos turn one at 800+ km/h

[IckyATLAS]

Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

[69th_Panp]

Nice 

thanks for sharing 

[Gambit21]

On 10/3/2018 at 7:55 AM, LeLv76_Erkki said:

And the constant whine about 50 cals 

 

To be fair, Olegs .50’s were horrible 

 

[LeLv76_Erkki]

25 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

To be fair, Olegs .50’s were horrible 

 

 

Compared to how they're in this game yes. You could still routinely de-wing 109 and 190 with them though and it imho took realistic numbers of hits to score kills.

[blitze]

Those "Cadillacs of the sky" were certainly a game changer for the 8th Airforce over Western Europe.  The Merlin, laminar flow wings and that iconic under belly scoop giver her a lovely profile, visually and aurally. 

 

I think the more modern US spiritual successor to the P51, for me is the F16.  Another beautiful aircraft with visually similar aspects to the P51 D.

 

Still a big sucker though for the Su 27+ line though, they are bad ass.

 

Can't wait to get my hands on the P51 and 47 but one day, would also hope for the F4U Corsair as well. Can't leave the Navy out of this one.  Whilst adding to the list a Yak 3 and 9, La 7, Spit 14, Hurricane and the "Wooden Wonder" Mosquito.   ?

[Gambit21]

5 hours ago, LeLv76_Erkki said:

 

Compared to how they're in this game yes. You could still routinely de-wing 109 and 190 with them though and it imho took realistic numbers of hits to score kills.

 

Well we were comparing them to damage done my real .50's, not to the future BoS.

Also we'll have to agree to disagree on the "realistic numbers of hits" statement as I've seen too much data indicating otherwise.

 

Our .50's now are much more believable.

[LeLv76_Erkki]

25 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

Well we were comparing them to damage done my real .50's, not to the future BoS.

Also we'll have to agree to disagree on the "realistic numbers of hits" statement as I've seen too much data indicating otherwise.

 

Our .50's now are much more believable.

 

Compare damage to real 50s, how exactly?  I thought they were fine in 1946. Here your typical kill with six 50s is de-winging - not something seen often in gun cams. Old game did have issue of there just not being enough things to damage so often you'd score good hits and they'd just only slow the target down a bit. edit: think of some soviet planes in 1946, they often dont receive any damage at all or they disintegrate right away. I think I on average needed around 25 hits. Those statistics are unfortunately long gone.

Edited October 6, 2018 by LeLv76_Erkki

[Gambit21]

Yeah, damage model was part of the issue, no doubt.

[drahn]

So Beautiful!!!!!

[Bremspropeller]

9 hours ago, blitze said:

I think the more modern US spiritual successor to the P51, for me is the F16.

 

Always makes me cringe, when I realize the F-16 is more than 40 years old already.

 

7 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

Yeah, damage model was part of the issue, no doubt.

 

Certainly.

The fifties in BoX are great. There's a lot more to damage on the airplanes right now than it was in IL-2'46.

[ZachariasX]

2 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

Always makes me cringe, when I realize the F-16 is more than 40 years old already.

Is like buying a Wright flyer, however improved with a side arm, in 1939. Actually, more like a Lilienthal glider. The Viper is now 44 years of age. The side arm however got better progressively over the years, one shouldn't underestimate that fact.

 

On the other hand, today we can develop a plane that takes as long from first flight to entering service than the Bf-109 had service life and 30'000 produced. And more than a decade after the first flight it still doesn't fly well. After 2 decades of working on it. And then some say the Germans had poor judgement by following the Jumo-222 design.

 

That's just the thing with those darn antique planes. You made them 4 decades ago and it flew really well. But then you put on weight and more weight to make it do things it wasn't made for and it still flys (sort of) well. No wonder you had to start from scratch to have something can do everything but flying. Task accomplised. 100% money burn, 0% emissions (it doesn't really fly).

 

[Ehret]

Just now, ZachariasX said:

That's just the thing with those darn antique planes. You made them 4 decades ago and it flew really well. But then you put on weight and more weight to make it do things it wasn't made for and it still flys (sort of) well. No wonder you had to start from scratch to have something can do everything but flying. Task accomplised. 100% money burn, 0% emissions (it doesn't really fly).

 

There is the one thing which amazes me... Notwithstanding technical superiority, number of flight/sortie hours matter a lot. If you put much more hours in the air than the enemy can, the latter might be not able to stop you even if equip with the superior technology. Why this is so overlooked, today? All talk about great capabilities of newest "toys", yet, nothing about their endurance, resilience to attrition and ability to regenerate numbers.

 

That's why the P-51 was so great at waging a war - had a long range, was inexpensive (almost 1/2 of P-47 cost) and logistically frugal. That the Mustang could be outperformed in one, or two metric(s) by some Axis fighters didn't matter much because you would overwhelm them with number*hours of sorties, eventually.

Edited October 6, 2018 by Ehret

[Bremspropeller]

Many of today's toys are just a scam to get the most amount of taxpayer-money sprayed over defense-contractors situated in as many states as possible.

That's a great way of making an airplane-program cost over a trillion Dollars.

 

4 hours ago, Ehret said:

That the Mustang could be outperformed in one, or two metric(s) by some Axis fighters didn't matter much because you would overwhelm them with number*hours of sorties, eventually.

 

That's what many people (including the Lftwaffe high command) didn't get.

The best fighter is the one that can project a reasonable performance across the board onto an enemy where you need it when you need it.

Having the greatest performer in the stable does you very little good, when it's objective is a quarter tank beyond it's reach.

 

The Luftwaffe had it's head so deep up it's bum, it didn't persue considerations of adding more fuel-volume into the Fw 190 airframe early on. Only the 115l tank was eventually put into service (too late). Other options, like adding a 49l-tank into each wing wasn't actively persued, despite being possible.

The same is true for increased hi-alt performance in the 190, which could have been available at cheap cost (e.g. change of the supercharger air-intake) in 1942.

 

Mental flexibility and strategcal farsightedness certainly wasn't the priority of Luftwaffe leadership-personnel.

[BlitzPig_EL]

The P51 is in many ways similar to the M4 Sherman in concept.  A reliable and competent design, that could be built in large numbers at reasonable cost, and supported in the field.  A weapon built to win a war overall, not just a single engagement.

 

Sadly in a video game those great features don't count for a whole lot, because of the compressed nature of the "battles" we take part in, the endless logistics we have access to, and the fact that all the machines in a video game are 100% reliable, always.

Edited October 6, 2018 by BlitzPig_EL

[ZachariasX]

I‘d say that indeed the Mustang truly set itself apart from basically the entire competition.

 

This mainly because it was *the only aircraft design* that could use all benefits from the concept „just engine, as little aircraft as possible“ (Spitfire, 109, etc.) and translate that into a larger airframe, allowing for a reasonable sized fuel load. It has twice the wetted surface compared to the competition, however retaining a similar drag! It made possible that you could have a „small block“ engine installed while still providing for efficient long range cruise. Basically it beeing a better, cleaner design gave you range at no cost!

 

This way, you had a considerably fast aircraft (having efficient aerodynamics is only helpful) with that range, while in all other competing designs range and speed came the cost of each other.

 

Only when taking much more powerful engines, other planes could offset this advantage to some point. The Tempest had both range and speed but this at the price of being a considerably larger aircraft.

 

The Mustang is truly a world beater as for force projection (the only thing that matters if you are conducting a war) it truly set itself in a new class. War is not a fair 1:1 match of competitively minded people. What matters is where on the map can you be. And for German designs, that got just tragic. Escorting planes across the Mediterranean often enough required refueling, drawing from the same barreks that the Ju52 and the Me323 just delivered. 

[LeLv76_Erkki]

6 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

The Mustang is truly a world beater as for force projection (the only thing that matters if you are conducting a war) it truly set itself in a new class. War is not a fair 1:1 match of competitively minded people. What matters is where on the map can you be. And for German designs, that got just tragic. Escorting planes across the Mediterranean often enough required refueling, drawing from the same barreks that the Ju52 and the Me323 just delivered. 

 

I think this matters very much on the contexts of the aerial campaign at hand and overall strategic situation. Range was useful for Allies to force project that superior industrial might on Germany from across the sea(that they couldnt do earlier with short legged Spitfires.. as Germany couldnt do either on Britain with the 109), but its only one area of performance and thus also force projection. On the losing side, Zero also had very long range but combat performance wise it was outclassed rather early and thus - when it came to force projection - range, that came with a cost in that particular design, no longer was very useful. And then there were the Soviets who usually didnt need very long operational ranges for what they did with their aerial might due to the nature of the conflict they fought being different to the conflicts in West, Mediterranean and Pacific. Not that they surely would not have loved to have a fighter with more range than Yak-9D/DD, but they didnt need one bad enough. Had war stayed on mainland Europe like in WWI I dont think any nation would have developed a fighter with as long range as P-51.

 

I'm sure we'll get the K-14 sight, but how about tail warning radar?

[blitze]

Blitzpig, I'd say the T34 is more fitting for your tank analogy than the Sherman (which was a death trap and lucky not to come up against much as most ground resources were i the East).

 

The other premise is Keep It Simple Stupid (K.I.S.S.) which helps dramatically in war time situations.  The F16 might be an old airframe but it is still relevant today as the Russians have shown with the Su27 airframe which they have continued to develop to good effect.  India also showed us that with modern avionics, even the Mig21 can be formidable.

 

In the West, as Bremspropeller has stated, modern aircraft are built to line politicians and contractors pockets and to also ensure a limited amount of manufacturing goes around the many states of the USA.  The whole premise of Stealth has been shown to be a bust and the spreading of the manufacturing has shown itself to produce many problems with quality of components and integration into the finished product.  Fighters are also meant to be a jack of all trades unlike those of the previous generation which were designed for specific roles.

 

Compare airtime and effectiveness of modern aircraft against each other and the West seems to fail dismally.  The performance of the small contingent of aircraft Russia uses in Latakia, Syria is testimony to this (4 sorties per day per airframe).  Probably why the US has kept the F16 around and also there have been calls for the A10 to come back.  Both simple and effective designs which do their jobs.

 

P51, had reach, numbers and a simple but effective design.  They also look good. ??

[Bremspropeller]

The Zero had a long range, but so did the F6F and F4U - both had good range that didn't come at the cost of performance. The F6F wasn't a hot airplane by european standards, but it was still good enough and lots of the eaten-up performance figures came from making the airplane basicly foolproof to operate from carriers (as opposed to the F4U).

 

One shouldn't forget that the russians had the western Allies do the whole strategical job done for them. Had it not been for Lend-Lease and the very substantial strategic warfare against Germany*, the Eastern Front would have looked much different for the Soviets.

Had the USSR had strategic air power assets, they could have made a much better campaign against Germany, instead of wrestling them back into the Reich, losing personnel hand over fist right up to the very last day. Stalin could afford it (as nobody dared asking any questions), though.

___

* As in assets bound in

1) The Med.

2) The air war over Germany - day and night.

3) Pounding of infrastructure, POL, logistics and production-capabilities.

[Gambit21]

The Zero was the best airplane in the sky in 1942.

Unfortunately for the Japanese it was still the same airplane inn1945.

 

My wife's grandfather flew Hellcats, however he got over so late (on Wasp which got hit by a Kamakazi and returned to the states for repairs) by the time his squadron got

back, it was cruising over mainland Japan with nary an enemy aircraft in sight. He used to roll out of formation and dive to the deck to strafe greenhouses.

Said the Japanese had been undercutting his produced prices, so he filled them full of .50 cal. Funny guy that Earl Morton.

 

 

[BlitzPig_EL]

As to the T34 vs. Sherman, I would invite you to look up the crew survivability rates for the the two tanks.  It is the T34 that was the real death trap.

 

The myth that the T34 was the best medium tank of the war is just that, a myth.  It had egregious loss rates compared to the Sherman.  You know how many Sherman crew members were lost in the entire Italian campaign?  40.  Not 400, or 140, just 40.  The Sherman was a very crew survivable vehicle.  It had excellent crew ergonomics, compared to the torture chamber that was the interior of the T34, and it was FAR more reliable than the Russian tank as well.

 

Look up the numbers, not just the opinion of one man that worked in the tank recovery section.

Edited October 7, 2018 by BlitzPig_EL

[ZachariasX]

5 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

As to the T34 vs. Sherman, I would invite you to look up the crew survivability rates for the the two tanks.  It is the T34 that was the real death trap.

 

I thought the main advantage of the T-34 was its tracks that allowed it to drive as if it were a much lighter vehicle. Hence they could patch so much tin on the hull that made it immune to most German weaponry *at the time it came out*.

 

As for the high rate of attrition, are there stats on the rate of recovered tanks after receiving damage? I don‘t have such info.

 

In general however, I think the heavy tank is only good for very special purposes, as it is a logistical nightmare, whereas much lighter vehicles with heavy guns are  much faster and have more endurance. Given artillery duels are best conducted hull down, you shouldn‘t need all that metal. I‘d trade a „fast“ gun over a heavily aromered one any time. Also, the tank is most vulnerable when dashing from cover to cover. The lighter is is, the less it can get shot at. 

[Ehret]

3 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

In general however, I think the heavy tank is only good for very special purposes, as it is a logistical nightmare, whereas much lighter vehicles with heavy guns are  much faster and have more endurance.

 

Yes, as a defensive weapon heavy tanks are kind of movable pillboxes. At least they were in the WW2.

[LeLv76_Erkki]

Tiger and IS series were both intended to be breakthrough tanks. I'm not sure about the KV-1 but the -2 also was. Because of strategic situation, shortage of tanks and the logistical challenges the design provided, Tiger ended up being used mostly as a counterattack and defensive support platform