Manoeuvre rating for WW2 aircraft

[fastmongrel]

The P-51B would out perform the D in every category except firepower and visibility.

B/C models with the Malcolm hood were supposed to have better visibility in certain areas than D/K models with the teardrop canopy. Been looking but cant find the source for this claim but I believe the Malcolm hood had more room for the pilot to twist and look downwards/rearwards.

 

[parsifal]

I have a bit of a problem with just one manouver rating....it doesnt take into acount the different performance arcs at different altitudes or weather conditions. Furtherm, it doesnt compensate for different manouverability coefficients at different speeds. A Zero at low speed is much more dangerous than a zero attempting to manouver at high speed.

Its a game, and a game by definition is about compromises. All games try to strike a balance between complexity and playability. In many ways this system sounds very similar to the old WITP air combat ratings, and that needed a lot of changes to fix it.

 

[Jabberwocky]

What sort of power ratings are the P-47D and Spitfire V at? Both types had significant growth in engine power through their service lives.

The P-47D went from 2000 hp in early production blocs to 2600 hp in late production blocks with water injection, an increase of 30%.
The Spitfire V went from 1100 hp at +12 lbs in early production aircraft to 1440 hp at +16 lbs within about 18 months, again an increase of about 30% (not to mention the low alt Mk Vs with Merlin 50/55s at +18 lbs producing about 1545 hp).

Does the manuever rating include clipped wings for the Spitfires, or is it for full-span wings??

 

[Garyt]

Furtherm, it doesnt compensate for different manouverability coefficients at different speeds. A Zero at low speed is much more dangerous than a zero attempting to manouver at high speed.

There are too many variables to use seperate ratings for. I guess it would be possible to due the ratings for different altitudes, but planes themselves will change altitudes in the course of a fight. As far as different styles of maneuver, I've rated planes for both the standard dogfight and the high speed more vertical style of combat.

Well, it does in a way take into account different maneuverability at different speeds. The "Dogfight" Score is based on how quick a 360 turn can be made, it also uses the low speed roll rates. The more high speed factors the vertical elements of the plane, as well as it's roll at high speeds. But both the ability of a Zeke t corner well and roll well at low speeds and it's lack of maneuver at high speeds are factored in.

Now, it combines the two as opposed to having two separate ratings. But I'm not trying to make an air combat game but a naval one, and whether the combat is at high or low speed is what I am abstracting. I took the average of the two - what might make more sense is two times the planes best aspect and one times it's worst, as the plane will seek to fight in it's best aspect if possible, though it likely will come down to the pilot(s) as to which aspect it is using.

As far as altitude, I'm looking in a naval game with most of the combat taking place not much higher than 15,000 or so feet. While this won't represent the carrier based fighters going after the high level B-17's as well, that's ok, as that was more the the exception than the rule.

Jabberwocky
What sort of power ratings are the P-47D and Spitfire V at? Both types had significant growth in engine power through their service lives.

The P-47D went from 2000 hp in early production blocs to 2600 hp in late production blocks with water injection, an increase of 30%.
The Spitfire V went from 1100 hp at +12 lbs in early production aircraft to 1440 hp at +16 lbs within about 18 months, again an increase of about 30% (not to mention the low alt Mk Vs with Merlin 50/55s at +18 lbs producing about 1545 hp).

Does the manuever rating include clipped wings for the Spitfires, or is it for full-span wings??

Unfortunately I do not know on that one, Jabberwocky. The data does not specify.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Personally, I feel that reducing the manuverability of something as complicated as a WW2 fighter to a single number is a folly.

As already noted, the relative performance between fighters differs markedly across altitude and speed ranges. A P-47 was vastly more competitive against a FW 190A at 25,000 ft and 350 mph than it was at 2500 ft and 250 mph.

The numbers also give nothing of the control, pilot feel and feedback of an aircraft. There is no indication when comparing roll-rates, acceleration and turn times of how harsh or gentle the stall was, how well the controlls were harmonised, how much confidence pilots had in pushing their aircraft up to the stall or dive limits, whether the aircraft was nervous in turbulent air, or at low altitudes or in the dirty air of an opponents wake, or how long the aircraft oscilated after a control movement.

Other stuff isn't included, like the lag between control stick input and the beginning of a maneuver. With a P-47, the lag between a sideways control input for a roll and the actual beginning of the roll maneuver could be up to 1.3 seconds in a high speed dive. At low speeds, it was more like 0.1 to 0.2 seconds.

All of these little things add up to give a much better picture of how manuverable an aircraft was, rather than just turn, roll, climb, acceleration.

If a pilot is afraid of an aircraft's stall or dive characteristics, or recieves little to no feedback from it during manuvering, is it more or less manuverable than an aircraft that rolls a little slower, turns a little wider and doesn't fly quite as quickly, but allows the pilot to reach 99% or 100% of its capabilities, because he has more confidence in it.

An example would be a comparison between the Spitfire Mk XIV and Mk 21. On paper, the Mk 21 is a better aircraft. Its faster and it rolls, dives and climbs better than the Mk XIV. However, due to the new wing, it lacked the early stall warning and gentle stall of earlier Spitfires, had very poor directional characteristics, suffered from elevator 'hunting' (affecting shooting accuracy), didn't turn as well and had a nasty tendency to tighten up turns (spoiling a pilot's aim). A new tail and some other changes eventually sorted most of the problems, but the Mk 21 and subsequent aircraft were never the dogfighters that previous Spitfires were.

 

[Garyt]

Personally, I feel that reducing the manuverability of something as complicated as a WW2 fighter to a single number is a folly.

Glad to see you are not mincing words

But while of course reducing it to a single number does not do the maneuverability of a craft full justice, it's really needed in a game and to represent different abilities for different speeds, altitudes, etc., while accurate would be far to complicated, well beyond the scope of a game I am looking at.

And really, while certain planes may be better at different altitudes and speeds, the real issue is how what speeds/altitudes and other specifics an aircraft battle will be at are determined.

For example, a flight of Corsairs dives on a flight of Zero's. The Zero's begin turning to avoid being hit. Do the Corsairs turn with them and fight to the Zero's strength? Perhaps. Do the Corsairs keep on diving past the formation to regroup for another attack? Do some of the Zero's dive with the Corsairs to try to follow? It's all things like this that are determined by situation and pilot (and tactics/doctrine). Too abstract this to the point of using different ratings at different times would not make sense.

I look at it as both will try to make the fight play to their planes strengths - which is why both of the combat aspects are used (slow-turning and energy/vertical fighting). Thinking about it, it makes more sense perhaps to use two times their strong point and one time the weak and average - after all, if a mission allows and a pilot decides, a plane can forego attacking the other, in essence breaking off contact if each are trying to fight their own style, i.e the Zeke starts turning and the Corsair does not follow suit but moves on.

One of the games I am looking at uses the following procedure - as a plane comes in contact with another each rolls a D10. Their maneuver score is added (8-14 from a Brewster Buffalo to a Corsair), as well as pilot and other mods (+/-2 For Vets/rookies, +2 if one altitude level higher, etc.) If a plane wins by 2 or better, it gets a shot at the other, comparing it's own firepower (based on armnament) vs the other planes durability to see if one is destroyed or damaged.

The numbers also give nothing of the control, pilot feel and feedback of an aircraft. There is no indication when comparing roll-rates, acceleration and turn times of how harsh or gentle the stall was, how well the controlls were harmonised, how much confidence pilots had in pushing their aircraft up to the stall or dive limits, whether the aircraft was nervous in turbulent air, or at low altitudes or in the dirty air of an opponents wake, or how long the aircraft oscilated after a control movement.

Other stuff isn't included, like the lag between control stick input and the beginning of a maneuver. With a P-47, the lag between a sideways control input for a roll and the actual beginning of the roll maneuver could be up to 1.3 seconds in a high speed dive. At low speeds, it was more like 0.1 to 0.2 seconds.

All of these little things add up to give a much better picture of how manuverable an aircraft was, rather than just turn, roll, climb, acceleration.

If a pilot is afraid of an aircraft's stall or dive characteristics, or recieves little to no feedback from it during manuvering, is it more or less manuverable than an aircraft that rolls a little slower, turns a little wider and doesn't fly quite as quickly, but allows the pilot to reach 99% or 100% of its capabilities, because he has more confidence in it.

An example would be a comparison between the Spitfire Mk XIV and Mk 21. On paper, the Mk 21 is a better aircraft. Its faster and it rolls, dives and climbs better than the Mk XIV. However, due to the new wing, it lacked the early stall warning and gentle stall of earlier Spitfires, had very poor directional characteristics, suffered from elevator 'hunting' (affecting shooting accuracy), didn't turn as well and had a nasty tendency to tighten up turns (spoiling a pilot's aim). A new tail and some other changes eventually sorted most of the problems, but the Mk 21 and subsequent aircraft were never the dogfighters that previous Spitfires were.

These aspects would be interesting to include, though exhaustive research would have to be done, and likely could not be done on all the planes, at least with primary sources. And some of these are a real grey area, based more upon subjectivity than data.

Hoof's work has other details to it as well, things like visibility, how the controls "feel", etc. I've thought about including them - I've hesitated as again it is largely subjective. What I've also noticed is some of this is overkill - For instance, a plane who's controls feel real rough at high speeds also almost always has a bad roll at high speeds, so the effects of roll are in essence being duplicated and perhaps been given too much weight.

 

[Garyt]

Just thought I'd add - One of my least favorite ways of rating planes is combat record.

This does not at all take into account many issues more important than the ability of the plane. Things such as pilot quality, tactics/doctrine, outnumbering, and the same issues for the opposition are not taken into account. Even little things like quality of fuel can be an issue.

 

[bobbysocks]

i have played some of the video/pc games and found a good bit of bias and huge discrepencies. one has the p 51 flight model with full wing tanks so the plane flies like a brick....another has all the us ac grossly underpowered...lacking maneuverability and firepower. you might want to take a step back to the pre-CG computer days and look at some of the old bookshelf games made by avalon hill. these were extremely complicated and i believe gave closer comparisons ( although i hadnt played one in over 40 years...). a guy on another forum i belong to just posted a couple images from his "Mustangs" game and those reminded me of your post. i had the Luftwaffe game....anyways here are a few images. you might be able to dig around and find a cheap game or even just the plane ratings online ( or in a forum for those games if there is one )

 

[drgondog]

The guys at AcesHigh have done the best job of simulation for all altitudes, power ratings, weight that I have seen so far..

 

[Garyt]

The guys at AcesHigh have done the best job of simulation for all altitudes, power ratings, weight that I have seen so far

Meaning the card based game?

Interesting on the "Mustang" game, it's OOP but you can still find rules on line.

One thing about looking at the performances of the various planes though - everything may not be 100% accurate, but it helps debunk some myths for me. I always thought the ME109 was a very outdated plane, did not know that with the later variants it was a very competent plane even late war. Maybe not the top dog of late war fighters, but not far off the trail.

 

[bobbysocks]

no i think drgondog is talking about this:

Aces High - WW1 WW2 Online Combat Gaming | HiTech Creations - Aces High

its a ww2 aircombat sim you can download on PC. there is also IL2....IL2 1946....A2A...Rise of Flight ( more ww1 )....war thunder (which i know isnt accruare at this time ) ....world of warplanes....and coming is IL2 Battle of Stalingrad. there are forums for just about all of these you can dig around and check out.

 

[GregP]

So Garyt,

You're taking the word of an out-of-production BOARD GAME as to the combat qualities of the WWII fighters and don't like using the combat record?

When planes go into combat, the combat record is all that counts in the end. It is what wins or looses the fight. Winning is the reason the assets were built and deployed.

And you think the makers of a board game played with cards did absolutely accurate research into the combat qualities of each aircraft? Exactly where do you think they got their data? If they could find it, why can't we? Except by going thorugh combat reports and flight reports of captured enemy equipment, one at a time?

I submit combat record is the ONLY thing that matters in end. It encompasses the aircraft, the training and performance of the flight crews, the training and performance pf the maintenance crews, and the training and performance of the weather and intel sections that brief the crews. If you have the greatest aircraft in the world and if it manned by incompetents, then you have a losing force. If you have a substandard aircraft manned by people motivated and able to take advantage of its strengths, you can win the war.

In the end, the winner did better than the loser did and his planes performed better in the crucible of combat, no matter what their potential was.

 

[Francis marliere]

Hello Gary,

sorry for answering so late. I know SoW but don't like it. Does not mean that the game is bad but it's not what I am looking for.

I agree that SK has interesting stuff such as computing the number of planes that abort a mission, but I am inclined to think that this game is designed for surface combat with a small number of warships and won't work fine for other kinds of battles. The heart of the system is very accurate rules for command communications (flag bridge rating), gunnery and damages. In a carrier battle, you don't use the first two rules and the third one does not work well for air attacks.

I am, like you, still trying to make out some rules for air combat and undesrtand how difficult it is. The biggest difficulty is IMHO to set the good scale of details. How do you track the position and movements of planes ? What do you mean by an air combat (5 mn or 30 secondes of combat) ?

The less you will go in the details, the less the game will be interesting and realistic. If a lone dice roll determines the outcome of detection, interception and air combat, the players won't have many decisions to take and the game will not be great.

In the other hand, the more you go in details, the more difficult it will be to elaborate use the rules. Tracking accurately the position and movements of dozens of planes every game turn is very time consuming, and to say the least almost impossible. Going too much in the details of air combat will prove to be very difficult also. You will never be able to model accurately neither the caracteristics of planes (for which data is either missing or conflicting) nor the dynamic of air combat.

Keep in mind that in such games, players are in the role of an admiral commanding a Task Force, not the role of fighter pilots or the leader of a fighter squadron. The air combat rules should IMHO be built from the point of view of an admiral and focus more on the conditions of the combat (how many planes involved ? How long ? in good or bad tactical conditions) than on the details of the combat and the planes. Hence, what matters is the number, position and altitude of planes on CAP (ie the decisions of the admiral), not the exact roll rate or wing loading of the planes.

I hope it will be of interest. Best regards and good luck,

Francis Marliere

PS : hope you will understand me, it's dofficult to explain that in English

 

[bobbysocks]

So Garyt,

You're taking the word of an out-of-production BOARD GAME as to the combat qualities of the WWII fighters and don't like using the combat record?

because somehow that out of production board game has the flight characteristics closer to real life than the vast majority of the cutting edge air combat sims ( that have all of the rescources available to them ). when i am in a 51D and cant hold a complete 360 degree with a 109...with flaps dropped....something is wrong. when i am flying a F4, G2, or yak3 at 500 feet and do a split "S" to get someone off of my tail and am able to pull out before hitting the gound...something is wrong. when you have to use boom and zoom tactics only in planes that were able to dogfight....something is wrong. so with all the info gathered, recorded...test flights...comparisons...available on the net....and the flight models are this far off....and an old antique board game has the planes equal where they should be...i would go with that. everyone gets bedazzled that the cockpits are amazing and that the planes are exact down to the last rivet and that the landscape is true to life....all that doesnt mean jack if the plane flies like a brick.

 

[parsifal]

Modern computer based flight sims are notorious for their innaccuracy, and i believe that has arisen for a number of reasons. i dont play them, so I am at a disadvantage, but i do know a number of guys that do. most of these guys opinions i trust. essntially the main criticism of them is that they are combat oriented, not worrying too much about the flying part of sim. some have inbuilt biases in the flying component to minimise out of control spins and stalls and the like. And the worst have what i refer to as the 'the german disease". this has a lot to do with the target audience foir these games, people who have been brought up in the environment of the myth of german invincibility, and to carry that into the arena of a flight sim, they have to make changes to the flight characteristics of the aircraft concerned. Forget historical accuracy, if it looks good and keeps the customer happy then you have a winner.

Games from 30 years ago are of course still just a simulation, and also suffer from a technological handicap....there just isnt the computing power there is now, but neither did they usually attempt to show in detail the flying secrets of the aircraft. they were results driven, and the designers far more concerned with getting the results historically accurate than designers of today. I would claim that the designers of 1950-80 were far less affected by post war german apologism and far more dedicated to historical accuracy than the commerially driven affairs of today.

 

[Garyt]

You're taking the word of an out-of-production BOARD GAME as to the combat qualities of the WWII fighters and don't like using the combat record?

When planes go into combat, the combat record is all that counts in the end. It is what wins or looses the fight. Winning is the reason the assets were built and deployed.

Well, first of all, I am not using the card game. Some one else mentioned that. However, I AM using the stats from apparently a flight simulation/WW2 Combat game, that from what I can see seems to be very well researched for the most part. The only real faults I have seen so far is the Zero Models and perhaps Wildcat have to high of dive speeds, and perhaps the P47 does not dive well enough. Everything else seems to be fairly accurate, though there is an incredible amount of data to verify to indeed see if this is true.

I would far original sources, and perhaps will be able to verify more of the data.

I submit combat record is the ONLY thing that matters in end. It encompasses the aircraft, the training and performance of the flight crews, the training and performance pf the maintenance crews, and the training and performance of the weather and intel sections that brief the crews. If you have the greatest aircraft in the world and if it manned by incompetents, then you have a losing force. If you have a substandard aircraft manned by people motivated and able to take advantage of its strengths, you can win the war.

Well, this is wrong in so many ways, because it fails to take into account many very important factors.

Training/Competence of crew - Big Advantage for US planes in the later stages of the war vs Germany and Japan. Does not matter how good your plane is if you only have 20-40 hours of flight time and no combat experience.

Outnumbering - An ME262 was far ahead of other planes of it's time. But vs 10 P51's it should not win. May be able to get away, but should not win.

Another issue - How many planes (the ME262 comes to mind) were "air kills" when they were shot down attempting to land? Or trying to take off? This reflects little of the planes combat capability.

Tactics/Doctrine - Better tactics can make a plane better (or vice versa). The German tanks at the start of Ww2 were inferior in most aspects other than mobility to the French ones. But the Germans were ahead in tactics/Doctrine, such as use of mass armor formations, good use of radio, etc. The German tanks did far better than the French ones that opposed them, even though the standard German tank might have a 20mm gun and very little armour. If the French made proper use of 2 way radio and massed their tanks together, they would have done far better even given the questionable morale of the French at that time.

And the Army that wins will of course fare better in these numbers. Qualitative superiority does not factor into the equation as much as which army wins, which could well be quantitative superiority. And only the operational units available matter, as a great airforce can be grounded by a lack of fuel.

Basically, what you are saying is lets say Germany lost more tanks than the US on the Western Front from 6/44-5/45. And this is likely very true. The most common tank for the US - The Sherman. For Germany, Either the most recent Panzer 4 variant or the Panther, about 50/50. So what you would be saying is that the Sherman is superior to the Panzer 4 and Panther, which is silly to say the very least.

In the end, the winner did better than the loser did and his planes performed better in the crucible of combat, no matter what their potential was.

Well, this is not accurate, but at least it's simpler to figure out.

Games from 30 years ago are of course still just a simulation, and also suffer from a technological handicap....there just isnt the computing power there is now, but neither did they usually attempt to show in detail the flying secrets of the aircraft. they were results driven, and the designers far more concerned with getting the results historically accurate than designers of today. I would claim that the designers of 1950-80 were far less affected by post war german apologism and far more dedicated to historical accuracy than the commerially driven affairs of today.

I agree with much of what you are saying, Parsifal. However, I must say that I took a detailed look at Mustangs, and their numbers are very off. In their game, P47 turns as well as a P-38, a ME109 and similar planes. A mustang is one of the best at turning of any plane in the game, also not very accurate, the Mustang was a rather poor turner. The P-38 is a very bad turner in the game, where in actuality it maneuvered well.

I think what the designer did was get the speeds mostly right, and then just throw in whatever he thought was right for maneuvering ( along the lines of "The P51 was a good plane, so it must have been a good turner". Or maybe he based the P51's turning radius on it's combat record, LOL)

I do think the older boardgames were in general more historically accurate and less commercially driven than the more recent computer games, but the information from Hoof's site seems to jive with most everything I know and have read about the various planes, with a few exceptions. I've put a bit of work into re designing "Mustangs" based on more accurate data. Apparently this was done in the "General" Magazine, as well as on a miniature gamers site, using revised rules. They same a bit more accurate, but I think it would make more sense for a re-design and truly basing things on turning radii, roll rates, true rate of climbs, etc. Even the gun rules need to be redone, all 20mm are not the same, something that takes into account their Rate of Fire, muzzle velocity, etc., would be more accurate.

Francis, if you have some time, I'd be interested in Pmessaging or emailing about some ideas regarding a WW2 carrier based game.

Right now I'm thinking about avoiding any true air to air combat, and have the results of CAP determined by how well or soon the incoming planes are detected, how quickly and accurately CAP is routed there, and how many and what quality of planes/pilots in the opposing forces. There are some rules in Seekrieg for this, as well as some rules from the old "Flat Top" board game that would seem to work pretty well.

I would however like the Bombers that get through to attack and resolve their strikes (seems in the miniature games I have looked at, every 3 planes is manueuvered and subject to AA , which makes it manageable I think. Assuming 20 bombers get through its resolving about 7 planes or so. Work well in the more even based combat from Coral Seas to the End of the Solomons, though the Marianas or Leyte would be too much to handle I think.

 

[GregP]

Any of the WWII simns are just games, with flight models usually tweaked from some earlier sim. I seriously doubt if an average person with no flight training could get a P-51D off the ground. But EVERYONE can do it in a PC sim. What does that say for accuracy? People with no tailwheel training would also very likely never get one down and stopped without a groundloop but, again, everyone in a PC simulator can do it.

Get a WWII fighter at 250 mph, bank to ... say ...75°, and pull has hard as you can. Think you'll get a turn or a whip-stall / spin after a wind-up? The sims all get a pretty decent turn from that maneuver.

I have yet to see a good WWII sim that flies like a real WWII fighter, and I've asked more than 20 warbird pilot who tried them and agree they are fun, but have little to do with reallity. I HAVE flown a military T-38 sim and they tell me it flies like the real plane (I can't say since I have flown the sim but not a T-38 ), but is defiitely not affordable to the average PC owner. Considering the fact that a real T-38 cockpit was part of the sim, it's easy to understand why.

This drives home the world we live in. I was watching a silly movie about a female gunfighter once and some young girls were saying after the movie they hadn't realized there were any female gunfighter in the old west. I said to them, "There weren't any in real life." They said, "Didn't you see the movie?" I said, "Sure, it's a movie, not real life facts." ... and they didn't get it! These people think if it shows up in a movie, it must be real!

The sims are just like the movie. It's a game that is made easy enough to fly so it will sell a bunch of copies, not an attempt to make it realistic. If they did that, the market would be small and they basically want sales volume, not realism.

I would not have any idea how reaisic a board game on WWII aircraft is since I've only flown a Stearman, a T-6 (about 20 hours), flown in a P-51D and played with the controls for maybe 5 minutes over the owner's shoulder (the stick ... he flew the rudder), ridden in a P-40, a B-25, and a Douglas Dauntless. For the rest, I can't say ... never experienced them at all.

According to the real-life fighter pilots I know, the least important flight variable is top speed. They think PC sims are good fun, but have nothing to do with flying a fighter.

 

[parsifal]

Board games are not real time for a start, a few are tactical in their composition, meaning you are not manouvering the aircraft. Some sims are tactical, and you are using a set of numbers meant to reflect the characteristics of the aircraft. i cant really comment on those, too much as my exposure is a bit limited. Examples of that sort of sim might be Foxbat and Phantom or ROTLW (rise of the LW)

Then there are what might be termed simulations at an operational level. These are results driven simulations that give varying amounts of control over formations....anything from a flight to an airforce in size, but with some form of historical basis. These i know are handled pretty well, but like all these sorts of sims they are a compromise between playability and accuracy. So what if the computer, or the game, takes care of the housekeeping, like the landing or maintenance of the aircraft. To understand the combat capabilities of an aircraft, you dont need to know how to change the tailwheel.

For me, i frequently had to "know" the flight characteristics of an aircraft, so that i could extract the best out of the formation at an operational level. I couldnt fly a skyhawk, any more than I could fly to the moon. Doesnt mean i couldnt learn to get the most out of the aircraft. Sims ARE the way that PWOs learn how to use their assets properly. So in that regard I have no problem with a sim that does some of the routine stuff that I dont really need to know about. that, frankly, is not the problem with the computer sims. the problem is that they tend to skew historical facts to suit a particular agenda, and discard historical accuracy in the name of commerciality. that then gives the 15 yos playing these things a warped sense of the history and the capabilities of the aircraft they "fly". That sort of biasing is just less prevalent in the old boardgames. those boardgames are derived directly from the German "Kriegspiel", literally "wargame" that was used as a basis for the germans plans to overrun most of Europe. and it is a measure of the systems accuracy that they damn near succeeded. so we should be careful in rubbishing this system. our guys tended not to use these "sandtable" analytical tools, and our military planning suffered as a result.

 

[GregP]

They suffered so hard they won the war?

 

[Garyt]

Doesnt mean i couldnt learn to get the most out of the aircraft. Sims ARE the way that PWOs learn how to use their assets properly. So in that regard I have no problem with a sim that does some of the routine stuff that I dont really need to know about. that, frankly, is not the problem with the computer sims. the problem is that they tend to skew historical facts to suit a particular agenda, and discard historical accuracy in the name of commerciality. that then gives the 15 yos playing these things a warped sense of the history and the capabilities of the aircraft they "fly".

I agree as far as exact flight characterisitics. The sim planes will not exhibit some of the problems their real life ones did. But it seems for things like Turn Radius, Climb rates, dive speeds (in most cases), performance at altitude, max speeds, etc. etc. seems to coincide pretty well with historical facts. Seems like the research was done rather well, only things it seems is that the Zero Class has too high of a top dive speed.

There are some flight characteristics that are hard to replicate though. The P51 is a decent plane it seems, but some of it's attributes are hard to replicate. Comfortable cocpit, reliability, etc. It's hard to have a virtual pilot feel fear when performing maneuvers that his plane may or may not handle well.

As far as tactical flight games though, many of the boardgames seem to suffer a bit. One of the biggest problems I see that is also a problem in Mustangs - it's hard to differentiate the planes much with limited numbers. Meaning a fast plane in Mustangs is a 4, a slow one is a 3 (P51 is a 4, Zeke is a 3, corresponds roughly to top speed in 100's of miles per hour). Same thing goes for a lot of other plane stats. And in Mustangs, any 20mm is the same as any other 20mm, likewise for .50 cals or 30mm. Which means the early model Zeke does not suffer from low velocity on it's 20mm, which do not at all match the ballistics of its 7.7mm. They "fixed" this in later models with a higher velocity 20mm. Plus all Zekes have a rather low rate of fire on their 20mm, nothing like a Hispano for instance. Again in the game it's not replicated.