If you fly Il-2 offline a lot you may notice the tendency of the AI, if it's in a plane that is even slightly faster and/or better at climbing than yours, especially if it's in a 109 model (though E-models seem to have less of the tendency), to constantly jet away from you into the stratosphere and make it impossible to catch up with them. Naturally the solution would seem to be to engage them in a turn battle with a more maneuverable plane or try and boom and zoom them from a higher altitude, but while that should work online it doesn't really work offline because of how the AI reacts to you, at least it doesn't work for me.
Hopefully CoD isn't as bad as Il-2 at letting AI planes jet around at top speed for hours at a time and giving them an AI routine that has them constantly run and climb away. That said, what would be the top speeds of a BoB-era Spitfire and a 109? I don't really know what Spit models were used in the BoB, but when I've looked at Il2Compare it always seemed like the earliest Spits from around 1940 had a top speed at sea level of around 450kph. 109E models from 1940 seem to be around 470 to 480kph at sea level. I know sea level isn't the best way to match up a lot of planes but 500 to 3000m is around where most offline and co-op battles take place, and a lot of stuff online in Il-2...what altitude were most battles at in the BoB?
So anyway I'm just curious about how Spits and 109E's matched up in BoB in terms of speed. I really don't want to see a lot of dumb bickering, I just want to know whether the 109E would have a big top speed advantage at all altitudes or not.
That most accurate answer one could give to that genereic quetion would be:
Depends...
Generally, both planes are that evenly matched, you wouldn't note much of a difference DEPENDING which version you're flying and comparing (boost and prop-type on the Spit can really ruin your day - or make it).
Speed shouldn't be more off than 20kph at any altitude under any circumstance (safe for a two-pitch propeller on a low-boost Spit which very propably isn't modelled).
IIRC the 109 had the edge at most altitudes if not all, but a very small edge that... between serial production planes you can find 5% difference and 5% of 350mph is bigger than that edge, then comes the pilot so why bother saying "it's going to be this way"?
The important altitude is where the bombers flew and above, IIRC 16,000+ ft. It's the Hurricanes that are at the real disadvantage vs 109s above 12,000 ft and most of the RAF flew those anyway. Hurtin-canes?
Yeah I think it's going to be interesting to see how Spits, Hurris and 109's mix together online and offline. If the AI is anything like in Il-2 and can and will fly around at top speed 100% of the time, 109's are going to be very frustrating to deal with and might lead to a lot of whining. I guess you could give the 109's less fuel but that just means at a certain point they'd jet off...at top speed...back to base without even a kiss goodbye.
Again this is based on the AI flakiness of Il-2 where speed is way more of a determinant of whether you can deal with the AI than it should be...we'll have to see what happens.
And what 109 and Spits models were used in the BoB that we have in Il-2 and UP 2.01? So I can check their graphs in Il2Compare.
Yep I agree, faster Ai planes are shinizzle offline.
There is one trick that works vs Ai and that is when he gains on you go shallow dive, then do bank turn to one side not hard but rather soft tightening it as you go.
He will 99% miss you even ace, after that you will have circa 5-6 seconds to aim carefully and hit him.
That works good if you have rather effective weapon like .50s so you can spray him, but works best with nose cannons as they are generally easiest to use fast in this game.
But doesn't work really well if you are in E/A infested air.
I flew versus 4 faster ace Ai's that is just plain sick & masochist experience... one setup I don't remember finishing was Yak-9M vs 4xace Bf-109G10, I specifically remember that one as being one of the sickest. You have highly unstable but agile plane ( ? ) and at best mediocre weapons, not that they lack punch - they're working like dream but if you aren't very sharp you wont get enough ammo for them all. I know I gave up after several tries, but man I was really sick stubborn with these Ai "games".
I hope CoD wont feature this godlike machinist Ai (as in IL-2), as that would be the biggest single drawback with that game for me.
I've just converted that to Imperial, and then put it in Excel. I've then read the approximate altitude points off the Spitfire graph, and recorded the relevant speeds. I then subtracted the Spit speed from the 109's at each altitude:
Alt ft -----Diff favour 109
0 ............. 2.83
3,281 ........ 2.26
6,562 ........ 2.69
9,843 ........ 3.11
13,123 ...... 3.54
16,404 ..... -0.14
19,685 ..... -9.14
22,966 ..... -19.67
The right hand column is in mph.
Cool guys, good to know that the matchup should be pretty even...I'm looking at the data in Il2Compare which has UP 2.01 stuff in it, but I'm not sure what Spit to consider...it seems to say the Spit Ia or Ib would be 5kph faster at sea level, at about 495kph...no idea if that is wrong or if those are the models we will get in COD. The IIa and IIb seem to be 30kph slower at max speed at sea level but do better than a 109E-3 at higher alts. V models seem similar, starting around 460kph at sea level and then doing better than a 109 around 4500m up.
If my experience in WWIIonline is anything to go on, Huricanes and Spit Is vs. Emils tend to break down into the RAF pilots complaining that the Lufties refuse to come down and mix it up properly, while the Lufties claim there's no way they can hang with a Hurricane or Spit in the weeds and consequently *must* use their narrow advantage at altitude.Originally posted by VW-IceFire:
It's going to be a pretty close match... the slight edge of the 109 in speed. Perhaps a slight edge for the Spitfire in certain aspects of handling. Up to the pilots...then which means constant whining no doubt
I'll fly a Hurricane![]()
Then there's the .303s vs. cannon thing.
Everyone goes home angry![]()
Should be fun to see how CoD turns out.