I am here to tell you, the testers don't mean ****e to the operators in combat. You go with what works, work tactics out based on what's important in combat, and what your equipment does well that is important.
You pay total attention to what the operators say works and is important. Everything else is rubbish.
The US military has many publications that deal with lessons learned. These are the bibles. Returning troops' experiences are 1000 times more important than what the folks at Aberdeen came up with.
Theory is nice, what actually happens is all that matters.
The point is always made that only surviving pilots got to make reports. My point exactly. They are doing something right. The dead guy, bless his soul, took his screw up to the grave.
We found out, pretty quickly, that dive speed and acceleration, performance, roll rate, zoom climb and range were important over Europe in 1944-45. How? Wasn't that tough. Survivors and killers told the tales. Screw what test pilots said. The things that mattered were learned quickly.
The planes that were being used then were designed on in production several years before, though, so any appearance in planes (other than P38L boosted ailerons) in the 44-45 period is either accidental, due to general desirable characteristics worked out at proving grounds. or due to information passed on by the RAF or other forces.We found out, pretty quickly, that dive speed and acceleration, performance, roll rate, zoom climb and range were important over Europe in 1944-45. How? Wasn't that tough
Slickun, you're talking strategy and tactics not whether something is modeled correctly in IL2.
Theories about tactics are pretty much useless without being proven in combat. Although, I would point out that the blitzkrieg tactics developed by the Germans IN PEACE TIME worked very well in practice too. The infantry square developed by Napolean also worked in theory then in practice. However, the infantry tactics developed before WW I were totally worthless.
If the modeling is good the historical tactics should work and the plane should match it's KNOWN flight parameters. Testers are the best source for getting hard facts about hard data, like top speed, max. ceiling, etc... Now, whether or not the hard facts are useful in deriving combat tactics is another story. For example: It turned out that in WW II dive speed, max. speed at altitude and energy retention were more important than turn ability (at least in the West), so the theorists that were predicting a lot of WW I style dogfighting were wrong. This doesn't mean the the data about turning is wrong, just that it was less useful and that tactics and planes designed around turn fighting were less useful.
This thread has begun to drift pretty far from it's original topic, but it is interesting.![]()
StellarRat wrote:
Now, whether or not the hard facts are useful in deriving combat tactics is another story.
Slickun says:
My point exactly.
nd, Aaron_GT, the P-51's design story is well known. It is no accident it had outstanding performance in exchange for better wing loading. The Merlin was added to get more speed at altitude. The fuselage tank was added for range. I think that the additions were at least in part to scratch an itch. Not completely accidental.