Maybe we should believe everything we hear in the West because we didnt have propaganda here.
Were the Western Allies immune to propaganda? :-
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?doc...39676002643644<div class="ev_tpc_signature">
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"I despise what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it."
-Voltaire
Respectfully, neither he nor you are correct.Originally posted by Xiolablu3:
Icefire is absolutely correct, there really can not be any question about this...
You should believe the TRENDS. These trends are established by thousands of pilots who flew these aircraft in combat. If 95% of combat pilots say one thing and 5% say another, I'll put my money on the 95% any day. You don't seem to be able to make that distinction.You can find a combat report saying absolutely anything you want it too, to support your claim. I can find claims by Luftwaffe combat pilots that the P38 was a terrible plane, should we believe those too Pipper?
Well if they were right then the P-47 wouldn't have the outstanding war record that it established, would it? Answer: No, it wouldn't. So, we balance the scales with the thousands of pilots who did well and established the P-47's reputation to a handful of Russian pilots who preferred other aircraft. Sorry, but the scales don't balance.How about those from Russian combat pilots who flew the P47 and said it was useless as a fighter, should we belive those too?
No, there's no confusion. The trends are clear and obvious.If you choose to believe combat pilot reports, then you must belive ALL of them, and then you are into complete confusion with the conflicting arguments.
Sure, scientific evidence is a good thing. For example the scientific evidence of confirmed kills, of the many excellent unit war records, of the utility of the aircraft in combat conditions, of the thousands of pilot accounts that was testament to these activities...scientific EMPIRACAL evidence like that. Certainly not the opinion of equivacal hand-wringers who can't differentiate between thousands of opinions on one hand and a few contrarians on the other.There can be absolutely no doubt that a true historian must take combat pilots reports with a pinch of salt and weigh them up against scientific evidence. You must have learned this in History at school for gods sake.
The truth is that the Spitfire WAS a sterling fighter. The Mosquito WAS untouchable by the Luftwaffe. The Typhoon WAS a terrific ground attack aircraft. Again, any claims are always balanced by actual performance and RESULTS achieved under combat conditions. These three aircraft come out quite well. Contrast these aircraft with the USN bombing squadron pilots who stated that the SB2C Helldiver was complete a POS. That's because early on it WAS a POS and never lived up the the reputation of the SBD it was supposed to replace. Reputations cut both ways and are ALWAYS based on pilot reports (experiences).- and watch the RCAF and RAF WW2 pilots telling us how the SPitfire was the best plane of the war, and the Typhoon the fastest fighter in the world,, and the Mosquito - 'Nothing the Luftwaffe had could catch it'. All praising their own aircraft and telling us how it was the best in the war. Can you not see that they all without fail love the aircraft they flew and think it was the best?
We should believe those who established the war records achieved by these aircraft. Based on this criteria, in many cases the British/Commonwealth pilots had every right to be proud of their aircraft. The records back up their claims.If we belive these WW2 pilots then British/Commonwealth aircraft were by far the best in WW2, but we all know this is not hte case, all sides had good planes in different areas.
Respectfully, you've never lived it and you have no idea what you're talking about. I have. No knock...you've just never been there. You're welcome to your point of view but I suggest that you spend some time talking with real fighter pilots. I'm confident in the extreme that they'll confirm everything I've said. Know why? They live it too.Come on mate, use your brain a bit![]()
GR142-Pipper
Respectfully, this is just not true. Where else would a better picture of what a plane is like than from the very people who flew it in combat? There is no more authoritative source than that. None. Reputations don't get made by test pilots; they get made in operational use...where it REALLY counts.Originally posted by GR142-Pipper:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by VW-IceFire:
Combat pilot reports are useful, interesting, and valuable to me. But the don't paint a great picture of what their plane is actually like. You get some sense of it...but not as good as test pilots who are usually more methodical.
GR142-Pipper </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Have you ever read anything about test pilots or how they test aicraft?
They push them to there absolute limits and record it all at the same time, something no combat pilot could ever do because they don't have the equipment in there planes, they don't have ground observers.
Theres a term called 'rogue' aircraft in test flying. These are normally safe airplanes that have developed a fault in combat and usually fatal ones. Test pilots would take these aircraft and try to replicate these faults over and over, its how so many died. Then theres transonic testing which can only accurately be done under a test environment. At least it cleared up the myth about P47's going near the sound barrier which combat pilots did report.<div class="ev_tpc_signature">
Cheers!!
I totally agree with the trends part, that is a good way to get a good idea of things, but I still maintain that
1. Science should come first, getting climb rates, Weight of firepower, Top Speed etc.
This is not always available for things like turn times, Handling etc so then we move onto :-
2. Then Comparisons from people who have flown different types.
3. And lastly Pilots wartimes accounts (being careful to look for trends when reading them) becasue we have very little info about the state of both planes and experience of the pilot.
Sure a top Allied Ace may be able to ******** a 109 with a novice pilot in 1944 and easily shoot him down. He then concludes in the combat report that the 109 is 'easy to shoot down when in XXX plane' or 'I outturned him with ease' when the enemy may not have even seen him.
Which is why we cant trust combat reports alone.
For example one SPitfire XIV pilot writes
'The Spitfire XIV is definitely better than the 109, as I was able to outturn him even with my tank on' (From a real WW2 SPitfire combat report)
-Better at what? He suggests everything in his report?
-Which 109 model?
-Did the enemy even see the Spitfire?
-Was the 109 turning hard?
-Did the 109 have gunpods?
-Was the 109 outnumbered and scared
-Was the 109 pilot watching another plane or looking for his wingman
-Had the 109 pilot blacked out?
-Was the 109 pilot on his first sortie?
and so on. We know nothing about the enemy plane at all, in fact we know little about the whole situation. Too many questions to ask as with most of these reports = Not a good historical source for aircraft performance.<div class="ev_tpc_signature">
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"I despise what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it."
-Voltaire
Respectfully Xiola & Pipper both, but I think this judgement really has more to do w/ the nature of Ostfront aerial warfare than anything else. Well, would _YOU_ guys prefer a Jug in a low-level t'n'b match???...to a handful of Russian pilots who preferred other aircraft.
And let's also remember that it actually cuts both ways, doesn't it? Enter the Airacobra, f.ex. - regarded as a POS fighter in the West and a top gun in the East. HTH<div class="ev_tpc_signature">
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Hippies FTW!
Pipper, I think you are using a very different definition for the term objective to the one in the dictionary. Combat reports are, by their nature, subjective, even anecdotal. This does not mean that they are not -informative- but to claim that they are objective is to totally devalue the word.They form THE most objective yardstick...
In combat reports we have skilled pilots saying that the P-38 was easy prey and others saying it was a tough opponent in the same combat theatre. Now it could be that to one pilot the P-38 was easy prey and to another it was tough, but this indicates the potential for subjectivity.
Test data is thus important to determine the broad capabilties of an aircraft, but the test data we have doesn't cover all eventualities. Short of modelling the aircraft in a virtual wind tunnel or getting hold of real examples for testing we are forced to try to interpret the subjective pilot accounts and try to tease out something approaching objectivity from them by looking at trends. It's a difficult task, though, and it is possible to find single quotes from the mass of subjective accounts to support one view or another.
And then language and nuances of meaning intrude.
Bringing it back to the P-51 we have JFC assessments of P-51 gun platform stability as not that great, and other reports from modern day pilots of P-51s saying staying that it is good. Or those saying it is a joy to fly and others saying that it can be dangerous. It takes time to work out from the language, context, subjectivity, and so on, what (or if) anything objective can be teased from this to be useful in the context of a simulation/game.
Originally posted by msalama:
And let's also remember that it actually cuts both ways, doesn't it? Enter the Airacobra, f.ex. - regarded as a POS fighter in the West and a top gun in the East. HTH![]()
Thats a very good point.<div class="ev_tpc_signature">
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"I despise what you say; I will defend to the death your right to say it."
-Voltaire
This is simply not true in a WWII context.Originally posted by GR142-Pipper:
They form THE most objective yardstick...performance in combat. All else is academic. Remember, when these guys (the combat pilots) engage they push their aircraft to the limit...on a near-daily basis. They KNOW where the real flight envelope edges are.
Large numbers of pilots got themselves into trouble by flying beyond the limits, especially with regard to Mach number. Quite a few of them died.
The 8th USAAF had considerable trouble with their P-38s and P-47s because neither were fitted with Mach meters, and both had pathetic tactical Mach numbers (M0.68 and M0.71 respectively). The pilots didn't know anything about this. What they reported was that they'd steam on down from a high cover position at perhaps 30,000 feet in order to bounce the Luftwaffe climbing towards the bomber stream, only to find themselves unable to manoeuvre sufficiently to set up a firing solution (or in some cases even to recover from their dive until much lower altitudes). Doolittle took these reports to the RAE who carried out tests in early 1944. They concluded that the only USAAF escort fighter with a superior tactical Mach number to its Luftwaffe opponents (~M0.75) was the Mustang (M0.78), and shortly thereafter Doolittle requested that his escort fighters be standardised on the Mustang. (see Eric Brown's excellent book "Wings on my sleeve"). Further work was carried out in order to generate information as to the practical limits of all the fighters tested so that squadron pilots might be informed.
Large numbers of pilots got themselves into trouble by flying beyond either their own personal g limit or the aircraft's g limit. Quite a few of them died as well. A classic example of this was the Spitfire, which in about 1942 was picking up a habit of breaking up in mid air. Analysis of the accident statistics showed that aircraft at certain stations were far more likely to suffer this fate than aircraft at other stations. Aircraft from the "problem" stations were test flown and found to be unstable in pitch. This was traced back to the ground crew placing operational equipment in the aft fuselage without re-weighing the aeroplanes resulting in the CoG migrating aft out of limits. Various fixes were trialled, including modified elevator horn balances and bob weights in the elevator circuit to artificially increase stick force per g. The successful solutions were then incorporated into a mandatory mod, much to the chagrin of pilots at the unaffected stations who complained that the beautiful handling of their aeroplanes had been destroyed. Subsequently further mods allowed the bob weights to be removed in some cases.
It is particularly telling that in the case of the above example, there were no reports of the problem initially. The loss rate simply went up. It took quite some time before a pilot suffered a structural failure and lived to tell the tale. Once the problem area was identified (structural failure in dives) the test pilots had to investigate. At least one test pilot was seriously injured in the process when his Spitfire fell apart.
Other classic examples of operational pilots not knowing the limits may be found in relation to Mustangs with full rear tanks, injudicious use of throttle during missed approaches (especially applicable to carrier aircraft), the endless debate over the Bf-109's slats and its turn performance, and of course every instance of aeroplanes spinning in.
The fact is that most pilots have only a very sketchy idea of what they are doing with their aeroplanes unless they devote a considerable quantity of their mental processing power to keeping up. Combat pilots aren't very good at this since they are concerned with the actions of the enemy and the formulation of tactical responses to those actions. Which is why huge amounts of money have been spent upon the creation of fighter aeroplanes with "care-free" handling characteristics.
Test pilots are much better able to keep track of exactly what their aeroplane is doing, partly because that is what they are trained to do, partly because they do not usually have any tactical workload, and partly because their aeroplanes are often specially instrumented and fitted with data recording (or later telemetry) equipment. In the 1930s this was often limited to a kneeboard and pencil.
By WWII it was not uncommon to see automatic data recording, often using cameras trained upon secondary instrument panels.
In the case of the Me-163 due to lack of space for such an arrangement, a camera was attached to the test pilot's head!
( http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew....ht/flight1.htm )
Such data is far more objective than combat reports which are often vague at best.
In addition, most combat aeroplanes do not have calibrated instruments. The vast majority of claims to have flown at very high speeds or Mach numbers were caused by poor instrument calibration combined with a failure to consider compressibility effects. Thankfully, most ASIs of the period will over-read at high speed, otherwise there would have been even more accidents.
Whilst trends may certainly be extracted from combat reports, instrument errors are such that those trends may only really be considered in a relative context. ("x is faster than y" not "x can fly at 450 mph whilst y only managed 400"). Much data reduction work must be done in order to come up with a clear (relative) picture, and many statistical outliers must be discarded.
Flight test data is of much higher quality. Much of the data reduction work has already been done, and absolute performance data may reasonably be extracted.
Personally, I'd always use test data in preference to combat data.
While I give the above poster credit for reasonablness, I think you're argument is undercut by the example you cite.
The operational units were operating the a/c outside it's previously id'd design limits if I read your example correctly.
Combat is the ultimate test of man and machine. Anyone who thinks otherwise has not experienced combat, of any type.
In fact, a famous case in WW2 had Charles Lindberg going to the Pacific for Lockheed (IIRC), telling the 'combat pilots' how they could operate their aircraft's powerplant outside the original design limits that prewar 'test pilots' had determined.
Noone doubts this, the question is rather how much useful and objective information you can extract from a combat report relative to a test pilot's responses or ROC curves from an airforce or manufacturer.Combat is the ultimate test of man and machine. Anyone who thinks otherwise has not experienced combat, of any type.