DD_Fenrir

YouTube’s little known Mosquito dignity filter at work!

That high?

RAF Fighter Pilots went on practice dive-bombing camps where the entire squadron would spend two weeks trying to finesse their dive bombing techniques. Even then procedure could differ between theatres or even squadrons as they figured out things for themselves. One fellow interviewed for a television documentary in the Mosquito several years ago told of flying up railway tracks to skip 500lb bombs into tunnels (!). When asked how he trained for that kind of thing his exact words were “you can’t; you just went out and did it!” That said I’d imagine low level bombing being the raisin d’aitre of the FB.VI that some general low level practice was required, but that also attacks tended to be made in sections with a bomb-when-the-leader does procedure so after a while you got a feel for the arc and travel of your bombs from general sight picture alone. Also don’t forget that currently we are unable to make the very low level releases that so typified the FB.VI ops as we don’t have the relevant fuses, so some of your bombing passes are having to be made from unprototypical altitudes and are artificially harder. My first run at the Amiens prison wall at ~20ft altitude and release by gut feel couldn’t have gone better if I had tried - I landed the bombs smack into the base of the wall. I fragged myself into a cloud of balsa at the same time of course but that was kind of inevitable. From 500 ft my accuracy was far far less…

Mission date?

12,000 feet seems a bit high to me; most references I have state 6,000-8,000ft, with a dive angle of 45 to 60 degrees.

DCS has traditionally implemented only those FFB effects that would happen from aerodynamic forces from the control surfaces. This is more realistic. The vibration from the cannon firing would have been transmitted through the seat; for that you’d be better off getting a jet-seat or buttkicker ffb device.

My custom input curve, pitch only. 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 24, 44, 100

Historical Declination Viewer (noaa.gov) Shows in Europe in 1944 that declination was 10° West.

To what end? When there was a widely held belief that fighters were purely a defensive weapon and that attacks would only involve fleets of bombers? Why dogfight? I'm sure it was noted that bunting caused a momentary loss in power but at the time it's effect would well have been deemed a passing nuisance. One didn't spend much time inverted as engine oil systems didn't take well to that kind of behaviour either, and bunting heavily is (a) highly uncomfortable (b)not considered part of the doctrine (ref. Fighter Area Attacks); it's only in the crucible of actual combat against actual enemy fighters that this suddenly becomes an altogether more critical issue. You can dress your disdain up as much as you like and call your reasoning as superior to those in authority at the time, but your judgment is absolutely and inherently hindsight driven, it can’t not be. Your arguments DNA is based upon "they should have known"; that is the absolute epitome of hindsight. By the way, if dogfighting was impossible with float carburettors how were so many Spitfire Mk I and Hurricane Mk.Is able to engage in so many over the UK in the summer of 1940? Me thinks you overstate the case.

You forget that even in the 1930's there was a school of thought that held that dogfighting was now impossible because of the speeds of modern aircraft. The Merlin's were designed without negative-g tolerance partially because no-one foresaw the requirement to engage enemy fighters; the RAF doctrine could not predict the fall of France and were thus expecting hordes of German bombers from Germany, where no fighter aircraft could possibly accompany the bombers - not from just over the Channel with clouds of escorting 109s. Add to this the already pointed out fact that fuel injection is not a catch all panacea - there are other compromises and complications that come with choosing it as the method to get fuel into the cylinder; RR chose the solution they a) had most experience in and b) could harness, tune and exploit most advantage from. Too many glib opinions round here are based on hindsight and no appreciation of context or chronology.

I see this too, Nealius, though the faster I am to start the left engine, he less fireworks I get from the starboard stacks. This leads me to suspect that upon the engine prime command being given both engines are being primed simultaneously; ergo, whilst you're getting the port motor running the virtual ground crew are merrily squirting away and over-priming the starboard engine. Perhaps try starting the right motor first an see if the reverse happens...

The Merlin 66 is both the clipped and non clipped wings should be identical; there is no tuning. Any performance increase at low altitude comes from the increase in wing loading and concurrent reduction in induced drag. Also lower form drag and marginally less weight. All of the stated allow better acceleration and a slightly faster top speed at low to medium altitude. As altitudes increase however, the higher wing loading penalises performance as at these altitudes a larger wing is more beneficial; think of lower wing loaded wing of making more of what little air is available at those heights.

There are occasional allied air combat reports of the empennage of a Luftwaffe aircraft being severed from the fuselage but I suspect this could be due to detonation of the oxygen bottle(s) that in some types were located in the rear fuselage.

Jerry, if it's not a stock mission then PM me the mission file and I'll see if I get the same.

Ooh... let me know if the Pathfinder one is any good, I'll chase down a copy myself.

They were more the remit of the NF variant Mossies Brems; check out Night Flyer by Brandon Lewis (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Night-flyer-Lewis-Brandon/dp/0450011216) - it's an excellent tome and I suspect one that is right up your alley....

Gyroscopic precession is another factor that needs to be taken into account when lifting or lowering the tail.

Yes. As explained above.

Those look to be for later bomber mark, B.XVI most likely of the Light Night Striking Force or a Pathfinder squadron. These models flew a very different profile to our FB.VI; our mossie is optimised for low level bombing and strafing of precision targets, an attack aircraft in modern parlance. The B.XVIs in contrast flew at 20,000 - 30,000ft and depending on the mission would either drop Target Indicators for the heavies to drop on or a single 4,000lb cookie.

Prior to the Amiens raid and the series of Gestapo related targets the target list for the majority of 2nd TAFs FB.VI Mossies prior to D-Day included daylight strikes against Noball (V-1 ski sites) and the odd factory, refinery or power station across northern France. After the invasion the bulk of their efforts were focused on night interdiction, solo sorties to strafe and bomb enemy supply movements on road and rail, sometimes in the company of an RAF Mitchell who’d drop illumination flares to help pinpoint targets. Some day Rangers were flown by pairs of Mossies, akin to the Rhubarbs of earlier years but these seemed to be phased out, one suspects as the cost in crews and aircraft lost was not worth the netted totals of enemy targets accrued. Smaller numbers of FB.VIs were employed on intruder patrols, skulking around enemy airbases at night waiting to find enemy aircraft (mostly bombers, the night fighter airfields tended to be harassed by night fighter variants of the Mosquito) and on one appearing to takeoff or land would drop a couple of 500lbers on the runway, have a squirt at the e/a and then disappear back into the shadows to either continue lurking in the vicinity to harangue any poor jerry unfortunate enough to be in the air or move on to some other long suffering Kampfgeschwader airfield. Coastal Command Mossie FB.VI mostly operated in the Bay of Biscay prior to Overlord hunting u-boats, s-boats and merchant shipping. With the fall of France all these units moved to Scotland to continue their work against axis shipping in Norwegian waters, using bombs and cannon until late in 1944 when rocket projectiles started seeing widespread use.

Getting the smoke myself if I don't get to the runway promptly enough but it doesn't seem to correlate well with maximum allowed coolant temps so it may be a bug....

Not tested specifically, though I would suggest that an Armour Piercing Incendiary round will do better damage than a straight slug, even if they are both of .303 calibre.

Radiators closed or open?

From the Pilot's Notes:

The Mossie as it stands has a few niggling bugs. Whilst the dedicated Mossie fans are having too much fun to be overly fussed about these, they could be sufficiently irksome to those with a passing interest that it might colour their impressions badly and result in lost sales. Can you then blame them for wanting to give it a bit more polish before introducing it to the on the fence market? As for: What the flying fornication does that have to do with anything? You're in DCS so you've already reconciled the cost differential. Ultimately DCS WW2 brings you something the other doesn't and vice versa. I have both and enjoy both in different ways. Then I refer to my previous answer. You're interpretation of value is different than mine, I get it. You wanna try it out, sure, I get that too. But the snotty attitude of some - not necessarily you - walzing in and demanding their free tryout and getting petulant about it when ED ask them politely to wait is distasteful at best. If you're that bothered about the Mossie then buy it. If you're on the fence then have the patience and dignity to wait until ED think it's better representative of the final article. That way you aren't judging an unfinished product.