Kurfürst

You already complain about the K-4 even if we have a low boosted variant of it. Nor do I get why miss the G-14 so much, at these altitude DCS dogfights go, it would probably better than the K-4, and the G-10 would be the same. Difference is, there are a lot more and more detailed docs for the K-4 than any of these two. Have you seen G-10 performance curves? G-14? Manuals for them perhaps...? All that is available for the K-4.. I wonder if your logic applies to 'Raffanatics' and VEAO's choice upcoming ultimate Mark XIV - with +21 lbs boost, E-Wing and teardrop canopy. I cannot think of anything more rare yet more pleasing to Spitfire fans. :music_whistling: Lets face it, über planes SELL, but whats there to complain about as long as they are the most accurate models available? Personally, I enjoy offline sessions with any of these more than and online dogfight in other sims, perceived überness or not.

Tell, me why would I need to read stuff that is made on the fly, just to deny something that is so clearly stated in these old papers? When the evidence that was researched and shared literally gets repainted to give the 'proper' view? When the goalposts of the discussion just get changed to suit the agenda? I think that's a waste of time. A page of Shore's book gets posted, but I have read the book and I know exactly that a couple of pages prior to that Shores lists the entire order of battle and clearly states there were just two Squadrons with Mark IXB (ie. Mk IX LF) around in June 1943. So that gets ignored and the book is qouted selectively. Tell me why should discuss that kind of handling of historical work...? I do read what others say, but when there is no point in doing so, I will just ignore it. Call my all my altitude whatever you wish, but I will stick to it and call it prudent. There is no good reasons to enter fruitless discussions about historical revisionism. And that would be a reasonable to do based on the information available, and I have made the same mistake. But then I begun scratching the surface and found out about the actual delivery numbers of Mark IXLFs and that very few of them actually made it to Squadron service until the last quarter of 1943. The page that I posted from the air ministy shows that clearly. The Mk IXF saw a bit more use as it was introduced earlier, but it still fel behind the Mark V until 1944. I was wondering why that was so, why the RAF was relying for so long on the Mark Vs and kept them in service, even though they were clearly lacking in performance from 1942 the latest. One possible answer was that expanding Bomber Command took a toll on the number of available engine producing capacity, but reading a bit further on the troubles the Merlin 66 had clearly point towards that the engine simply wasn't ready and lacked the durability for wide scale operational service. Problem is, +25 lbs wasn't used until the spring of 1945 for operational service by 'many Spitfires'. As for 1944, only 2 Squadrons used for operational trials, but they did not saw much, if any action and they too switched back to +18 in the automn of 1944. This has been discussed to death and I see no need to re-iterate that fact further. On that I agreed and still agree.

Actually, as of 31 January 1945, there were 71 G-6s, 431 medium altitude G-14s, 619 high altitude G-10/G-14AS and 314 K-4s in 1st line service.

"transitional aircraft", "rear echelon only" :lol: . So if we believe that explanation, the vast majority RAF Spitfire Squadrons between 1941 and 1944 were doing what, transitional rear echelon duties...? That's just silly, yet you seem to believe in this odd twist of operational reality that can be clearly seen to be untrue by the actual operational documents, and I doubt any of that would change if its gets re-painted in MS Paint. As to answer your question, the aforementioned Air Ministry document shows and it proves irrefutably that the RAF Spitfire Squadrons were mostly equipped with the Mark V for the better part of the war. No 'explanation' is needed, the numbers are there for all to see. Whether using the (by then, rather obsolate) available Mark V resources to the maximum an intentional choice (if so, outright crazy) decision or out of necessity because the Mk IX L.F. wasn't produced in sufficient numbers for the better part of 1943 (as it was the case) and/or because its Merlin 66 was still trouble plagued for the better part of 1943 at its increased boost and was too prone for failure to permit wider operational use (as it was the case) is, in the end a matter of historical interest and debate, but doesn't change a bit on the basic fact that the IX L.F. was simply wasn't an operational reality until 1944 for all practical purposes. By the the time it seen operational service that worth speaking of it was on the edge of becoming obsolete itself, since the fighters introduced parallel with it had become very considerably faster. I am not particularly interested in reading historical fantasies and 'explanations' of similar nature - it is the historical reality that is found in the actual operational documents that interests me.

The Air Ministry disagrees with this notion. Force as of 1st January 1944: Spitfire V - 24 Squadrons Spitfire VII - 2 Squadrons Spitfire IXF - 11 Squadrons Spitfire IXHF - none Spitfire IXLF - 9 Squadrons Spitfire XII - 2 Squadrons Spitfire XIV - none, one Squadron (610) re-equipping

The debacles Schweinfurt and Ploesti comes to mind... 109s were heavily involved at Schweinfurt, might have shot down most of the USAAF losses that day, and Ploesti was practically a clean 109 job , with no 190s involved at all. The picture that 190s only went for the bombers, and 109s provided only close cover is largely a myth stemming from old aviation books. Yes it happened but it was far from a rule.

Define early. The Mark IX LF with Merlin 66 did not see mass operational deployment until spring 1944, when Squadrons began to swtich to it from the Mk V en masse. The early 1944 Spitfire would be the Mk V, actually. The Mk IX LF at +18 lbs became by far the most numerous Spitfire Mark in most 1944, after it replaced the Mk V and it kept facing the latest German birds that the Luftwaffe fielded quickly and in large numbers - D9 and K4 production totals (ca 3500) easily matched Mark IXs available to the British, since about a thousend of the cc 4000 built were shipped to the Soviet Union (who kept them back from the fronline for high altitude air defense tasks). So I do not see whats wrong with the choice of having the Nine instead of the early 1944 Spitfire Mk Vs.

Oh but they did. You posted the evidence yourself. Reliability with continous operating conditions of 18 lbs/in boost and 3000 rpm Ring gumming after Test (1) 9 1/2 hours Test (2) 7 1/2 hours Test (3) 21 1/2 hours Test (4) 20 hours Test (5) 50 hours From the avarage of 5 tested engines at +18 boost, the statistical avarage is 21.7 hours of operation before piston ring gumming and piston failure would occur - in as little as 7 1/2 hours or as much as 50 hours. By that time however, failures of the crankase "in many main bearing panels" was a statistical certainity to occur, so in brief, the Merlin 66 bearings and pistons would simply fall apart after about 20 hours worth of maximum allowable load.

I doubt if many of the planes themselves lasted for 50 hours in real wartime conditions anyway... ;)

I observe that the tougher Merlin 66 series pistons failed in as little as 7 1/2 hour stress load acccording to the stress test results posted. Even the toughest ones did not last longer than 50 hours. I wonder what the lifespan of the less tough Merlin II/III's pistons could have been then. I also wonder what sort of requirement R-R had in mind before clearing a rating for use, as it cleared +18 lbs while the pistons kept failing under 10 hours of stress at the said load.

The amount of detail put into the engine model... simply staggering! :thumbup: I suppose electric pitch regulators are free of this problem (maybe effected by battery voltage dropping in cold wheater)? But hey, electrics tended to be slower.

In March - April 1945 and also during Bodenplatte 109K units flew a lot of ground attack/strafing missions against advancing American troop coloumns in Bavaria - I suppose largely because the circumstances by that time allowed for little more than hit and run raids - while on the Eastern Front our guys (RHAF 101st Puma) did the same. I am not sure how much they relied on bombs for this, but the sorties were definietely unpopular. Damage was done, but it was a dangerious task and with the wars ends, it seemed very much of a pointless sacrifice. So it did remained a thing - 109s were one of the first 'Jabo' equipped fighters in WW2 - despite the prominence of Fw 190Fs in dedicated Schlachtflieger units.

Some of this ordnance, i.e. cluster bombs is also usable for the 190D and the Me 262. I suppose the same can be said about missing Mustang ordance, which could be re-used for the upcoming P-47. At least the iconic gunpods are essential for the 109K though. At a practically full product price for a module, I'd say having complete ordance (especially with the shortcuts with the 3 planes that could use them) is not an unreasonable request.

Early 109E carried these bomblets (of various size: 2, 4, 10 kg etc) under the belly in a fixed container. Sometimes in stuck in the container, so later a bomb-shaped container, or "mother bomb" which was filled with bomblets, dropped and opened in air, releasing the bomblets - and basically the forerunner of modern cluster bombs - designated AB 250, 500, 1000 (the numbers designating the nominal weight of the bomb in kilos) was introduced. It was similar in size the normal SC, SD bombs. This was used by bombers and fighters alike. The load varied, it could be loaded for example with SD 2 small fragmentation bombs (aka the butterfly bomb), and a later US re-incarnation of it: ... or for anti tank work, the SD 4HL 4 HEAT bombs. Here's a picture of one of the AB bomb containers - and AB 500 containing 114 SD 4 HL anti tank bomblets. Larger ones existed, here is the AB-1000fitted with 610 B-1 incendinary bomblets, carried by a bomber:

Gunpods, the 21 cm rockets, and an extended bombload with all bomb options (SC, SC 50-500 kg bombs, AB cluster bomb containers) would be all nice to see. :)

Not neccesarily, it actually depends on the fuel. On the 109's DB 605D, you could use either 87 octane B4 or cca. 150 grade C-3 fuel with the engine. At 1.8ata boost, which we have, MW was a must to be used for 1.8ata when using B-4 fuel, but the knocking properties of C-3 were much better and could easily sustain up to 1.8ata, which is a lot lower pressure than the 67" the Mustang here uses. So bottomline, if we actually have C-3 fuel properties avgas in the 109, 1.8 ata could be useable without MW, though engine temperatures could be higher since MW also provides considerable cooling to the engine. But there is not much of an advantage to it, the real advantage of using C-3 was that, when combined with MW boost, you could go up to 1.98 and even, 2.3ata boost (cca 2000-2300 HP).

I am relieved to finally learn that NACA did not only managed to get us to the Moon, but also suceeded in the greater challange of correctly measuring the MAC and CG of Lady Spitfire entirely on its own. I must confess, I had my doubt for a couple of pages about it, but now all the doubt is cleared and there is but my firm trust in NACA's competence.

For the winner, I'll buy an ice cream.

Yes IIRC the 3000-4000 m (?? from memory) altitude range is real "Death Valley" for the two staged Merlin/51D because the first supercharger speed is already making it loosing power, but the 2nd speed is still very inefficient (provides much more boost than needed and consumed lot of power unneccesarily). You loose several hundred possible horsepower because of that at those altitudes... compared BTW even the usual two staged Merlin engine curves lie a bit since in practice, when installed on the actual aircraft the 2nd speed is engaged by an automatic gear change at given altidude, not neccesarily at the point where the two gears are "even" in power, so its not optimal as on the graps but kicks in a bit too early and so there is a sudden "sawtooth" drop in power due to that... But I suppose since DCS has all the systems modelled (separate supercharger stages, separate automatics to shift them) ;)

You might want to check the power curves of the 1650-7 and 605D... its true that the 109 looses a lot of power, but the 51 looses it even faster. The -7 was medium altitude engine, yet it did fine against the early 1944 109Gs (save for the /AS variants) that still had less power and had only medieum altitude supercharger. But that is not what you are facing here. The 605D was no longer the medium altitude engine - it had a much larger supercharger from its big brother the DB 603 (think of a Merlin with a Griffon supercharger...), and thus it became a full fledged high altitude engine - with a nasty low altitude boost strapped on it (methanol system). High speed can be a problem for the 109 and a (temporary) advantage for the 51, but the higher you go the less dense air you will find and essentially its always low speed (low ASI) knife fights there... The Mustangs real advantage lay in better SA, longer ranged and easier to use guns, so basically - its more suited for team tactics.

It is literally a ton lighter and has more engine power, faster and has better vertical manouveribility than Mustang at all altitudes while mounting a 600 rpm granade launcher... thus equally skilled AI opponents who do not make accidental mistakes (like humans do) will just keep giving you the paper form.

Can we please do without the usual semantic arguements...?

IMO it would be a waste to begin modelling something that saw doubtful amount of use, and would either not used at all by DCS pilots or if used it would just render the plane useless in DCS. Even the stock Spits range should be enough for Normandy anyway...

Well dangerous is perhaps not the right choice of word, so lets just stick to what being stated in the report with half the rear tanks emptied (5.3): unsatisfactory handling qualities, unsatisfactory as a fighter and the loading recommended only as an operational necessity, and requiring constant check of the acceleration build up - a trait of longitudinal instability. In practice this means that right after pulling the stick (and thus initiating g-acceleration) you have to push it right back to keep the aircraft from increasing acceleration on its own ('tightening up') and eventually spin out of control if left unchecked.

No, the rear tank test reads to me that the rear CG was about 9.9" with the rear tanks half used and its still extremely difficult to fly in that condition and was unstable. requiring a very experienced pilot to limit acceleration with push on the stick. Emptying the rear tanks fully moves the CG forward by about 5.2", so this is about your normal CG position: roughly 4.7" from Datum. IOWs, the IX with the rear tanks filled (CG ~10-12" aft datum )to just about any extent was WELL out of the rear limits (ca 6.5" aft datum) so its isn't much of a surprise that its behaving nasty. Getting allowable CG ranges for Spits is a bit difficult, but its mentioned here and there and the normal CG was always about 4.5" from datum. For the XIV, its very specifically stated as "Permissible C.G. range for all forms of flying...........from 3.5 inches to 6.5 inches aft of datum point." I doubt the others were much different since MAC stayed at the very same place (except for the Mk I which has the rear cog at 5.4 but ranging with various modifications to 9) and because all of them seem to have a normal loaded CG position at exactly the midst of this range, at roughly 4.5" from datum. If anything, the sheer weight of the Griffon in the front would just allow more CG play in the rear.