DCS: Spitfire Mk LF IXc Discussion

[NineLine]

All i want is a historical accurated WWII airplane module. But a WORKING ONE.

 

If i want failures, overwhelming odds, unbalance historical battlefronts, fuel shortages, etc let mission developers and server admins to adjust that.

 

But from ED i want a perfectly WORKING Mk IX Spitfire to fly with and against with.

 

The rest is for editors and servers.

 

Failures for the IX, or for any aircraft should be optional for sure, honestly I would play on a server that had random failures, they would need to be pretty rare, but I am not against it, and I certainly understand why someone would not want this as well... again, optional.

[Esac_mirmidon]

+1 Sith.

 

The sweet spot is having options. This way everyone could be satisfied and happy.

 

Let ED build the best Spitfire they can and let editors and servers build the best enviroment to fight with and against them so everyone will select the best option for they own taste.

Edited April 29, 2016 by Esac_mirmidon

[Krupi]

It kinda opens Pandora's box when you consider that quite typically 5-10% of the USAAF's planes aborted their missions due to some mechanical trouble, and that's the USAAF with its well built planes. Imagine the RAF.

 

 

 

The short answer to that is, as much as this thought irritates some, that the Germans had a lot of K-4s at the time which was a numerical contemporary of the Mark IX.

 

You want historical balance? Then lets model another 109 and allow each server to have 1 K-4, 5 other (pretty similar) 109Gs, 4 190s a single Mark IX sitting on the tarmac and the pilot sipping tea and - when the Yanks spare you some fuel to fly around - doing ground attack missions around the airbase and drop some bomblets on Flakvierlings and Opel Blitzes, while the 40 Mustangs on every server duke it out with the 109s and 190s... I am not sure if that scenario would be more your cup of tea than having to battle late war 109s on 1 vs 1.

 

Just look at the production graphs. By late 1944, the entire two stage Merlin production (of which IXc w. M66 amounted to 200-250 in the best month in 1944) barely matched that of the K-4 alone (200-300 per given month).

 

 

 

LOL how much nonsense???

 

You now have zero credibility, congratulations... :doh:

 

Oh and regarding American reliability, both the american packard built merlins and american built hispanos were known to have issues compared to the british built equivalents...

 

Your graph shows that 700 spit MK IX LF and HF (only) were manufactured in one month... that is quite a lot.

Edited April 29, 2016 by Krupi

[klem]

Well it's been entertaining and we'll never achieve an agreeable answer because we are unlikely to have all those variants.

 

Kurfurst, it's true the LW fighter production was huge in 1944 but you can't only compare the 109 production figures with Spitfires as a measure of combat scenarios because they were also fighting many P-47s, Lightnings and particularly P-51s in huge numbers. What really matters in this argument is how many 109Ks met the Spit IXc. I believe most 109Ks and many FW D9s were fighting the bomber escorts so hi alt P51 missions will be appropriate. The shorter range SpitIXs were much more likely to meet the other types which we don't have and is why this slightly OT strand has arisen. Still a few Spit XIVs might offer a historical balance and some 109Gs/FW190As will allow us to create some more realistic scenarios around 1943/44 and 2TAF.

[Damocles]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

It kinda opens Pandora's box when you consider that quite typically 5-10% of the USAAF's planes aborted their missions due to some mechanical trouble, and that's the USAAF with its well built planes. Imagine the RAF.

 

Using sortie abort rates as an indicator of mechanical reliability is a bit silly really.

[msalama]

Using sortie abort rates as an indicator of mechanical reliability is a bit silly really.

More like unfounded I'd say, at least in that it tells next to nothing about the aborting machine(s) per se. How about bad maintenance? Misconfiguration? Weather? Etc...

[MiloMorai]

see Table 130 for reason of aborts in the ETO and Table 131 for the MTO.

 

If it doesn't show, it is the Army Air Force Statistical Digest.

 

[ame]http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a542518.pdf[/ame]

Edited April 29, 2016 by MiloMorai

[Friedrich-4B]

It kinda opens Pandora's box when you consider that quite typically 5-10% of the USAAF's planes aborted their missions due to some mechanical trouble, and that's the USAAF with its well built planes. Imagine the RAF.

 

I take it that Kurfurst has some absolutely reliable statistical information showing that the RAF's abort rate due to mechanical trouble was somewhat worse than the USAAF's? If so, it would be good to see it, rather than relying on Kurfurst's guess work.

 

The short answer to that is, as much as this thought irritates some, that the Germans had a lot of K-4s at the time which was a numerical contemporary of the Mark IX.

 

The short answer to that is that the majority of K-4s were firmly entrenched on the Eastern front, either facing the hoards of Russian aircraft or engaging in ground attack missions; those K-4s that remained on the Western front were mostly facing the USAAF's fighters and bombers - and getting shot down in droves - or engaged in ground attack work, or facing 2 TAF and not really being noticed.

 

You want historical balance? Then lets model another 109 and allow each server to have 1 K-4, 5 other (pretty similar) 109Gs, 4 190s a single Mark IX sitting on the tarmac and the pilot sipping tea and - when the Yanks spare you some fuel to fly around - doing ground attack missions around the airbase and drop some bomblets on Flakvierlings and Opel Blitzes, while the 40 Mustangs on every server duke it out with the 109s and 190s... I am not sure if that scenario would be more your cup of tea than having to battle late war 109s on 1 vs 1.

 

And where is the historical evidence to show Spitfire IX pilots sat around sipping tea while the Yanks did all the work. Also, where is the historical evidence proving that the Spitfire IXs only flew when the Yanks spared them some fuel, and did nothing but drop bomblets, blah, blah blah? This is all just rhetorical nonsense, designed to insult the British and Allied pilots of 2 TAF, and denigrate the Spitfire IX, while adding nothing useful to this thread.

 

 

 

Charts without credible references and no explanation as to the methods used to construct them; how-er-convenient...:music_whistling:

Edited April 30, 2016 by Friedrich-4/B

[Nerd1000]

Charts without credible references and no explanation as to the methods used to construct them; how-er-convenient...:music_whistling:

It should be pretty obvious how the charts work. They're cumulative graphs- each coloured band shows the production of a specific model, and the bands are 'stacked' on top of each other such that top of the highest band shows the combined production of all 2-stage Merlin Spitfires (except the Mk X and XI) or 109s for that unit time.

 

Now in this case Kurfurst hasn't presented the data as well as he could have. There's no reason to believe that the rate of production of every model changed linearly between the measured time points, so a line type graph is a little deceptive in that it implies that he has data between the time points listed on the x-axis. A bar graph would have been better. In addition, the two graphs have different scales on both the X and Y axes, making it much more difficult to compare them to each other.

 

A much bigger issue is the fact that Kurfurst did not include the photo-recon versions of the Spitfire (The photo-recon Bf109G-6/R2 and G-8 are by contrast included in the 109 graph) or any Griffon powered Spitfires, which makes a true comparison of Spitfire production vs. Bf109 production a little difficult to carry out using only the data presented. The omission of Griffons is rather like making a graph of Bf109 production 1939-1943 and not including the G models because they used the DB605 rather than the DB601.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Nerd1000
Clarified part of first sentence

[Friedrich-4B]

It should be pretty obvious how the charts work. They're cumulative graphs- each coloured band shows the production of a specific model...

 

I am fully aware of that: what I am saying is that Kurfurst has provided no credible reference for either chart and, more specifically the Spitfire chart.

 

Now in this case Kurfurst hasn't presented the data as well as he could have. There's no reason to believe that the rate of production of every model changed linearly between the measured time points, so a line type graph is a little deceptive in that it implies that he has data between the time points listed on the x-axis. A bar graph would have been better. In addition, the two graphs have different scales on both the X and Y axes, making it much more difficult to compare them to each other.

 

That's part of the problem: the other problem is how, exactly, did Kurfurst determine the production numbers of Spitfires from month to month?

 

To do so he would have had to count every single Spitfire in the IX/XVI VII/VIII family, making absolutely sure that every single serial number has been located in the right order in the production sequence.

 

For example, according to Morgan & Shacklady, and http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/p071.html , MK661 was delivered to 9 MU on April 5 1944, MK662 was delivered to 39MU on 28 February '44, while MK668 was delivered to 39 MU on 25 February: there are many, many such examples where Spitfires with sequential serials could be delivered to MUs two or three months apart, but did this actually mean that they were built in this order, or did this mean that they were recorded as arriving at an MU on those dates? Because so many Spitfires were possibly delivered well out of sequence, each serial number has to be checked (and, hopefully rechecked) to ensure that they are plotted into the right production months. Has Kurfurst actually bothered to do this, or has he just taken job lots of serial numbers and assumed that all were built in the same month?

 

BTW: M & S used the Aircraft Movement Cards (Air Ministry Form 78 ) as a source. (See

[ame]http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/Research/Research-Enquiries/e-Info-Sheet-5-Aircraft.pdf[/ame] ) as references.

 

A much bigger issue is the fact that Kurfurst did not include the photo-recon versions of the Spitfire (The photo-recon Bf109G-6/R2 and G-8 are by contrast included in the 109 graph) or any Griffon powered Spitfires, which makes a true comparison of Spitfire production vs. Bf109 production a little difficult to carry out using only the data presented. The omission of Griffons is rather like making a graph of Bf109 production 1939-1943 and not including the G models because they used the DB605 rather than the DB601.

 

Dead right. In summary, Kurfurst's Spitfire production chart looks pretty, but is nothing more than a rough guesstimate of monthly production. To check it properly would mean auditing it against the production lists provided by M & S and the well researched website http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/home.html Frankly, why bother when there are reliable sources on Spitfire production that can be readily accessed? Besides which, it has nothing to do with ED's Spitfire IX FM.

Edited April 30, 2016 by Friedrich-4/B
Aircraft movement cards, not aircraft history.

[Ala13_ManOWar]

Love your signature Friedrich :D :D :D :D :thumbup:.

 

S!

[Kurfürst]

It should be pretty obvious how the charts work. They're cumulative graphs- each coloured band shows the production of a specific model, and the bands are 'stacked' on top of each other such that top of the highest band shows the combined production of all 2-stage Merlin Spitfires (except the Mk X and XI) or 109s for that unit time.

 

Indeed that is how it works, I happy that it is not lost on everyone.

 

Now in this case Kurfurst hasn't presented the data as well as he could have. There's no reason to believe that the rate of production of every model changed linearly between the measured time points, so a line type graph is a little deceptive in that it implies that he has data between the time points listed on the x-axis. A bar graph would have been better. In addition, the two graphs have different scales on both the X and Y axes, making it much more difficult to compare them to each other.

 

I agree that the bar graph is technically the correct way to show monthly production, because these are all "per month" data points. I did experiment with that but the original idea to show how the production trends changed, how certain types got their share of production, and to simply see which was the major type and how they were replaced gradually by later types. These graphs were also made a while back, so originally making a comparison was not a target, just two easily readable separate charts with corresponding scales for the production - and in case of the 109s (for which "ready-to-use data was available for all types from the Lieferplan it did not make sense to cut off some of them) it would make a very tall chart if the scale would be the same. Hence the little numbers on the left. For the Spits the data has to manually analyzed from large poor of individual plane cards, so it was only done for "two stage fighter model Spits". It could be done for others, if needed, but its quite a bit of work.

 

A much bigger issue is the fact that Kurfurst did not include the photo-recon versions of the Spitfire (The photo-recon Bf109G-6/R2 and G-8 are by contrast included in the 109 graph) or any Griffon powered Spitfires, which makes a true comparison of Spitfire production vs. Bf109 production a little difficult to carry out using only the data presented. The omission of Griffons is rather like making a graph of Bf109 production 1939-1943 and not including the G models because they used the DB605 rather than the DB601.

 

It is not that much a problem. In any case I had a ready table for 109s which also had K-4 production, and I also had for the Spits figther models with various two-stage Merlins. Its easy to read out the data that is relavant for the discussion for both - i.e. IXLF and K-4 production trends.

 

Now as for G-8s, first there is no real comparison, since PR Spits were unarmed, G-8 and G-6/R2 were armed and something what you call an FR 109 under the Spit designation. PR Spits can be done of course but that is besides the point, since you can simply ignore the G-8s. Griffon Spits are even less of a practical concern, since the XII only amounted to 100, and half of these were modified from Vs the other half from VII/VIIIs, so they would double in charts. The Griffon 65 series, the XIV was only a small production, the vast majority of them built in 1945, and up to the end of 1944 you only have about 300 produced (the avarage montly production thus being in the order of 20 per month). Production was very slow and quite insignificant.

 

What is a comparison problem now that we are getting into the details is that the 109 chart is only for "Neubau", i.e. new production 109s that were produced form scratch, and the modificiations, rebuilds are not present (since they are not present in Lieferplan either), while the Spit chart also shows the new production planes and those converted from older ones (primarly from Mark Vs). One of the pitfalls is that this mostly effect G-6s subtypes in early 1944 like G-6s with AS engines and/or MW boost, effectively G-14/AS and G-14 - early production and unit returns simply do not show this since the designation was not yet born and they were all lumped into the same category- Technically this was correct since most of the early ones were rebuild or modifications, for example in May 1944 250 methanol modiciations were ordered for G-6s, until they were re-named G-14-something in July 1944 by which time they received the modifications already in the production line.

[TBear]

Sorry guys....I tryed to read all the discussion, but i got a little bit lost..what is the crucial point of all the speach?

[Friedrich-4B]

Indeed that is how it works...

In other words, lots of fudging around, with no references or sources given, and a whole lot of excuses for not including aircraft that, unarmed or not, were an integral part of two-stage Merlin engined Spitfire production. :thumbup:

 

Of more interest is that the first .50 cal installations were made at Castle Bromwich, not at 125 Wing, and certainly not by 485(NZ) Squadron.

eg: MK754 LFIX CBAF M66 .5in guns 33MU 5-3-44 485S 8-6-44 332S CAC ops 11-10-44 ASTH 15-2-45 sold Turkey 30-4-47

[Esac_mirmidon]

The point seems to be Not be able to play the K4 against the Spitfire IX in DCS because:

 

Is DCS WWII 1944. Not late 1944.

 

Is Normandy 1944. Not Germany 1945.

 

K4 was in Russia mainly. In the west only a few and not in Normandy.

 

Even the few K4 in the west were faulty, no fuel, poorly built.

 

No consensus about numbers built, fuel used, engine boost available.

 

Or this is what i extract about the discussion. So please dear ED customers. Dont fly in servers with mixed K4 and Mk IX or the historical accurated police division will catch you and will shoot you down.

 

More irony available if needed.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Esac_mirmidon

[Ala13_ManOWar]

The point seems to be Not be able to play the K4 against the Spitfire IX in DCS because:

 

Is DCS WWII 1944. Not late 1944.

 

Is Normandy 1944. Not Germany 1945.

 

K4 was in Russia mainly. In the west only a few and not in Normandy.

 

Even the few K4 in the west were faulty, no fuel, poorly built.

 

No consensus about numbers built, fuel used, engine boost available.

 

Or this is what i extract about the discussion. So please dear ED customers. Dont fly in servers with mixed K4 and Mk IX or the historical accurated police division will catch you and will shoot you down.

 

More irony available if needed.

:lol: Indeed.

 

 

Kürfurst, only with positive intentions and just trying some point to yours. Even supposing your graphs are absolutely true, plain production numbers says nothing at all. AFAIK on the 6 of June 1944 something like, 40%?, of all flying Spitfires were Mk.V indeed. I don't see Mk.V in your graphs. There's no point in saying LFIXc being the most produced variant in 1944 wasn't still there in October 1944 to fly against the upcoming K4 variant (or even G10 following your graphs). Of course I would like to have the G6 and G14 109 variants (and many more), but just because after what we have tasted I would like to experiment myself those models in a DCS way, not because we "shouldn't" fly Spit IX against K4 because we don't know how and when they met in history even being there in a same time frame. It's pointless saying Spit IX wasn't there if K4 didn't survived the war while Spit IX still served many air forces years after the war, so they "lived" together for sure.

 

S!

Edited May 1, 2016 by Ala13_ManOWar

[gavagai]

Yes, they certainly did coexist. No one denies that, I hope?

 

These discussions always come back to whether one side gets the best variant in service for a given year or month of the war. Hence the endless arguments about production numbers, deliveries, and engine types to influence the developers.

 

But this isn't the old Il-2. The DCS business model is unlikely to offer us a selection of 20 different Spitfires for those who insist on a hard historical realism for every mission they fly. What will be more important for us is what attributes the mk IX brings to gameplay. If it is competitive and improves the multiplayer combat dynamic then everyone wins.

[Esac_mirmidon]

All i want is the best most accurated MK IX ED is able to offer us.

 

The rest is our choice to fly with it and against it.

[Solty]

Yes, they certainly did coexist. No one denies that, I hope?

 

These discussions always come back to whether one side gets the best variant in service for a given year or month of the war. Hence the endless arguments about production numbers, deliveries, and engine types to influence the developers.

 

But this isn't the old Il-2. The DCS business model is unlikely to offer us a selection of 20 different Spitfires for those who insist on a hard historical realism for every mission they fly. What will be more important for us is what attributes the mk IX brings to gameplay. If it is competitive and improves the multiplayer combat dynamic then everyone wins.

Exactly!:thumbup: That is why 25lbs would be a much better addition. 18lbs Spit will fall behind everything in the game.

 

I still do not understand the "energy" point that YoYo made. The energy is speed and altitude. Kinetic and Potential. ROC has not much to do with it. Surely it is useful to have a better ROC but that doesn't mean you have the uperhand during combat. Maybe that is the case in modern jet combat, but surely not during WW2.

 

It all depends on the aircraft's main atributes. B&Z aircraft such as Fw190A/D or P-51B/D do not require amazing sustained Rate of Climb. They have speed and dive acceleration that keeps them out of harms way. Zoom climb is their method of leaving smaller and lighter airplanes behind in a climb.

 

So when we talk about the Spit IX 18lbs vs K4, the 109 will still be relatively safe from those Spitfires. Why? Because it is faster and has better dive acceleration and a bit better ROC. So with all that the only thing that the Spitfire has is it's turn time and radius. If the 109 pilot goes into a circle fight with the Spit, he will be eaten within 1 or 2 circles. But if they will keep their energy up. They will be rather safe, except if a Mustang is around to make them feel uneasy :P

Edited May 1, 2016 by Solty

[gavagai]

We have no way of knowing whether the 18lb Mk IX will make a better/worse addition to DCS than a 25lb Mk IX. Personally, I remember the 25lb Spit as a mickey-mouse plane that decreased the quality of multiplayer combat. I'm much happier with the Mk XIV to fill the role of super-Spit.

[rel4y]

In other words, lots of fudging around, with no references or sources given, and a whole lot of excuses for not including aircraft that, unarmed or not, were an integral part of two-stage Merlin engined Spitfire production. :thumbup:

 

Of more interest is that the first .50 cal installations were made at Castle Bromwich, not at 125 Wing, and certainly not by 485(NZ) Squadron.

eg: MK754 LFIX CBAF M66 .5in guns 33MU 5-3-44 485S 8-6-44 332S CAC ops 11-10-44 ASTH 15-2-45 sold Turkey 30-4-47

 

Some sources say 485 had their own installation of .50s with Hispanos retained on the inner cannon bays. They got some Mk IXe in early May (actually even end of April eg ML407 Grace Spitfire) from CB and converted apparantly some their own without mod 1029 of Supermarine. There is not much data about this though, evidence is only brought up at Spitfiresite and some ww2 forum. So I am not sure its true, but there were some pictures shown of Spits with .50s in the outer bay.

 

1 June 44 Order of battle of 2nd TAF shows 222 and 485 equipped with. 50 cals. Some of the former 485 sqd aircraft went to 349 sqd.

Edited May 1, 2016 by rel4y

[otto]

Zoom climb is their method of leaving smaller and lighter airplanes behind in a climb.

 

 

But why do you choose to fly with 30% fuel then ? I fly with a full tank to boom better.

[gavagai]

Zoom climb is their method of leaving smaller and lighter airplanes behind in a climb.

 

By the way, I challenge you to demonstrate that heavier aircraft with worse power/weight ratios zoom climb better. I know you're thinking the extra kinetic energy makes up for the extra weight, but empirically I've never found that to be so, at least not when the lighter fighters have about the same initial airspeed.

 

This is a friendly challenge, of course.;)

 

But why do you choose to fly with 30% fuel then ? I fly with a full tank to boom better.

 

You'll get better dive acceleration, but that is about it.

 

Sorry for the OT, maybe in another thread?:bored:

Edited May 1, 2016 by gavagai

[Ala13_ManOWar]

You'll get better dive acceleration, but that is about it.

Do you? I had the idea from my aerobatic years after initial dive your acceleration depends mostly in gravity, so as we all know 1Kg or 1Ton accelerates the same due to gravity. Then reaching terminal speed of course engine power matters again. Am I wrong?

 

S!

[Zunzun]

Exactly!:thumbup: That is why 25lbs would be a much better addition. 18lbs Spit will fall behind everything in the game.

 

I still do not understand the "energy" point that YoYo made. The energy is speed and altitude. Kinetic and Potential. ROC has not much to do with it. Surely it is useful to have a better ROC but that doesn't mean you have the uperhand during combat. Maybe that is the case in modern jet combat, but surely not during WW2.

 

As far as I understand ROC is directly related to acceleration. In this the spit IX would be one of the best. Couple that with the related amazing ROC and second to none turning abilitiy and you have a very dinamic plane. It was indeed a deadly plane in a close range knife fighting type of combat.

 

That is, I think, why the spit at 18lbs was so competitive even in late 1944 (a 25lbs would be much more though). It sure was short on speed and diving acceleration but in the low altitudes the 2nd TAF was involved it wasn´t that important as with the high flying scort duties.

 

And you are not restricted only to furballs. You can B&Z very well in a spit. It have good pitch autority through the whole range of speed and a hard punch. And can flee, if needed, by climbing away. It lacks good roll rate at high speed though but no plane is perfect.

 

Yes, this spit will come with a bag full of tricks ready for the wise pilot to use.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Zunzun
orthography edition