Keith Willshaw wrote:

wrote in message
...
Trying to fly these in the game IL2 is a waste of time, they are really
crap. I can't believe this was realistic in comparison to other fighters
of
the time. Anyone know how good the real planes were and/or what their
major
weaknesses were?



They were excellent fighters, when they first appeared they
provided a nasty surprise for the RAF and outmatched
the Spitfires until the Mk IX came along.

They were certainly superior to the Soviet aircraft
of the period.

The biggest problem with most computer game FW-190s is the gamers flying them,
and the nature of the game environment (assuming the flight model is decent).
The 190 is an energy fighter, and you have to fight it that way. You can't
just tug harder on the pole and tighten up your turn like you can in a Spit,
seeing who will stall/snap out first; the 190 loses that game. The FW-190A's
strengths, as someone wrote, were roll rate, cockpit visibility, good level
and dive acceleration, decent sustained and good zoom climb, good level speeds
for 1942 and still adequate for 1943, heavy armament, an easy to use power
control, good hi-g tolerance seat position, excellent control harmony, good
protection and durability. Disadvantages were poor turn radius, no-warning
clean stall, and an accelerated stall, also no warning, which would snap the
a/c over into the opposite bank and into an incipient spin if you didn't take
quick corrective measures (which didn't do anything for the 'useful' turn
rate/radius, as less experienced pilots were afraid to approach the a/c's
limits), heavy elevator at high (dive) speeds which could limit pull-out
ability, plus poor stability for instrument flying.

Fighting against relatively light Spitfires etc. the 190 could bounce them,
use their superior roll rate to stay with them through the first 90 degrees or
so of turn while shooting, and then dive away, usually rolling 180 in the
opposite direction so that the Spit was unable to follow (assuming it survived
the intial pass). Such advantages tended to disappear when facing P-47s or
P-51s, which had slower initial dive accel but would catch up if the dive were
prolonged, reasonably high roll rates, and would outzoom it as well. I'd
expect the fairly light Soviet fighters to be closer to the Spit than the
heavier American types.

The other main disadvantage for the FW-190 is the game environment itself. In
real life, the majority of fighter kills were made in the first pass, with the
target unaware of its adversary's presence until too late. Pilots could fly
hours and hours and never see an enemy a/c, so sneaking up on someone was
relatively common. But that's rarely the case in a computer game, where you
can _expect_ there to be enemies about in a short period of time, and you can
virtually guarantee that both sides will, if contact is made, initiate
combat. In such circumstances an energy fighter like the 190's advantages are
nullified.

In real life that would often not be the case -- a group of faster fighters
who were in a disadvantageous position would often just use their speed to
disengage, figuring to come back with an advantage next time.

BTW, here's some comparisions done with USN fighters against an FW-190A-5/U4:

http://www.geocities.com/slakergmb/id88.htm

There used to be a page with various British test reports including those of a
captured FW-190A-4, but they seem to be gone:

http://web.archive.org/web/200202102...eo/prodocs.htm

only gets you the home page.

Summarizing, the 190A was superior to the Spit V in every performance measure
other than turn rate/radius, essentially equal or slightly ahead of the Spit
IX at low/medium altitudes and inferior at higher altitudes, with each side
having advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation, and inferior
to the Mk.XIV in every performance measure except roll rate and dive
acceleration. Fly the 190 against Soviet fighters like it's a P-40 or F4U
flying against an Oscar/Zero.

Guy