Slitherine

of course, but that is already handled by experience anyway.. and plane plays important role, otherwise there would be no technological development, and whole war would be fought with BF109E and Spitfire mk Is..

Plus, we know the combat statistics.. these numbers are quite telling about dogfights, and its quite different from what many thinks about WW2 air war.. as i already stated 95% of shot down pilots were downed without knowing enemy is attacking.. and this simple rule is still true even today

JaM2013 wrote:of course, but that is already handled by experience anyway.. and plane plays important role, otherwise there would be no technological development, and whole war would be fought with BF109E and Spitfire mk Is..
(...)

yes, but a plane like the TA152 other than bringing technological development forward was completely irrelevant for ww2, same with most "wonder" aircrafts of the 3rd Reich, they had no impact on stopping enemy aircrafts.

TA152:
The Ta 152 score at the end of the war was likely seven victories and four losses in air combat.

Komet:
In any operational sense, the Komet was a failure. Although it shot down 16 aircraft, mainly four-engined bombers, it did not warrant the effort put into the project.

HE 162:
The He 162 first saw combat in mid-April 1945

Do 335:
When the United States Army overran the Oberpfaffenhofen factory in late April 1945, only 11 Do 335 A-1 single-seat fighter-bombers and two Do 335 A-12 trainers had been completed.

the flying wing was not use at all in combat and remained a prototype, same with the "amerika" bomber.

Me 262:
This is the only one that had a very little impact on allied bombers and fighters, but very minimal.
Me 262 pilots claimed a total of 542 Allied aircraft shot down

therefore, the whole war was fought with BF-109 and FW-190, these 2 fighter were the only 2 the 3rd Reich had in sufficient numbers that were Also effective.

but i meant development of BF109... Emils didnt fought whole war, Kurt was a whole different beast than Emil.. Fritz was superior plane to it, and even Gustav. same for FW190, changes between A-1 to A-8 were showing quite a lot, etc

yeah, i guess my point was, the Me109 was a top notch fighter till the very end of the war, vs allies fighters and even against the P47 and mustangs.

Also that, an experienced pilot could do just as well in his favorite aircraft compared to - in theory - a superior aircraft.

for example, a 5 stars fw 190d-9 should not be superior to a 5 stars Me109K. they would both find a way to kill the enemy aircraft(s) in front of them.

so, i guess another point i was trying to make is, it's almost impossible to balance aircrafts...

JagdpanzerIV wrote:they would both find a way to kill the enemy aircraft(s) in front of them.

I think you just made an argument in favour of representing perceived strengths by adjusting stats a little to give enough difference to make players think about which unit to select. So for the 190/109 maybe the heavier armed one has a bit higher AA, but the more agile one gets a slightly higher initiative and AD.

Same goes for a 110 if you wanted to use it as a fighter. Poor against modern fighters but not a bad bomber escort or bomber destroyer, so reasonable AA but so-so initiative and AD a little lower.

While it's good to be accurate, having unit stats that encourage units to be used as they really were, and with enough difference to add colour in game is also important. Good groundwork with a decent finish.

I do not disagree.

Although if i continue with my example (FW vs ME) how can we say the FW was better when the best ACE (Erich Hartmann 352 kills) flew MEs?

This is why i like the research mr Williams did. There are multiple articles about ideal fighter weapon, and balance, which is quite well explained. Of course, not everything is aplicable to Panzer Corps, as planes dont have different AA against fighters and different against bombers, where fighter armament was performing quite differently vs these.. for example British Hurricanes and Spitfires armed with 8x.303 MGs didnt had enough of firepower to take down German bombers reliably, but their weapons were good in dogfights, allowing to score hits against fast targets due to good velocity of projectiles and high rate of fire. Conclusion of his work was, that ideal weapon for a WW2 fighter was .50cal HMG.. it had high enough rate of fire, good velocity and hitting power, and could carry a lot of ammo.. anyway 20mm combo comes very close second, but not every 20mm was same... for example early German MG-FF were completely inferior to Hispano 20mm B or C version of Spitfire carried, and Germans only got parity with introduction of MG151/20. yet main issue was low ammo, as these autocannons had rate of fire around 600-800 rpm, yet planes only carried 100-200 rounds per gun max, therefore had ammo for 10-15 seconds..

30mm autocannon was not that effective in fighter duel due to slower muzzle velocity, and slower rate of fire, therefore it was quite complicated to hit enemy fighter with it. Yet against bombers, 30mm was extremely effective.. so technically, German planes went from armament that was effective against fighters to armament more optimized against bombers.. which is also why there were just few shotdowns made by Ta-152H - its 2x30 and 2x20mm autocannons were not optimal to engage US fighters, pilot usually only used his 20mm against them, and only had ammo for few short bursts..

Question is, how to solve this properly with a single value... technically, bombers could get better AD than fighers, so lightly armed fighters would struggle shooting down bombers.. but at the other side, heavily armed fighters would be way too effective against other fighters yet they shouldnt be.. i just hope Devs will be inspired by Order of War WW2, where there are two different air defense stats specifically for this purpose..

another unrelated question (sorry) but which campaign you guys play with own modified eqp file? i found a lot of custom made campaigns call for own files which i just dont have time to adjust for my liking.. so i ended up playing Grand Campaigns, and just recently the PG campaign with those old battles recreated, which i enjoy quite a lot.. any other suggestions?

JagdpanzerIV wrote:I do not disagree.

Although if i continue with my example (FW vs ME) how can we say the FW was better when the best ACE (Erich Hartmann 352 kills) flew MEs?

The Fw 190 was mainly used on the Western front where the opposition was much stronger with well trained British pilots flying Spitfire Vs and IXs as opposed to Soviet pilots with less training and less capable planes (at least until 1943/44). Erich Hartamann achieved almost all of his claimed victories (345 out of 352) against Soviet fighters, which were considered easier kills than Spitfires or Mustangs. There was a reason why the Fw was only used like a full year later in the east than in the west. There was a higher demand for a superior fighter in the west, against the Soviets, the less capable Me 109 was good enough as well. However, later the deficiencies of the Fw became obvious too, with the US bomber formations flying high where the Me 109 had better performance. And so came the need for a high level Fw 190 -> enter Fw 190 D9.

In my opinion there is not much point in making a difference between these two: in some areas one was better than the other, and also there were different subtypes with different characteristics. It all depends on where and when we compare the actual latest subtype of the two. In 1942-43 in the west the Fw was superior over the Spitfires but the Me 109F/G was not. Consequently, most Gruppens were re-equipped with the Fw there. In the east both were superior over the Soviet fighters so it was enough to use the Messer and almost all Fw could be deployed in the west where they were needed more. With the arrival of the high flying US bombers, there came the need to transfer more and more Me 109 G to the west as they had better high altitude performance (and there were not enough Fw 190s anyway) and so they were mainly used against the escort fighters while the Fw 190s took on the bombers, using their heavier armament. So both were useful in a way. The problem was that the latest and most common Me 109 version in early 1944, the G-6 was outperformed by the Mustangs and Thunderbolts at high altitudes which resulted in heavy losses during the first half of 1944. And even though the later G-10/14 and K versions were more or less on par with the Mustangs, by the time they had appeared they were flown by inexperienced pilots as the experienced ones lost their lives earlier. The even later Fw 190 D9 and Ta 152 are said to be even better, superior to the Mustangs but they came just too late to make any change.

The biggest problem in PzC terms is that if you only use the vanilla units you cannot simulate these changes as the subtypes are missing and you only have the Fw 190A and the Me 109G for most of the war. Historically the Fw 190A used in late 1941 or early 1942 (A-1 or A-2) differed greatly from the Fw 190A used in 1944/5 (A-8), just as the Me 109 G used in mid 1942 (G-2) differed greatly from the Me 109G used in 1944/45 (G-10 or G-14). Among other changes, the later subtypes had better engine, bigger caliber guns, better pilot protection and in the case of the Me a better cockpit which provided better visibility. Therefore in my mods I added the most common Fw 190 A-1, A-2, A-5 and A-8 and the Me-109 G-2, G-6 and G-14/10 subtypes with slowly, but gradually improving stats.

the ta-152 didn't do anything because the first fight occuring with that airplane was in mid april 1945 and it had engine trouble (wiki) so even if it had been armed with 4-8 .50mgs it would still have done nothing to help, it came out too late. But the .50 mgs are irrelevant, because that is not how german fighters were armed, and they still had great success. So maybe it was the best way to arm U.S. fighters. (long range escort)

In mid 1944 the Luftwaffe was largely a crippled organization and was fighting against impossible odds. for each aircraft they could put up in the sky, the allies could put up 6 to 10 times more. Still, the Me-109s armed with their cannons were able to destroys allies fighters, even outnumbered. The Me109 pilots liked the cannon in their nose, because it was devastating and very accurate. I doubt Hartmann tactics would have worked with .50 mgs in the wings. So my point is, pilots got familiar and effective with the armaments their planes had.

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I am testing my modded equip file in the campaigns, i just finished the u.s. campaign, even tho i nerfed us tanks i was able to overcome king tigers, jagpanthers using strategical bombers to remove their ammo and fuel. it is a matter of timing.

As i mentioned MG151/20 was a different kind of a beast than previous MG-FF or MG-FF/M.. it had rate of fire 600-750rpm, and muzzle velocity 700-780m/s, so it was somewhat comparable to AN/M2 HMG (750-850rpm and 890m/s) but with a lot more punch.. but of course, US planes had battery of 6-8 HMGs which generated insane level of rate of fire (P-47 had 6000 rounds per minute! P-51 4500rpm) so its not that surprising they liked those M2/M3 HMGs a lot, and used them even in Korea.. (besides AN/M3 had even increased rate of fire 1200-1300 rpm)

To some extent 30mm or bigger cannon should be high AA but probably low ammo and so-so initiative - not great in a dogfight but good if you can actually hit something.
The 8 or 12 x 0.3" MG would have increased initiative but lower AA and reasonable ammo. Great for hitting things but not that impressive when you do.
20mm cannon and 1/2" or 15mm MG and mixes would be intermediate.
For fighters, AD would then need to reflect agility, armour and plain durability (so the P47 should be better than the Mustang because of its reputation as being very robust and Zero would be low because although hard to hit it was quite fragile). In a perfect world, you'd tweak bomber and fighter AD and Initiative a bit to ensure that 30mm or bigger cannon were suitably dangerous to big bombers, while anything less than 15mm wasn't all that damaging.

Of course it's never quite so easy to make it work, but if you can come up with a system where 1/2" or 15mm works OK for every situation but is never a great choice you probably have done quite well.

nice.

Speed should also come up into initiative and AD as well.
Camouflage design should count a little too in AD and GD.

yeah, i think gun caliber should be responsible for some initiative penalty based on rate of fire, so cannon armed planes would be penalized against other fighters but still be very effective against bombers, but at the same time this penalty should not be too big, otherwise those planes will struggle too much even against fighters they completely outperform with kinematic performance.

btw, back to tanks - found some interesting info regarding accuracy:

German 8.8cm KwK43 L71 gun had accuracy at 500m 100%,1000m 100% and 1500m 95% in training. German 75mm KwK 37 L24 had accuracy in training 500m 100%; 1000m 97% and 1500m 82%.. not that bad for short barreled gun... seems to me that 75mm gun was actually quite decent weapon in 1939-1940 time period with its 50mm penetration at 500m... it could take out any 1940 allied tank except for Matilda II and Char B1 Bis.. (in game version is standard B1 with just 40mm armor that could be penetrated by KwK37)

Just curious,

source?
what kind of accuracy? hitting a barn or hitting a specific part of a tank or the overall silhouette ?
Was the L24 shooting HE or AP ?
was the target moving or stationary ?

standard German 2.5x2m stationary target. both 88 and 75 fired standard AP rounds.
88KwK43:
http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger2.htm

7.5 KwK37:
http://www.panzerworld.com/7-5-cm-kw-k-l-24

(even though, 75mm accuracy is for older APC projectile K.Gr.rot.Pz, not the APCBC Pzgr. 39/1)

in the link it says, apcbc-he, not old apc? it's probably a mistake and he meant to write APC. pen is 39@500m which makes sense.
and HEAT.
so in those charts we don't know what kind of ammo an old Pz IVD carried. Perhaps it was HE only?

the 50mmpen @500 is for newer apcbc ammo.

39@500 is for 30deg impact.. 3.7cm kwk36 had 29@500 in same conditions.. 90deg impact it would be 45mm. so each generation of 7.5cm ammo for kwk37 added 5mm to penetration

- 30d 39mm@500m is roughly 50mm@500m 90d.
Usually to get a quick number i divide by 0.78 under 100 pen and by 0.73 above 100.

Maybe the K.Gr.rot.Pz shell (APC) had the same penetration as the Pzgr. 39/1 (APCBC)

I think the apcbc were for the long barrel gun L43 and L48 only, and the L24 only used K.Gr.rot.Pz. So it had 50mm pen @500m.
in My equip file, all the L24 guns have HA 6, except the newer one on the PzIIIN.