WWII FW190's, how good were they in dogfights?

BTW, the Spitfires are nice till you get P51s but the Hurricanes have a
turning
radius and roll rate that seems to be an advantage in some engagements. I
wonder if this reflects real conditions?

I went about European Air War completely backwards - flying missions in Me 262s
and P-47s against essentially sitting ducks (B-24s and He 111s, respectively).
After a couple years playing it and trying nearly every aircraft, I flew a
couple campaigns set on realistic (read: landing by parachute was considered a
success) and the best fighter v fighter in the game was a Spit IX. Close
second, as far as flying a whole campaign, was the Hurricane. That thing had a
ton of guns and most of what was being fired back was light enough that, when
hit, you could bail out over friendly territory and begin again. Defending
Beachy Head from a sky full of 110s seemed pretty realistic, *for a game*. One
thing I hate about WWII flight sims is that aircraft in bomber streams never
seem to feel effects of turbulance. Formations bob ever so gently in rhythmic
patterns at a set airspeed, like perfect robots. 10+ Mosquitos fly along at
12,000' in loose groups at 280 knots, serene as nuns as you fall in astern.
Yah, that's realism.

Has anyone seen a decent nightfighter sim? Something in a Mosquito or Beau..?

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

An LZ is a place you want to land, not stay.

Has anyone seen a decent nightfighter sim? Something in a Mosquito or Beau..?

Nothing on that front, Gordon. There's been discussions about the
subject and while it would be quite easy to put the right planes into
night skies, everything else is way harder to make.

Radar, for example. It would be immensely hard to make a radar display
that works like the original. Having computer voice give you corrections
from "his" radar display could work, but that would lack the feeling.
Night war was so technical, that you know, it would be mostly flying in
dark sky and not seeing anything - and that would bore 99,5% of the players.

THOUGH...

We did run a three battle long night bombers campaign on WarBirds
simualtor a few years ago. It was fantastic, though very hard.

We managed to do it with a lot of tweaking. Many interesting things
"adjusted" to make a daylight air combat sim to work in a night bomber
scenario, but it worked surprisingly well. Skipping the details, the RAF
bombers did not have any radars, RAF night intruders had partial radar
picture, Luftwaffe night fighters had no radar and Luftwaffe ground
control had full radar picture. This worked in teh in flight map, little
dots moving in the map and we limited that each and every person could
see. Very rough, not like a real radar at all but best what we could do.

Most of the planes were almost correct, some changes with sub variants,
just that the Lancaster had to be replaced by B-24.

In the end, the scenarios were amazing. The pilots flying in almost
blind, relying largely on instruments, Luftwaffe interceptors listening
to ground radar comms and trying to find the bomber streams from
blackness, me as CO of one night fighter squadron plotting the map,
moving counters on tablemap, trying to guide the night fighters around
RAF intruders hunting near airfields and yelling to the guys on radio
(real time voice comms) when they were too late making a turn or druly
commenting "scharm 3, you're in middle of bomber stream". "Control, we
don't see anything..." "Scharm 3, watch again, I repeat you are in
middle of 12+ bombers, control out".

So night bombers can be simulated in some way, in at least correct
online environment, but I don't quite see much changes for a dedicated
simulator. One was in the works by hobbyists but I think that project
has died.

Here's some info/pictures on the night bombers battle:
http://vip.mikrobitti.fi/~jukkak/wb/...ns.htm#emc15.1

jok

Here's some info/pictures on the night bombers battle:
http://vip.mikrobitti.fi/~jukkak/wb/...ns.htm#emc15.1


Sure looks like fun! Those online battles can be a real cool way to waste a
couple hours. Thanks for the AARs.

v/r
Gordon