It is Rolls Royce Griffon, and that thing was supercharged for low to medium altitude only. Spitfire looks bad ass with them but doesn't sound as sweet as Merlin.
Il-2:Sturmovik only experience:
Meanwhile the Italian planes (not air force) used slightly obsolete German engines but remained superior in terms of combat flight characteristics. It is just their light armaments couldn't catch up. However, like Russian Yaks, Lavochkins, and most Japanese fighters they are excellent performers and have this what I call aerobatic-like qualities, but they are somewhat designed just like that, and seemed not to win by dominating certain aspect of the battle. What I mean is: you can put any strange or even extreme maneuver and won't experience any aileron reversals, enter sudden spins, or that aerodynamic problems too often in difficult situations (like high G turn with sudden opposite bank or high speed dive exit followed by sudden turn or sudden engine RPM cut, all these cartoonish flying techniques). But they are just that. Most American fighters can outdive them safely and run away or climb higher (late war ones). Most German planes too, or just keep climbing into higher altitude although you may not outclimb the Japanese ones, but their power will start to diminish and you'll gain more advantage over them.
For example P-47Ds are a big ass plane, it has huge engine and powerful one (nearly 2,100 HP at 20,000 feet above) clearly this thing dominates the high altitude battle. In high speed, it is still maneuverable (I don't whether this is realistic) eventhough it has elliptical wingtips. Meanwhile, it is said that it has excellent diving capability (superior to most planes in WW2). But the feel on the control is steady: you can't go far, but not too often. This plane won't tolerate sudden break from extreme turns, it experienced a lot reversals at low altitude high speed pass, making it completely useless against taunting FW-190s at low altitude. But you can win: it has a big engine, and it dives like crazy, the badguys can't just run away.
I keep in mind that this is only Il-2 game, it is still not realistic as what many people claimed, although with a lot of game modifications already. But it pretty much tell somewhat similar story with what I read in many historical books account and Wikipedia excerpts. It is never been simple to compare Spit vs Bf109 like TV channels did (especially History/Military Channel). But the E7, yeah you'll feel inferior in it, but I'm clearly not Werner Mölders, he said that the Emils were great. Maybe it was his tactical superiority over early RAF's or maybe he was just a great pilot like he really does.
