Victory by Variety: Forgotten Hope 2 Update

[djinn]

All this makes me SOO miss Fh1's Battle of Britain. Seeing those lumbering bombers and the fighters darting in between them was so much fun.

But yer, those anachronistic mg42s were super overpowered and brought down alot of planes when fired from the JU88

[THeTA0123]

actually the MG15 was still the primary bomber defense weapon during the battle of britain

[djinn]

But yer, those anachronistic mg42s were super overpowered and brought down alot of planes when fired from the JU88

Hence the use of the term

[th_battleaxe]

I guess back in the days the devs just went along with what they had, and they needed something with a higher ROF than the MG34

[VonMudra]

Actually, what Theta is refering to is the Ju88 patrol zerstorers that operated in the Bay of Biscay, fighting against Sunderlands and other british patrol planes.

Also, even the He111 and Do17 were very well protected against the Brit 303....  Remember, the spitfire was also armed with 8 303 during the BOB, but first started to get 20mm cannon towards the end.  I remember an account from a British pilot, in his first usage of the 20mm, being utterly amazed at how deadly they were.  two 20mm cannon was multiple times more powerful than even 12 303's.  Hell, even the 50cal was nothing compared to the 20mm.  The american pilots who got to use the quad 20mm armed Corsair fell in love with it.  One actually broke into tears when his 20mm armed Corsair was considered too damaged from a botched landing on a carrier, and had to be pushed overboard.  He knew he would probably never get another.

[th_battleaxe]

Actually, what Theta is refering to is the Ju88 patrol zerstorers that operated in the Bay of Biscay, fighting against Sunderlands and other british patrol planes.

Also, even the He111 and Do17 were very well protected against the Brit 303....  Remember, the spitfire was also armed with 8 303 during the BOB, but first started to get 20mm cannon towards the end.  I remember an account from a British pilot, in his first usage of the 20mm, being utterly amazed at how deadly they were.  two 20mm cannon was multiple times more powerful than even 12 303's.  Hell, even the 50cal was nothing compared to the 20mm.  The american pilots who got to use the quad 20mm armed Corsair fell in love with it.  One actually broke into tears when his 20mm armed Corsair was considered too damaged from a botched landing on a carrier, and had to be pushed overboard.  He knew he would probably never get another.

during the BoB British pilots found that they were at a disadvantage, being armed with only .303s, in stark contrast of the BF-109's and 110's armed with 20 mm aswell. and indeed the 20 mm armed Corsair is indeed waaaaayy more powerful than the six .50's, with which you don't want to mess around with. Still one of my favourites of IL-2

[THeTA0123]

At the battle of britian it wassent a huge disadvantage, as the Me109 was still lighlty armoured. The real issue became shown when the brits had to fight the heavier armoured italian aircraft.

british vs german fighter aircraft was actually a well balanced scene in wich the skill of the pilot became very important. But the real disadvantge the germans had in BoB was the operational range of the Me 109.

[th_battleaxe]

just 20 minutes over London or something like that, wasn't it?

[THeTA0123]

just 20 minutes over London or something like that, wasn't it?

yeah, most of the wooden fuel tanks where dropped off in france and where in very very chronic shortage.

The bombers had some form of protection in the Me110. But these to sufferd heavy casualties.

The luftwaffe enterd the battle with 237 me 110's..223 where shot down or lost

[VonMudra]

just 20 minutes over London or something like that, wasn't it?

yeah, most of the wooden fuel tanks where dropped off in france and where in very very chronic shortage.

The bombers had some form of protection in the Me110. But these to sufferd heavy casualties.

The luftwaffe enterd the battle with 237 me 110's..223 where shot down or lost

But remember that losses were replaced.  Not like they ended the battle with only 14 left.  Also, they achieved a 1.7 kill to death ratio, equal to that of the spitfire, and greater than that of the Hurricane and 109.   The main reason they were withdrawn from BOB wasn't that they couldn't survive (which was the reason for the Ju87's withdrawl), it was that the factories couldn't support replacing them, because they required so much more work and material than the 109 (you could have 2 109's for 1 110).

When the Bf110 was allowed to free hunt, it butchered the british fighter planes.  It was when they were tied to the bombers, losing speed and height advantages, that they did not succeed.  But that should have been expected, since they were never designed as escort fighters.  They were essentially the air version of a breakthrough tank, meant to hit hard and fast, disrupt and destroy enemy fighter formations, then the 109's would finish the job.

The blatant failure of the Bf 110 in air to air fighting in the BoB is often repeated in literature. Christer Bergström in his book ”Luftstrid över kanalen”(1), 2006, has analyzed the victory and loss statistics in the BoB and presents a different picture to the usually repeated "Bf 110 fighter BoB disaster" scenario.

The confirmed aerial victories achieved by Bf 109 units amounted to 815 while the Bf 110 units gathered 407 confirmed victories.
A comparison between confirmed victories and operational losses due to air battles gives at hand that in the period 8 August to end of October 1940:
Bf 109 units scored 815 victories to 489 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1
Bf 110 units scored 407 victories to 185 losses – a ratio of 2,2:1

In October the Bf 110 units even had a ratio of 3:1 while the Bf 109 units dropped to 1,4:1.

Christer Bergström continues to discuss the matter as well as comparing Spifire and Hurricane relative performances and some of the RAF unit’s performance, RAF Bomber command losses, coastal command and the Fleet Air Arm..
When finally comparing the scores by Bf 109 and Bf 110 units as mentioned above with the estimated true losses by each side for the period July-October 1940 it turns out that in approximate figures the authentic victories versus actual air battle losses where:

Spitfire 550 victories to 329 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1
Hurricane 750 victories to 603 losses – a ratio of 1,2:1
Bf 109 780 victories to 534 losses – a ratio of 1,5:1
Bf 110 340 victories to 196 losses – a ratio of 1,7:1

Bergström continues by discussing the validity of the data including the difficulties in identifying if a Bf 109 or 110 shot down a RAF fighter, however, the outcome is that minimum 25-30% of all British aircraft losses inflicted by Luftwaffe fighters were scored by Bf 110s.
The “Total failure of the Bf 110 as a fighter aircraft in the BoB” is perhaps another BoB Myth worth reassessing?

The fact is that on several occasions the Bf 110 units performed better than the Bf 109 units on a particular day. When deployed tactically correct using the advantages the Bf 110 offered the Bf 110 was still a lethal weapon in air-to-air fighting which I believe Christer Bergström is able to show.
When used as a high altitude escort, not being tied to close escort to the bomber force, it made effective diving attacks on RAF fighters using surprise, high speed and it’s heavy nose armament to score victories.
Long range and an extra pair of eyes was also helpful in air battle, the range enabling to wait for the right moment to strike and the extra pair of eyes increasing the situational awareness of the pilot in an air battle.

[Raziel]

My bet is Raziel meant Hurricane on Olympus

Yep you're right!
My bad...I meant Mt Olympus...which is in Greece and not Crete! 

[Zoologic]

Bf-110 had the advantage of having all weapons in the nose, its burst is much more accurate. Also, it has gunners at its back. Fighters that can shoot forward and backward is dangerous. As with many big heavy planes, they are slow to accelerate and controls are sluggish at low speed. Although having high top speed (for 1940-41), they are vulnerable at low speeds and its big size means it cannot maneuver very well in tight space between bombers and other planes during escort mission.

20 mm Hispano-Suiza equipped Spitfire Ib/IIb/Vb is deadly, but unlike that guy's signature from "Pearl Harbor" movie, it suffered from buffeting and will throw its aim outwards when shooting that cannon. But nevertheless, that 20 mm cannon is dangerous, both in real life and in game. In game (Il-2 at least), it will make a big effing hole in the wing, and throw tight-turning enemy plane into deadly hard-to-recover spin.

[THeTA0123]

just 20 minutes over London or something like that, wasn't it?

yeah, most of the wooden fuel tanks where dropped off in france and where in very very chronic shortage.

The bombers had some form of protection in the Me110. But these to sufferd heavy casualties.

The luftwaffe enterd the battle with 237 me 110's..223 where shot down or lost

But remember that losses were replaced.  Not like they ended the battle with only 14 left.  Also, they achieved a 1.7 kill to death ratio, equal to that of the spitfire, and greater than that of the Hurricane and 109.   The main reason they were withdrawn from BOB wasn't that they couldn't survive (which was the reason for the Ju87's withdrawl), it was that the factories couldn't support replacing them, because they required so much more work and material than the 109 (you could have 2 109's for 1 110).

When the Bf110 was allowed to free hunt, it butchered the british fighter planes.  It was when they were tied to the bombers, losing speed and height advantages, that they did not succeed.  But that should have been expected, since they were never designed as escort fighters.  They were essentially the air version of a breakthrough tank, meant to hit hard and fast, disrupt and destroy enemy fighter formations, then the 109's would finish the job.

I am aware of this, and thats why i said "when escorting bombers" 

The same thing applied to beaufighters and P38 lightnings. Escorting bombers? high casualties
Free hunt in searching and surprising enemy fighters/bombers? often huge succeses.


and while planes are replacable, experienced pilots are far more difficult

I think we can agree that goering completly frakked up the battle

[Zulnex]

Splendid update as always. Many thanks Devs.

[RAnDOOm]

Keep them coming!