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[TheBronzePickle]

The Mustang only has 6? My bad, I thought it was an 8-shooter. I suppose that, at least in real life, it's more of a mobile energy fighter than the others. I've heard it's a bit brickish in War Thunder, though, I haven't gotten a chance to fly it quite yet.

[Sonlirain]

The Mustang only has 6? My bad, I thought it was an 8-shooter. I suppose that, at least in real life, it's more of a mobile energy fighter than the others. I've heard it's a bit brickish in War Thunder, though, I haven't gotten a chance to fly it quite yet.

Thunderbolts get 8. Mustangs have 6 and the bearcat gets to have a whooping 4 makign it the most dangerous tier 4 B'n'Z plane ever.

The FW [...] shake like hell when diving losing allmost all control.

You are kidding right ? It's ultra-stable when diving.

Also it has hilarious energy retention as long as you don't turn. Especially in arcade. BnZ all day, erry day. Sure it doesn't climb as good as most other fighters, but it's just near invulnerable as long as you are above your enemies.

Last time i flew a FW in realistic (mixed tank/aircraft battle) it shook like jelly and i had problems even pointing it in the vague direction of any target after diving after exceeding 700 km/h.
And then you have the fact most other planes outclimb you and good players tend to be in those planes above you iif you decide to climb

[Erkki]

The FW is a heavy fighter, like the Thunderbolt, Corsair, and Mustang. They're not designed for maneuverability, they're designed to drop like bricks and hit like 'em, too. They take a lot of time and a lot of climbing to get the energy needed, but they keep it like a cast-iron skillet keeps heat as long as you don't waste it all trying to turn when you don't need to.

This is factually not entirely correct.

The Fw 190 just like the 109, is actually a small plane. What it was never built for indeed was competing in sustained turning against known enemy aircraft. The reason was simple: Luftwaffe had found out in Spain already and later over Belgium, France and The Channel that prolonged dogfights tend to be rare, and it is speed that triumphs. Bounce & Feint tactics were already giving the Luftwaffe's 2 Channel Front fighter regiments(that faced the entire RAF) a cross-checked 4:1 victory ratio in 1941, before the Fw 190 became operational. Against popular myth, sustained turn fights between any numbers of aircraft were actually extremely rare and usually ended undecided, and all kinds of sustained air combat was not a daily thing either.

However, the Fw 190 was still VERY maneuverable fighter, in many ways more maneuverable than the Bf 109, if maneuverability is defined as ability to change the direction (and/or the length) of the aircraft's velocity vector. Its the same kind of maneuverability that the F6F has. Few WW2 fighters could match the Fw 190's acceleration, high and medium speed turn, rate of roll, level of automation and firepower while also having equal speed. In fact, if we ignore WEP top speeds, I don't believe any but the Bearcat, that had many design innovations first implemented in the Fw 190, beat the Fw 190 in every area of performance(and even it lost in level of automation, I dont know if it also had air conditioning!).

Here are some size comparisons. Few fighters were smaller than the Fw 190: Yaks, I-16, probably P-36 and the French fighters if even them mainly. It weights a ton more than the absolutely tiny Bf 109 and is slightly larger, but you need more than another ton to get to P-47 let alone F4U or F6F.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Naryar]

Last time i flew a FW in realistic (mixed tank/aircraft battle) it shook like jelly and i had problems even pointing it in the vague direction of any target after diving after exceeding 700 km/h.

after exceeding 700 km/h.

Well of course, fw has a maximum speed of around 700 km/h...

[Sonlirain]

Last time i flew a FW in realistic (mixed tank/aircraft battle) it shook like jelly and i had problems even pointing it in the vague direction of any target after diving after exceeding 700 km/h.

after exceeding 700 km/h.

Well of course, fw has a maximum speed of around 700 km/h...

Well if i go less than that those damned yaks will climb even vertically if they have to and catch it.

[Antioch]

Thunderbolts get 8. Mustangs have 6 and the bearcat gets to have a whooping 4 makign it the most dangerous tier 4 B'n'Z plane ever.

Bearcat has mark 3 machine guns, with a way higher fire rate, also I believe the latest patch increased its ammo load (which really was too small).

[Tnx]

How's the state of this game now? I'm sure this gets asked alot but as of now, what are the relative strengths/weaknesses of all the nations for air/land?

[TheBronzePickle]

Except for a lot of Russian planes, which get the ire of absolutely everyone, for the most part everyone bitches about anything they don't operate being too good and anything they operate themselves not being good enough. So I guess you could say, given that criteria, the game is mostly balanced but has a high learning curve that basically resets with each new vehicle and people should not be trusted.

Nevertheless, there is one thing almost everyone seems to agree on: the new Simulator event mode for tanks is really, really good.

[Tnx]

What is the simulator event mode?  Some quick googling tells me its historic missions?  Is that it?

[TheBronzePickle]

Not exactly. There's different levels of 'realism' available in the different modes, from arcade which basically spoon-feeds you information and smooths out your vehicles' performance so that everyone is on a more even playing field, through Realistic which gives you relatively realistic vehicle characteristics and more direct control, as well as limiting you to fighting with your own country's vehicles and the vehicles of allied forces but still provides some hand-holds like third-person view and lit up targets, and then there's simulator, which is, well, like a simulator. It's like Realistic, but your view is limited to what the actual crew of the vehicle could see, whether that be cockpit view for pilots or turned-out, gun sight and driver port views for tanks, and only friendlies are marked out, with enemies only appearing on the minimap, and even then only for tanks. On top of that, pilots can't use the Instructor (which is basically plane-flying AI that keeps the plane operating about as well as it can manage, which in the case of avoiding things like stalls is almost magical), which also removes the mouse-aim feature, instead requiring you to either have a joystick or use the mouse-joystick, which is much harder.

The event cranks it up even further. There's no markers at all for enemy or friendly vehicles, so you have to spot enemies and identify them by eye. Due to this, it becomes possible to sneak right up on someone without them even noticing you, since it's very easy to get tunnel vision. It requires you to keep an eye out for yourself instead of relying on the minimap to show you where the enemy is, and it lets skilled players really pull out the advantages of their tanks without having to worry about getting massacred.

[Tnx]

Thank you for the very detailed answer.  I'm addicted to the tank combat in Red Orchestra 2, I'm guessing the tank combat in this in simulator is similar then?

[TheBronzePickle]

It's a fair bit different, actually. The sights are a fair bit less detailed: everyone gets the same sighting system, which is a fixed T-sight with bars for mils and range. You have to visually adjust for shot drop. Generally, though, the combat is smoother. You have only three tank positions that can be toggled through quickly and aren't lost if the crew are killed: the commander's turned out view (the commander himself doesn't actually turn out, so he can't get shot as easily), the gunner's view (which adjusts itself based on the gun and ammunition you're firing), and the driver's view (which isn't even necessary to use, since you can drive just fine in the other two modes and the commander's view usually gives you more than enough visual information).

From the commander's view, you can drive with WASD and shoot, though you lack the ranging information that the gunner's view provides. The gunner's view has the aforementioned T-sight, and the range bars on the bottom of the T adjust themselves for different weapons and shot types so you're always getting accurate info. I've never actually used the driver's view, so I couldn't say much about it.

Tanks automatically shift gears and do most other simple functions so you can focus on actually driving and shooting, and usually you're going to be driving at the tank's maximum speed until you actually start engaging enemies. It's smart to keep slow and stop when you see something to shoot, since most tanks rock pretty heavily when driving and stopping, so you're unlikely to get accurate shots (American tanks are somewhat of an exception, since their suspensions are designed for stability above performance and most of the Shermans also have gyroscope-stabilized guns that afford them even more ridiculous accuracy on the move, so at least on flat ground they're fairly accurate at speed).

There's also a lot more option as far as shell type, at least from what I remember of RO2. You've got solid shot shells, explosive-filled anti-armor shells, sub-caliber shells that are better at penetration but sacrifice their terminal effectiveness, straight-up HE shells, and even a few more specialized shells for certain weapons (though they're usually just a variant of one of the previously-mentioned shell types anyway).

[Erkki]

Ground Forces isn't balanced. I dont think there is any single BR where the best option is German... It's worse in simulation battle mode as Germany faces US and USSR alone in it; there are no mixed teams. And then there are some plain overpowered tanks that comfortably meet everyones favorite Germans(Tiger I, Panther). It seems they either never tested the US tank tree or despite all the data available they are unwilling to fix them because they sell so well right now. Either way, the player ratios are already so lopsided that it cant be good for business.

Those Realistic and Simulator events are cool, the one they are running right now also happens to be more or less balanced. As in, Germans sometimes even win. Dunno how they managed that.

[Tnx]

So do those battles only occur if enough players from each faction join it?  From the sounds of it there would be less German players ratio wise, would it help if newbies joined up as german as well?

[Erkki]

So do those battles only occur if enough players from each faction join it?  From the sounds of it there would be less German players ratio wise, would it help if newbies joined up as german as well?

For standard simulation battles? No, it wouldnt, the matchmaker will always give both sides a similar number of players +- 1. In those event battles the Allies have a coded numerical superiority: 16 vs. 13(why that is, we need to go ask Gaijin. Last week they thought 12 vs. 16 with Pz. III vs. Pershing was OKAY).