Zanadu

By the way, since you mention the Seafire, the RN test pilot I mentioned, Capt. Eric Brown, flew all Brit and US carrier types and many enemy types. He considered the Spit XIV the best land fighter of WW2, but the Seafire he rated only sixth best carrier fighter, behind all the US VFs (including the F4F), and also behind the Zero and Sea Hurricane. He considered that the combination of bad deck landing qualities and poor range made it little better than useless.

I think it can be argued that the 'worst' military a/c aren't those that are totally evil, they're just scrapped, but those that are just bad enough to keep killing pilots without being quite bad enough that they have to be taken out of service entirely. Example: the C109 transport. Essentially a B24 converted to transport aviation fuel to China from India. Nothing wrong with it except that, every so often, for no appearant reason, one of them would just explode. The pilots called it the "Cee-One-Oh-Boom."

I'm not sure that the argument that an a/c that is difficult and dangerous to fly in the way necessary to perform it's mission isn't a problem because more pilot training will fix it, is valid. In a war, many of the pilots are going to be of limited skill and experience. The thing that made the Grumman F4F and F6F really excellent a/c is the fact that they were intentionally made very easy to fly. A WW2 Royal Navy test pilot described the Wildcat as: "the easiest monoplane to land on a flight deck that was ever built," and considered the Hellcat a fairly close second. These qualities saved a lot a a/c and a lot of pilot's lives during the war, and that meant more a/c in the air and in combat. Conversely, the tricky handling of the MiGs and LaGGs destroyed a lot of a/c and killed a lot of pilots just as surely as the Luftwaffe would have, without putting the Germans to the actual effort to do the job themselves.

Perhaps not, but within a few months of the SB2C replacing the SBD, the number of fighters on the carriers was radically increased, and the a/c they replaced were mostly SB2Cs. Standard CAG, Jun. '44: 36VF, 4VFN, 36VSB, 18VT Jan. '45: 72VF, 4VFN, 18VSB, 12VT Clark (by then an Admiral) was one of those who wanted to eliminate the '2Cs entirely, in favor of more TBMs and fighters.

The original SB2C-1 was a total write off. 'Jocko' Clark was the original Navy project officer for it, and left Curtiss with a seven page, single spaced list of changes needed in the a/c when he left for his next assignment. The first deployment aboard ship was to the YORKTOWN (Essex Class) with Clark as Captain. On the first landing, one of the a/c hooked the wire, and its entire rear fuselage and tail came off just behind the radio op/gunner's seat. They all went back to Curtiss for rebuilding, and Clark's VS and VB squadrons went back to SBDs. The Curtiss's returned several months later as the SB2C-3, which was at least fairly safe to fly. Still lacked the dive stability and total dependability of the SBD, and was harder to land aboard.

I've noticed that after the last download, the FW190 in the game is labeled as a 'D' and the firing stats have been adjusted, although the graphics is still for a '190A.

Actually, it was the British Royal Navy who proved that the Corsair could be operated from carriers. They'd been using the Seafire, which had a lot of the same visibility problems (along with that dawdawful narrow, weak landing gear) and desprately needed something that could match a '109 or '190. They got a lot of F4Us leand lease, and developed a curving landing approach that kept the flight deck in view until the last second. The Corsiar was considered the better fighter, but the Hellcat was MUCH easier to land on a carrier. As for structure, both were as tough as old bootleather. Compared to a Corsiar, a Hellcat should probably be about the same except -1 performance.

Yes, the Breda 88 and FW200 were both listed, and for the reasons mentioned. Trying to catch up on quality in minimum time, the US both AF and Navy made it policy to buy a/c 'off the drawing board' by giving contracts to the two most promising for a few hundred a/c, in the expectation that at least one would work out okay. Sometimes they got two winners: the B25 and B26, the F6F and F4U. With the SB2C and SB2A they basically got a couple of duds, but ended up producing the less bad of the two as production of the SBD had already been ended.

No: The Mustang was developed by North American for the British when they wanted NA to produce P40s for them on license from Curtiss. The 'hawks were being used in MTO for ground attack and as low level fighters. The Germans considered them (the 'hawks) better than the Hurricane (which was the only other fighter then available in numbers in the MTO prior to first arrival of Spitfires. NA offered a new design that would be equal or better than the 'hawks in all respects, with the same engine. The Mustang was just that. As a 'dive bomber', the A36 wasn't really. The dive flaps were wired shut and never used. In practice it was just another designation for a P51A variant. While the Me410 was externally similar to the '210, it was an entirely new design, but suffered from the bad reputation that the '210 had earned. The pilots never really seemed to trust it. Martin B26 had problems somewhat similar to the Manchester early on. Engines were new and gave problems, and high wing and power loadings made engine out handling trickly, but it had much better lateral stability than the Manchester. Longer wings, and the fact that the R2800 rapidly became a very reliable engine, cured the problems. The Manchester went thru a series of tail changes trying to deal with the stability issue, and the Vulture engine remained a piece of utter crap!! The SB2A wasn't 'too late'. Nobody wanted it. Many of those produced went straight from production to scrapping. The British evaluated the a/c and found it: "entirely unsuitable for combat". The polite description was 'overweitht and underpowered.'

As Skuderian mentioned. I'd like to be able to choose the nationality of my opponants.

The list is not complete. The Stirling was on it. The early Mustang was excellent as a ground attack a/c replacing the Curtiss P40s which was what it was intended to be. It was supposed to equal or exceed the P40 in all respects, and did. The Author considered the Buckingham/Buckmaster to be one with different equipment. Heinkle wanted to build the He177 with four engines, but the Luft had fallen in love with the coupled, buried engine idea -- besides, they wanted it to be able to dive bomb (!!!). They never completely dealt with the cooling problem and the tendency to catch fire. The Me210 and Manchester both just had really bad handling characteristics. The Manchester's problem was lateral stability, which was often, quite literally, a killer, in an a/c with horribly unreliable engines.

Stalin: Recently got a small book title: THE WORLD'S WORST AIRCRAFT. The LaGGs were there. Author was a Jim Winchester. Other entrys included (for WW2 period, more or less): British: Blackburn Roc (turret ftr) Burton-Paul Defiant (turret ftr) Fairy Fulmer (2seat, single engine heavy ftr) Avro Manchester (from which Lancaster was developed), Blackburn Firebrand (pilots said it was built like a battleship and flew nearly as well), Blackburn Botha and Bristal Buckmaster. US: Convair B32, Bell FM Airacuda (a ftr with a crew of 5!!!) Fisher P75 (a ftr built from pieces of other a/c) Hughes H4 "Spruce Goose", Curtiss XP62 (one of the reasons the company went under), Brewster SB2A, Curtiss SB2C, Curtiss SO3C Germany: Me210 (from which the '410 was developed) He177 (it does better in DiF than it ever did in WW2) Bachem BA349 rocket ftr, Blohm Und Voss BV 40 glider ftr (desperate people do weird things). Soviets: Antonov KT Flying Tank (!!!!!) Japanese: Yokosuka Ohka (manned rocket bomb).

Have been playing on local and had no problems with access before latest update. Now will have to find the box. Put is somewhere safe as plastic box was broken in shipment.

Have been playing game for some time without problem, and have a password issued: J3BTVX. Was this registration or for access to this site? Also now have spaces in a/c info for Soviet and Polish a/c, but are all blank as yet.

No, these US pilots were in P38s and Brits in MkXIVs. 2000 plus xp. For the US pilots, a/c earlier than the P40N isn't available either. Just one ftr type of each of the three Nationalities I've been playing, is all I can access and their opposition is they same types. I've played twice with Japanese in Ki61s, once against P40Ns and once against SpitIs. The rest of the a/c just don't seem to be available. At least one author considers the LaGG 1/3 to be one of the worst a/c in history. Claims that the actual production a/c were slower than the I16s they replaced. Pilots flew with cockpits open because of the poor quality of the glazing which distorted visibility very badly. Some took the canopys off altogether, although this further reduced speed. The LaGGs stalled with no warning at all, landing gear often collapsed, and they would often flip into a spin if suddenly put into a steep bank.

Ah-ha. At least for the moment, at lease, is seems that the only a/c available to US pilots is the P40N, only one for the Brits is Spitfire I and the only one for the Japanese is the Ki61.

Okay, guys. I just got your latest download which seems to include the set up for the Eastern front expansion, and I have a question. How did my P38 pilots get back into P40s???

One other thought. I forsee a REALLY long download coming. Any chance of setting it up in seperate blocks for those of us still on dial up??

Well, the LaGG 1 and 3 would be fun -- for the Germans. Those were two of the worst fighter a/c ever produced. The Russians called them "Varnished coffins". Would it be possible to allow a player to pick a country for his opponant, rather than it be simply random as now. German, for example, could pick from US, Brit or Sov., US between Jap & German, etc.??

Thanx Challerain. Not sure I know how to do it anyway. Only other problem I've found is that now, after a mission, when I try to leave the scoreboard, it kicks me entirely out of the game, so I have to re-enter before I can do anything else.

Just downloaded new update (02-26/1225 hrs/cst). Now when I enter local LObby I get an error notice. Haven't tried playing yet, but seems to access the gaem okay, but the Lobby sound is gone. Error notice begins: Error Occured in: DiFLobbyClient Description: The located assembly's manifest deinition with name 'AxInterop.SHDocVw' does not match the assembly refernce.

Any luck on a fix for the 'hang up' that occassionally occures at the end of a game, doubling you pilots' fatigue when you dump your way out of the game? Having a leader get 72 fatigue points for one bail out is kind of a bitch!!!

To Sixxkiller: Visited your Carrier site. Looks good. One minor thing. AKAGI was built on a hull intended as a Battlecruiser not a Battleship. The original AMAGI was being built on an identical hull at the same time, but was wrecked before completion by an earthquake. The KAGA was replacement for AMAGI and was built on a Battleship hull as that was the most readilly available partially finished, but not yet scrapped hull (Washington Naval Limitation Treaty stuff).

Tried it again. Same settings: P40Ns going in VH for pair vs pair. This time got '109Es. All went fine. Again got two kills and this time they and XPs were credited properly. Will let you know if there is a re-occurance.

Was using my lowest rated existing pilot -- ep about 180. Pair vs pair with A6M5 Zeroes, pilots of similar quality. Shot down both. Scoreboard showed about 20 xps each for Leader and Wingman with one kill and one damaged each. When I went to the Manage Pilots board, the kills, xps and fatigue hadn't been posted. Nor had the fatigue levels of other pilots changed. As if the fight just hadn't occured.