Battle over Stalingrad - pilots opinions?

I’d like to try out BoS more but I’m interested in what you lads have found with this sim, mainly -

What is it like overall, the feel of the sim?

Does it have an online community and any campaigns?

Cheers in advance lads

I’d like to try it more as well. But it would be nice to be able to host missions where one can control who joins etc. I don’t think this is possible at the moment.
But flight model seems good, as does damage model.
Visuals are very nice, but there was some annoying blurring with aircraft in front of clouds. Not good at all. I don’t know if this has been fixed yet.

Btw Swoop. Your PM mailbox is full and I wanted to send you a msg. I sent an email. Did you get it?

I’ve cleared some space, cheers Apollo and no I didn’t get an email. Pm me and I’ll give you my email address.

I’ll be happy to spend Mondays flying BOS with EAF chaps. Summer is over…and winter is coming!

I really liked flying against the Macchi the other day. It’s a good looking airplane!
But the Yak will out maneuver it… I guess the Yak outmaneuvers every thing in the game.
The Rata is a tough opponent if the axis doesn’t keep energy high.
Bf 109F4 is my favorite German plane and I’m still not decided if I favour the Yak or LA… Time will tell…

I have been online twice, both times in WoL and found it difficult to get any action. However, if there were a group and we bombed stuff that would likely kick up a hornet’s nest.

It’s good to see that the game is not biased against premium aircraft, that you do not need to buy premium to win or to perform better. On the contrary! The premiums are only extra aircraft that have more detail to them than the rest, thus their weaknesses are very clear. The La-5 is outperformed in every way by the 109 versions. It is faster than the LaGG-3 and just so slightly faster in a straight line than the Yak-1, but it is not faster than the Yak-1 nor the 109, nor the FW-190 in a climb, turn or dive. The FW-190 for instance has great engine power and top speed, but slow acceleration, worse climb than 109 and Yak and an engine that could be pushed beyond its designed limits, thus very vulnerable to breakdown if you push it too far for too long. A feature common for the early FW models.

The La-5 and FW-190 fights the same way, but the FW-190 is arguable better. La-5’s great advantage over the Yak-1 is high ammo count and deadly firepower of 2x20mm. But it is a dedicated boom n zoomer, and still less capable than the FW-190.

Historically this is correct; the first La-5 versions had no superchargers, no compressors and no fuel injection. The FW-190-A3 however had all of these, including high altitude supercharger gear that automatically changed. La-5s were only fast at low altitude, but could not climb or turn from an enemy with equal energy. Their only chance of outwitting the germans, was by high altitude or energy advantage, strike once then dive and run away at low altitude, as the germans rarely gave chase at low altitude but kept their advantage. The La-5 would then form up across their friendly lines of the front again, before going back for another slash attack.

Just like in the war, the Soviet aircraft rely on higher numbers and teamwork to outfight the Germans. 1 vs 1 and they are slaughtered against any good german pilot.

The Macchi feels half-finished (it’s Alpha after all), as it was nowhere by as maneuverable as it should be! It’s basically a very maneuverable MC.200 Freccia, with a big German Daimler-Benz engine instead of the underpowered Italian radial. It’s heavier than a MC.200 but should outturn german aircraft, which it does not.

I’m home in a few days. Let’s do more testing.
I don’t know much about the Macchi, but I also thought it would do better. It seemed to bleed energy very easily. I don’t know what performance changes happened when the -200 became the -202. But I would think added power, added weight, change of CG among other things.

Would be nice to know what Jimmi thinks, since he was the person flying it?

Found this in Wikipedia. Don’t know how true it is. But if it’s correct, then the FM needs to tweaked a bit…

Allied pilots who flew against the Folgore were impressed with its performance and manoeuvrability.[31] The Macchi C.202 was considered superior to both the Hawker Hurricane and the Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawks it fought against, at first on the Libyan front, and the equal of the Spitfire Mk. V. The C.202 was able to out-turn all three although the Spitfire had a superior rate of climb.[32] The C.202 could effectively fly against Hurricane, Lockheed P-38 Lightning, Bell P-39 Airacobra, Curtiss P-40 and even the Spitfire at low altitudes, but the aircraft’s combat effectiveness was somewhat hampered by its weak armament.

i had 1,5 hours in the macchi after 9 months of Clod only so i don’t know well BOS…

My first impression in a solo flight was that he’s fast…
run over the airfield at 5mt from the ground, zommed up and made an hammerhead and topped at 1500m
speed while diving was good and ended at 580 km/h at the other end of the runway ready to zoom up again…

visibility rearward is bad.

landing is easy as handling at slow speed is good…

engine is a bad version of a 109 daimler benz but aerodyanmic should be better.
also is heavier than 109 but with higher wing loading.
so i would expect it faster but with worst acceleration…

machine guns in BOM DM are not bad but requires some good hits.
Pros lot of rounds and central position allow for far shooting!

italians had very bad radios and (i think) a poor team tactic doctrine
they relied a lot on aerobatics.
I read many italian pilots accounts of the great agility of the macchi but in BOS he’s clearly an energy fighter not a turnfighter…

There are some interesting and “new” views of the planes FM I’m reading in their forum, latest was the upcoming Mig3u saying it’s more manoeuvrable than an I16 at all altitudes!! This was from a pilot who has flown both and is involved in the BOM developments. I actually find this approach rather refreshing, actually testing some of the real planes. Blues are freaking out of course. :slight_smile:

Check out this vid at the 5:00 min mark from the test pilot Vladimir Barsuk,-

//youtu.be/_wTZjYGyl-4

Barsuk is a very talnted and outspoken test pilot, that also has been starred in many russian war documentaries of the russian aircraft.

I remember him telling in a video to one of the executive producers of BOS, that the I-16 is basically an unaerodynamic, shortened shoebox with a trechourous unbalanced centre of gravity, that wants to put you into a flat spin if you don’t fly the plane balanced or with care during manuvers. The I-16 was way too short and is not an easy aircraft to fly hard, hence why so many russian WW2 pilots died in accidents.

It is interesting and logic that an unstable first generation radial monoplane is less stable, slower and not as manuverable as the design they came up with to superceed it. Polikarpov was sacked and the combined designers of MiG got the main budget to produce a state-of-the-art interceptor. A long and sleek fuselage design with no obstacles, a large and powerful inline engine and centre of gravity well balanced with the cockpit at the back and a prolonged tail. It’s wings long for added lift at high altitude, which should help even more at low to avoid stalling. If we are lucky, they will also include the engine modification for low altitude (supercharger gear trimmed for low alt).

Whatever happens, I look forward to fly the MiG-3.

just goes to show that ‘maneuverability’ is a very general term :slight_smile:

Whatever happens, I look forward to fly the MiG-3.

And I; even if it is a bit poor against the 109s.

Clearly i need more time with the macchi
last night wan’t using WEP!

As we could see yesterday Jimmi, the Macchi performs well with Boost. It was an even match with the 109F4 and I even had to work very hard in the Yak to stay away from your guns. I think it would have outperformed the LA5 and of course the Lagg3. We can try them next time.

Are you guys flying on Thursday?I’d love to try the BoS aircraft against human opponents.

Dropped on to the channel last night but my Italian was not up to the chat about Macchis :slight_smile:

let me know if you can during your daytime any day. I’m available from 12-17 UTC

If I manage to pull a sickie from work I’ll fire it up and see if you’re about :smiley: