Hi everyone,
I've been flying the Beaufighter of late and while I only have a small number of hours in it (~ 50 maybe) i thought i would post some observations comparing it with the 110 (in which i have 2500+ hrs in MP). I'm making no comparison with real life - this is just observations / comparisons with the in-game Beaufighter 1C against the in-game 110 C4N /C4B (which i have most time with).
Speed
I knew when flying the 110 that the Beaufighter was faster as i could never out run one. And now i know why. Trimmed up carrying 2 x 500 lb bombs i can get 280/290 mph IAS sustained on the deck in the Beaufighter which is at least 30-40 km/hr faster than I could get a similarly configured 110. I've not tried to see what this difference is at 15000 ft (which seems to be the Beaufighter's sweet spot or thereabouts) but i would imagine its similarly faster.
Lateral stability
The Beaufighter is a better gun platform in the lateral plan especially when doing diving attacks as the rudder has more precise control over where the nose is pointing. In the 110 the aircraft wobbles a bit more laterally (possibly due to the twin tail configuration perhaps) and above a certain speed the rudder loses its ability to move the nose left or right. This used to happen in the 110 when doing high speed diving attacks - as i neared the tgt the rudder would lose some authority and it was hard to bring the nose to bear on the tgt at high closing speeds. Admittedly i havent done much of this in the Beau but the little i have done suggests that the beau's rudder is better at high speed in the lateral plane.
Manoeverability
I didnt do a lot of turn fighting in the 110 and havent done much on the Beau. I suspect that like most twin fighters it would very much struggle against well flown single engined aircraft so havent bothered to try my luck yet. if anything i would say that perhaps the Beau doesnt bleed its speed as quickly as the 110 when turning and then may get it back quicker but this might not be an accurate observation.
Navigation
The 110 is a much easier aircraft to fly long distance low altitude sorties requiring use of the compass. Firstly it has an autopilot that allows a 'heading-hold' set up which make it much easier to fly. And realigning the gyro with the mag compass is much easier especially at low level in the 110 as its all in front of the pilot so i can keep one eye out the cockpit and one on the compasses and avoid doing a CFIT. In the Beau you have to look down to the right to readjust the compass and then fiddle with the gyro behind the control column - not much fun to do when flying at 280 mph at 100ft or less altitude.
Trimming
The 110 is a better aircraft to trim to fly hands off, although maybe my inexperience with the Beau is the main cause of this observation. The Beau doesnt seem to want to trim as precisely in pitch/roll as does the 110 and i find i have to readjust trim much more in the Beau than the 110.
Damage modelling
The 110 could take a lot of .303 hits and still keep flying. But once cannon armed Spits etc turned up it became very vulnerable to damage especially the flight controls which seemed to be the first thing to be damaged / destroyed when the first burst of cannon fire hit the aircraft. I havent been shot up as much in the Beau yet but it also seems to be similarly vulnerable to flight control damage when hit by cannons.
I can fly the Beau home on one engine and even get a positive rate of climb on one engine, just like i could in the 110.
Both aircraft will have reduced top speed due to airframe damage caused by bofors hits. In the 110 this could be up to at least 100 km/hr loss in max speed after seemingly only a few bofors hits in the wing / airframe. The Beau doesnt seem to suffer the same loss in top speed but again i havent spent a lot of time in it so maybe i need to be hit more often to properly gauge this speed. This a very subjective observation as i have no real way of quantifying the actual amount of bofors damage done v resulting speed loss.
Armament
Both aircraft have more than enough to do most jobs required of it - i even sank a submarine using the Beau's cannons recently. The wing mounted 303 perhaps provide a greater cone of firepower which might be useful in turning fights. The 110 is more flexible in that you can selectively fire the 20mm or MGs whereas the Beau its all or nothing.
The 110 is more flexible than the Beau re bomb dropping as you can set it up to only drop 1 of 2 bombs whereas the beau its all or nothing. Some tgts only need 1 bomb to destroy them so in the 110 i could take out 2 tgt per sortie whereas in the beau i use up both bombs on a single tgt which can be overkill for some tgts.
Both bombs skip when dropped from low altitude high speed level flight so this needs to be taken into account when aiming.
I think the Beau is a better low altitude / high speed strafer than the 110. I'm not sure why this is though - perhaps a combination of better rudder and better visibility of out the nose perhaps. In the 110 the tgt will disappear under the nose of the aircraft earlier than in the Beau if doing very low level horizontal strafing, thus preventing really late shots onto the tgt. If you try and push the nose down in the 110 to get these late shots you will hit the dirt if not really careful.
Rear visibility and the gun/no gun
One of the reasons i am late the Beaufighter party is its lack of a rear gun. In the 110 i had a defensive strategy when attacked by singe-engined fighters of doing several moves and if these didnt work my last ditch option was to try and put some distance between my attacker and me and then settle into my rear gun and shoot them as they came closer on my 6. This was reasonably effective and good fun and i could usually damage my attacker even if he ended up shooting me down. However once cannon armed aircraft turned up this proved to be a less useful strategy especially as the gunner is very vulnerable to cannon fire and more often than not i would also lose the controls when the first cannon burst hit the aircraft
In the Beau this last ditch strategy is not available so I'm having to rethink my approach. I can absolutely see why some Beau's were modified in the field to have the 'scare gun' fitted - several times so far i have ended up with a 109 glued to my 6 just out of range and thought (to misquote someone maybe Shakespeare?) 'My kingdom for a rear gun' before they proceeded to shoot me down at their leisure.
Having said the above the rear view from the Beau is better than the 110 (mainly due to the lack of the twin tail and canopy framing) and like the 110 it is possible to fly the aircraft quite aggressively looking backwards from the rear seat.
So to conclude both aircraft have some similarities and some differences. The Beau's extra speed is probably its stronger point but this advantage over the 110 may be largely negated as the single engined fighters in DWT are now faster. The lack of a rear gun is still probably its biggest negative from my perspective as this prevents the last ditch option from being in play and removes the fun to be had rear-gunning. I'm still trying to figure out how best to fly / fight the Beau so i may end up coming up with an approach where the lack of a rear gun isnt an issue however.
Anyway thats about all i have. There are plenty of players with way more time in the Beau than me and they might like to share their observations and / or correct anything i have said above that doesnt accord with their experiences.
Ezzie
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