Spiteful vs Tempest

[MarcoRossolini]

I've got a quibble to raise with Britain's aircraft tech tree.

To be frank, the Supermarine Spiteful as Britain's 1944 fighter makes no sense. The aircraft saw almost no service and barely left the prototype stage, since it was realised that jet aircraft were the future. Meanwhile, an actual British fighter, arguably one of the most powerful piston engine aircraft in service, which did see service (mostly again flying bombs admittedly) languishes in close air support. This simply isn't right.

Therefore, my proposal is this -
In the 1944 Fighter slot goes the Tempest, where it belongs.
In the 1944 CAS slot goes the Typhoon (bit late, but 1944 were its glory days)
In the 1942 CAS slot goes the Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIc (iirc), the cannon armed variant.

The proposal isn't quite perfect, but its a damnsight better than what I'm looking at currently. I have no issue with prototypes if the nation didn't get that far historically (E series for the Germans are an example) but when there are perfectly good alternatives, I start getting concerned.

Looking good otherwise people. Can't wait to see what you guys do with the Soviet Union.

 

[vector1]

Basically all of this is going to be moddable, and I suspect we're going to see real detailed trees coming out in the future that has something to please everyone.

Not only that, the names of the aircraft themselves are changable so in practical terms we're just going to have to rename each variant to something we like, since stats are the same for each tech model, modified by country companies if I'm not wrong.

TL;DR, there's no use quibbling about a particular design decision where it has zero gameplay impact, and is also already nameable for immersion purposes.

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

I don't agree with you, the Tempest was more a close air support than a fighter. It was mainly used as train destroyer.

 

[Axe99]

I'm with the OP - the Tempest was good at CAS, but it was best as a fighter (and, as far as I know, was used more as a fighter than CAS, although I'm going from a very sketchy memory, so don't read too much into that).

It's all moddable though, and given I'm planning to mod in stuff already, I can't imagine switching around some pictures and names will give us much in the way of trouble .

 

[dave_r_gilbert]

I also intend to do some mods, and one of my first ones will be to make the Typhoon a CAS that can double as a fighter - but isn't as good as a spitfire. and the Tempest a CAS that is almost as good a fighter as a Spiteful.
At the same time the Typhoon & Tempest shouldn't be quite as good at CAS as the later stuka's, mostly for game balancing reasons rather than anything else.

 

[Ibn_Solmyr]

I'm with the OP - the Tempest was good at CAS, but it was best as a fighter (and, as far as I know, was used more as a fighter than CAS, although I'm going from a very sketchy memory, so don't read too much into that).

It's all moddable though, and given I'm planning to mod in stuff already, I can't imagine switching around some pictures and names will give us much in the way of trouble .

Only 100 Tempest actually saw WWII, only 1 squadron leaded by the famous french ace Pierre Clostermann. In "Le Grand Cirque", he explains that their main goal was to destroy the trains, the locomotives more exactly, to diminish the German logistic availability in France before and after Overlord. It's a very fast heavy fighter with 3000hp. Full rudder wasn't enough to prevent the aircraft to turn at take off, due to a massive torque effect. (Fantastic Sabre engine power combined to a large 4m diameter quadripale propeller). Very fast and well armed, used to shoot down V1 thanks to its great speed, but not that good fighter. At the end of the war, it was used to harass the landing 262s also though.

About its actual effectiveness, or at least war victories, according to Wiki :
- 391 destroyed plane, 27 likely, 275 damaged. (Don't know how many were destroyed on the ground though)
- 1615 trucks.
- 78 destroyed locomotives, 1079 damaged !

Yup, it will be moddable so everyone could get his ideal tech tree, but a plausible vanilla is still expected
Personally, I'd like to stay as close as possible from the vanilla.

 

[Real Strategist]

Come on guys.

It must be very difficult to fit in all that planes and tanks in a plausible order.

I've also noticed that Panzer III is from 1939 and Panzer IV from 1941.

In reality the development of Panzer IV started 1934 and Panzer III 1935 which means that the Panzer III is the newest version. Also the Panzer IV was delivered to the Wehrmacht 1938 while the Panzer III reached the forces 1939.

In the end the Panzer IV was the better tank even it was an older construction because it was planned as heavy infanterie support tank while Panzer III was planned as standard medium tank. Nobody could now that there will be a war in which the tanks got heavier and heavier each year.

So please don't bother the developer with stuff like that. I mean there should be a good order of cause but this is the right stuff to get fixed by mod-makers like me.

I guess the game benefits the most if they focus on AI, bugfixing and features which will not be changeable by the community.

 

[Axe99]

Only 100 Tempest actually saw WWII, only 1 squadron leaded by the famous french ace Pierre Clostermann. In "Le Grand Cirque", he explains that their main goal was to destroy the trains, the locomotives more exactly, to diminish the German logistic availability in France before and after Overlord. It's a very fast heavy fighter with 3000hp. Full rudder wasn't enough to prevent the aircraft to turn at take off, due to a massive torque effect. (Fantastic Sabre engine power combined to a large 4m diameter quadripale propeller). Very fast and well armed, used to shoot down V1 thanks to its great speed, but not that good fighter. At the end of the war, it was used to harass the landing 262s also though.

About its actual effectiveness, or at least war victories, according to Wiki :
- 391 destroyed plane, 27 likely, 275 damaged. (Don't know how many were destroyed on the ground though)
- 1615 trucks.
- 78 destroyed locomotives, 1079 damaged !

Yup, it will be moddable so everyone could get his ideal tech tree, but a plausible vanilla is still expected
Personally, I'd like to stay as close as possible from the vanilla.

Aye, but there weren't that many German aircraft left to shoot down by this stage . I agree about staying as close as possible to vanilla as well. Also, while only 100 Tempests actually saw WWII, that's 100 more than the number of Spitefuls! If we didn't want to go with the Tempest, I'd think a late-mark Griffon-powered Spitfire would be a better choice, say the Mk XIX or 21, as these both actually saw service before the war's end (the Mk XIX was in service with the RAF into the 1950s according to Wikipedia).

Come on guys.

It must be very difficult to fit in all that planes and tanks in a plausible order.

We're just trying to help, they can ignore us (or tell us we're wrong) if they think otherwise . No one's saying we won't buy the game because the Spiteful should be a Tempest, or something like that. The forums give them access to a much broader pool of people who can provide info and feedback on things, shutting down discussion of suggestions would mean they'd need to do everything themselves. While the Tempest/Spiteful thing isn't a biggy, there have been some things in the tech trees that have been quite odd (FT-17 at the start of the Brit tank tree is a good example). They deffo shouldn't be priorities, but it doesn't hurt to talk about them.

 

[ASPGolan]

Come on guys.

It must be very difficult to fit in all that planes and tanks in a plausible order.

I've also noticed that Panzer III is from 1939 and Panzer IV from 1941.

In reality the development of Panzer IV started 1934 and Panzer III 1935 which means that the Panzer III is the newest version. Also the Panzer IV was delivered to the Wehrmacht 1938 while the Panzer III reached the forces 1939.

In the end the Panzer IV was the better tank even it was an older construction because it was planned as heavy infanterie support tank while Panzer III was planned as standard medium tank. Nobody could now that there will be a war in which the tanks got heavier and heavier each year.

So please don't bother the developer with stuff like that. I mean there should be a good order of cause but this is the right stuff to get fixed by mod-makers like me.

I guess the game benefits the most if they focus on AI, bugfixing and features which will not be changeable by the community.

You're basically correct, however OP did bring an improvement suggestion which is specific. If you can't challenge those points, then yes the developers should be "bothered" with this. Specifically because it's difficult to cover those limited number of slots, any suggestion of improvement that helps them do better given the limitations they have are useful suggestions.

 

[Nats]

I suggested they change the Spiteful to a Spitfire Mk 9 or 12 etc. Spiteful is a rubbish choice.

 

[dave_r_gilbert]

Or Spitfire (Merlin) and Spitfire (Griffon) to show the significant change in engine.

 

[Amur_Tiger]

I don't agree with you, the Tempest was more a close air support than a fighter. It was mainly used as train destroyer.

The Tempest is as much a CAS aircraft as the FW190A, both aircraft tended to carry out a fair bit of ground attack as they were robust and powerful aircraft but primarily they were fighters, but both had engines that were better suited to lower altitudes then their lighter Spitfire and BF109 brethren.

Really there were precious few real CAS aircraft in WWII, the IL-2 and Ju-87 being the only ones of real note. Other aircraft used in CAS roles tended to be powerful fighter-bombers, the P-47 and Typhoon being among the most notable in this regard. It's hard to say exactly how effective these were as while they certainly got a lot of use the accuracy of rockets tended to make their role more of a harassment one then one of actually killing the enemy, useful to be sure but useful in a far more difficult to measure fashion. Proving this out is the development of the 57mm Mosquito for a role where mere harassment just didn't cut it, submarine hunting.