Most of the historical "wrongness" of the Komet, Salamander and Natter projects don't really apply to a sim environment so whilst I'm with Galland's opinion for their use in the real world Luftwaffe, I've no problem with them being in IL2.
The Komet reportedly handled extremely well, better than many regular fighters but its problem was being a crap shoot of lethality for the pilot. The fuels were so corrosive that even enough vapours leaking into the cockpit during a bouncy landing literally melted some pilots to death in the seat. I've a report of ground crew responding to a rough landed Komet and finding exactly that, the pilot had been (again I stress quite literally) melted to death in his seat by a small amount of leaked fuel vapour from nothing more than some residue in the tank. Quite simply that is not an airworthy craft, it's a suicide machine on that basis alone.
The Salamander has the same problem as the Natter and vice versa. These high performing experimental types are a major handful for a highly experienced test pilot but outright suicide for inexperienced cadets that were fully intended to operate them. Other real world issues with the Natter are its closing speed, which is the same issue as with the Me-163 and may have led to it not being adopted into service. The simple fact was they proved completely ineffective at shooting down bombers, an Me-262 was almost too quick to do it and it took a fair bit of skill, highly experienced aces usually overshot before having time to fire on their first few interception sorties in it.
But here you're talking about inexperienced cadets with inadequate training and no conversion time for the type. I agree with Galland in saying all you're going to see is a bunch of kids take off, fly high and fast into the ground and blow up before managing to learn how to control the damn thing, let alone shoot something down with it.
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Topic: Bachem Ba 349 Natter (Read 33756 times)
