Originally posted by Sonntag
Well isn't it strange that the average Heavy Fighters of WC1/2 (Sabre/Raptor) make 400, while the Thunderbolt only makes 380? Considering how inferior the old fighters were in terms of shields/armor, this is still strange
Not necessarily.
The Raptor and Thunderbolt have similar masses, but the Thunderbolt (naturally) has significantly greater weaponry and shielding systems. The weight saving, and power for the shields and guns obviously must come from somewhere. Note also that the Raptor, was considered quite fast for a heavy fighter in WC1.
There are a couple of reasons why you would chose to improve shields/weapons as opposed to speed.
While a speed advantage obviously provides some advantage, in a a close combat situation it is
manouvreability which is more important. For a heavy fighter, the ability to deal and take a large amount of damage, while providing reasonable manouvrability, is of greater importance then high speed. Bursts of high speed can be provided by afterburners.
Combat must take place at a 'reasonable' relative speed. The Fairey Swordfish was an 'obsolete' torpedo bomber in WWII. A lumbering, open-cockpit bi-plane in the era of the Meschermitt (sorry about the spelling Willie) and Focke-Wolf, it had surprising success, often for the reason that the enemy fighters couldn't fly slow enough to shoot at it for very long.
Also, the speed (and manouvreability) todays modern fighters is governed by things completely unrelated to the amount of power you can get from an engine. The Pilots must wear G-Suits to prevent them from blacking out in high speed turns (for those of you that know physics, a = V^2/r, where a is the acceleration, V is the velocity and r is the radius of your turn. Once a gets above or below about 9 or -3, even experienced pilots black or red out. This has nothing to do with how fast the plane COULD turn). The SR-71 Blackbird leaks fuel like a sieve when on the ground because the entire airframe expands with temperature when in the air. So this entire 400-500kps max speed is probably due much more to the pilot and airframe then the power capacity of the engines.
Besides, the manouvreability of the Thunderbolt is about 10 times greater then the Raptor. It would not surprise me if its acceleration was significantly better too (what does Good convert to?). I'll take that over an extra couple of hundred kps anyday - I'll just dodge and shoot you as you fly past
