Ah...the pregnant pause that invites me to ramble on my own!
Speed of the Fokker D.II; about 93 mph, about the same as the Halberstadt and Airco DH.2; 4 and 6 mph faster than the Morane-Saulnier N and Fokker E.III, respectively. So, dog slow for a fighter, but on par in
WoG terms. The Nieuport 11 clocks in at 101, and the Nieuport 17 at 110, and the Nieuport 16 somewhere in between. The I deck of the 17 is the next speed up, so that’s out. The R deck of the Nieuport 16 should in theory be the least maneuverable of the Nieuport, with the front heavy engine unbalancing the airframe - and comparing it to the other two, it’s still more maneuverable.
So, P or T? The only difference between those two is a wide side slip in both directions for the P deck, in place of a short side slip for the T deck. But the Fokker D.II is still using wing-warping, same as E.III, if in a biplane configuration. I just don’t see it as maneuverable as either the Airco DH.2 or the Halberstadt. Admittedly, the simplicities of Wings of Glory don’t always capture the subtle differences between planes, but I think you’ll get something closer to the limitations of the Fokker D.II with the T deck rather than P. Possibly you could declare the wide side slips as stall maneuvers, but for myself, I prefer the simplicity of just using a T deck. The added bonus is you can still find The Morane-Saulnier N out there for fairly cheap, and getting the P deck with the Halberstadt or Aircois prohibitively expensive.
This would change the Fokker D.II from essentially a one-hit point challenged Halberstadt D.III, to a tougher E.III in nature. Dunno enough about the inherent toughness of the construction of the Fokker to say one way or the other about it being given 13 hit - I’d be prone to call it 12 in light of poor materials and building practices in the Fokker Factory (yes, I’d pay money to say that five times fast), but one controversy at a time.
Opinions yeah or nay?
Looking at the points, that would bring the Fokker D.II in at 52 points, four more than the E.III, six less than the Halberstadt, which I think places it better within the heirarchy of planes than it would be at the 56 it weighs in at the (unofficial) moment.
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