The Bf 109 K-4

In this guide I will discuss the basic ins and outs of War Thunder's Bf 109 K-4 in the German air tech tree.

Speed and Climb

The Bf 109 K-4 (K short for "Kurfürst" airframe) is a very unique aircraft. It is by far the fastest and amongst the most well performing 109's in the game. For reference, I have a near-spaded 109 G10 that climbs about the same as my K-4 does stock. That's quite a difference. It also handily out turns it.

I'm going to give a brief history on the K-4 and why exactly it came into existence and then relate that how it relates to in-game mechanics (skip past this part if you don't care).


The most widely produced Bf 109 was the Bf 109 G-6 "G short for "Gustav" airframe). The G-6 was the primary competitor to the P-51D Mustang during the war. One of the main issues that the Bf-109 G-6 had when it came to facing the Mustangs was that it only had a single supercharger. The Mustangs had two. What this meant for the Mustang was that they could be easily geared for different altitudes (one for lower and one for higher). This made it much easier to stay competitive. Since the 109 only had one, it had to configure it for a single altitude. This lead to there being slightly different variants of the 109's with different supercharger gear settings to work better at different altitudes.

Another issue was the fuel grade. The Luftwaffe used B-4 fuel, which was rated at about 87 octane. This was much lower than the fuel used in the Mustangs, which was about 100 and 150 as of January of 1944. This meant the Mustangs could create much higher manifold pressure, therefore giving more horsepower and everything that comes with it.

The germans decided that they needed to do something to compensate the performance in their 109's.

They developed a method of Water-Methanol injection (WEP) known as MW 50 (50/50 water and methanol injection) that was sprayed directly into the supercharger. This gave the engine enough more boost to make the fuel rating equivalency to be about 100 octane fuel. The Germans also had a very small amount of a newer fuel that went by C-3. This had an octane rating of about 96, compared to the 87 of the B-4 fuel. However, since this fuel was more scarce, they rarely used it in combination with MW 50. However, there were variants of the 109's DB-605 engine that could use both simultaneously, noteably the DB-605DC. This gave it a tremendous amount more boost and horsepower. This is also the version of the engine that the K-4 in War Thunder gets, and why it is therefore the fastest and best climbing 109.

In-Game Use

Now, let's talk about how that affects the Bf 109 K-4 and it's tactics in-game.


My favorite way to use the K-4 is to side climb just a little bit, and wait until I either get engaged or I find a group of players diving on some of my teammates. This allows me to enter the battle with a large energy advantage, and with the default 30mm nose cannon, it's easy to be very devastating in a single pass.

The Weird Stuff

Now here's where things get weird. The Bf 109 K-4 is also the best turning 109 at it's rank. Why you may ask? Isn't the Kurfurst airframe the heaviest frame on a 109? Aren't the Gustav airframes much lighter and therefore should be the better turning 109's at a 5.3 battle ranking? Yes. Yes they should be.


Two of the previous 109's in the tech tree, the G10 and the G14, do not utilize a combination of MW 50 and C-3 fuel. So it makes sense why they may not be as fast or turn quite as well, but there's even things among the Gustav's that don't make a whole lot of sense.

For example, the only real difference between the G10 had a supercharger that was geared for higher altitudes, identical to the one found in the K-4. Ah, but wait, there's another double-digit Gustav in the game! The Itialian G-14/AS. The difference between the G-14 and the G-14/AS? The uprated supercharger. Realisticly, the G14/AS should be near-identical to the G10 in performace. But somehow, it turns better.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Bf 109 K-4 is quite a remarkable aircraft. It did a great job at making some magnificent speed and climb performance leaps, but is of course overdone in this game by sheer ability to turn.

And in the light of the recent cannon buff, the MG 151's are all the rage, so you can swap the 30mm MK-108 in the nose for one with a tier 1 modification.

I hear rumors that the K-4 will be receiving a nerf this coming patch, but I don't know that for sure. So if any of the historical information in this guide was off or you know more about this coming patch, please do leave it in the comments - I'll be checking.

Thanks for reading!

[Ham]

109's in this game make superprops obsolete, i mean a 109 is faster than a2d1 for christ sake....

[Torn]

Let's be very clear here. every single Bf-109 in the game is more powerful than it was in real life. Most of the Spitfires are SIGNIFICANTLY more powerful than they were in real life. There are a lot of planes on both sides of the way that need fixing. I've already explained in this guide why the Bf-109 K-4 needs it specifically, but I'd be more than happy to talk about the Spitfires in a guide as well.

[РенданиГрејпфрут]

@WingCommanderBob
And then he says that allied pilots don't need to l2p and that axis planes should be nerfed because that is easier then the allied pilots l2p the game.

[WingCommanderBob]

@Almighty42 he's complaining about how his clueless team gets destroyed every game and he gets 8 kills, not that he keeps getting destroyed himself

[РенданиГрејпфрут]

Also looking at your thunderskill profile(if "lupinthe3rd" is your wt profile)you have many mathces in american superprops i can't bealive you are complaining about 5.7 k4.
If after over 300 mathces in the bearcat you are struggling against a k4 you need to stop plaiyng you are never going to improve.

[РенданиГрејпфрут]

@ktdlsd114
Because i've seen people who complain about allied teams being bad,thus the german aircraft should be nerfed.
L2p. Past the 3.7-4.3 mark allied aircraft get much better,and when german aircraft fight allied superprops you have a very unbalanced match.
People like you are the reason why the P47s had their airspawns,you are the reason why germans get nerfed to the ground.
Stop complaining and learn not to turnfight in your p47/p51 and learn not to chase a yak15/mig9/me262/he162 etc.

[Dontworryitgetsbetter]

@Almighty42
umm you've never seen me play so how can you judge how good I'm

[sam]

op

[РенданиГрејпфрут]

@ktdlsd114
N00b l2p

[Dontworryitgetsbetter]

it needs br increase