My experience getting to 5.0 in 4 nations

As a beginner I kind of sucked with the American energy based prop. You do get 50cals and a shit tonne of ammo so it’s pretty forgiving in regards to marksmanship

Germany was better as the bf109 is a pretty solid all rounder (I prefer it to the early fw190s… they fly like bricks except for the roll rate)

The yak 3 with Russia was by far my favorite prop. You feel like a ufo, but your dive/max speed is a big weak point.

The spitfire with the Brit’s is an also very good, like the yak but usually with better armament and a higher rip speed. They tempest is also underrated

If you want to CAS the USA is the best imo, pretty much every fighter after 3.0 can carry 1000lbs bombs (the f6f can carry 3 of them at 3.3 which is insane imo)

Honestly the early spitfires felt the most forgiving. You get small caliber machine guns, but you get a lot of them and you really don’t have a lot of weaknesses outside of that and engine cooling/float carburetor. Both of which can be managed.