ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon
Why does the MVR and skill rating of planes/pilots not carry more weight than a height advantage in game terms? I'm sure not every dogfight ended in favour of the plane/pilot at the higher altitude, regardless of plane type or pilot experience? I'm no expert, but quality must count for something...no? As Elf mentioned, if there is no air in this game, couldn't the height advantage carry less weight than a planes MVR and pilot skill (or whatever criteria may be used to avoid a height rock/paper/scissors situation) in determining the combat results?
Pilot skill has a MAJOR impact on A2A in game and in RL.
MVR is really a minor value compared to other stats as max speed and rate of climb there are two reasons for this:
When you look at RL mid-late war engagements the classic dogfight did not exist anymore.
Planes made "boom and zoom" attacks from a position of advantage and the optimal situation was when you did not even
give the defender time to counter such a move.
This was one of the reasons why the Zero was exceptional at the start of the war when pilots still were trained in WWI dogfighting
skills and underestimated the impact of a high speed airframe. As soon as the Allies found out that the one weakness of Japanese
planes in general was their low weight, bad dive performance and low topspeed they also noted their own airframe´s strong points
and the era of the dogfights was over.
The second reason is related to the game: the Zero bonus (a modification from stock war in the pacific that added a bonus value
to the Zero for the first 6 months of the war to simulate exactly the above developement) is unnessesary when you can simulate
the same developement using the top speed as a major impacting variable.
Earlywar planes have very identical topspeeds, giving the Zero the advantage on the MVR side it also posessed in RL.
When newer Allied airframes with better speed start to arrive the MVR value loses its dominance and the tide turns at it was
in history.
ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon
And what about when you are escorting? If forced to keep escorts at the same altitude setting as the bombers to insure they actually are escorted, how can you reasonably expect a force to achieve good results when they almost always will be interdicted by a force with a height advantage? It's not always feasible to clear the target area first by sweeps prior to your bombers going in for whatever reason. In some situations they must be escorted to have any chance of success. My escorting planes in the 12-20000 ft range are getting chewed up, and the bombers more so in these raids where my opponent is NOT flying at extreme altitudes.
Just some thoughts.
Short answer: Rough up the target base with seeps only some time before you commit your bombers to the task.
This was exactly done by the Allies long time before the sent their bulk of bombers into harms way.
Escorts naturally are at disadvantage because they have to keep the attackers off the bombers and sacrifice
speed and freedom of manouvre for this task.
