My Two Cunning Plans

[vimconfused]

Turn 180 (12 Feb 44) in my German game and I thought I would report on my two cunning plans:

1. Throwing my interceptors in the way of the P-51Bs so they waste fuel and ammunition shooting them down, and therefore not be able to escort the bombers all the way to the target. This is partially successful - the shooting down of my aircraft is going very well, but the second part is not going so well in that they are still providing escort to the target.*

2. My second indirect plan is to save strategic materials by building my Bf109G-5/AS out of recycled paper, stuck together with glue made from flour and water. The strengths of the airframes being tested in combat indicate this method is now very common, now all I have to do is get them to stop attacking undisrupted bomber formations! This also appears to be helping production, because my factories are still able to churn out Bf109G-6s, even though production ended (in the sense that there are no more assemblies dedicated to it) months ago! Unfortunately this means not having enough engines for my Bf110G-4/R7s, but you can't have everything.

* seriously, I know the P-51 is a good aircraft but should it be so much better than my Fw190A-8s and Bf109G5/AS so that I can never seem to get a "bounce fighter" result and shoot many down?

[Hard Sarge]

hassle on the first part is, the 51 has some good legs on it, but, the ones you made drop there tanks are going to be turning for home sooner or later (now, in real life, you looking at a plane that could fly 7-8 hour missions, and when needed, could fly 10-11 hour missions)

you are burning up there fuel, but, they got fuel to burn also

* depends on where the combat is happening ? above 20 K, the 51 is going to eat the A-8 for lunch, and the higher it gets, the HARDer chance the A-8 is going to have, of getting the bounce, the G5 is going to be better, but again depends on the Alt (that don't mean bad things don't happen, but...)

(last I seen with your game, you had about a 3-1/4-1 edge in kills, so not sure if things are as bad as you paint them or not ?)

[Erkki]

What I dont get with the P-51 is, that why does it have higher durability than the 109... They were both liquid-cooled, had V engines. And why P51D has higher durability than B, if anything it should have less with its bubble canopy and thus a tad less protection for the pilot. Not sure about this, but didnt B and D also have equal fuel capacity? They dont in BTR, D has considerably better range.

OTOH twins can carry both rockets and gun gondolas simultaneously, which I dont think they did irl! [:D]

EDIT: my bad, seems the D has larger drop tanks in game... Will check what kind of tanks they used, probably both sizes in all types, but I can see why D has the larger ones in game. Durability and maneuverability still bother me though.

[vimconfused]

Hard Sarge - no, the odd thing is that my game isn't going so badly overall. My fighter losses have stepped up dramatically since the P-51B arrived but I'm still getting to the bombers. I think I'm benefiting from having killed so many heavies earlier on, because for the moment at least the allies haven't got the destructive power to do significant and consistent damage to industry. I guess that's where a human opponent might cease operations for a few weeks to rebuild the heavy strength, but the AI keeps coming with raids and taking high proportion of casualties. However, the loss ratios are certainly going more against me than before, and I suspect my overall pilot quality will be down too as I've got a few months of being behind in the technical department.

I've also noticed a steep dropoff in the quality of replacements. My best unit for experience (not kills but overall pilot quality) is oddly enough the Romanian Escadrilla 61. Basically I put a load of allied staffels in the front bases so it didn't matter so much if they got strafed. They flew a lot of missions and some of them did very well. That unit has 7 x 99 experience pilots and four others with minimum 92. They've had 11 pilots for quite some time but today a new guy turned up with all of 20 experience!!!

[Hard Sarge]

well, the new guy, he will gain at least 1 point a day, until 50 (not counting anything that happens in combat, not sure if he gains combat exp it cancels out that one point or not ?)

with a unit like that, he should learn in a hurry

ahhhh, some of the minors units are pretty good

[Erkki]

Hard Sarge, how do pilots gain experience, and can they lose it?

It seems to be at least amount of kills, amount of missions, unit leader and aces in it... How do they affect, are there others?

BTW is sparing my Italian units any useful, ie. are the ones I get back at turn 160 or so one of the Italian squads I used to have, do they consist of same pilots or are they completely new?

[Hard Sarge]

I think Harley may be the only one who truely knows how Exp gains work

but from what I have seen in all my time

combat, getting kills, being attacked and living, being with somebody who made a kill, or was attacked

I have seen wingman who didn't get a kill, get more exp gain, then a pilot who shot down one or two planes get

if starting exp is under 50, you get 1 point a day until 50, then any more gains, need to be combat related

for the reinforcement It units, count them as new and different units and pilots (they may have pilots who are flying at the beginning of the game, but they are different (so somebody like Drago starts the game, and then later comes back, if the first one gets kills, it does not count for the 2nd one, but he would still be an Ace in either case)

[Nicholas Bell]

if starting exp is under 50, you get 1 point a day until 50, then any more gains, need to be combat related

Not 100% correct [:)]    Pilots will continue to gain experience just by flying a mission up to 70 experience points.  I put my training units out of the way in Poland and make them fly patrols daily.  I should really make them fly 2 or 3 missions a day to maximize the effect, because it does take 3-5 missions to add a point or two of experience.  But you can "train up" bad units if you are patient. 

[vimconfused]

I was thinking about this new Romanian guy gaining experience* and this led me to wonder who actually gets to fly? For example in the staffel in question they would rarely have 12 aircraft available to fly, so that some of the pilots won't get to fly either. But how is it decided... is it by experience or by fatigue or some random factor like who gets to the plane first! Would it be different if they had a second sortie on the same day, in which case those who flew earlier would certainly have higher fatigue?

*incidentally he got 3 xp on his first day... he certainly took off with the staffel, the staffel got two kills (although he didn't get one). The overall experience rating of the unit has now dropped to 91... nobody got shot down, its just that now 1/12th of its pilots are rubbish!

Edit: a few days later this guy has got 2xp per day (now 31) but has not flown any more missions, although other members of the staffel have on each day. As a matter of interest, there were only 2 aircraft available for their last mission, and it appears to have been flown by the two *highest ranking* pilots, who do not have the most experience or kills. Could be random of course!

I think the only thing I can conclude is that FNG isn't going to fly unless by some chance there are 12 aircraft serviceable, which isn't going to happen very often. Makes me wonder why they don't deliver a couple of reserve aircraft considering there are a quite a few spares in the pool?

[Erkki]

ORIGINAL: Nicholas Bell

if starting exp is under 50, you get 1 point a day until 50, then any more gains, need to be combat related

Not 100% correct [:)]    Pilots will continue to gain experience just by flying a mission up to 70 experience points.  I put my training units out of the way in Poland and make them fly patrols daily.  I should really make them fly 2 or 3 missions a day to maximize the effect, because it does take 3-5 missions to add a point or two of experience.  But you can "train up" bad units if you are patient. 

Just tried that with my Romanian squads... Dont know if they gained any exp but they wrecked a 109Ga-2 and an IAR81 exp 85 pilot was killed, both in landing accidents, after their first sorties! [:(]

[vimconfused]

I'm going to stop reporting on Escadrilla 61 now. Since I first mentioned it they've lost five pilots all with over 90 experience! Oddly enough the FNG is still alive and has 50xp.

My top Romanian guy (14 kills) was just KIA by a Mosquito of all things! They've only got 9 pilots now and don't seem to get replacements that often, so I think its time to rotate them to some safe area.

Shows how hard it is to maintain a very experienced unit at the front though (particularly an allied smaller unit). One minute they attack with three aircraft and shoot down 2 x B-17G and damage another, and next encounter they lose the top ace to a fighter bomber!

[Hard Sarge]

ahhh, that does seem to be the way things end up working out, when you brag about something, something goes wrong

the Axis Allies do have a replacement rate, and it is not overly too good (I do not know what the numbers are)

on the odd side, remember, that the CW were funny about how they moved there pilots around, you could have some pretty good fighter pilots flying FB, Recon, or even bombers and transports

not easy to take, but was in the wrong place at the wrong time

[HMSWarspite]

ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

ahhh, that does seem to be the way things end up working out, when you brag about something, something goes wrong

the Axis Allies do have a replacement rate, and it is not overly too good (I do not know what the numbers are)

on the odd side, remember, that the CW were funny about how they moved there pilots around, you could have some pretty good fighter pilots flying FB, Recon, or even bombers and transports

not easy to take, but was in the wrong place at the wrong time

Also, the FB Mossies pack a mean punch in forward armament - lose concentration for a second, maybe lining up on a leader, and his wing man will have you toasted in one burst, and be looking for afters

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: Erkki

ORIGINAL: Nicholas Bell

if starting exp is under 50, you get 1 point a day until 50, then any more gains, need to be combat related

Not 100% correct [:)]    Pilots will continue to gain experience just by flying a mission up to 70 experience points.  I put my training units out of the way in Poland and make them fly patrols daily.  I should really make them fly 2 or 3 missions a day to maximize the effect, because it does take 3-5 missions to add a point or two of experience.  But you can "train up" bad units if you are patient. 

Just tried that with my Romanian squads... Dont know if they gained any exp but they wrecked a 109Ga-2 and an IAR81 exp 85 pilot was killed, both in landing accidents, after their first sorties! [:(]

Yeah, I wondered what you were up to on that day given how far away they were from the front-line.