Russian Air Force Morale Ratings: the secret of success

[el cid again]

Did you notice those ancient Russian biplanes eating up Japanese fighters?
Turns out it isn't because they have twice as many forward guns - which after all
remain rifle caliber. Rather it is because of a data trick put in either by a Russian
fan boy or on purpose to insure a 1945 offensive success. After all, in stock and in most mods the Russians are not active in 1941, so few get to see them in action.
In Test 4B Big Red was so impressed he said Russia should consider going to war - surely it would clean up - with those lopsided air combat results.

Well - there is a reason for the outcomes. Seems the Russians have better pilots than - well - anybody! Typical Russian air groups have ratings of 50, or 65, with several at 75. And the Russian default value - rarely used in stock because few units have 0 in the experience field - is right up there with the rest - same as USAAF for example. It is irritating - doubly so because correcting it is a tedious task multiplied by 5 when you manage 5 scenarios - and I want to stop development. But never mind - it is too big a problem to ignore. I regard every test, every game in stock or most mods (because most preserve the stock unit experience data and pilot ratings) as fatally flawed - it needs to be addressed. So I took the time, not merely to fix it, but to get a sense of what the data should be. And I was conservative in my ratings. Sure enough, the Russians often had high performance planes - but horrible loss ratios. There are exceptions - and over time - the experience ratings should go up. [Indeed they do - from 50 to 65 and 75. But those values are better than IJN, the most experienced and overtrained air force in the world in 1941.]

Since we have more than one scenario, and know if the Russians are active or passive in 1941, we also have the option to change the default value of pilots when the unit is set to zero. For the Russian passive scenarios - where players cannot control the training rate - I set the base value 50% higher than in the Russian active scenarios. But even so, it is lower than in stock. And never mind my ratings are 20 or 30 - they are probably high. I suspect the base should be 15 for a stock like Russian passive scenario - to get something close to the historical performance. But is it wiser to avoid extreme changes and see how things work. For units appearing in 1945, where stock rates them uniformly at 65 (unless 75) - I decided a drop of 20 points to 45 was a good first pass approximation. It too is probably too high - but 45 insures a good performance by a unit - and by 1945 there are a lot of veterans in the Red Air Force - and by the offensive in summer - no longer Germans to fight. It is right up there with other Allied air forces. For the five cases of 75 - every one a DC-3 unit - I rated them at 50 - higher still - in case there was some justification for those ratings being higher than the rest. [Note that two of those units are not transport units, but bombers. And the other three are offensive, armed transports with a top turret - used by airborne over enemy territory. Their ratings may be useful. In RHS the Soviets have four different kinds of DC-3 derived designs - including a regular transport (more cargo and range, no guns), an armed transport, a long range recon plane, and a bomber).]

[YankeeAirRat]

Have you considered that maybe the Russians were better pilots then even the Japanese? There were a number of Russians who flew in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 until 1938 as part of support squadrons to the Republican side, then you have the Soviet-Finn Wars of the late 1930's through till just after Barbarosa, finally you have the Soviet-Japanese Border War from 1932 till 1941 when the neturality aggreements were signed but as a history professor of mine put it both sides had aggressive leadership that lead to shooting incidents that "weren't reported and therefor didn't violate the neturality. We also have the Soviet invasion of Red China in 1934 during the Xinjaing Incident which after the Soviet gained control was followed by the Ili Rebellion and numerous aircraft being involved with all of these engagments from the Aviation Regiements that were in the region at the time. Add in that even though the Soviet Red Army Air Forces were chewing up the Luftwaffe post 1943, it was just like the War in the Pacific a situtation of attrition. The Red Army Air Force simply had numbers over the Luftwaffe and they had to be trained someplace place. Most of the training sites prior to 1942 were more then likely in the Far East states. I haven't researched the Soviet Air Forces in World War 2 that much, but considering how aggressive Stalin was in spreading the word of Stalin around and considering how aggressive he was in general; it wouldn't have suprised me to see the designers rate the Red Army Air Forces higher.

The simplier explination is at the opening of your statement. To quote "El Cid Again":

...on purpose to insure a 1945 offensive success

, more then likely due to limitations of the game engine and to allow a historical even to occur the designers over powered the Red Army and Red Army Air Forces so they could gain control of Manchuria in August of 1945 right off the bat. So realistically what would be gained by downgrading them and then adding to the player's workload to track the training of the Red Army Aviation units? IMHO, there is no gain so why fiddle with it?

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: YankeeAirRat

Have you considered that maybe the Russians were better pilots then even the Japanese? There were a number of Russians who flew in the Spanish Civil War from 1936 until 1938 as part of support squadrons to the Republican side, then you have the Soviet-Finn Wars of the late 1930's through till just after Barbarosa, finally you have the Soviet-Japanese Border War from 1932 till 1941 when the neturality aggreements were signed but as a history professor of mine put it both sides had aggressive leadership that lead to shooting incidents that "weren't reported and therefor didn't violate the neturality. We also have the Soviet invasion of Red China in 1934 during the Xinjaing Incident which after the Soviet gained control was followed by the Ili Rebellion and numerous aircraft being involved with all of these engagments from the Aviation Regiements that were in the region at the time. Add in that even though the Soviet Red Army Air Forces were chewing up the Luftwaffe post 1943, it was just like the War in the Pacific a situtation of attrition. The Red Army Air Force simply had numbers over the Luftwaffe and they had to be trained someplace place. Most of the training sites prior to 1942 were more then likely in the Far East states. I haven't researched the Soviet Air Forces in World War 2 that much, but considering how aggressive Stalin was in spreading the word of Stalin around and considering how aggressive he was in general; it wouldn't have suprised me to see the designers rate the Red Army Air Forces higher.

The simplier explination is at the opening of your statement. To quote "El Cid Again":

...on purpose to insure a 1945 offensive success

, more then likely due to limitations of the game engine and to allow a historical even to occur the designers over powered the Red Army and Red Army Air Forces so they could gain control of Manchuria in August of 1945 right off the bat. So realistically what would be gained by downgrading them and then adding to the player's workload to track the training of the Red Army Aviation units? IMHO, there is no gain so why fiddle with it?

If you go with a scenario where the Russians are active from the start, it does skew it badly. Really need to take into consideration whether or not the Soviets will be active early or not and balance it out from there.