NONSENSE!! Air Combat Idiocy.

[Gaspote]

ORIGINAL: bartrat

Best way to improve morale is stand down the squadron.
No activity reduces fatigue and helps morale.
Another way is assign a better leader (higher leadership and inspire)
I am a newbie, that is the only tricks I know.

What really matter is the leader inspiration skill. Leadership only help for gaining experience.

Although for fighter, destroying ennemy plane in air to air without suffering loss from air to air increase the morale. So perhaps a bombing run on unprotect target, no flak, no CAP will increase morale of bomber ?

[Xargun]

Stand them down a couple days at a base with good supplies and not malarial if possible. Bomber crews need for care for morale than fighters jocks - at least in my experience thats what it seems. Fighter jocks bounce right back from morale losses, but bomber crews have a longer memory and take more time.

[Ralzakark]

"The personnel are obsessed with the idea that a bullet will detonate the bombs and blow up the whole works. If enemy airplanes are seen along the route, all auxillary gas and bombs are immediately jettisoned and the mission abandoned".

Note made by Maj. Gen. Kenney on his tour of Port Moresby upon taking up his command in July 1942 and discovering the poor morale of the units based there. Quoted in Fortress Rabaul, by Bruce Gamble.

[jmalter]

To 'repair' an airgroup, stand down (100% rest) to reduce pilot fatigue to <10%, then train at 100% (range 0, alt <10k') to rebuild pilot morale. If needed, replace the commander - Leadership & Inspiration should both be 55+, Air skill only matters for Fighter types.

Airgroups should always be fully fleshed-out w/ the full complement of pilots (133% of max plane #), this really helps reduce fatigue build-up.

As others have noted, an airgroup w/ morale in the 50s is not ready for prime-time. It's unwise to throw low-quality airgroups into a fight - not only will they continue to degrade their fatigue & morale, they'll suffer more ops-losses of planes & pilots - and you're giving the enemy an increase to his pilots' Experience. That Claude pilot probably gained an Exp point from the action.

[PetrOs]

In real life, such things happened, when the much inferiour fighter would kill or scare off. My greatgrandfather's last two kills were in a badly used I-16 type 5 armed with a pair of 7,62mm MGs only, with his wingman flying another similar rust bucket. The downed german planes were a He-111 and a Me-109F. Frontal attack on the He and probably shot pilot, as He spinned down. Other Heinkels of the same flight were reported to drop the bombs randomly and turn off. Then 'out-of-the-sun' on the Messerschmitt, which caught fire and exploded. Another Bf109F shot him down a few seconds later however, with my greatgrandfather surviving, but very badly injured, never to fly again. 14 bullets... Only surviving as when his plane exploded, his parachute opened, and he landed, unconscious, just a few meters in front of a hospital's air defence bunker - operated immediately.

P.S. It was his 4th and 5th victories of the same day (13th and 14th total), and his 5th lost plane on the same day, too! (Take off in MiG-3, down Ju-88, engine damaged by tail gunner, forced landing on one of Leningrad's central streets, got police car to drive him to base, take off in another MiG, engine jammed on take off, forced landing, take off in yet another MiG, down a Ju-88 and Me-110, bail out with engine on fire, parachute directly to his own runway, take a Yak-1 from another squadron, attacked on take off, damaged but not downed an attacking Me-109, but yet another forced landing. Then the only spare plane on the base was a 10 years old I-16 with half of the guns and armor removed, used as liaison and training plane...)

[kjnoel]

This forum is so friendly it never ceases to amaze me... even in the face of extreme provocation. I love WitpAE and the community [:)]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: PetrOs

In real life, such things happened, when the much inferiour fighter would kill or scare off. My greatgrandfather's last two kills were in a badly used I-16 type 5 armed with a pair of 7,62mm MGs only, with his wingman flying another similar rust bucket. The downed german planes were a He-111 and a Me-109F. Frontal attack on the He and probably shot pilot, as He spinned down. Other Heinkels of the same flight were reported to drop the bombs randomly and turn off. Then 'out-of-the-sun' on the Messerschmitt, which caught fire and exploded. Another Bf109F shot him down a few seconds later however, with my greatgrandfather surviving, but very badly injured, never to fly again. 14 bullets... Only surviving as when his plane exploded, his parachute opened, and he landed, unconscious, just a few meters in front of a hospital's air defence bunker - operated immediately.

P.S. It was his 4th and 5th victories of the same day (13th and 14th total), and his 5th lost plane on the same day, too! (Take off in MiG-3, down Ju-88, engine damaged by tail gunner, forced landing on one of Leningrad's central streets, got police car to drive him to base, take off in another MiG, engine jammed on take off, forced landing, take off in yet another MiG, down a Ju-88 and Me-110, bail out with engine on fire, parachute directly to his own runway, take a Yak-1 from another squadron, attacked on take off, damaged but not downed an attacking Me-109, but yet another forced landing. Then the only spare plane on the base was a 10 years old I-16 with half of the guns and armor removed, used as liaison and training plane...)

In a decade of posting here this may be the single best story I've ever read! [:)]

[Werewolf13]

ORIGINAL: PetrOs

In real life, such things happened, when the much inferiour fighter would kill or scare off. My greatgrandfather's last two kills were in a badly used I-16 type 5 armed with a pair of 7,62mm MGs only, with his wingman flying another similar rust bucket. The downed german planes were a He-111 and a Me-109F. Frontal attack on the He and probably shot pilot, as He spinned down. Other Heinkels of the same flight were reported to drop the bombs randomly and turn off. Then 'out-of-the-sun' on the Messerschmitt, which caught fire and exploded. Another Bf109F shot him down a few seconds later however, with my greatgrandfather surviving, but very badly injured, never to fly again. 14 bullets... Only surviving as when his plane exploded, his parachute opened, and he landed, unconscious, just a few meters in front of a hospital's air defence bunker - operated immediately.

P.S. It was his 4th and 5th victories of the same day (13th and 14th total), and his 5th lost plane on the same day, too! (Take off in MiG-3, down Ju-88, engine damaged by tail gunner, forced landing on one of Leningrad's central streets, got police car to drive him to base, take off in another MiG, engine jammed on take off, forced landing, take off in yet another MiG, down a Ju-88 and Me-110, bail out with engine on fire, parachute directly to his own runway, take a Yak-1 from another squadron, attacked on take off, damaged but not downed an attacking Me-109, but yet another forced landing. Then the only spare plane on the base was a 10 years old I-16 with half of the guns and armor removed, used as liaison and training plane...)

The term HERO is so easily tossed around these days that IMO it has lost all meaning.

But DAMN!

Your grandfather was a 100% died in the wool all out HERO! And I'd say that even if he'd been shootin' down Americans instead of Germans.

[Spurius Evidens]

ORIGINAL: kjnoel

This forum is so friendly it never ceases to amaze me... even in the face of extreme provocation. I love WitpAE and the community [:)]

There seems to be a fairly direct correlation between the complexity of a game and it's purveyors. Plenty of old farts like myself I imagine that have little need to score cheap points. There's something to be said for falling testosterone levels IMHO.

I only discovered Matrix games about 18 months ago, and very pleased I was about it. I couldn't find my sort of game anywhere and was still firing up old DOS based stuff from SSI and the like. Like a boy in a toy shop I was, and I've bought WitPAE, WitE, CWII, Espania 1936, all the Command Ops stuff and Flashpoint:Red Storm since. Should keep me amused for a while...........Never happier than when blowing stuff up operationally/strategically. Too old and too slow these days for that FPS stuff. Never was into it really.

[Spurius Evidens]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: PetrOs

In real life, such things happened, when the much inferiour fighter would kill or scare off. My greatgrandfather's last two kills were in a badly used I-16 type 5 armed with a pair of 7,62mm MGs only, with his wingman flying another similar rust bucket. The downed german planes were a He-111 and a Me-109F. Frontal attack on the He and probably shot pilot, as He spinned down. Other Heinkels of the same flight were reported to drop the bombs randomly and turn off. Then 'out-of-the-sun' on the Messerschmitt, which caught fire and exploded. Another Bf109F shot him down a few seconds later however, with my greatgrandfather surviving, but very badly injured, never to fly again. 14 bullets... Only surviving as when his plane exploded, his parachute opened, and he landed, unconscious, just a few meters in front of a hospital's air defence bunker - operated immediately.

P.S. It was his 4th and 5th victories of the same day (13th and 14th total), and his 5th lost plane on the same day, too! (Take off in MiG-3, down Ju-88, engine damaged by tail gunner, forced landing on one of Leningrad's central streets, got police car to drive him to base, take off in another MiG, engine jammed on take off, forced landing, take off in yet another MiG, down a Ju-88 and Me-110, bail out with engine on fire, parachute directly to his own runway, take a Yak-1 from another squadron, attacked on take off, damaged but not downed an attacking Me-109, but yet another forced landing. Then the only spare plane on the base was a 10 years old I-16 with half of the guns and armor removed, used as liaison and training plane...)

In a decade of posting here this may be the single best story I've ever read! [:)]

Yeah, a bit of an overachiever that Great Grandfather of his. Can't match that, Great Grandfather was a transport driver in France with the ANZAC Corps WWI (invalided out after a mustard gas attack, never the same again), and a Grandfather ground crew on Morotai with the RAAF WWII. Was still proud of them of course, they did what was asked of them.

[chazz]

Thanks 4 the feedback, guys. The anecdotal stuff helps- it makes sense, and, being a lover of reason it makes sense to me.

I also understand that "nothing breeds success like success". So I'm going to pull these B-17's out of the firing line and give them something that they can do.

[AW1Steve]

Just as a note...in 1941 the USA gave the UK a dozen or so B-17d's. They were sent over with the instructions to use them as a conversion trainer to train crews to be ready for the B-17E's that the US would soon be sending over. The RAF ignored the USAAF , and immediately sent them on a daylight bombing raid over Germany. The B-17d's were slaughtered. The RAF ruled the B-17 useless in combat , and used any others they received as Coastal Command patrol planes. Even B-17E's and F's.

Even highly trained , experienced RAF crews couldn't make the plane do what it should not have done. Use the early B-17's as long range RECON planes , Patrol planes with a 22 square range , or simply as crew trainers. Or even as night bombers. You'll be glad you did.[:)]

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: PetrOs

In real life, such things happened, when the much inferiour fighter would kill or scare off. My greatgrandfather's last two kills were in a badly used I-16 type 5 armed with a pair of 7,62mm MGs only, with his wingman flying another similar rust bucket. The downed german planes were a He-111 and a Me-109F. Frontal attack on the He and probably shot pilot, as He spinned down. Other Heinkels of the same flight were reported to drop the bombs randomly and turn off. Then 'out-of-the-sun' on the Messerschmitt, which caught fire and exploded. Another Bf109F shot him down a few seconds later however, with my greatgrandfather surviving, but very badly injured, never to fly again. 14 bullets... Only surviving as when his plane exploded, his parachute opened, and he landed, unconscious, just a few meters in front of a hospital's air defence bunker - operated immediately.

P.S. It was his 4th and 5th victories of the same day (13th and 14th total), and his 5th lost plane on the same day, too! (Take off in MiG-3, down Ju-88, engine damaged by tail gunner, forced landing on one of Leningrad's central streets, got police car to drive him to base, take off in another MiG, engine jammed on take off, forced landing, take off in yet another MiG, down a Ju-88 and Me-110, bail out with engine on fire, parachute directly to his own runway, take a Yak-1 from another squadron, attacked on take off, damaged but not downed an attacking Me-109, but yet another forced landing. Then the only spare plane on the base was a 10 years old I-16 with half of the guns and armor removed, used as liaison and training plane...)

In a decade of posting here this may be the single best story I've ever read! [:)]

Plus 1.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: PetrOs

In real life, such things happened, when the much inferiour fighter would kill or scare off. My greatgrandfather's last two kills were in a badly used I-16 type 5 armed with a pair of 7,62mm MGs only, with his wingman flying another similar rust bucket. The downed german planes were a He-111 and a Me-109F. Frontal attack on the He and probably shot pilot, as He spinned down. Other Heinkels of the same flight were reported to drop the bombs randomly and turn off. Then 'out-of-the-sun' on the Messerschmitt, which caught fire and exploded. Another Bf109F shot him down a few seconds later however, with my greatgrandfather surviving, but very badly injured, never to fly again. 14 bullets... Only surviving as when his plane exploded, his parachute opened, and he landed, unconscious, just a few meters in front of a hospital's air defence bunker - operated immediately.

P.S. It was his 4th and 5th victories of the same day (13th and 14th total), and his 5th lost plane on the same day, too! (Take off in MiG-3, down Ju-88, engine damaged by tail gunner, forced landing on one of Leningrad's central streets, got police car to drive him to base, take off in another MiG, engine jammed on take off, forced landing, take off in yet another MiG, down a Ju-88 and Me-110, bail out with engine on fire, parachute directly to his own runway, take a Yak-1 from another squadron, attacked on take off, damaged but not downed an attacking Me-109, but yet another forced landing. Then the only spare plane on the base was a 10 years old I-16 with half of the guns and armor removed, used as liaison and training plane...)

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
In a decade of posting here this may be the single best story I've ever read! [:)]

ORIGINAL: Spurius Evidens
Yeah, a bit of an overachiever that Great Grandfather of his. Can't match that, Great Grandfather was a transport driver in France with the ANZAC Corps WWI (invalided out after a mustard gas attack, never the same again), and a Grandfather ground crew on Morotai with the RAAF WWII. Was still proud of them of course, they did what was asked of them.

I agree, quite a story. The Soviets faced adversities in the first year of the war that the western Allies rarely did. The Germans destroyed a large number of aircraft on the ground in the first week, but the Soviets fought on with obsolete and obsolescent fighters.

Heinlein defined a hero as someone who knows exactly what the risks are, but goes and does them anyway. I think that's a fairly good definition IMO.

Over the last 200 years I can't claim any such military heroism. Only two men have been in the military since the American Revolution that I know of. One grandfather drove ambulances in France in WW I and the other was too old for WW I. My father was in the USAAF in WW II.

Anyway, back to the original topic. All sorts of oddities happened in the real war. Knavvy hasn't been around for a while, but he would create fake combat reports in the game's format, but they were real world events and then he would claim the game was broken. He used to get people who were new all worked up about a newly found bug and all the old timers who knew his trickster ways would be laughing at yet again finding a bug in reality.

Bill

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

Even highly trained , experienced RAF crews couldn't make the plane do what it should not have done. Use the early B-17's as long range RECON planes , Patrol planes with a 22 square range , or simply as crew trainers. Or even as night bombers. You'll be glad you did.[:)]

I used the extra range to bomb the snot out of a bunch of oil fields. Is that OK? [:'(]

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: bartrat

Best way to improve morale is stand down the squadron.
No activity reduces fatigue and helps morale.
Another way is assign a better leader (higher leadership and inspire)
I am a newbie, that is the only tricks I know.

...and send them out the front line to a large well stocked base.

If you think the losses are going to be unacceptable use the unit for training in that base until you get better a/c or, when morale improves, use them at night.

[Czert]

ORIGINAL: PetrOs

In real life, such things happened, when the much inferiour fighter would kill or scare off. My greatgrandfather's last two kills were in a badly used I-16 type 5 armed with a pair of 7,62mm MGs only, with his wingman flying another similar rust bucket. The downed german planes were a He-111 and a Me-109F. Frontal attack on the He and probably shot pilot, as He spinned down. Other Heinkels of the same flight were reported to drop the bombs randomly and turn off. Then 'out-of-the-sun' on the Messerschmitt, which caught fire and exploded. Another Bf109F shot him down a few seconds later however, with my greatgrandfather surviving, but very badly injured, never to fly again. 14 bullets... Only surviving as when his plane exploded, his parachute opened, and he landed, unconscious, just a few meters in front of a hospital's air defence bunker - operated immediately.

P.S. It was his 4th and 5th victories of the same day (13th and 14th total), and his 5th lost plane on the same day, too! (Take off in MiG-3, down Ju-88, engine damaged by tail gunner, forced landing on one of Leningrad's central streets, got police car to drive him to base, take off in another MiG, engine jammed on take off, forced landing, take off in yet another MiG, down a Ju-88 and Me-110, bail out with engine on fire, parachute directly to his own runway, take a Yak-1 from another squadron, attacked on take off, damaged but not downed an attacking Me-109, but yet another forced landing. Then the only spare plane on the base was a 10 years old I-16 with half of the guns and armor removed, used as liaison and training plane...)

Wow, amazing story. Your greatgrantfather will most likely dont tell more stories, but it is here way to read more about him ? You should consider creating wiki page about him, since it will be great shame to lose stories like this. I must admire his courage - lose so many planes under him in one day and still be eager to fight and fly. And that how he was rescued ? how big chances are for that ?
Just finished reading story book about one-eyed sturmovik pilot, and will love to read about this pilot too.

[PetrOs]

ORIGINAL: czert2

ORIGINAL: PetrOs

In real life, such things happened, when the much inferiour fighter would kill or scare off. My greatgrandfather's last two kills were in a badly used I-16 type 5 armed with a pair of 7,62mm MGs only, with his wingman flying another similar rust bucket. The downed german planes were a He-111 and a Me-109F. Frontal attack on the He and probably shot pilot, as He spinned down. Other Heinkels of the same flight were reported to drop the bombs randomly and turn off. Then 'out-of-the-sun' on the Messerschmitt, which caught fire and exploded. Another Bf109F shot him down a few seconds later however, with my greatgrandfather surviving, but very badly injured, never to fly again. 14 bullets... Only surviving as when his plane exploded, his parachute opened, and he landed, unconscious, just a few meters in front of a hospital's air defence bunker - operated immediately.

P.S. It was his 4th and 5th victories of the same day (13th and 14th total), and his 5th lost plane on the same day, too! (Take off in MiG-3, down Ju-88, engine damaged by tail gunner, forced landing on one of Leningrad's central streets, got police car to drive him to base, take off in another MiG, engine jammed on take off, forced landing, take off in yet another MiG, down a Ju-88 and Me-110, bail out with engine on fire, parachute directly to his own runway, take a Yak-1 from another squadron, attacked on take off, damaged but not downed an attacking Me-109, but yet another forced landing. Then the only spare plane on the base was a 10 years old I-16 with half of the guns and armor removed, used as liaison and training plane...)

Wow, amazing story. Your greatgrantfather will most likely dont tell more stories, but it is here way to read more about him ? You should consider creating wiki page about him, since it will be great shame to lose stories like this. I must admire his courage - lose so many planes under him in one day and still be eager to fight and fly. And that how he was rescued ? how big chances are for that ?
Just finished reading story book about one-eyed sturmovik pilot, and will love to read about this pilot too.

Thanks! April 42, when it happened, was a quite hard time for the russians around Leningrad, there was no lack of targets, but also no lack of very dangerous enemies those days. Most of his regiment (5th IAP KBF, later renamed to 3rd Guards IAP KBF - IAP KBF means Fighter Aviation Regiment, Red banner Baltic Fleet - naval/marine fighters) was lost in this time, but not without some significant successes.
As I am not a good writer, I rather let my models (my main hobby is ship and aviation modeling) speak, and I built a few of his and his regiment's comrades aircrafts, I also spent over 10 years researching his career, as he died when I was still a kindergarten-aged kid, and many his documents got damaged or destroyed in a fire at my grandparents' house...

Personal mounts:
I-16 with which he started the war. It was a newer Type 28. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/inde ... h-iap-kbf/

MiG-3 "Bomber Basher" field mod, one he used in winter 41-42. Field rearmament to 2 20mm nose cannons, 2 12.7 mm HMGs in wing pods, and a battery of RS-82 rockets. Plane types listed in this model's articles are wrong, I got these clarified later with the russian state archive. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/inde ... trumpeter/

P-47 "Bubble top" - his illegal kill's mount. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/inde ... trumpeter/ He returned to his regiment in 43 as a non-flying political officer (rather as an educator/mentor, as skilled pilots were not many, and he had a lot of experience in the first war year). By late 44 he was "illegally" flying some training sorties, as he was offcially not deemed fit to combat. As his regiment received a pair of T-bolts for evaluation, he was evaluating it with another guy in Yak-9 flying cover. They were jumped by a pair of Fw190s, one of which was shot down by the T-Bolt. As however he was not legally flying, the kill was logged for his wingman (who also fired a burst in that Fw, so participated).

Regiment:
Hawker Hurryton II - russian rearmed (2 20mm, 2 12.7mm) RAF second hand Hurricane. 3rd GVIAP got a batch of these in late april 42, after they ran out of a mix of Mig-3/Yak-1/Lagg-3/I-16 which were employed in winter 42. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/inde ... ton-mkiic/

[oldman45]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: PetrOs

In real life, such things happened, when the much inferiour fighter would kill or scare off. My greatgrandfather's last two kills were in a badly used I-16 type 5 armed with a pair of 7,62mm MGs only, with his wingman flying another similar rust bucket. The downed german planes were a He-111 and a Me-109F. Frontal attack on the He and probably shot pilot, as He spinned down. Other Heinkels of the same flight were reported to drop the bombs randomly and turn off. Then 'out-of-the-sun' on the Messerschmitt, which caught fire and exploded. Another Bf109F shot him down a few seconds later however, with my greatgrandfather surviving, but very badly injured, never to fly again. 14 bullets... Only surviving as when his plane exploded, his parachute opened, and he landed, unconscious, just a few meters in front of a hospital's air defence bunker - operated immediately.

P.S. It was his 4th and 5th victories of the same day (13th and 14th total), and his 5th lost plane on the same day, too! (Take off in MiG-3, down Ju-88, engine damaged by tail gunner, forced landing on one of Leningrad's central streets, got police car to drive him to base, take off in another MiG, engine jammed on take off, forced landing, take off in yet another MiG, down a Ju-88 and Me-110, bail out with engine on fire, parachute directly to his own runway, take a Yak-1 from another squadron, attacked on take off, damaged but not downed an attacking Me-109, but yet another forced landing. Then the only spare plane on the base was a 10 years old I-16 with half of the guns and armor removed, used as liaison and training plane...)

In a decade of posting here this may be the single best story I've ever read! [:)]

I will second this. On another point, I will bet that his great grandfather along with so many hero's of the day never thought of themselves as hero's, just doing their job. Thank goodness what when there is a time of need, men and women such as him stand up when its needed.

[Rising-Sun]

Possible bad weathers, cant seem to find the targets and/or bad morale. Doing long-range bombing runs, does eat up your fatigues badly. I seen very few of these, but rarely.