Experience vs Machine Performance

[Tristanjohn]

The thing is UV has the Japanese flying superior aircraft with superior pilots under superior leadership; even goes so far as to "model" Allied USN/USMC pilots/planes as starting a given scenario (#14 leaps readily to mind in this regard) fatigued and with seriously-low morale, so you see it isn't as if one were just trying to maintain some healthy balance in play with the game but rather it is very much more the case that one is attempting to affect a reasonably historic model balance for the first time.

It gets a little old after a while. This taking an item you don't like and then distorting it.

I happen to be accurate. It is you who distorts, Mogami. Big difference. In fact exactly opposite from what you claim.

I wonder why?

And you distort for the reason you're an apologist for the system and in denial. I, on the other hand, am a free agent and I am only trying to make the game better. But then I'm not concerned with being "loyal" to Matrix and 2by3 and so I guess I can "afford" to be somewhat more . . . honest?

In Scenario 14 for those of you who don't know the 3 USN CV have morale from 60 to the mid 70's on turn 1. By turn 4 the first of the 12 Airgroups hits 99 morale.

Is that a fact? Well now, let's just see how the numbers in the game actually read and leave the forum to form its own judgment.


The Poop



The American CV fighter pilots in Scenario #14 start with the following values for Fatigue/Morale/Experience:[indent]Wasp: 14/63/80
Enterprise: 12/60/81
Saratoga: 13/62/80

Note: The leadership ratings for these three USN carrier-based fighter squadrons, the best America had, mind you, run respectively (Leadership/Inspiration) 66/78, 59/71, 65/71.

[/indent]In our current test of Scenario #14 I have just completed and sent to you via email the Allied 5 August 42 turn and no American CV pilot when I exited the game enjoyed a morale higher than 71, that squadron belonging to Wasp.

Thank you very much.

The Seagull section attached to Chicago (I believe it's Chicago but the specific cruiser name isn't important) has just now reduced its fatigue to 0 and its morale stands at . . . 23.

Hello?

In my experience that one's ready to fight around the middle of September.

The USMC flyboys in both Noumea and Luganville start the game with the same 12-14 range of fatigue as do all USN pilots and in two cases are imagined to have entered the war with much lower morale than their Navy counterparts.

The USMC Dauntless squadron in Noumea starts out 12/52/57 with its squadron commander rated 59/56. The USMC fighter squadrons begin 13/56/72 and 13/69/73 with their squadron leaders rated at 58/63 and 69/61.

I find that especially remarkable for at this juncture of the war it is quite probably the case that the United States Marine Corps had the highest across-the-board morale of any country's military service in the world. But not in UV for that just wouldn't square with the pro-Japanese early-war bias. So, it's "modeled" as if Marine-aviator ranks were fleshed out with poorly-trained draft-dodger types.

Great show, Mogami.

The ratings for USN dive-bomber and torpedo-bomber squadrons are somewhat better, but the highest morale found within these ranks is the 81 assigned to VB-6 on Enterprise, the lowest 64 for VT-7 (Avenger) on Wasp.

The morale ratings for the other two carriers' torpedo-bomber squadrons are 65 and 66 for "Sara" and "The Big E" respectively.

Even one of the Wasp dive-bomber squadrons comes onto the board rated only 64 for morale (VS-72).

The highest Experience rating for any of these squadrons would be the 81 scores assigned to one Dauntless unit each on Enterprise and Saratoga. All the rest are in the seventies.

All AAF units are in the 50's and 60's across the board, including their commanders' ratings for Leadership and Inspiration. One RAAF P-40 suqadron comes on with 71 Morale and 69 Experience, its commander rated 70/71. That's the best of all, of course, and by a good margin for land-based Allied air assets. The worst is probably the AAF P-39 squadron rated 13/50/60 with its commander standing at 58/53.

There is no combat before the 9th or 10th.

There might very well be combat before the 9th or 10th, though given this dubious start with regard to the condition of its units I as the Allied commander never would dream of rushing into combat. It's bad enough facing the super"Zero" and super"Betty" and super"Nell" and super"Kate" and all that without doing so with "bummed-out" air crews suffering from "the shakes."

TJ overlooks the fact that many of the groups are short on aircraft that arrive while the groups rest.

What I've seen is that several Allied land-based fight squadrons arrive with what seems to be superfulous pilot allocations. One group starts in PM I think it is with 40 pilots, isn't that correct? (I don't say it is and I'm not going to check as long an argument fails to develop. For sure at least one squadron of P-39's does, though.)

The B-17 units (all of these with the sole exception of one) start with pathetic pilots and mostly hopeless-to-mediocre leadership) arrive short planes, if that's what you mean.

Also they all have surplus pilots.

Some do, some do not.

(So the groups do not get rookies) It appears to me the groups are being reorganized. They certainly do not suffer in any combat as a result. TJ implies these USN pilots are being exposed to the Japanese while suffering under low settings.

I didn't say that. I said that they come on board with low morale. I've further indicated I wouldn't fight them that way. I have written in the past that my effort is to explore whether or not the system can reproduce historical results consistently with the Allied side employing historical methods of advance. One problem that occurs fast is that USN carrier-borne fighter squadrons are then forced into combat with reduced ratings, especially Enterprise, and that this can cause problems around Guadacanal if the Japanese choose to oppose the (conventional in my case) landings there.

(There are 24 Operating A6M2 on the map on turn 1. and 10 A6M3. These groups are 10-15 points higher in morale but there is no way for any combat to take place.

What the hell are you talking about? I've produced AARs from just such combat, and unless you choose to lie in the weeds out of some effort to completely defeat the purpose and confound the spirit of our "test" PBEM game yet another combat's gonna take place around Guadacanal and once again the Japanese will be flying superior aircraft with superior pilots versus American inferior aircraft driven by inferior (and bummed out ) pilots.

Big surprise why I get ahistorical results!

I'm convinced the rest of you people have either never bothered to play the system historically, or if you ever did bother it was so long ago and you're all in such deep collective denial anyway about what actually works in there and what doesn't that you "cannot" remember.

Or entirely more likely you do not want to remember, but let us not have any unpleasantness in the forum today.

TJ knows no combat will take place before the Allied player decides.

I never wrote otherwise.

These settings have no impact on the historic model balance.

They have quite a bit to do with the play balance if the Allied player chooses to follow the historical timeline.

Using them only shows TJ doesn't know what he is talking about or he will stoop to anything to prove his point.

Let's see. I am "stooping" to the truth here? Your "numbers" make better sense than mine?

Why would you say such a thing? Anyone who has the game can go in there for himself and verify that what I've just written is true and also verify that what you've just written is hogwash.

And that's giving you the benefit of the doubt, Mogami, because if it ain't "hogwash" then it has to be something worse still. As in "an attempt to mislead people in the forum" or something similar. And I don't go for that at all.

(What OOB settings have to do with the model is also beyond me. Since these OOB setting change every turn and the USN airgroups will be 99 morale 0 fatigue when they enter enemy airspace.)

Sure, if the Allied player cares to wait long enough, say, until around the middle of September to bring that poor Seagull section up to speed. (Hey, good psychotherapy takes time. )

He has posted his own errors on more then one occasion as examples of UV being flawed. Where he gets the idea that there is an added "Japanese bonus" early in the games is silly. (Go load scenario 14 yourselves and look at the bias in action)

We finally see eye to eye. Yes, by all means players ought to famiiarize themselves with the details of the game . . . before they deliver themselves to opinion on how well it works and what changes should be made and all that.

The A6M2 had longer range.

This was its one absolute advantage.

The pilots were good and as of the period where most long scenarios begin undefeated.

Wrong. The Japanese had at the time of Scenario #14 been checked at Coral Sea and utterly ravaged at Midway.

The USN pilots are just as good. Look for yourself for once TJ and then shut up. (load scenario 14 H2H look at the Japanese pilots then look at your USN pilots, then shut up)

And then we are asked to end up on that idiocy.

Please. I want my sternest detractors, I demand that my most stern detractors go into the game and check the figures I've just cited for Allied ratings, then come back here and tell everyone if I made it up or not.

His real beef with the makeup removed is the Japanese player is not forced into making futile air attacks and being wiped out. He is carefull to omit the fact that the real bias in the game works against the Japanese. On Aug 7th the Japanese player can not tell Tanaka to go defeat the larger USN surface force on the night of the 8th. There is nothing in the game that defeats the USN that night. It might happen butit might also be a total defeat of the Japanese TF.

That is true and points to a weakness (make that a grave weakness) of the naval model. But then I've already mentioned this a dozen times . . . that basically the entire game model is ca-ca.

I'll tell you why units have the settings and levels they do in any scenario.

All units are May 1 1942 status. When you make a new scenario you select a new starting date and then add units. The units keep the same numbers. As a result at the start of any scenario there is a period in which all the units "adjust"

Airgroups short of aircraft in May 1942 get replacements. Airgroups with low morale recover. Fatigue works off. These things have no impact on any of the scenarios because no combat occurs. They are not "implanted bias" they are just a side effect of the way scenarios are built. Anyone who wants to can edit specific scenarios to raise levels at start. (but why bother the game will restore the units by the time they are used in combat)

There's a lot more wrong in the game than slipshod editing of scenarios, Mogami, but at least we've now come round to admitting that the provided scenarios as they stand make not a whit of sense. Another old complaint of mine.

A sort of progress at that.

[mogami]

Hi, As the Japanese I always retain the fantasy I can destroy allied airgroups.
Not by air to air but by trapping them on a base I then capture.
Not very likely but still when ever I see large numbers of enemy airgroups located in a single hex my eyes get misty and I start sending recon to count the land troops. Nothing is finer in UV then an allied player who loads up Port Moresby in May with B-17 groups and medium bombers. (That he can't even keep in supply)
When you destroy several hundred allied aircraft on one base in UV the rest of the game takes on a totally new charactor.

The dream is in early 1942 to locate the base where the allied build up is taking place and hammer it. (Bombardment TF's) Even if you can't take the place you can make the allied airgroups very unhappy and if you can keep their base closed you can exploit the situation else where. (because the allied airpower is shut down for a while)

Easier said then done but still the root of all my plans.

[Mike Scholl]

Hi, As the Japanese I always retain the fantasy I can destroy allied airgroups.
Not by air to air but by trapping them on a base I then capture.
Not very likely but still when ever I see large numbers of enemy airgroups located in a single hex my eyes get misty and I start sending recon to count the land troops. Nothing is finer in UV then an allied player who loads up Port Moresby in May with B-17 groups and medium bombers. (That he can't even keep in supply)
When you destroy several hundred allied aircraft on one base in UV the rest of the game takes on a totally new charactor.

The dream is in early 1942 to locate the base where the allied build up is taking place and hammer it. (Bombardment TF's) Even if you can't take the place you can make the allied airgroups very unhappy and if you can keep their base closed you can exploit the situation else where. (because the allied airpower is shut down for a while)

Easier said then done but still the root of all my plans.

MOGAMI Actually, you are pointing up the advantages to be gained by exploiting
one of the "gameyist" aspects of UV/WitP. The ability to utterly "close" an air
base of any significant size even to the point of preventing aircraft evacuation.
Want to show me the historical examples of where this "miracle" occurred?
You can "beat up" the facilities of a base, and destroy aircraft on the ground,
but as long as there is night and bad weather it should be impossible to keep
an airbase from repairing enough runway to transfer aircraft out. The game(s),
especially with the inflated results of night naval bombardments, make this
situation possible, and it's something the designers need to fix.

[Nikademus]

Mike,

The 'close base' facet of airfield attack has been eliminated from the WitP Alpha.

[mogami]

Hi, Prehaps I should not have used the word closed. It is enough to damage a large portion of the enemy aircraft (they will be destroyed when base falls.)
I should be clear that it is still possible (and my intent) to reduce operations from an airfield enough to allow me to continue operations unhampered by it.
If the groups can not fly offensive operations because the majority of the aircraft are destroyed or damaged I consider the base to be closed. (still looking for a better word)

There are many changes from UV model (you can always flyout servicable aircraft.) However if the base is located on an Atoll combat occurs as soon as the troops land. (before aircraft get a chance to escape) Paratroops also attack as soon as they land. Any airfield without a garrison risks attack by airborne troops.

Even in UV large airfields are nearly impossible to close (stop air ops)
If you place engineer units on a large airfield it will not lose air ops unless it is hit very hard repeated times in a very short period.

[Mike Scholl]

Mike,

The 'close base' facet of airfield attack has been eliminated from the WitP Alpha.

So I'm not the only one who found that situation idiotic? Fantastic! Now, when
are they going to bring the inflated results of "High Speed Night Bombardment
by Ships" into the realms of reality?

[Nikademus]

So I'm not the only one who found that situation idiotic? Fantastic! Now, when
are they going to bring the inflated results of "High Speed Night Bombardment
by Ships" into the realms of reality?

Dont believe everything Harvey (otherwise known as "TJ") tells you about us poor misbegotten testers. We dont spend all our time drinking beer and goofing off. Well most of the time, but not all of the time

Bombardments:

I've made some suggestions regarding making bombardment results more "variable" in order to tone them down somewhat. At Guadalcanal for example, not every bombardment was effective and one or two ended up doing nothing but killing some trees and rearranging the "bone yard" Whether or not it will be implemented or not i cant say. As mentioned numerous times there is a weighty "wish list" of ideas being considered. Combat tweaks though will mostly have to wait till we get further along. Mostly the focus right now is on getting the basic product working and all the features enabled.

[Mike Scholl]

Dont believe everything Harvey (otherwise known as "TJ") tells you about us poor misbegotten testers. We dont spend all our time drinking beer and goofing off. Well most of the time, but not all of the time

Bombardments:

I've made some suggestions regarding making bombardment results more "variable" in order to tone them down somewhat. At Guadalcanal for example, not every bombardment was effective and one or two ended up doing nothing but killing some trees and rearranging the "bone yard" Whether or not it will be implemented or not i cant say. As mentioned numerous times there is a weighty "wish list" of ideas being considered. Combat tweaks though will mostly have to wait till we get further along. Mostly the focus right now is on getting the basic product working and all the features enabled.

Thanks for the response. Though "more variable" isn't really the need. Dividing
the possible results by 5 might be more like it. The "bombardment runs" the
Japanese made "down the slot" at Guadalcanal just weren't that effective at
shutting down Henderson field. Making for a miserable hour for the Marines,
yes. Damaging and destroying a few planes, yes. Leaving some easily fixed
holes in the runways, yes. But the Cactus Air Force was back in business in
the morning, and every time the Japanese figured otherwise and tried to run
in troops by day they got hammered.

The problem is that it's virtually impossible to deliver an accurate bombardment
quickly in the dark. You can't "correct" the fire, or walk it back and forth until
you get results. You're dependent on a probably badly surveyed map with
fixes on various landmarks to get your position and range---landmarks you
can't always maintain clear sighting and fixes on in the dark. And you are in
a hurry to shoot and scoot to get out of range of retaliation by morning. At best
you can toss shells into an area and hope to get lucky.

To get results from a bombardment mission you need to do it deliberately and in
daylight, with a spotter to correct for you, preferably on the ground. Later in the war, with good radar to fix your location, you could deliver a more accurate area shoot at night. But it still not the same as a slow, deliberate, and cor-rected shoot delivered in daylight.

[Nikademus]

I'd have to diagree there Mike. The initial Japanese bombardment (headed by the heavyweights Kongo and Haruna) was devastating to Henderson field. The Japanese were unable though to duplicate it's success in later attempts. (hence my idea for a chance for more variable results: same as with air attack on ground forces)

At Dawn after the 1st major bombardment, Henderson field was (at the time) totally unuseable, virtually all the ready or near ready aviation gas had burned and of the Cactus's offensive punch:

only 7 of 39 SBD's were servicable
0 TBF's were available

The fighters did better because they were located at a different strip but still sufffered signifigant damage: only 24 of 42 F4F's being available for use along with four P400's and two P-39's

By no means was Henderson completely knocked out and as you related, the easiest aspect to fix would be the runway, but the damage to the aircraft and more severely the fuel situation (Supply hit) was critical forcing a scavenger hunt for fuel to commence (buried treasure!) as well as emergency fuel runs from Espiritu Santo. But Henderson's efficiency was signifigantly impacted and it allowed the Japanese high speed convoy to land a good portion of it's supplies before retiring (with damage) (about 4500 men and 2/3rds or more of the supply and equipment.)

A factor to keep in mind though is the small size of the airfield and Lunga's easy accessability for bombardment. I do agree that larger more complex bases should be more resistant (and are supposed to be) This too has been addressed somewhat in WitP as airfield resistance to damage has been bumped up somewhat.

Along with the elimination of the "shut down" rule if >50% damage is suffered, airfields will remain at least potentially dangerous in the game after bombardments and attack and the more engineers present at the time, the shorter and less severe that impact will be. Further, if your opponent insists on continuing bombardment runs (and air attacks) you can withdraw airgroups from even severely damaged fields for the time being (with appropriate op/damage losses due to field conditions)

[TIMJOT]

Nik

I am glad to here the shut down rule has been eliminated. I always felt that runway damaged was over modeled and aircraft destruction was under modeled in UV. I cant think of a single case where a "runway" was shut down for a significant amount of time due to air or naval bombardment. (Not Hickam, Clark, Singapore, Wake, Midway, Henderson, PM, Rabaul, Lae ect....) For the most part shutting down an airfield in WWII meant destroying large numbers of aircraft on the ground. There are many examples of this during the war. (Hickam,Clark,Wake, AF in Malaya/NEIs and even Henderson temporarily.

How is a/c destruction on the ground shapeing up in WitP. In UV I have found it fairly easy to damage a runway beyond 50% but I do not recall ever destroying more than a handful of aircraft on the ground on either side.

[Nikademus]

aircraft destruction on the ground remains pretty much as it has been in UV so far. I too feel that aircraft destruction/damage on the ground is a bit on the weak side and have thought so since the days of UV. Whether this will remain the case in WitP again, depends.....opinions vary on this confusing issue but i'm sure it will be discussed come combat tweak time.

I'm especially concerned about this issue in regards to later war scenerios where "plane hunting" was a standard USN carrier tactic such as during the buildup to the invasion of Saipen. There the roving USN carriers were able to litterally destroy or disable the planes faster than the japanese could pipeline them in to a region. It was a long standing frustration of mine in PacWar whose weekly turns made this impossible to reproduce....all you could do was invade under overwhelming aircover all on the same turn....effective but somehow not as tasty to me WitP though wont have that problem since we have daily turns so theoretically, a roving TF 58 should be able to come calling on all the Japanese 'staging' bases on the shuttle path between Japan and her outer bases and do some serious material damage, esp if on atolls. Preform this op for a couple weeks prior to invasion, then send in the transports.

Studies i have done indicate that even in the beginning of the conflict that the Japanese were frequently quite successful at destroying or damaging aircraft if they were caught on the ground through a combination of straffing and conventional attack. The US commanders felt the danger was enough that their #1 tactic to avoid this was to keep their B-17's constantly in the air!!! (which then resulted in extremely worn out aircraft and increased op losses not to mention dispersing the 17's ability to attack the enemy) This was in lieu of a working early warning net in the Philippines.

Its a thorny quesiton ....since it was possible on larger bases to reduce losses via dispersement and use of revertments, not to mention scrambling planes if detected quick enough (the latter of which should at least cost supply! and possible damage/op loss) But 'overall' i'd like to see the aircraft made more vulnerable if caught on the ground, esp if present in very large #'s. (radar would factor here as well) The UV 'close airbase' thing i always considered a 'fix' for the issue of aircraft resiliancy on the ground but i felt this was backwards, airbases themselves are very tough to knock out, the US found that out the hard way and had to switch tactics in 43 to focus on the aircraft themselves....thus we had what happened at Wewak. One great suggestion was to put in a routine to allow for the possibiltiy of "suprise" at a base which would potentially increase aircraft damages/losses at an airbase. It would be a nice feature to help keep players on their toes and prevent ol 'Mass stocking' of aircraft at a single base thing. An idea i've been knocking around is to greatly increase potential damage/destruction of aircraft via straffing attacks......a tactic very popular with the Japanese, and later employed by the USAAF. This would not be a game breaker though by any means.....the Japanese for one would have to be very careful using this as in any heavy flak environment the Zeros will suffer, costing Japan decent pilots. He would also have to keep in mind that destruction of planes on the ground will spare the pilots and at least by 43, one thing the US can afford to lose is planes! So the tactic would only real benefit the Japanese in the early days when US/Allied air assets are more finite.

I've seen the above pros and cons already as its witnessed on Turn1 PH attack. Several KB Zero squads are set to "sweep" at 100 feet thus they strafe.....and suffer losses from flak. First thing i always do is cancel these orders and put them back on escort. I'd rather keep my elite pilots than waste them destroying a few more USAAF aircraft on the ground at Pearl Harbor which will be eventually replaced given its a back area base and no.....i'm not going to invade

Bergerud's study is insightful here......in the end all the US could do was work to make the stocking of SoPac bases with aircraft as unproductive for the Japanese as possible via attrition warfare and near constant bombardment/sweep of airbases resulting in damaged/destroyed planes via op loss, accidents (due to damaged infrastructure), combat and damage on the ground. eventually the Japanese chose to withdrawl their battered airgroups and quit the fight. The cost was simply not worth the returns they were getting. This however also highlights that it took alot of effort and time to achieve these results so simply making aircraft 'very' vulnerable to ground attack could also lead to problems too.

dear me....i've written another novel. Bad Nik!!! Bad Nik!!!!

[panda124c]

Along with the elimination of the "shut down" rule if >50% damage is suffered, airfields will remain at least potentially dangerous in the game after bombardments and attack and the more engineers present at the time, the shorter and less severe that impact will be. Further, if your opponent insists on continuing bombardment runs (and air attacks) you can withdraw airgroups from even severely damaged fields for the time being (with appropriate op/damage losses due to field conditions)

A "shut down" type rule would have to be totally dependent on how many airstrips are at the base. Rabaul was never "shut down" because of the number of actual runways in the area, likwise Port Morsby both always had at least one runway ready for use.
Now I'm going to get into trouble, neither side ever suffered from a lack of pilots, the problem was the lack of A/C to fly. If you do not have A/C, fuel, runways, or pilots an airbase is "shut down". Bombardment is one way to 'temporary' disable an air base but it must damage all runways, or all fuel dumps, or all aircraft, or kill all pilots. You guess which on is more likely. Another way of 'temporarly' dialing an air base is low level bombing and strafing attacks which destroy runways and A/C. Forcing someone to withdraw airgroups is "shutting down" and airfield. That field is not avaiable for offensive or defensive operations.

[Nikademus]

A "shut down" type rule would have to be totally dependent on how many airstrips are at the base. Rabaul was never "shut down" because of the number of actual runways in the area, likwise Port Morsby both always had at least one runway ready for use.
Now I'm going to get into trouble, neither side ever suffered from a lack of pilots, the problem was the lack of A/C to fly. If you do not have A/C, fuel, runways, or pilots an airbase is "shut down". Bombardment is one way to 'temporary' disable an air base but it must damage all runways, or all fuel dumps, or all aircraft, or kill all pilots. You guess which on is more likely. Another way of 'temporarly' dialing an air base is low level bombing and strafing attacks which destroy runways and A/C. Forcing someone to withdraw airgroups is "shutting down" and airfield. That field is not avaiable for offensive or defensive operations.

Get into trouble? naw. you've summed it up nicely.

Yes, Rabaul was never "shut down" and her multiple airfields highlight the difference between a large airbase (size 4 or greater) and a small base that is usually represented by one maybe two strips and thus more vulnerable to attack and bombardment.

Bergerud's study agrees with your summarization. The airbases could only truely be "knocked out" by destroying the aircraft themselves or at least damaging as many as possible. Neither side did ever want for pilots. The allies acomplished this (with variable success) by blitzing the targeted airbases. Later in the war they refined their tactics more and introduced better weapons )(para-frag!) which increased the Japanese damage/destroyed rate. (Wewak again)

Additional factor unique to SOPac theater...environment. if anything, even harder on the machines than the men. Both sides effected, Japan worse at least until they started taking the theater seriously.

This is what i'd like to see represented, emphasis on the status of the air assets. The close airfield rule was put into replace in response to initial complaints that airfields were too resiliant. (ironically, i was one of them....BAD NIK)

but like the IJN ASW issue, it produced unforseen conseqences and thus we were left with a more ahistorical situation where litterally dozens or even hundreds of aircraft (and more signifigantly their pilots!) could be trapped at a base with no way (at least in UV) to extract them. At least in WitP now you can load airgroups on qualified merchant classes.

The above never happened though and at the close of the SoPac aircampaign (major portion at least) the Japanese withdrew the survivors and left the ground pounders to fend for themselves. Mechanics were occasionally able to cobble together enough fuel and parts to get a few planes flying where they then preformed nusance attacks on Allied strikes.

[TIMJOT]

To clarify, I do not have a problem that airfield recieves enough damage to shut it down for the second air phase, but any damage lasting more than a 24hr. period should be unlikely. They didnt call them air"FIELDS" for nothing. holes in fields are easily fixed. For the allies, martsen mats even more so.

[Daniel Oskar]

I was a Doer Bird in 98'. I vaguely remember your name, but can't place the face. I don't think we ever flew together. Elf

I was a Capt at the time in flight 2. If I remember right I was in aerobatics hell most of the year so if we flew together it was probably in that stage.

[Daniel Oskar]

I was reading an interview of an ETO mustang ace, Bob Goebel, and saw the question we just about beat to death.

Q:"What would you say about the importance of pilot ability vs. aircraft performance? That is skill against great aircraft?"

Bob Goebel: "It is pretty obvious that an inexperienced pilot in a Mustang is going to get hammered by a an old pro in an Me 109 and an old pro in a Brewster Buffalo wouldn't have much of a chance either. The degree to which pilot competence and aircraft performance play together has too many variables to be quantified. In general, I would say that a WWII fighter pilot should have at least 200 fighter hours before being used on ops. At that point he has a reasonably good command of the aircraft but would need 15 or 20 missions in order to be able to function well in an arena where people are screaming on the R/T, tracers are whizzing close and one is trying to watch out for his wingman and set up an attack on an enemy aircraft. I'm sure that the Mustangs shot down by Hartmann and others were "new guys."

[Mike Scholl]

I was reading an interview of an ETO mustang ace, Bob Goebel, and saw the question we just about beat to death.

Q:"What would you say about the importance of pilot ability vs. aircraft performance? That is skill against great aircraft?"

Bob Goebel: "It is pretty obvious that an inexperienced pilot in a Mustang is going to get hammered by a an old pro in an Me 109 and an old pro in a Brewster Buffalo wouldn't have much of a chance either. The degree to which pilot competence and aircraft performance play together has too many variables to be quantified. In general, I would say that a WWII fighter pilot should have at least 200 fighter hours before being used on ops. At that point he has a reasonably good command of the aircraft but would need 15 or 20 missions in order to be able to function well in an arena where people are screaming on the R/T, tracers are whizzing close and one is trying to watch out for his wingman and set up an attack on an enemy aircraft. I'm sure that the Mustangs shot down by Hartmann and others were "new guys."

The above quote is the best summation of the realities of WWII air-to-air combat I've seen in these threads. FIRST a pilot must have enough training
in the aircraft he is to fly to be competent to use it. SECOND he must survive
a number of exposures to "real" combat to be able to function effectively in
such chaos. THIRD (unmentioned above) if he has the basic temprament and
inate "gift" for it, he may rise above effective to the "outstanding" level---
that small group of multi-aces.

I'd love to see WitP incorporate such information in it's systems. If 0-55 were
to represent various "stages" of training from "introduction to the airplane 101"
up through "advanced, aircraft-specific, training 399"; then 55-80 was "an introduction to the real world of combat" with 81-99 being "ace of aces" territory, you would have something both realistic and fun for players to deal
with.

[mdiehl]

I partly agree. I think the range and spread of the values for the higher levels is too great, however. I think training should carry pilots up to 65, advanced training to 75, and combat to 85. Pilots should then have a talent bonus with the overwhelming majority at 0 bonus, and a logarithmic function describing the histogram from 0 to 10. Very very very rarely pilots have a bonus that exceeds 5.

[Mike Scholl]

I partly agree. I think the range and spread of the values for the higher levels is too great, however. I think training should carry pilots up to 65, advanced training to 75, and combat to 85. Pilots should then have a talent bonus with the overwhelming majority at 0 bonus, and a logarithmic function describing the histogram from 0 to 10. Very very very rarely pilots have a bonus that exceeds 5.

That was more or less where I started from in thinking about this. And you
may have the perfect solution with a random and unknown "talent bonus".
My thinking was that only perhaps one pilot in ten should ever be ABLE to
move "over 80", if he survives to do it.

The Pilot being quoted in the article I was refering to made it plain that even
a fully trained "newbie" was still "cannon-fodder" for experianced combat pilots
until he had about 15 missions worth of combat experiance under his belt. If
this was the case, there must have been a substantial difference between
""Fully Trained" and "Experianced".

Using your "talent Bonus" idea offers some better thoughts. If every "pilot"
begins training with a randomly assigned "talent bonus" between +0 and +20
(and you got perhaps one +20 for every two + 15's for every four +10's for
every eight +5's for every sixteen +0's); we'd have a start. And if Training
was simplified so that 2 months training produced an "Experiance 20"; four
more months an "Experiance 40"; and six additional months a "fully trained"
or "Experiance 60" aircrew we'd have a nice spread between the need to train
thoroughly and the need to have pilots NOW. Then a pilot would gain 1-2
"experiance points for the 1st 15-20 missions that encountered the enemy
up to the "Experiance 80" level, and a smaller chance of improvement after
that. Maximum "Experiance" would be 100---which means the rare individual
with a "+20 Talent Bonus" could "max out" while only showing an "80" and
start piling up kills.

Experiance Levels should count in almost all aspects of flight---offensive,
defensive, and just plain old operational loss. If a unit takes losses in combat,
the low-end experiance guys are more likely to be the victims. If it shoots
down enemy aircraft, the High-end experiance guys are most likely to get
the "kills". And if someone "prangs his crate" on a landing, it's more likely to
be a newbie. The fellows with the "hidden" talent bonuses benefit from their
"real" values in such computations.

It also brings up one "hidden" problem on the Allied side. Rotation. The Allies
tended to pull their "High-Experiance" guys out of line for Bond Tours and
Training Duties. Made for a great and unending supply of new "60's", but kept
them from having many "85+'s" at the front. The Japs may have been having
to pull guys out of flight school at 40 or even 20---but there were always a few
90+'s around to keep things interesting.