Plane Damage - does it even exist?

[Wiedrock]

I always found damaged planes to be close to not existing.

So, not sure how to look at this.

Before:

il-2_pre.png (742.23 KiB) Viewed 294 times

two attacks later:

IL-2_post.png (657.11 KiB) Viewed 294 times

Combat log of second attack:

log_IL-2 damaged.png (472.83 KiB) Viewed 294 times

Would be nice if someone could explain or link approriate manual chapter.


Furthermore (for context and further non-damage-non-understanding):
0 damage + repair =

logistics_log.png (57.77 KiB) Viewed 294 times

[Wiedrock]

Another test using a fresher save file (the other got reloaded many times so the log is a bit messy at times).
We see many planes getting damaged by flak, but none end up as damaged.

[Wiedrock]

Keeping guessing about the meaning of damage without actual damage the possibility could be that this "damage" by flak reduces the effectiveness of the bombing - so is more of a "DISruption" to the planes. This is hard to test due to the massive RNG but it seems to not be that case to me.
Those are 2 tests (the forces are not exactly the same - sometimes the planes use 2x50kg and sometimes 2x100kg - but lookign at the ladouts they are not what indicates any/such a difference).
1st with 3xFlak attached, then moved to the Hex to attack. [3.75 hits per plane]
2nd without Flak. [2 hits per plane]
Done several more tests with this slighly varying setup and nothing to me yet indicates the Flak does anything other than shooting down single digit planes (which is fine) but the damage/disruption seems to not have any positive (for having them protect you) effects. Somehow it appears it even has the opposite effect (since there are more targets to hit?).
I assume the DIS collumn in the Air Combat tab should show numbers >0 for some reduction of effect, it never shows anything in this testings.

Flak vs noFlak.jpg (369.52 KiB) Viewed 274 times

Furthermore, the TacB (at least) seem to me to prioritize AA as targets. I won't judge (either realistically/historically or from a "stuff needs to be hit somehow" game decision) if this makes sense or not but flying towards an AA and not getting hit (at all) as in this example is quite a feat.

Flak targeting by TacBs.jpg (190.55 KiB) Viewed 274 times

[Wiedrock]

Note that all numbers repair/damage-wise here add up. I assume it is simply looking at the final AGs after the week.

Vanilla T1 Day 1
Performing the T1 ADs we get 80 planes damaged (likely 90%+ of this by OPS).
We start out the week with 830 damaged planes (someone must have set this up - I know there are rather exact figures to be found about how many Aircraft in the Luftwaffe were operational). Mind that this is after weeks/months of preparations pretty much without combat operations (except recon flights)!
After one day of operations containing ~3500 sorties we end the day already with less damaged than before (+80DAM -129REPaired). Not to mention the result for the whole week.
Is that not a little weird? Anyone?

Damage and repair rates_vanilla.jpg (129.95 KiB) Viewed 76 times

Vanilla T1 Day 1-7 for GA ADs
For the sake of argument we could assume that the other 6 days without combat operations just made it to be like this.
So now let's fly the GA ADs for all 7 days of the week.
We somehow see that it doesn't really matter. We added 394 damaged planes (again I assume 90%+ by OPS) but ended the week with only 43 more damaged planes as in the 'regular one day T1'.
The total Damaged planes therefore still decreasd by 830-573=257.

Damage and repair rates_7days.jpg (142.57 KiB) Viewed 76 times

Even if we'd assume some DEStroyed planes due to OPS being damaged and "written offs" (Let's say 50%) it would not look all that much better.

Coclusion:
So what remains is that weeks/months of preparations without combat left the Luftwaffe maintenance wise in a worse state than after a week of combat operations.

...for the sake...Vanilla T1 Day 1 - Air-Leader Ratings all 1
Maybe here we see Air Leader Rolls at play....let's look at this...
...nope, ... Leader impact has not been found.

Damage and repair rates_vanilla-Leaders 1.jpg (163.95 KiB) Viewed 76 times

I'll attach another Air-Leader Rating 1 Losses chart, ...before someone looks at the above results and argues he'd "see that Air Leaders would play a role in Air combat".

another Leader 1 T1.jpg (23.68 KiB) Viewed 76 times