RE: How good are you P-51Ds
Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 11:18 pm
ORIGINAL: Chris H
ORIGINAL: ADB123
Escort, and especially long range escort, is a wonderful way to lose fighter planes in this game. If you've been trying to use Mustangs in a semi-historical role as long range bomber escorts that would explain the difference.
Short range escort tends to work much, much better than long range escort (and you tend to get more of your bombers back too, which is always useful).
Good luck
So for game purposes the P-51 should not be used for LR excort? How does it stack up if sent on LR Sweep?
Ugh - long range sweeps... they can be effective, but they can also be nasty to your fighter squadrons. The longer the range, the greater the Ops losses and the "way home" losses that are eventually counted as enemy kills. Also, my observation is that if I don't have extremely high experience pilots in the sweeping squadrons they can end up being hammered by CAP instead of the other way around - it is as if flying at long range and with drop tanks reduces the effectiveness of the sweep. And the more enemy planes on CAP, the worse things can go.
All-in-all, now having played both sides in pbem for a couple of years, I am much more reluctant to use fighters at long range (and bombers too) unless I have a very, very good reason to do so - its much too easy to get caught and suddenly take unsustainable losses.