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One of my pbem opponents and I are exploring RHS. As we met through the original JFB mod (Iron Storm) we are looking at EOS. Why are the Allied pilot experience levels so low? Even the USN replacements blow. Will replacement experience levels improve over time as in stock and other mods? I looked in the RHS manual but could not find any figures.

Apologies if this has already been dealt with before - I am far too lazy (wise?) to wrestle with a search of this forum...

Replacement pilot experience does not change in time. Ever. In any mod nor in stock. Reinforcement squadrons pilots exp change as per the table in WitP manual though.

Perhaps I was not as clear as I intended. In EOS does the experience that replacements turn up with improve each year and is there a handy table (like in the manual) for EOS so that I can see that I will not have to throw pilots with experience levels of 40 or less into battle for six years? Just knowing that the Jap replacements degrade over time would be nice...

I missed a lot of the development discussions and would really like to know how the experience levels were decided upon, please? The Jap replacements are very much better than Allied ones. The USN did not turn out half trained pilots IRL and the Empire Training Scheme and battle experience meant that the RAF was turning out half decent pilots too...

Elladan is correct. It is something that may be about to change however. A major release from Matrix is expected this month - and it will change many fundamentals.

While the current lack of a table is unfortunate, I fear a hard coded table will go the other way: prejudice about this subject is rampant, as is misunderstanding. Note that USMC fighter squadrons start out on OBSERVATION planes - because the Marines believed that the training process was not good enough. And they had the best. [That is typical of the best: they never overestimate themselves and they habitually assume the enemy is worthy of respect: you would not believe how much hot water I get in telling true stories about going 5 months in a row losing every air battle - 100% - no exceptions - this in Viet Nam - in spite of flying far more modern combat aircraft against obsolete out of date "junk" by our standards] New units should NEVER be rated very well - so players will value their experienced units. And experience is gained too fast - at least right now - according to a Matrix programmer.

Now as for what is: RHS is focused - as it must be - on the first year. All games start then. If we don't get what happens that year right - nothing thereafter makes any sense at all.

And there is this exception: Japanese experience value is cut in half at a certain point. RELATIVE experience is hard coded to change, right or wrong, by the right fraction or not, nothing we can do about it.

Ideally this whole matter will move to soft coded tables - but I fear that must wait for WITP II - as it probably requires structural changes to the game.

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Elladan is correct. It is something that may be about to change however. A major release from Matrix is expected this month - and it will change many fundamentals.

While the current lack of a table is unfortunate, I fear a hard coded table will go the other way: prejudice about this subject is rampant, as is misunderstanding. Note that USMC fighter squadrons start out on OBSERVATION planes - because the Marines believed that the training process was not good enough. And they had the best. [That is typical of the best: they never overestimate themselves and they habitually assume the enemy is worthy of respect: you would not believe how much hot water I get in telling true stories about going 5 months in a row losing every air battle - 100% - no exceptions - this in Viet Nam - in spite of flying far more modern combat aircraft against obsolete out of date "junk" by our standards] New units should NEVER be rated very well - so players will value their experienced units. And experience is gained too fast - at least right now - according to a Matrix programmer.

Now as for what is: RHS is focused - as it must be - on the first year. All games start then. If we don't get what happens that year right - nothing thereafter makes any sense at all.

And there is this exception: Japanese experience value is cut in half at a certain point. RELATIVE experience is hard coded to change, right or wrong, by the right fraction or not, nothing we can do about it.

Ideally this whole matter will move to soft coded tables - but I fear that must wait for WITP II - as it probably requires structural changes to the game.

Hi Cid

Thanks for the depth of your answer. I will look at the relative percenatges in the manual and work them into the starting figures to give myself an idea.

Wasn't the Viet Nam statistic USAF only? I thought the USN were winning air to air encounters from quite early on? With your depth of knowledge and access to data I am sure that you will be able to educate me.

Nope. USN made the same mistake as USAF - indeed USAF was flying USN aircraft (in the form of the F-4) because the Navy had invented AAMs - while USAF believed in unguided rockets (during the 1950s). The vision of BVR Sparrows and WVR Sidewinders blinded all - and they built the F-4 without any guns at all. [IDF saved us - it insisted on a gun - and so we could rapidly fit the gun designed in for them]

The enemy was competent. He knew he could not out climb more powerful aircraft. So he decided to out turn them. He also had aircraft DESIGNED for off platform sensors: we do that now, but then we felt the radar (or whatever) should be ON the fighter plane. So the enemy planes with no electronics to speak of got their target data from the ground - and it works to do that. In air air combat surprise is the big deal - if you don't know he is back there he has a shot. Literally. Networks of longer ranged and omnidirectional sensors on the ground had a information advantage, and sometimes they could sneak up behind some plane or other. IF the shot missed - or if anything went wrong - the MiG would turn - and get lost because we could not follow a sharp turn. They preferred the MiG-17 to the MiG-19 in early years - before they got MiG-21s - because it turned better. This was not classical dogfighting - it was sneak up - shoot - and/or evade and run.

These tactics worked well. We were forced to do amazing things. My favorite is that the first tactical solution was to use A-1 Skyraider PROPELLER BOMBERS as FIGHTER PLANES! These planes had three advantages over jet fighters:

a) They had guns
b) They could out turn any jet, even a MiG-17
c) Their pilots had been trained to dog fight - which our jet pilots had not

So for a brief period - after we worked this out - we had the ironic situation of F-4 jet fighters acting as bombers being escorted by A-1 propeller bombers acting as fighters!

The Navy invented dissimilar combat training, and it worked so well that the USN ended up doing better in the air than USAF: by the end of the war about twice as well. There is much controversy about the numbers - it is an emotional subject - but it appears that USAF achieved no better than 1:1 in air combat - while USN did no better than 2:1 - overall - by war's end. There are different views, including scholarly ones, but those are the numbers we worked with and believed officially at the time.

Eventually the Soviets gave the Vietnamese MiG-21s. [Some were stolen in transit by PRC - which illegally copied them - and STILL illegally copies them. By now, the PRC MiG-21s - called F-7s - are better than any ever built in the USSR - and they are possibly the most maneuverable combat aircraft in the world - but that is another story.] The MiG-21s were not great - they cannot fly to empty tanks (except the later PRC versions which have a new wing) for example. But they were hot and, if you understood what you were doing, good in a dogfight. There are some interesting air battles later in the war - including one with a Vietnamese ace of aces that went all the way to the deck: he died when he had to break out of the pattern or hit the sea - which is often a problem (dogfights use energy and you lose altitude during them - mostly). Vietnam had numbers of aces - we had only 4 (pilots - and sometimes we also count the back seaters) - plus one near miss. [Col Olds had 4 kills in Viet Nam - he is a WWII and Korean ace - and he had a chance to get another kill - but he was not a hot dog - and he did what was best for the mission - not for his score - but I count him as a virtual Vietnam ace as well] By contrast, most Viet pilots ended up aces. Now they had some advantages: including sanctuary. We could not fly into PRC - and if we got close - PRC did engage us - and many of its units proudly count Viet Nam era kills. Again - given the "junk" PRC had - that they got kills is a bit amazing for many. But it isn't what you have - it is what you do with it in what situation that matters? A piper cub got a kill with a .45 ACP handgun in the Battle of the Bulge!

Hi El Cid,

If Carl and I are in a game and want to bump the pilot pool experience up by 5 in 1942, can we do that in the editor without damaging the game? I was just wondering if it was possible to bump up the pilot pool experience level each year manually.

No. The game will ignore what is in the scenario files - only loaded at the start of the game. But IF you can edit a TURN file - that is different. It requires either an "in turn editor" - which officially does not exist and is not sanctioned by Matrix - and if anyone admits having one Matrix would probably lock up the game with tight security - or a machine language programmer and hassle. If you want to do it - you need a person able to read the turn file in some way - and modify it. Of course, it is theoretically possible, but it isn't practical for most players to attempt it - even those able to use Matrix (or other) file editors.

"So for a brief period - after we worked this out - we had the ironic situation of F-4 jet fighters acting as bombers being escorted by A-1 propeller bombers acting as fighters! "

It would be interesting to get some details of this, I've only read of the Spad escorting Helicopters. Someone with technical knowledge might explain how hard it would be for the A-1 keeping up with even a bombed up F-4.

There was a magazine article on this about a month ago. I assume the F-4s had to fly slow!

The Spad did 120kts with a bomb load, ? 280kts clean ? , the F4 would have to be going bloody slow!!

Well - at least playing fighter the SPD would be much cleaner than when it was acting as a bomber. I did not realize it was that slow however - sounds like a light plane.