Matrix Games Forums

Aircraft Damage & Aircraft Pools

Was any thing done to account for aircraft scraped for parts or just worn out, something to limit the growing the number of aircraft in pools! It wasn't uncommon to scrape two or three aircraft just to keep one flying do to part shortages. I understand for the US Army beyond 1943 it was at times easier to get a new plane than it was to get spare parts, this lead to the closet queens (perfectly good planes scraped for spare parts)!

I always though that air combat in BTR was too high, but never accounted for aircraft loses that were written off do to lack of spare parts or planes just worn out!

Vast amounts of a/c can build up in the pools, as you say worn out machines don't get passed on the 2nd line/training units or scrapped.
 
Serviceability rates are too high as well for all types and nationalities (particularly multi-engine a/c and those with complex avionics fits) resulting in more a/c engaged in combat than RL and hence higher combat losses (for daylight anyway). The high combat losses are offset by the fact the game doesn't model non-operational losses.
 
The actual combat model itself is quite good in general. When comparing losses on the 17Aug43 Schweinfurt tutorial the ratio of USAAF a/c shotdown to interceptors compares quite well to the actual raid, ie about 50-100% more than the actual losses (with ~50% more bombers per group than RL) but with about twice the number of Lw fighter sorties against the raid, this ratio has been fairly consistent.

Written off airplanes and non-operational losses:

The book available under this link (Strategy for defeat) http://maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Books/Murray/Murray.pdf is providing lots of information about attrition (planes and pilots) especially of the German Airforce.