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Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:07 am
by Courtenay
I just had a combat where a +3 plane got shot down by a -2 plane. I wanted to see what the chances of that happening are. (I sometimes feel that the -2 plane has the advantage here; it certainly wins often enough.
) I looked at the A2A CRT and started adding up numbers in my head. I realized that was silly -- computers are much better at adding up numbers than I am. So I made the following table:
- A2AProbs.jpg (327.11 KiB) Viewed 821 times
I hope I have not made any uncaught mistakes; checking, I found two adjacent boxes with errors. I hope there are no more such mistakes. Here are my copies of the CRTs, just for people to check.
- A2ACRTs.jpg (236.97 KiB) Viewed 821 times
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:43 pm
by Orm
Thank you for sharing. Much appreciated.
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2023 8:05 pm
by paulderynck
There's an old saying:"Statistics are for losers" that could easily be expanded to: "Probability and statistics are for losers".
Not meaning this as an insult to anyone, but when General You experiences bad luck it seems always to be worsened in proportion to the unlikelihood of its occurrence, which in turn gets multiplied by increasing numbers of same.
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2023 8:08 pm
by rkr1958
Courtenay wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 3:07 am
I just had a combat where a +3 plane got shot down by a -2 plane. I wanted to see what the chances of that happening are. (I sometimes feel that the -2 plane has the advantage here; it certainly wins often enough.
) I looked at the A2A CRT and started adding up numbers in my head. I realized that was silly -- computers are much better at adding up numbers than I am. So I made the following table:A2AProbs.jpg
I hope I have not made any uncaught mistakes; checking, I found two adjacent boxes with errors. I hope there are no more such mistakes. Here are my copies of the CRTs, just for people to check.A2ACRTs.jpg
Looks great! Would it be possible to attach your spreadsheet? I'd like to get a copy if I may.
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Wed Nov 22, 2023 8:15 pm
by rkr1958
Took me a second to figure out the difference between the friendly & unfriendly; but it has to do with PIL survivability and whether or not the plane is shot down over a friendly or unfriendly hex or sea area?
Also, I find it interesting that if one is facing a twin engine fighter then the chance of losing the PIL is the same whether or not one if flying over a friendly or unfriendly hex.
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2023 3:31 am
by Courtenay
Yes, friendly and unfriendly is whether you are flying over your controlled hex, or over opponents controlled hex or ocean. The reason that the twin-engine penalty has the same probability of a pilot kill over friendly or unfriendly territory is that the only way for a twin-engine penalized plane to get a kill is to roll a natural AX, adjusted down to DX, and all AXs in the bottom half of the table are AX PXs, whether over friendly or unfriendly territory.
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2023 3:54 am
by Courtenay
Here is the spreadsheet. Note that it OpenOffice.
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2023 9:03 pm
by rkr1958
Courtenay wrote: Thu Nov 23, 2023 3:54 am
Here is the spreadsheet. Note that it OpenOffice.
Thanks! Downloaded and converted (equations) to EXCEL, which I've attached for those interested.
Tables.
Pretty sure numbers match with your openoffice spreadsheet. Will keep checking.
- A2AProbs-EXCEL.png (159.15 KiB) Viewed 728 times
EXCEL Spreadsheet.
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Thu Nov 23, 2023 9:13 pm
by rkr1958
Courtenay, thanks for doing this. I find the numbers a bit surprising.
For example,
(1) Facing -4 air-to-air your chances to get cleared on that round (51%) are slight better than a coin flip.
(2) Chances of getting cleared on that round (28%) are the same facing +1 as +2,+3.
(3) Same with facing +4,+5 and +6,+7 at 19%.
(4) Even at the best odds at +8, your opponent has a 10% chance of getting cleared (for that round) and at the worse odds (-9) you have a 10% chance of getting cleared (for that round). While not great definitely far from certain at the best/worst.
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2023 6:34 pm
by rkr1958
Thought I'd jazz up the table a bit and export it to pdf. Will definitely become one that I often consult before, during and even after air-to-air combat. Armed with these probabilities I feel that I can make a more informed, but not necessarily better decision.
- A2ACRT-EXCEL-2.png (181.66 KiB) Viewed 692 times
pdf
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2023 2:50 am
by davidc
Thanks guys
Very useful
Re: Air to Air probabilities
Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2023 8:33 pm
by rkr1958
Update thanks to an excellent observation made by Courtenay. Twin engine & night penalty are the same.
Combine.
- a2a-friendly-unfriendly.png (186.72 KiB) Viewed 611 times
Friendly.
- a2a-friendly.png (92.07 KiB) Viewed 611 times
Unfriendly.
- a2a-unfriendly.png (91.61 KiB) Viewed 611 times
PDFs (zip file) of friendly & unfriendly together and separate (3 PDFs).
- a2a.zip
- (227.5 KiB) Downloaded 17 times
I Made them separate so that I could get a larger print font when I printed to the tables out.