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Two sets of air superiority missions are created by both sides. The Soviet sets theirs at 7,000 feet while the German sets theirs at 15,000.

According to the manual, air-to-air combat considers top speed of aircraft as one factor that decides battle outcomes. Top speeds of aircraft vary by their altitude. In the instance above, at what altitude is this air battle being fought? Clearly if they were 8,000 feet apart, nobody hits anybody. So are the Soviets going up to 15,000 feet or are the Germans dropping to 7,000 feet or is there some other algorithm that leads to a middle altitude and the altitudes shown just reflect how the directives were set?

Pavel's recollection is that the phasing player's AS will initiate the combat and adjust altitude to "attack". If they are higher, they have an advantage, and if lower, a disadvantage, in the combat.

Joel Billings wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2024 4:43 pm Pavel's recollection is that the phasing player's AS will initiate the combat and adjust altitude to "attack". If they are higher, they have an advantage, and if lower, a disadvantage, in the combat.

Also AS will climb to engage per Manual, with advantage given to an AS directive. I would paste a copy of manual but on my cell phone at work. Just search AS directives

Obviously this isn't an air combat simulation game. I will only point out in numerous cases Soviet pilots were cautioned about climbing to engage enemy aircraft particularly when their own aircraft was best suited to low altitude dogfights i.e. La-5 series. It was a known Luftwaffe tactic to try and draw the Soviet pilots higher where the Me-109s and Fw-190s had a real speed advantage. Since I can't tell my fighter pilots to stay low where they can have a potential speed advantage, I just have to let them walk into a tactical disadvantage.

Life in the VVS...

M60A3TTS wrote: Wed Sep 18, 2024 3:16 pm Obviously this isn't an air combat simulation game. I will only point out in numerous cases Soviet pilots were cautioned about climbing to engage enemy aircraft particularly when their own aircraft was best suited to low altitude dogfights i.e. La-5 series. It was a known Luftwaffe tactic to try and draw the Soviet pilots higher where the Me-109s and Fw-190s had a real speed advantage. Since I can't tell my fighter pilots to stay low where they can have a potential speed advantage, I just have to let them walk into a tactical disadvantage.

Life in the VVS...

Yes, I agree. I really wish the system would not allow planes to deviate more than, let's say 4,000 altitude than what was programmed for for the turn. Soviets could program over 30,000 feet to draw LW up to dogfight at that level which is not advantageous to LW, such is life in the LW...

Really wish this was programmed in

I once tested(its been a while) with modded planes with extremely different values (height-speeds) to be more likely to see what is happening regarding the altitude at which the battle happens. From memory I have to say that I found that each side stays at their own altitude (as it is written in the combat report) and stays at its speed at this specific altitude. So my conclusion was to simply always use the altitude with max speed for each plane regarding air combat and ignoring flak.

Test setup was IIRC the Bf109 for both sides and one side I changed the max speed to 20+k'ish and one side to ~10k'ish (and increased the max speeds sustantially), then i made all have similar EXP and fly each at their best altitude kills were like 1:1 so I came to my conclusion, this may be flawed, let me know what may be wrong.

I dont know where the threshold is, but i had this in my game:

Wiedrock wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2024 12:13 am I once tested(its been a while) with modded planes with extremely different values (height-speeds) to be more likely to see what is happening regarding the altitude at which the battle happens. From memory I have to say that I found that each side stays at their own altitude (as it is written in the combat report) and stays at its speed at this specific altitude. So my conclusion was to simply always use the altitude with max speed for each plane regarding air combat and ignoring flak.

Test setup was IIRC the Bf109 for both sides and one side I changed the max speed to 20+k'ish and one side to ~10k'ish (and increased the max speeds sustantially), then i made all have similar EXP and fly each at their best altitude kills were like 1:1 so I came to my conclusion, this may be flawed, let me know what may be wrong.

My take on the nature of aerial fighting in WW2 is that even modest speed differences, in the realm of around 10knots or so between otherwise peer fighters made all the difference in survival rates. Since the faster airplane, even if only faster by a small difference could simply disengage at will-it’s pilot preserving both his life and precious hard earned experience, while a slow airplane is a goner, and will be rundown by its hunter costing an expensive and not-easily-replaced pilot. Obviously there are still plenty of other factors at work in WitE2 but I think WitE2 should just dispense entirely with altitude orders for AS missions and have trades come down to a formula carrying out kill rolls with the factor of pilot experience and plane overall MAX* speed (*highest speed at its most optimal altitude which should be automatically selected by the pilot for an AS mission-rather than the player- because he otherwise unburdened by the need to protect other airplanes or bomb. It is quite literally a fighter pilot’s dream to dictate his own mission parameters which is what AS should be doing.) divided by the pilot’s fatigue and speed mismatch between the two opposed fighters.

Still think there needs to be some kind of “return” on losses if there isn’t one too. Like pilots shot down over friendly lines should have a much higher return rate than pilots lost over enemy lines. Losses from air operations in the game are so steep and the game doesn’t seem to divide airframe and pilot total losses from eachother enough. A lot of these guys were shot down more than once, and simply returned to service. It doesn’t seem like the game factors in pilot recoveries at all, wounded pilots yeah but i’m unsure if those are recoveries.