The 412th has a reputation in the AH community. Some people like us, and some people always cry about the way we choose to play the game.
Yup, and part of that rep is 'timidity' (whether you think you deserve it or not). Fly and have fun anyway you want but when one of yours comes out with a 'how to manual' he will get mocked and laughed at.
My problem isn't with the P-51 it's the type of folks that are attracted to that plane (speaking within the 'game' context of course). You can certainly fly it anyway you want but as I said in your 'please define timid thread' expect people to call it like they see it.
I don't start these threads, I don't take them off topic. This thread is about icons, my replies were on topic and directed initially toward something Levi said. Instead of dealing with the topic of this thread your squad mate got confused and thought I cared about how he 'plans his attacks'.
Your squad mate has no idea what 'fighting' is in the context of my reply about icons. You see in those big fur balls everyone knows what every one is flying. At times a brave young lad could slip into the fur ball in a Spit 1 or Hurri 1 or even an Emil or F4F etc. If you want to call it 'hiding' that's up to you but in fur balls any plane can hide.
In the visual conditions in the main (meaning SA because icons at a glance can give away much more info then pilots would have in real life) a highly maneuvering single aircraft can get into a fur ball and in fact become 'hidden' while right out in the open.
With all that goes on in that mess a 'Spit' icon here or '109' (or P-40, F4F etc..) icon there won't instantly grab the attention of most players. They are simply reacting to the closest threat or the closest enemy.
Since aircraft like these early planes are rare already, their icon will be (or maybe) a magnet to the others in the frey.
'Spit 1, wow that's rare lets get it etc...'
I don't expect you or squad mates to understand a word of what I am saying because that's not your flying and fighting 'style'. No one asked your squad mate 'how he does it' and I don't anyone really cares.
Before you claim something like 'flying like that is not historical' or 'fighting in an environment of mixed aircraft is not historical' well it may not be for Western Europe but on the Ostfront (especially early) and in the Med it sure was 'historical'.
Hans-Joachim Marseille's self-training program
Vision - Marseille decided to adapt his eyes to the powerful desert sun and the dry desert atmosphere and to adapt his body to the desert's conditions. He stopped wearing sun glasses, deliberately exposed his eyes to the desert sun, and shifted from alcohol to milk (cant you just see him with that milk ring around his mouth.."Drink Milk, it does a body good"). He also noticed that in the intensely lit dry desert atmosphere, aircraft can be detected from greater distances than over Europe and deduced that hiding and surprise are less practical over the desert than in the cloudy sky over europe.
G-Force - Marseille worked endlessly to strengthen his abdominal and leg muscles in order to enhance his ability to sustain higher G-Force and for longer durations during dogfights better than the average fighter pilot. G-Force is the enormous centrifugal force experienced when a fighter aircraft makes sharp turns during dogfight. The modern G-suit that helps pilots sustain it was not yet invented in world war 2.
Aerobatics - Marseille used every opportunity to perform breathtaking aerobatics. In addition to free entertainment to his friends on the ground, this also gave him an outstanding control and confidence in extremely maneuvering his Messerschmitt 109 aircraft.
Marksmanship - Marseille spent his unused ammunition practicing firing at ground objects and trained a lot not just in plain strafing but also in high deflection shooting while in a sharp turn, which is much harder.
Intelligence - he began to read every possible intelligence information he could find in order to maximize his knowledge and understanding of the enemy.
Tactics - That's where Marseille marked himself as a great innovator of air warfare, and he kept improving. He claimed that in the perfect visual conditions over the desert, large formations are in a visual disadvantage against highly maneuvering single aircraft. He preferred to fight alone, with a single wingman providing warnings from a safe distance. He claimed that when fighting alone in a short range dogfight, he could quickly fire at anything he saw, while the attacked formation's pilots were confused, hesitated, and switched to a defensive position that further increased the lone attacker's chances. He also claimed that fighting alone eliminates the high risk of firing at or colliding with a wingman in such extreme maneuvering. Marseille said that in such conditions, there's a lower chance and too little time for the usual chase attack method, and preferred to use high angle deflection firing from short range while making a sharp turn. In doing so, he never used his gun sight and instead fired a very short burst at the passing target in the split second when its leading edge, its propeller, disappeared from his eyes behind his aircraft's nose. He calculated that when firing a short burst at this position, his gun rounds will hit the target's engine and cockpit, and he trained in this unorthodox aiming method on his friends (without firing) many times and perfected his ability to use it. He deduced that over the desert, a fighter pilot can become "invisible" only by extreme maneuvers at close range, and that the intensity of the maneuvering was more important than the speed of flying.
In Kurland for example JG54 had mix variety of 190s, from few early A-3s to late A-9s. They met Soviet formations with a variety of different fighters flying together.
Get Norbert Hannig's book (IIRC off-hand). He describes fights where confusion is the rule. Folks crying out over vox so that communication becomes useless. Enemies show up unseen, squad mates fighting each other for kills etc...
Back on topic My opinion about these new icons is they may have an impact on early planes. Any one can go back and search the old posts about perk plane icons where numerous folks complained about being hunted whenever folks noticed their icons. The same thing may prove true for these early planes. The difference now is those perk planes had the performance so that the ganging actually made it easy to get kills.
For the guy who likes the Spit 1 he may not bother with it again. That was my point, but someone wanted to make this thread about 'attack planning' and other such non-sense...
Anyway 6 am here, I am going to bed...
