SlapShot,
Fuel Burn Rate:
You're absolutely correct. The fuel burn rate (burn multiplier is greater in AH2 at 2.0. I must have been distracted or sleepy when I wrote that AH1 had the same burn rate as AH2 has. Sorry about that. What I should have said was that the flight time available for the fuel load has changed and it has not changed in direct proportion to the multiplier. Examples based upon 100% internal fuel load calculating a multiplier of 1.0, max throttle at sea level:
AH1: AH2:
- P51D = 106 minutes. AH2 = 100 minutes
- P38L = 74 minutes AH2 = 73 minutes
- Spitfire Mk IX = 71 minutes AH2 = 44 minutes
- Bf 109E-4 = 50 minutes AH2 = 80 minutes
- Typhoon = 54 minutes AH2 = 48 minutes
- Nik-J = 88 minutes AH2 = 64 minutes
- La-7 = 56 minutes AH2 = 42 minutes
- Hurricane IId = 44 minutes AH2 = 64 minutes
And the list goes on. Some have been changed little and that small change is probably due to the difference in multipliers between AH1 and AH2, but others have changed a lot. As previously stated, some less and some more. A little seems to have been taken from the energy fighters and in some cases a lot has been given to turn fighters. You may draw your own conclusions from this and I’m sure you will.
25% Fuel Question:
I believe we’re on the same page here, though you may not agree. I did state that 25% did allow for defensive furballing above ones own porked field. I distinctly recall howls of frustration from furballers who wanted to go on the offensive and only had 25% fuel. As you profess yourself to enjoy the defensive type of furballing it’s not really surprising you didn’t find 25% that limiting. If you wish to say complaints came primarily from La and Yak drivers…..well in that I suppose you’d know better than I. I tend to lump the small, light, quick aircraft into the furball category. Even if they shouldn’t be driven that way by design, I think we both know they frequently are.
Fighters Coming Up to Play with Bombers in the 14 to 16K Range of Altitude:
I’m pretty sure you’re wrong when you state it’s futile and imply it isn’t done that much. I fly bombers fairly frequently and when I fly that low a lot more fighters come up to play than when I fly at 20 to 25K of altitude. They don’t necessarily have to have a “new stunninghunk” ripped in them, as you said, and the effort isn’t always futile. If a fighter is going to come up on my six, I’m going to drool until he comes in range of all those pretty guns I have aimed at his cooperatively stable plane. Just today my B24’s landed five kills from just such pilots. On the other hand a fighter who knows what he’s doing can mince my bombers with barely a scratch of damage to his own craft. A fighter who knows what he’s doing will fly a high angles attack and prevent me from getting a good lead on him. I’ve done this myself in a fighter and the results are something similar to a shark attacking a wounded seal.
Burn Times/Flight Times Different in AH1 versus AH2:
You say it’s mathematically impossible. If you do a straight calculation, you’re correct. But that’s the point I was trying to make. They didn’t make a straight calculation. They selectively changed some of the planes. As you can see from the table above, some of the changes are very slight and may not in fact be changes at all while others are a bit larger and some are whoppers. Flight time is perhaps not the only thing they changed. The other night I overheard another pilot comment that the Spitfire Mk IX’s engine had been reduced from AH1 to 40 lbs less. I assume he was speaking of manifold pressure, but perhaps you’d have a better handle on that than I. He took the position that it was a significant reduction in performance.
The 50 cal Damage Changes:
You mention an ack bunker. This is a new term for me. I’m familiar with ammo bunkers and if that’s what you mean, I agree. Fifty caliber weapons shouldn’t be able to take down such a bunker without really sustained fire. If you’re talking about field guns, I disagree both with you and the “realism” crowd. Those field guns are sitting naked, not in some bunker. Moreover when you bring any kind of 50 cal weapon to bear on something like a gun, it will in real life tear the crud out of it. I’ve seen demonstrations of a 50 cal browning eating a car, engine and all. When you sweep a field gun with six 50’s, it ought to do more than reflect your fire. They’ve adjusted the 50 damage for ack gun’s and I’m not clear on what else they may have adjusted it for. Part of the nerfing of the 50 comes from the closer shooting requirements. Regardless of the reason for this it takes away from the overall usefulness of the weapon. Finally, this is a computer simulation. The input/output interface is different for us than it would be if we were really flying the aircraft. Adjustments have to be made so that our experience is modeled in such a way as to give the same approximate results we’d have if flying the real aircraft. This means that historical reality must give way in order to give an accurate simulation of the experience.
Furballer Guns:
You state the Spit IX has 50 cal guns in addition to the 20 mm Hispano’s (awesome cannon by the way). It did in AH1, but they changed that in AH2. Now all you can get are the .303’s. Your far more experienced with the Spit than I, but my experience with the .303’s was that they were all but worthless in AH1. Some pilots even emptied them before takeoff, preferring to lose the weight and depend upon the superlative performance of the Hispano’s. While 50’s were better than .303’s, they’re nothing to the Hispano’s. In any case, my comment’s were designed to show the differential in impact between BnZ and TnB style aircraft in AH2 versus AH1. You need to be closer in AH2 to make any of the guns work well. This plays better for a TnB than a BnZ aircraft.
Cloud Haze Layer Keeping Furballers Low:
I misstated this and I apologize for the confusion. I intended to indicate that the bombers are kept lower by the haze and that permits the furballers to stay lower in the furball and wander up to the bombers as well. They don’t have to expend so much time reaching us as if were at 20K.
Bomber Convergence:
Bomber convergence is set to 600? Where did you find that out? It really feels more like 300 to the group of pilot’s I fly with. Can you refer me to documentation? I’m not challenging your statement. I’d just really like to get more information on it.
Regarding the Effective Range of Bombers Guns:
My comparison was between AH1 and AH2. I was able to shoot fighters at greater range than in AH2. I’m sure the guys in WWII not, as you say, very successful in shooting down enemy fighters. But then I doubt enemy fighter crawled up nice and steady on their six and sat there shooting at the bombers. People in AH do that. Actually a surprising number do that. Disturbingly so. In AH1 the fighters were more prone to high angle attacks than in AH2. Occasionally a fighter will perform high angle attacks on me and in that situation I’ve got little chance of saving my family jewels. Then you’d be correct to say I’d be lucky to dismantle someone out at 800. But when they just sit there on my six with like six or more 50’s per plane blazing at them, it’s not much of a trick to trim their wings. If a WWII gunner had that opportunity I can’t help but think he’d have the same result.
Furballers do “crawl up to me”. They do it all the time. They do it because I’m ticking them off by bombing their radar, troops and ordinance as well as putting large dents in their factories and cities. I bomb these things in cooperation with the overall strategy of my country as I see it unfold. Sometimes it’s good to leave some strats alone and sometimes it’s good to pork as many fields as you can.
It’s late, I’m tired and I hope I haven’t made any further mistakes in grammar, style, syntax, spelling and ….oh yeah…..facts. lol This thread has taken a lot more time than I initially budgeted and I hope I can resist making another post on it regardless of the response to my posting.
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> SlapShot
