Originally posted by bozon
Hold your horses.
RPS is not a scenario. Service dates have no historical value save for the absolute earliest date you could meet that specific model in the air.
What I did suggest is to take the service dates list and instead of cutting it into equal 2 months bins and take what ever comes out, use some more imagination in deciding the time frames. They don't have to be equal in time and by expanding some time frames or contracting others, the resulting matchups in each frame would be more interesting and fun, WITHOUT breaking any historical validity.
The other part of my suggestion was less historical. If aircraft manufacturer X took his plane, replaced the pilot seat cusion and advanced the model number by 1, in my eyes it is still the exact same plane for our purposes. So I don't mind if you count 190A5 as A3 or what ever was the 1st A 190 to see real combat and use the earlier service date. Same goes for some 109Gx models, F6F5/3 or P47D5/11.
Or, you can ingnore all that, the spit9 would enter before the 190s and the numbers in the areana would likely stay below 10 because frankly - it's just not fun sometimes.
Bozon
Or conversely you could say -
The A5 at 1.42ata never flew before mid-43.
It has an approx 15-20mph advantage over the A3 (so hardly just a headrest etc)
Against an already much slower 1941 Vb.
And if 15-20mph is no biggie, then the Spit F IX can sub for -
the 1942 LF Vc
the 1944 Seafire L III
the 1942 Seafire L IIc. (one with the Merlin 32)
The Spit XIV can sub for the 1943 Spit XII
See how complicated and ugly it becomes.
Saying that - I still think there is enough planes in the planeset to get historical matchups if you choose to do them.
I would suggest subs if used should be equal or lesser performance than what they are subbing for, NOT better.
