GOOD NEWS FOR NEXT WEEK, and about this week problems

[214thCavalier]

Glad to hear its not already been decided Busc and you still have an open mind on the subject.
Btw i am not even suggesting there will be dogfights at 30k plus, hell its bad enuf keeping airborne up there without fighting even for P38.
If a cap ever is applied it must be as your last 2 points suggested.
But i know at least 2 Allied pilots who will depart if it is.
I really do feel the points i made in my earlier post are all thats needed to bring the fights down.
Also keep in mind the P38 does not even make its best speed until approx 26k and some wanna cap at 20k or 25k ???

Just seen your reply above Camo and i kinda thought you would appreciate its not all sweet and rosy being at high alt  
Its very difficult to spot enemy aircraft, as i said earlier if the bar dar was off we would have to have gone lower to hunt, and compression is a big issue as well when trying to set up any attack from alt.

As Camo stated fly where you the Axis want to fight and make us come down to you. Listen to him because Camo understands tactical fighting thats probably why his squad did so well  

Only one disagreement i think the local field dot radar only should be enabled as its not realistic that the field would not report to HQ as being under attack.
By the time thats seen its gonna be too late to stop the raid anyway but think of the panic it would create in the Command centers seeing a base getting attacked and desperately trying to think how to divert resources to cover it. In doing so of course opening up other areas for a real attack  
Without the local dot radar showing fields being attacked you will not be able to set up feint attacks to divert enemy away from your real target.
 

[This message has been edited by 214thCavalier (edited 10-22-2000).]

[Vosper]

Not exact passages from Ops orders, but here are a few quotes from a book "The Mighty Eighth" - all quotes are bomber related unless otherwise mentioned afterwards.

pg 190 - "The Luftwaffe pilots withdrew, bloodied after a series of dogfights at 30,000 feet, prime conditions for the Thunderbolts" - refering to the Schweinfurt raid

pg 229 - "We flew at 24,000 feet going in." - a B17 raid on Frankfurt

pg 255 - "4 March 1944, 28,000 feet over Berlin...minus 65 degrees...[On at least one B17, the bomb doors froze]"

pg 261 - "Our group was near Hanover, Germany, around 23,000 feet and heading east. A gaggle of German fighters were below us around 18 to 19,000 feet, set there as a decoy. Several thousand feet above us was a much larger group" - a P38 pilot on fighter sweep

pg 100 - "We were at 25,000 feet, flew over Bremen our primary target. Engaged by flak and fighters. We took violent evasive action all the while.."

pg 113 - "My last look at our altimeter in the ship was at 26,000 feet" - Navigator Wayne Gotke, after bailing out of a B17

I could find more, but the general theme is that the bombers flew at mid 20's, up to nearly 30,000 even, and the fighters on both sides did the same.  This is, for the most part, refering to the bigger bomber raids and not simple fighter sweeps (except the one quote).

When I can find it, there is a passage in one of my books on the RCAF that refers to fighting over the channel, and how both sides felt that fighter sweeps at 26,000 feet were getting out of hand, and brought their sweeps down to about 15,000 feet. Don't go flaming what's in this paragraph as I don't recall the exact words used, just the overall general wording.  More to follow.

Cheers

[StSanta]

Look, I underrstand tactical fighting too. And it doesn't take a genius to realize that the 190 force is useless when all the enmies are at 30k.

The enemies already have speed (except the Spits) on us, now add huge amounts of alt. And add it at very high altitude where the 190 is a true pig.

I'm flying because it is fun, and constantly trying to grab at 0.45k/m only to be boounced, then regrab, then bounced, is not my idea of fun.

How much fun can it be for the allieds to meet no resistence

Busc has a problem either way he goes and people will be unhappy. Some allie pilots will leave, or some LW pilots will leave.

But look at it this way; the allieds are arguing for an advantage in altitude; the LW is arguing for having a chance to fight back.

Those P-47's made a very unwise tactical decision and paid the price. I doubt they'll repeat it.

Just my opinion, and discard it if it's not to your liking.

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StSanta
9./JG 54 "Grünherz"

[SFRT - Frenchy]

To add something to Camo's post, we were 4 P47's Vs 6 109's. We were slightly higher like 33K vs 30K.

1 p47 compressed and died right away, but for the rest of the fight (goal keeping them away from our buffs), we couldn't gain advantage, even "in our territory". When u doing a fast pass at a 109, he was split S and u couldn't aim properly at him. Only way was to throttle down and follow him but then you get killed by his wingmen.

the way the fight really happened was more all of us doing some wide turns and couldn't gain any advantage over the others.

When we went lower and could start do have some "more usuall" type of fighting around 10-15K then it was in 109s territory. We lost a P47 into the ack of an eni field (fight came near a captured field). I personally got shot down at 10k from a 109 in my 500y 6 while doing 450-500 TAS, didn't saw him coming there ... oups. The last P47, Sancho, dived away and got a 109 follwing him to the deck at more than 500 MPH, and got shot down too.

So you guys, please don't give me the crap about plane performances and limited altitude. Camo's 109s demonstrated that altitude restriction is not needed.

Now if some got shot down because they didn't saw the bad guy diving on them, too bad, don't blame the game, blame your SA.

The B17 we were covering were flying 26K, more than enought for them to get killed by any WW2 plane coming from 30K. When I saw the 6 109's at 30K and the buffs were vulnerable below, I never thought "&^%$#@ LW alt monkeys &^%$#@". They choosed to engage us (P47 escort) rather than diving on the buffs and chop them into pieces. Even if they had dive to kill them, it would had been perfectly fine with me and I don't think B17's would had yelled "Alt monkeys" either.

As some mentioned, put radar off, we will have to go low if our job is to intercept LW planes.

I disaprove the altitude limitations, I may reconsider my involvement in this scenario if it's approved. Not frightening anyone here, or putting pressure, just my point of view, altitude limitation is not synonym of realisum for me.

[SFRT - Frenchy]

Santa (shakes hands quicky and throws a beer in Santa's hand), What is the goal of the fighters in the scenarios?

The goal is to protect the bombers to arrive over their targets and go back home. The goal of a fighter is not to kill an another fighter for the fun of it. Fighters kill each others because ones needs to protect something and the other to destroy it.  

Bombers fly 25K, can you protect them while flying 25K too? You bet it's a no, so we go to 30K. Did we engaged the 109's to kill them? No, we engaged them to keep them buzy while our bombers were passing by 15NM away. Did the 109's engaged us to score some P47s? No they engaged us to keep us away from A7.

If I exagerate it, I could say that if the 109's were cruising on deck and us at 30k, we would not had enaged them, knowing they were no threat to our mission.

looks like people not really fly "mission oriented" but "dogfight oriented" and that's maybe why they complain about altitude.

About your FW rate of climb vs Spits. May I recall you that we were flying P47's with 2DTs Vs 109's  

And none of us complained about anything.

[busc]

DUDEDUDUM...what to do?  

OK...

 Ok,lets avoid wind-alt-limitator-o'matic
............................. ....................I HAVE 2 NEW THINGS IN MIND.......

2 easy to realize Ideas....lemme know what u think...

1) I see that b17s were at 26000k ...Ok..lets say that this was realistic..but..in real world's ww2 this caused the drammatic lack of precision in "precision daylight bombings".. 1 of the main causes was wind (other problems were probably given by time of releas in 1 single pass and  box formation bombin)...
We could set some layers of medium winds
at certain altitudes...and actually, if i am not wrong, wind influences bomb drops also in AH  

An example: a 10 kts from 130° wind from 6k to 7k ; a 19 kts wind from 122 from 12k to 14k ; a 14kts crosswind at 24-28k....
...Obviously i would not tell wind alts/directions/speeds (read the story of Rudolf Hesse to discover ww2
areonautical-meteo-bullettins quality) ....

..This would be for sure realistic !
(anyone that flies anything knows how frequently u find wind......(if u want a confirm of this just look a METAR or TAF=meteo-observations/forecasts from anywhere in the world right now----------------> http://airmet.ch)


In WW2 smoke was extensively used to hide strategical targets...maybe...detonating (w/ .det command) some fuel dumps near the target when the enemies are saw inbound could force the bombers to descend lower or to bomb with less precision..This could be very realistic too  

By the way I think that 30k dogfights are actually not realistic.... i've read those accounts..and thanks a lot for starting sending documents..but..I am considering 2 things about em -->pressure altitude of a ww2 altimeter can be fu**d by: wind,low pressure layers, ice in the statics + personally i dont trust too much in war-memories and commercial aviation books)

....Lemme know.....

Thanks once again for being here  ,
                                     BuSc

[busc]

correct link is : http://airmet.ch/
 

[Zigrat]

I am againts alt caps

if we get the proper icon and radar settings (dar off enemy icons 3k) this will help alot. a fighter cap at 30k would never even SEE the 15k ju-88s passing below them possibly.

If the B17s stay at a reasonable range (and I consider 23-26 k reasonable) then I don't see a reason to impose it. the allies had betetr performing A/C at alt, exploit that!


if the axis used strat with THEIR bomber force i would force the allies low for defense. I think imposing artificial alt caps is a bad idea, and I am not writing it into the ROE as long as the buffs (and I think sunchaser has done an OUTSTANDING job with his b17s and r2ch has done real well with the ju-88s) its fair.

[SFRT - Frenchy]

I believe that winds layers will screew up dogfighting too, as when u will pass each wind layer your plane is temporary jerking. It will throw up your aim/flying away.

maybe to be more historical, buffs would had to drop all their loads in one time, up to them to set the delay?

[busc]

Hehehehe
A little question...are wind gusts and turbulence realistic?...If you  have flown more than a couple of times in your life(especially on a tourism single engined, but also on a liner) you must know that they are.....So why complaining that wind layers could shake your plane while you are aiming at an enemy   ?...this happens all the time in real world...and trust me...as Murphy told us  it actually happens right when you need it to not happen...I ALWAYS found  15kts gust wind when was hurrying my lil light PA18 on final due to overcast 300feet closin on the field and around (it actually happens more than often in the valley next to the Alps where Milan is   )

So dont you think that a turbulence, shacked many guys just right before firing?

I think that maybe 3 different wind layers would be too many, but one single big w-layer should be the right choice (for ex: 12kts wind from 20 to 24k)...

Wind is one realistic option of AH..Why not using it? Because was all easier without wind?
Mmm then lets go all flying X-wing vs Tie-fighter...No wind in deep-space   ..

Hope someone agree   to  this point of view
            BuSc


[This message has been edited by busc (edited 10-22-2000).]

[Beegerite]

More of a question based on Vermillion's post.  Assuming that each of the planes in the engagement is modeled properly, why would we want to keep an airplane at an altitude which is below where that aircraft performs best?  I don't believe that these scenarios should attempt to replicate the altitudes engagements where historically fought. My feeling is that these scenarios should present "what/if" situations otherwise we already know the outcome.
Beeg

 

Originally posted by Vermillion:
Just a side comment here guys, but 35k fights over Sicily are not realistic either.

If altitude limits are what it takes to get fights down to the altitudes they took place at, then thats what needs to be implemented.

[busc]

As i said...

I have decided with camo and zig that

no alt limitations with wind will be used

But...

I'm really convinced that using crosswinds to limitate the precision of high alt bombin (wich, as it is without wind, is NOT realistic) will help a lot!

I think that this will leave untouched freedom, but add more realism, because:
 
1- If the bombers want to stay high they will have to accept lack of precision

2- If they want more accurate bombing, they can descend...just like actually happened in ww2 (please check bombrun altitudes of  8th air force precision raids over Normandie/Cale-area in may-june 1944)


THIS TIME--> Please STOP discussin about alt limitations..Because they will be NOT implemented in HST...And start giving me feedback about THIS idea..And the smoke idea     Thanks again  ...BuSc

[LLv34_Snefens]

Frenchy S!
your observations on the 109G2vsP47 engagement are dead on, except the numbers  
To make it clear we were 5 109's and we engaged 6 p47's, where 2 turned away (to close escort B17's?) and one compressed early, so this 3 v 5 continued without violent dogfight until the 2 p38's arrived.
We had then accomplished our mission to escort for the A7 raid and you had taken us way out of reach from the B17's, so now we both could engage with nothing more in mind than our own life  

Read my debriefing in Camo's Axis AAR.

Oh and I say don't make ceilings. Let the icons determine efficient alts.

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Ltn. Snefens
RO, Lentolaivue 34

[Wilfrid]

Personally I`d love to be able to Drop On Lead and NOT bomb individual acks - thats for the MA. But because the gameplay in the HST has base capture, thats what we have to do. Give us (346th BG) a nice big city to bomb with the .salvo command and we`ll be happier. Scoring would have to be done on a Post Strike Photo basis, which would be open to interpretation anyway - do all craters show up on everybodies FE?

Smoke idea is good too as we could have a secondary target that`s actually there for a reason.

Oh and a big <S> to Frenchy and his squad, I only saw 1 enemy aircraft all frame on Saturday, and that was about D2.9 BELOW me - nice work.

Wilfrid
XO 346th

[Sunchaser]

Busc....YES, turn on the wind.

It IS ridiculous for me to be able to put a 250 pound bomb on an anti-aircraft emplacement from 25,000 feet.

That will force us to carry heavier bombs hoping the target is desroyed or damaged by near misses.

Adding this realism factor makes it much more important to get all bombers over the target whereas now the job can be done by 1 or 2.

I do not support an effort to dictate arena wide salvo settings for the bombers though.
The Bomber leaders must be able to determine this one.



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When did they put this thing in here and WTF is it for?