To the Axis Pilots.

[M1A1]

Gents my hat is off to you all, it was truly a great time and the reason why it was great is because of you our opponents! Enjoyed every bit of it and hope we have more of these. Just wanted you to know that it was the 381st that flew to Paris on the next to last mission to tie you all up and keep you from reengaging the main bomber stream. I never tyhought we would make it when I decided that my boys would fly on as a diversion but it was awesome none the less.

Thanks also to the staff that put this together! Well balanced and great fun it was...


 

[Oddball-CAF]

Well balanced and great fun it was...

 "Well balanced" ? The Luftwaffe side was outnumbered almost 3-1 at the start.
And the only P38s I saw were all at 35K, bouncing lesser numbered and poorer performing
aircraft.
  Hell, the only time I saw actual "escorts" for the bombers, there were two or three
at most. The Allied side's fighter groups were basically just roaming about 25 or 50, even 75 miles
from the bomber formations looking (with their numbers and altitude advantages) for
easy kills.
  There was no "balance" to it that I could see, nor could any of the pilots I flew with.
 

[M1A1]

The Balance was there, if you guys did not recruit I am sorry for that. Sorry to hear that you had a bad time. Would you have felt any better if you just shot down everything that came your way? The LW pilots I saw did a great job. As for 38's being high woulf you not have been that high if you could? Besides that the bombers never flew above 22,000 which was historic alts. With the exception of the next to last raid which I and my 2 squad mates flew onto Paris on our own (we were at 25,000) to draw fighters off the stream retreating it was well played by booth sides. Usually and I flew in the Der Gross Schlage Scenario a few years ago whenever there are bombers vs fighters the bombers seemed to always get totally massacred yet I never complained because it is what is.
 Next time get more pilots I say. Not the CM's or either Command staff's fault that the numbers were what they were, and truly in real war you sometimes go with what you have and hope for the best and this is a war simulation so...

[KCDitto]

Yup. We went with what we had. Sorry you did not enjoy it too odd. You played a big role in the overall success of the axis. I know scouting is not the glamorous job but it is important. Even the most fully manned squad at 16 ran into overwhelming odds. It is life and I for one enjoyed the challenge. Not the same old furballing for sure. Feel sorry for those allied fighter jocks with nothing to shoot at. 

[BFOOT1]

Yup. We went with what we had. Sorry you did not enjoy it too odd. You played a big role in the overall success of the axis. I know scouting is not the glamorous job but it is important. Even the most fully manned squad at 16 ran into overwhelming odds. It is life and I for one enjoyed the challenge. Not the same old furballing for sure. Feel sorry for those allied fighter jocks with nothing to shoot at. 

Only thing I didn't get to shoot at was you 

[Wiley]

Re:  Side Imbalance.

I just looked at it as the Authentic Luftwaffe Experience^TM.

'Get more people' sounds great, M1A1, except it's not that easy to recruit for the Washington Generals of the History Channel.

I got what I wanted out of it though, a heckuva pile of fun and a world of targets.

Wiley.

[Muzzy]

The LW slaughterd all our bombers twice. I call that balance. 

[ROC]

The LW slaughterd all our bombers twice. I call that balance.

I was going to comment on this.
Over a 12 hour period with people coming and going (Ok, well mostly staying around for the entire event) is difficult to keep numbers balanced. Players came when they could.  It was still a relatively balanced event so far as outcome goes.  Imagine for a moment how it might have been if the numbers were even over the course of the day.  It could have gone very badly for the Allies, over enemy territory, no position to rearm and get back into the fight as quickly as the Axis could.
One particular battle draws this into perspective for me.
"We" (It really was KCDittos fault, he was in charge and didn't have to listen) opted to not wait, and attack England.  We wanted to hit the allies early, find the bombers forming up.  As it was, we did catch a whole bunch of planes sitting on the runway and I'm not sure they realized we were quite that close, they entered the tower just as our guys got in visual range of them.  Even as we got over England, we knew the bombers got out over the water somewhere, they were NOE going to Antwerp.  We couldn't find them, we had eyes up there looking while we tried to inflict some damage over England.
As it turns out, we found some great fights, and as we were sitting in the tower waiting for the launch window, dar pops near Antwerp. We were racing the clock and once the timer went off, we launched and got to Antwerp just as the Allies were beginning their run.
Imagine if we had several more squads on the Axis side. We were already over England.  We were then able to get up and at Antwerp to engage.  Had we more, we would have  also had squads in front of Antwerp attacking while the rest of us were getting into position. We knew Antwerp was the target, so we timed an attack and then a defense, we could have built an attack While defending.
Overall, Balance is more than numbers.  The ability to both attack and defend were met on both sides in a relatively balanced effort.  Had the Axis gained more players, the Allies really would have also needed more to prevent simply being overwhelmed by "even" numbers.

[Zoney]

Re:  Side Imbalance.

I just looked at it as the Authentic Luftwaffe Experience^TM.

'Get more people' sounds great, M1A1, except it's not that easy to recruit for the Washington Generals of the History Channel.

I got what I wanted out of it though, a heckuva pile of fun and a world of targets.

Wiley.

This is the way I felt also.  I don't think the Luftwaffe had enough planes to really stop a bomber attack and I knew for the most part we could not either.  We could take out as may as possible thereby reducing the number of bombs that could hit their targets.

In the first hour, I had 40 Allied planes within Icon range at one point.  I felt the frustration that the Luftwaffe might have felt too.  There was just no way to get in a position to attack.

I was fully immersed and I loved it.

[O2b1-2]

I logged on bout 10 minutes before start,was wanting to fly allied buffs,I'm not a very good FP and saw way low numbers for axis.went to the low side got pick up by jg26 190 A5s .we got bounced the first couple frames.the squad got a few kills,I just got spanked 30k spits and 38s way to many and alt:mad: bout to hang it up and squad went down to 3 pilots.so I figure 1more frame we lift from way back from the front and I climb 33k ish ok at least they won't have alt on me.we get the call on da buffs..not 1 made it home.so I ended up flying the rest of the frames.had a great time and great numbers for me ..6 kills, few buffs few fighters,6 assist,3 deaths. Command staff made good calls there was a bit of waiting on runway but imo felt it was pretty close to what was going on for the LW back in 43  and could not complain bout lack of red targets.

[JVboob]

out numbered? try leading the big juicy fat appealing 110s  5 vs all once we showed up we became priority targets but it was still an epic day of fun. I think we hit a high number of 7 for 2 launch windows the whole thing was one for the books though. <S>

[M1A1]

All good points and if you look at as far as real life, there was never a raid to my knowledge that all the bombers were shot down or failed to at least get bombs out. So for the LW you guys I am sure got to experience the feeling of those pilots who knew that sooner or latter it was all gonna turn on them and there was nothing they could do but their best. It takes a special kinda man to continue on knowing full well that no matter what you do you are still gonna loose in the end.

[fudgums]

A few points here, I think that's what makes the setup great,especially the amount of ordinance to take down objects. It helped level out the balance and it really made the bombers have to make it target with a punch. So while the Allies had number advantages, they had to make their bombs count, which was tough with manual calibration AND experienced Luftwaffe pilots hitting them while they drop.

I thought Axis command did a great job, it was just fun listening to the command teamspeak while the event was going on. The communication between the squads and organizing attacks onto the bomber streams. I can only speak for JG26, but we had to be very disciplined and for the most part I felt that we were. Like ROC said above, balance is much than about numbers.

[LilMak]

I think the early numbers were out of balance but it evened out pretty well later.

IMO deep penetration raid scenerios should be about a 60/40 split in the Allies favor to make things even. Before you panic, let me give my reasons. First much of the allied force is bombers which actually can give the Axis a numbers advantage in fighters fielded. Then there is the darbar. The enemy is coming, you see them coming and you can set up intercept missions rather easily once you scout the formations. This is especially true when you know what the potential targets are before the fields even open. In this particular scenerio each Axis pilot could count as two. Why? In the time it takes to form up the attack, the Axis could throw every single defender to intercept knowing pilots would get shot down and instantly spawn as a rear guard to launch a second attack before the buffs got over target.  Even if they don't get the buffs before they release eggs it's possible wipe them out on the way home.

The only place the Germans seem to truly suffer was the thin air where the U.S. planes excel.

So I think the numbers were pretty even towards the end of the day.

For the record, I feel like we (allies) got spanked given the bomber losses I witnessed.

[JVboob]

It was great. I had 3 voice comms going on in my ears and then 2 txt chnnls to moniter so I was going nuts and ended up keying the wrong vox several times lol telling my wing to check six over command chnl or asking command a ? on squad TS or in game vox and wondering why i didnt get an answer lol