Squire:
My comments, I have always believed that turnout was driven by the setup and the effort and orders put out by the CIC's. Good setups and good orders normally equal good nights which drive attendance and fun for all. As a CO and CIC planner I do my part as best I can to help.
This setup is among the worst, ever. Not the scenario, the setup. I would say that any experienced FSO pilot could have predicted the outcome of Frame 01 a week before it happened, yet we flew and it played out in a predictable manner. There was nothing good about the setup from the side allocations to the plane sets, targets and further AC min max restrictions. The same mistakes continue to play out, two many targets to attack and defend, to many restrictions on AC mins and max's. Did the Setup guys even count the available AXIS side predictable turnout numbers against the min max AC setup? For the last few scenario frames the AXIS turnout has been running about 75-95. Basically you allowed me to plan about 16% of my available AC strength, the remainder over 80% was dictated by the setup. To many targets means small fights which no one likes. And no one likes flying one way missions. I had no force structure for recon, deception or reserves. As a guy that loves to plan these operations there wasn't much I could do, you guys did it and restricted the remainder. Lastly the point setup further pushed the outcome that you see in the plans. All setup issues. And all very fixable.
So ejecting squads for low turn outs will not help the FSO community to grow. I do agree with ejecting a squad that hasn't shown up for several frames, and yes we all see that and know who.
If you want to grow this you CM's need to use the best scenario's and the very best setups to save whats left. The numbers continue to drop.
Whatever happened to the month of Dec being the "What If scenario month". Remember BOB 46'? How about B-29's in the 8th AF over Germany in 46', that would be a hoot. It would be different and fun and most important "NEW". We need more thinking outside of the box not ejecting pilots and squads in opinion.