I think in concept its a good idea, however, lets say a squad use a 9-10 commitment and they are, lets say, a USN squad. On average they are within their commitment but in a month when they get blue planes their guys crawl out of the woodwork and they field 18. Then we have the same problem on a larger scale. I see this happening more with the Luftwaffe squads because they tend to be a bit larger anyway and the extreme side imbalances tend to be the German FSOs on average. BUT, I am more concerned with the recent stint of plane imbalances more so than side imbalances. Let's use December as an example. Every single Axis plane had an extreme speed advantage over anything the Allies had. The fighters averaged 30-50 mph faster, the bombers....not even close. The Allies had elephants with wings and the Axis had Boston's which nothing could catch, when HE-111s or JU-88s would have been better for speed instead.
Well, the goal is never to purposely create an imbalanced event. There are many factors that we consider when we make adjustments to designs. Unfortunately number imbalances are a big factor that skew results of a frame or design. My stomach rolls when a design calls for a 50/50 split and one side has 15-20 pilots more than the other, but we do the best we can. This change will hopefully make the best we can even better.
Plane balancing goes back and forth depending on year and theater. This is another big factor in balance - and as time goes on the Allied planes get much better than Axis planes and sooner on top of that. I personally have no issue taking planes out for the sake of balance, but don't like shoeing planes in that weren't there. For example, in November's Operation Tungsten event, the FAA had Barracudas and Swordfish. The closest thing we have is a TBM, so we felt it best to leave it in but not require it to be flown.
Another factor is a pilot's comfort in any particular ride. Often times it is difficult to hop in various rides month to month especially when they are big leaps, eg. going from a Yak one month to a Jug the next. I know that personally, flying a Yak this past month in FSO and TFT was a total change of pace for me.
In our first running of Operation Torch, we were successfully able to balance a DB-7 (Boston) against an SBD. Not sure if we can ever accomplish that feat again. Not that that particular match-up was an ideal situation, but we made it work with what we had. As for He-111s and Ju-88s, the Vichy French never had them and we like historical accuracy.
We have been trying to spice things up a bit and not run the same stuff over and over, but I suppose that is what we will have to do.
