In no particular order (bearing in mind I'm primarily abomber pilot)...
1. Allowing only 1 gunner aboard just isnt good enough, the ability to have 2 (or more,if appropriate) would be good both to allow defence against attacks from more than one direction, and also just in case the volunteer gunner you've picked up seems to come from the planet Zog where looking for and shooting at enemy fighters isnt a required attribute of bomber gunners (happens now and then). If you get one of those aboard, ypu're better off having no gunner aboard at all, but at least if there were 2 slots you'd increase your chances of having 1 competent gunner aboard.
2. Otto in WB has hardly been fearsome, AND it is fully CM-adjustable. Personally, I'd be glad to see Otto in AH, even if his accuracy is deliberately set low, because when solo I could fly evasives knowing that my attacker has SOME chance of getting hit by defensive fire. As is, I can pilot or gun - and whilst I can throw the plane about somewhat from gunner position, I cant fly proper evasives, just turn left and right. And I easily lose all sense of which way the plane is pointing from the gunner position. If in the pilots seat, I fly a pattern, as did real pilots, which puts me back on course every now and then (eg: down and left, up and right, own and right, up and left - overall, you stay on track for target. Try doing THAT from gunner positions)
3. Effectiveness of MGS seems overmodelled to me, at least in the MA, and the bomber toughness generally undermodelled (scratch that - MOST planes are undermodelled for toughness, so far as I can tell, at least if the MA settings are anything to go by - which I do not expect them to be, being more interested in more "serious" flying).
4. One of the biggest probems for a person flying a bomber solo is not being able to scan the airspace around you effectively enough. If you've a good gunner aboard, that helps tremendously (conversely, if the gunner is of the "just messing about" variety, you might a well rtb, bail out or auger), but a sizable fraction of the times I've been killed in a bomber, I simply have not seen my attacker at all. In a fighter that may be realistic, in a bomber it is not. I'd vote for having Otto in Ah in an instant even if he were never allowed to fire a shot, just so he could tell me if he can see anything nearby so I have a chance to jump to a gun to defend myself.
5. When I've spotted fighters coming, I've nearly always been able to make a fight of it, and have often killed 2-3 fighters before getting knocked out of the sky myself - drop that to 1-2 fighters when flying anything other than a 4-engined bomber. This I do by making use of the ability to bank and turn the bomber from gunner position. In a Ju88, B26 or Ki67, the extent to which one can do this may be credible, but I have some doubts as to whether being able to do this QUITE so hard in a B17 or Lancaster is realistic.
6. I'm able to kill attacking fighters that readily because they almost always attack from behind, which is just plain stupid. That way makes their closing speed lower, giving me plenty of time to draw a bead on them. It makes their angular velocity low, making it easier to hit them, even a long way out. Learn to make HO (head-on) attacks against bombers, folks!
The best attack Ive seen against me thus far was an F6F which, judging by what I saw from a Lanc tailgun, was approaching from underneath and zoomclimbed to attack my belly - but then carried on to complete a halfloop right in front of my tail guns, rather than turning and coming ack for a second pass from where I couldnt shoot.
7. I suspect the lamentably poor standard of attacks against bombers has a lot to do with why they aren't set to survive as much damage as they would in real life. I'd rather have tougher bombers more or less forcing people to learn to attack properly. (an attack from dead ahead means a greater closing speed, means more punch behind your guns guys, putting it in simple terms). What is ironic is that against fighters, the situation is reversed - far too many HOing enemy fighters when they should be trying to get onto their 6. In both cases, using the wrong kind of attack simply makes you more vulnerable to enemy fire.
8. I want bombing accuracy to get worse the higher the altitude over target that drop is made from. I'd also like to see better modeling of bomb sights (including at least two types; gyro-stabilised vector sights and tachometric, with a choise of which to use in appropriate planes). And more clouds!
9. And MUCH lower icon ranges at night! As for fighter types, give them an incentive to fly prper night-fighter types in the MA by allowing such types (only) to use airborne intercept radar. Heck, even failing a simulation of that, make it so that only night-fighters and people on the ground can see dots on the GPS map. Thatd work.
10. JABOing needs to be decreased in effectiveness and/or tons-on-target implemented. At the moment, those village-sized gatherings of buildings are representing towns and cities. Strategically, their importance is that of large towns and huge cities. Looked at that way, it is utterly ludicrous that a few fighters armed with nothing more than .5cal bullets and 20mm cannon can level one in minutes.
However, if the effects of tons-on-target area is included in the scheme of things, then those village-sized groups could have AN effect that JABOs can happily go for whilst the bombers do ther tons-on-target area thing and handle the rest, keeping both buffers and fighter pilots happy.
In short, you have to look at the overall picture when considering this, guys; is a village-sized group of buildings standing is for a village or a city> Consider that when thinking about what you mean by "realism" here, and say how you're thinking about it, else we're all talking at cross-purposes.
11. Radar needs to be seriously looked at.
- should we be able to see anything at all outside of the range of our own countries radar?
- should dots EVER be visible on radar once airbore (possble exception: nightfighters)?
12. GPS needs to be looked at
- ability for CM's to turn GPS OFF for scenario games
- addition of some kind of dot command (usable only by defined plane types?) which will give a somewhat inaccurate position fix after a certain delay (the degree of innacuracy and teh delay being variable within limits set by CMs)
- addition of some radio nav aids? Suggestions: ability for CMs to set either a planes home base as a beacon, or defined sites as having a beacon, and for pilots to be able to get a fix on the bearing to their home field or such beacon sites as the CMs define. Possible ability to turn on range from beacon reports (also somewhat inaccurate_
The home base beacon idea would mean that everyone would always know which direction to fly to return to the field they took off from. The other suggestions would allow simulation of most forms of radio navigation/bombing aids used in WW2 (apart from air-to-ground radar used in some bombers very late in the war). Modelling ECM could be more difficult (one step at a time!), but for scenario games, CM's could fake it by messing with the beacons.
Of course, people taking the trouble to know the performance of their planes, acquire accurate paper maps and accurate timepieces would benefit by being able to navigate reasonably well without radio navaids at all, and in sme circumstances,more accurately than with radio avaids - as in real life. But NO-ONE need fear becoming entirely lost with tese ideas in place, unless the CMs set things extremely tough with no GPS and no navaids at all, in which ase you'd best prepare by learing how to navigate! :-)))
Esme (happy to find her way to target through the darkest, cloudiest nights with or without radio navaids)
PS. I have flown solo strat raids in the MA several times in my short time in AH thus far. Theyre doable, but take a ong time, and certainly arent adequately ewarded by perk points. Conversely, IMO MOST fighters should require a certain number of perk points to fly, even if only one to a handful. Anything that thins the herds of P51s late-model Spits, Laggs and N1K's is A Good Thing IMO. But then... I only fly in the MA for amusement. I do my serious flying elsewhere, and I wouldnt want to ruin the fun of those who enjoy MA flying just so my particular tastes are catered for there. Can't unerstand anyone taking the MA very seriously, to be honest... :-}
