Over many years of scenario participation it occurs to me I should share my thoughts.
SIDES DO NOT HAVE TO BE EVEN
In WB strategic bombing scenarios the numbers might be something like this:
Allied: 24 B-17s 24 P-47s 24 P-38s
German: 12 Fw-190s 12 Bf-109s 12 Bf-110s
Trying to protect this many bombers with only 48 fighters against 36 interceptors will be difficult. But in the most recent TOD, the escort was dwarfed by both the B-17s and the Luftwaffe, and the bombers suffered heavy losses.
The 1.10 buff system will improve this situation tremendously. Eight buff pilots will due the duty of 24, freeing up 16 pilots for escort duty.
***In WW2 the ratio of escorts to buffs was almost always 2, 3, 4, even 5 to one.***
Of course, very high ratios will frustrate many escort pilots who will never see an enemy fighter, so it's probably best to keep the ratio at 2-1.
USE COMMON SENSE TO DECIDE BASE OWNERSHIP
This occured in an AH North Africa scenario:
Camel and I were ordered to take two Panzer IVs and circle way around some Allied vehicle base in southern Tunisia. After a long drive, we arrived on a ridge behind 4 enemy tanks guarding the base. Our attack was a complete surprise, and our accurate fire quickly destroyed all four within a minute. We picked off the gun at the VH and rolled in without having taken a single hit.
BUT...the rules stated that a base capture requires THREE GVs. Nevermind that those three GVs might be heavily damaged and without ammo, all that mattered was the number: 3. So our two undamaged, well-supplied Panzers weren't enough.
LET PILOTS USE PLANES AS THEY SEE FIT
Two examples from WB of how NOT to handle situations:
In a recreation of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I was flying a TBM that was substituting as a PBY Catalina recon aircraft. [A better choice from the WB arsenal would have been the Ju-52.] Anyway, at 1,000 feet altitude NW of Pearl Harbor I spotted and was ordered to shadow a group of fighters at about 10K heading toward Pearl Harbor. After several minutes I looked to my low 1 o'clock and saw that I was about 1,000 yds above and behind a formation of a dozen "Kate" torpedo bombers almost on the deck. I dove down past them so their rear guns couldn't fire at me. They have no forward firing guns. As I pulled past them, my auto gunners opened up and shot down two of them! I then turned south and got out of there before the fighters could be alerted and come down. In the spirit of the game, I flew the TBM like it was a two-engine flying boat: no quick manuvers. [The PBY does have several defensive guns similar to the TBM's]
As I bugged out, I was told that the Japanese side had complained because I only supposed to use my plane for recon, and not to attack with it. So, without hearing my side of the story, I was ejected. A very bad decision, I feel.
This happened at least one other time in WB. I spoke with another pilot who told me he decided to split his squadron of SBD dive bombers. One group went to hit the Japanese CV and, in desperation, some SBDs without bombs but with twin forward-firing 50 cals. CAPPED the American CV. When the Japanese side arrived over the American fleet and saw there was CAP, they complained and the US CO was told he wasn't supposed to use his dive bombers as CAP. Well, early in WW2 SBDs sometimes were forced to CAP CVs, and several future fighter pilots got their first kills in them. I remember one pilot got 2 Zeroes in one mission!
That's all I can think of for now.
MRPLUTO, VMF-323 ~Death Rattlers~ MAG-33
