Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: titanic3 on July 27, 2013, 02:51:07 PM
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I'm curious, in game, some of the stuff we do would be insane in real life and our gunnery would've been 100x better than those of real life pilots. So then how was the average sortie in WWII?
Watching some gun cams, I would think pilots used probably all their ammo for maybe only 1 or 2 kill if they're lucky. And I assume they retained from getting into turn fights if possible? And the stories of pilots getting into 2min+ dogfights with an opponent would look like an everyday occurrence here in AH wouldn't it? We're the dogfights as extravagance as the ones we see in AH? With extremely heavy rudder and throttle work? Or were they simply trying their best not to stall the plane and flew as timidly as possible?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rQUIWq56iKI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGVQOmo1feg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-eBmnpCO18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWfAd7KZoks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPAIXBXxMyk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPAIXBXxMyk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EEisuZARrU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBdJyLx4aqI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EiX4jZs0f4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VWqZSPKUrI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfYf5oeAeoQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agwnwqCdwl8
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rQUIWq56iKI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGVQOmo1feg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-eBmnpCO18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWfAd7KZoks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPAIXBXxMyk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPAIXBXxMyk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EEisuZARrU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBdJyLx4aqI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EiX4jZs0f4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VWqZSPKUrI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfYf5oeAeoQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agwnwqCdwl8
:ahand
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Hey, I'm being courteous and helpful here! :D
It's good to see the flame of curiosity still burning
the way it was when I was his age. It's sad, however,
to not be able to introduce him in person to some of
the vets I was privileged to visit with. I'm damned
glad to see these interviews made widely available
on the internet. :)
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Many kills happened where the attacker was never seen.
In the cases where the attacker was seen, there were a lot where the defender didn't evade all that hard compared to what we are used to.
A lot of fighter pilots in WWII were not trained that much in ACM before being sent out into combat.
There were occasions of dogfights like we have in the MA, with the pilots pulling lots of maneuvers, using flaps, throttle control, and even (rarely) special accelerated-stall behavior of their aircraft. But those were not the majority of fights.
AH techniques and knowledge do translate to real airplanes. I went to Air Combat USA once and could easily see that in my mock fights against another Air Warrior pilot as compared to our fights against a commercial pilot (with much more time in real airplanes, but much less knowledge of ACM).
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I'm curious how much of a problem for their eardrums was / how they dealt with varying air pressure.
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I'm curious how much of a problem for their eardrums was / how they dealt with varying air pressure.
I've heard talks from a lot of WWII fighter pilots, but none has ever talked about having any problem with ears as a result of varying air pressure.
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were any ww2 fighters equipped with pressurized cabins?
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were any ww2 fighters equipped with pressurized cabins?
We have one in the game, the Ta 152H
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IIRC it almost never worked.
I've heard talks from a lot of WWII fighter pilots, but none has ever talked about having any problem with ears as a result of varying air pressure.
So.. the pain we have nowadays in airliners, that wasn't multiplied by their relatively larger altitude changes? E.G. diving from say 15k to NOE in short time?
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I have never been bothered with pressure change while flying, for me its only when I go below sea level that my ears are effected
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From all the books I've read about WWII by veteran pilots I concluded that the most used ACM was a split-S and a power dive into the clouds. When most pilots found themselves in danger or simply panicked, this is what the did. One reason the P47s go so many kills is that the typical 109/190 simply could not get away from a P47 this way - the most common maneuver became one of the worst ones to try as an escape. Unfortunately for many of the green LW pilots who tried it, many did not get to learn from the experience. At the same time the #1 escape move worked well for the P47 green pilots. One day I'll go over Robert Johnson's book again and count how many kills he got of 109/190s that tried to escape this way.
It was not only green pilots. Many aces in their biographies report of doing it and admit it was a panic move. On more rare occasions, two very confident pilots met in the air and tried to pull some fancy ACMs on each other. These few are the ones you get to hear about the most, like "Bud" Anderson's story.
As for shooting away all their ammunition - Allied pilots did not get to meet the enemy in the air that often. When one of them finally got to see a 109/190 and put it somewhere in front of the guns, he would be happy to fire away all the bullets to get just that one kill (and then spilt-S, dive to the clouds and run home alive to celebrate it...).
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Many kills happened where the attacker was never seen.
Be cautious of what this means. I have seen repeatedly that most sim players interpret it to mean the guy getting shot down was flying straight and level, probably in a cruise setting when <bang> he was shot down. While that certainly happened the majority of those "attacker was never seen" shoot downs happened in combat and the victim simply never saw the guy who got him. The second version happens all the time in AH.
From all the books I've read about WWII by veteran pilots I concluded that the most used ACM was a split-S and a power dive into the clouds. When most pilots found themselves in danger or simply panicked, this is what the did. One reason the P47s go so many kills is that the typical 109/190 simply could not get away from a P47 this way - the most common maneuver became one of the worst ones to try as an escape. Unfortunately for many of the green LW pilots who tried it, many did not get to learn from the experience.
Well, it worked against Spitfires and Hurricanes. Almost certainly against the Russian stuff they'd faced to that point as well.
P-47s played the leading role in breaking the back of the Luftwaffe in the west.
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I have never been bothered with pressure change while flying, for me its only when I go below sea level that my ears are effected
I've flown in smaller light craft and never had a problem diving, climbing or turning. When we went to Malta last year my fiancee and I both had really painful ears descending. I think a longer drawn out dive might have caused it.
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So.. the pain we have nowadays in airliners, that wasn't multiplied by their relatively larger altitude changes? E.G. diving from say 15k to NOE in short time?
I've never heard a pilot complain about it. My guess is that it was so minor compared to the rest of what you are going through if you are in a dogfight so as not to be that significant.
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P-47s played the leading role in breaking the back of the Luftwaffe in the west.
Being an American myself, its important not to over-estimate our impact. The Russians took the brunt of the Luftwaffe as well as the Wehrmacht. By the time the Allied bombing campaign really took off, the US pilots had significantly more hours in the air compared to their German counterparts. Albeit hypothetical, the western forces would have had a MUCH harder time had the Russians not kicked the German's rears on the Eastern front.
EDIT: I think the real credit to our US airmen go to how they fought against the Japanese...almost singlehandedly broke the back of the Japanese air force.
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Ardy123,
That is why I included "in the west" in my comment.
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I've flown in smaller light craft and never had a problem diving, climbing or turning. When we went to Malta last year my fiancee and I both had really painful ears descending. I think a longer drawn out dive might have caused it.
I knew a man who was a tailgunner on Helldivers, SB2Cs. He said the long steep dives were hard on the ears, not something to look forward to.
I wonder what the rate of descent was for dive bombers in WWII? Civilian planes descend, usually, somewhere between 500 fpm and 1000 fmp, maybe a little more if ATC wants you to expedite. I suspect WWII dive bombers went down much quicker.
- oldman
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It depends on sinus size and congestion.
I've never had any problem.......they just equalize easily whether flying up to 12,500 in a cessna or free diving 100+ feet.
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IIRC it almost never worked.
So.. the pain we have nowadays in airliners, that wasn't multiplied by their relatively larger altitude changes? E.G. diving from say 15k to NOE in short time?
Skydivers do that all the time. Ears plug a little bit (depends on how well your ears clear), but seldom painful. A quick valsalva clears the ears.
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I'm curious, in game, some of the stuff we do would be insane in real life and our gunnery would've been 100x better than those of real life pilots. So then how was the average sortie in WWII?
Watching some gun cams, I would think pilots used probably all their ammo for maybe only 1 or 2 kill if they're lucky. And I assume they retained from getting into turn fights if possible? And the stories of pilots getting into 2min+ dogfights with an opponent would look like an everyday occurrence here in AH wouldn't it? We're the dogfights as extravagance as the ones we see in AH? With extremely heavy rudder and throttle work? Or were they simply trying their best not to stall the plane and flew as timidly as possible?
here is a book that will give you a real good idea of what air combat was like for pilots in Europe. An ace of the Eighth . Norman (Bud) Fortier. Ballantine books. An American fighter pilots war in Europe. You can get it at Amazon on line if you have the means. What I got out of it was the boring part of flying was a big part of the war. AH does a great job of replicating that. Makes you realize this is not really a arcade style game. It can be slow, the difference being if you die it doesn't physically hurt just mentally. Lol . Good book. Peace
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I've read accounts where a modern jet pilot went to a doctor and the doctor said he had tons of scarring on his eardrums. Asked if he knew he had blown out his eardrums a lot in his life. He said he didn't know this. Doctor asked him if he ever had a bit of blood in his earphone cups when he took them off after a flight. He said yes, quite often. Doctor said there you go.
So, moral of the story is it could happen quite often, but in the heat of adrenaline-fueled pre-occupation you might not even notice it when it happens.
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I'd think so.. Talking about your ear drums at a speech 50+ years after living thru WWII?
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This was an F-101 pilot, if I recall. Something like that.
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Ok, still what I meant. Talking about ear drums as combat vet sounds like talking about how your boots had rocks in em every now and then as grunt.
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I'm curious, in game, some of the stuff we do would be insane in real life and our gunnery would've been 100x better than those of real life pilots. So then how was the average sortie in WWII?
Watching some gun cams, I would think pilots used probably all their ammo for maybe only 1 or 2 kill if they're lucky. And I assume they retained from getting into turn fights if possible? And the stories of pilots getting into 2min+ dogfights with an opponent would look like an everyday occurrence here in AH wouldn't it? We're the dogfights as extravagance as the ones we see in AH? With extremely heavy rudder and throttle work? Or were they simply trying their best not to stall the plane and flew as timidly as possible?
:airplane: One BIG difference in this game and real life flying is the AH game is 2 dimension view, while in real life it is 3 dimension view and I would think that makes a big difference in attacking and evading attacks. Most of the stories I ever heard of air to air kills involved 1 to 3 second bursts, on Yak aircraft, but that was Korean era kills, but I would think that the German aircraft were much more sturdy than that. Of course, most of the Japanese aircraft were flimsy at best!
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The separation distance on human eyes only gives us depth perception out to about 75ft. After that it has no effect, which makes sense when you think of our evolutionary past. We really couldn't throw a spear much further than that.
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Although it didn't happen to everyone, I do know some pilots invokedear problems. IE one of bud andersons squad COs.
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The separation distance on human eyes only gives us depth perception out to about 75ft. After that it has no effect, which makes sense when you think of our evolutionary past. We really couldn't throw a spear much further than that.
I don't think most could even throw a spear 75 feet with enough force to kill anything...
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Interesting info guys, thanks.
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The separation distance on human eyes only gives us depth perception out to about 75ft. After that it has no effect, which makes sense when you think of our evolutionary past. We really couldn't throw a spear much further than that.
Fortunately, that separation is only one of the many cues we use to perceive depth/distance. It's those otehr cues (and even several of them combined) that allows us to accurately judge distance quite a bit further away than 25yards.
It's also worth noting that animals with eyes spaced closer together than our own are still quite adept (even more so) at judging distance accurately (and at faster speeds) than we are.
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It's good to see the flame of curiosity still burning
the way it was when I was his age. It's sad, however,
to not be able to introduce him in person to some of
the vets I was privileged to visit with.
Amen to that. Since playing this game, I have gained a new respect for the men who flew these planes for real. :salute :salute :salute
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I'm curious, in game, some of the stuff we do would be insane in real life and our gunnery would've been 100x better than those of real life pilots. So then how was the average sortie in WWII?
Watching some gun cams, I would think pilots used probably all their ammo for maybe only 1 or 2 kill if they're lucky. And I assume they retained from getting into turn fights if possible? And the stories of pilots getting into 2min+ dogfights with an opponent would look like an everyday occurrence here in AH wouldn't it? We're the dogfights as extravagance as the ones we see in AH? With extremely heavy rudder and throttle work? Or were they simply trying their best not to stall the plane and flew as timidly as possible?
I'm not sure how gunnery accuracy compares between RL and AH, but I admit I'm quite curious...
Like you, I'd expect ours to be better than RL, but the average player in AH only hits with around 3% of his rounds. If you can maintain an 8% or better hit% in a fighter you'll rank up there with some of the best shots in the game, although you're still missing with 90% or more of your ammo.
I've read an account where James Swett shot down seven Japanese Val dive bombers in an F4F, on his very first aerial combat experience.
Of course, that's nowhere near the "norm" but I do find it interesting that in a situation where everything just came together for him he was able to score a similar number of kills to where we'd max out in a similar situation in AH.