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Special Events Forums => Friday Squad Operations => Topic started by: RedBeard on July 19, 2025, 05:20:36 PM

Title: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 19, 2025, 05:20:36 PM
I've been doing some data analysis on the past 15+ years of FSO and thought I'd post some of what I've found here.  All of this is based on FSO log data from the AHEvents site.  Here's a look at participation since Jun of 2009.

(https://i.imgur.com/7RiISls.png)

As you can see, there's some anomalies in the data.  I believe the large spikes are scenario events that were somehow logged as FSO, even though they weren't.  I dropped some logs from the collected data that appeared to be other events like King of the Hill as well.  Still, it's probably 95% good data.

The trend doesn't look good.  I would like to start or renew a topic elsewhere to discuss how to address this.

It shows a decline in population and total flight time.  Mostly, this is understandable as FSO used to be a single life event, but I didn't see a jump in total flight hours after multilife was enabled, which surprised me.  We do see an increase of sortie rates with multilife, but again that hasn't seemed to have much impact on total flight hours.  I may have to go back to check my data.

Anyway, if you are interested, I'll be posting more info here.

Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: fudgums on July 19, 2025, 11:17:48 PM
Before the thread turns sour, we should be thankful for the CMs and the job they do/did. It’s tough.


And also 450 pilots were the days.

*insert The Wire Quote about the good ole days
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: hazmatt on July 20, 2025, 06:13:48 AM
Anybody know what caused that big drop at the beginning of the chart? The rest seems pretty gradual but that one was pretty drastic in relation to the rest of the chart.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 20, 2025, 06:25:29 AM
Sorry, I didn't mean to turn things sour, nor did I mean to imply any fault with the CMs.  My original intent was to look at how to make missions more effective, but there are always other things you can learn along the way from the data you get.

In particular, I wanted to look at bomber effectiveness.  There's some data missing from the logs to get a real look at effectiveness, but the data does show the following:

PlaneTotal SortiesSorties With DmgTotal Landed SortiesSorties Landed With DmgChance to Make TargetChance to Destroy Target and Get Home
A-20G2499188453045075.39%18.01%
Ar_23450840439034379.53%67.52%
B-17G537347143431322287.73%59.97%
B-24J380330162616234779.31%61.71%
B-25C746560633485302681.22%40.54%
B-25H457310927267.83%15.75%
B-26B279622741902169681.33%60.66%
B-29293228131270125795.94%42.87%
B5N211533502177230.36%6.24%
Boston_III315724351353114577.13%36.27%
C-47A7422102.70%0.00%
D3A12760184145130066.70%10.87%
G4M1_Model_112240145483961364.91%27.37%
He_111H324324311956168674.96%51.99%
Ju_87D-33702262656440370.93%10.89%
Ju_88A-41111991815820522182.57%46.96%
Ki-672208166392474275.32%33.61%
Lancaster_III93787351950993.17%54.32%
Mosquito_Mk_XVI27620114411972.83%43.12%
SBD-53465245488362570.82%18.04%
TBM-3161975535317246.63%10.62%
Tu-2S2094172074064082.14%30.56%

There's a number of things we don't have in the published log data that would help with analyzing bomber  effectiveness.  These include formations used or not, load out carried, what ordnance was dropped and when, and who did damage, but didn't destroy a target.  I understand that some of this is actually available, but not published, and I may take a crack at exposing more of it at some point.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: hazmatt on July 20, 2025, 06:58:06 AM
I think this number is way too high! lolz
                                                                               Chance to make target      Chance to destroy target and get home
G4M1_Model_11   2240   1454   839   613            64.91%                                27.37%

I remember one fso back in the day were I drew the short straw and had to fly a formation of these deathtraps and we all got slaughtered before ever getting sight of the target!
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: AKKuya on July 20, 2025, 07:24:56 AM
Quote from: fudgums on July 19, 2025, 11:17:48 PM
And also 450 pilots were the days.

I remember when we had 600 pilots and we were planning for 4 objectives to defend and attack.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 20, 2025, 07:42:46 AM
Quote from: hazmatt on July 20, 2025, 06:13:48 AM
Anybody know what caused that big drop at the beginning of the chart? The rest seems pretty gradual but that one was pretty drastic in relation to the rest of the chart.

I suspect it was an anomalous set of data.  I have found numerous cases where the data just doesn't jive.  Pilots die without taking off.  Bomber formation pilots die after only two kill claims.  Pilots take off more than once.  Some of this may be due to when logging for the event is turned on or it might be data getting dropped as it is transferred from the servers to the AHEvent site or it might be logging is a low priority item on the server that was sometimes overloaded and couldn't keep up.  Real-time programming is an art and the data we get is mostly all we have and we just need to accept that. 

There might be cases where we lost a server or internet mid Frame and noone returned after it came back.  I do remember times when large chunks of pilots would disco.

There might be cases where the event design just didn't work out well and it was a slaughter that was over quickly.

There are some cases where multiple logs were produced for the same frame, one log for Axis, one for Allied, and I haven't checked yet to see if my data set collection has merged those two correctly or not.

I will say that there are possibly still some non-FSO event data mixed in and that may be the spikes up or down.  I have added some sanity checks along the way as I look at data to help filter out stuff that doesn't belong.  Things like, FSO is Friday Squad Ops, so if data is dated on a Thursday or Sunday, it's probably not FSO data.

The big V around late 2010 is really just a down spike with not a lot of event data on either side of it. 

What I have at the moment is data on 177 Events (months), 536 Frames, 244 Squads, 4273 Pilots, 152000+ sorties using 123 different planes, vehicles, PT Boats, and an RV-8.  Most of the data is going to be good, but some isn't.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 20, 2025, 08:00:25 AM
My intentions in looking back at all this data is to understand what works and what doesn't.  To do that, I have been trying to recreate what actually happened based on log data.  In essence, I have been looking at automated after action report generation.  I have sort of been able to do that, but with mixed success.  There's a lot of info that can be picked up from the log data, but it's not reliable.  For instance, I can determine who are the defenders and who are the attackers with about 90% accuracy based on log data.  I can also determine active fields, field ownership, and most target fields, but I need better accuracy for targets to get the data I'm looking for.

I am starting to integrate some Objectives data into the mix.  I have about 2-3 years of objectives data and I have orders for a bit more than that.  The objectives data gives a little more info about active base and target proximity, required targets vs. what was actually destroyed and the orders give expected flight plans.  I was hoping to look at animated maps of flight paths, but that is a long way away at this point. 

If anyone has Objectives going back to 2009 and wouldn't mind sharing it, I'd like to talk to you about it.  Any more than the last 2 years or so, would help.

Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 20, 2025, 08:13:30 AM
Here are some of the things I'm looking at producing and sharing from the data.

I will post separately on where I'm at with after action reports.

I have been looking at building up a "leaders board" of top squads and/or top pilots with some metrics just for fun, but haven't decided yet what meaningful metrics should be used.  This could potentially show a historical perspective of things the squad did to get where it is.  Some of what pushed me in this direction is seeing how many friendly fire incidents there were.  Departures and during engagements seem to be notorious for FF.  Another factor is I wanted to identify what squads were good at and use that in planning missions.

Another thing I'm looking at is writing up some software to produce pilot log books.  It seemed to be a natural side project that would be fairly easy to do from the after action report data.  It would be a mix of similarity to  WWII pilot log books and current pilot log books used today.  Part of this will be dependent on my either integrating Objectives data for everything or using software to intuit target information into the sortie description.  It would be nice to get the bombs dropped/target damaged info in this, but as it stands now, I can't tell the difference between didn't carry bombs, didn't drop, dropped and missed, jettisoned for escape, and dropped and damaged but didn't destroy.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: Spikes on July 20, 2025, 08:55:20 AM
Quote from: AKKuya on July 20, 2025, 07:24:56 AM
I remember when we had 600 pilots and we were planning for 4 objectives to defend and attack.
I don't recall FSO ever having 600 pilots.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 20, 2025, 09:01:24 AM
Here's a look at the kind of after action report I'm generating.  This one is hand generated based on the July Frame 1 log while trying to follow an algorithm in my head.  It doesn't include any flight path info from orders and does not include Objectives info such as coordinates, it is just what was shown in the logs.

22:05
    Allies
        1 defensive F4U-1C departed from Task Group #1 to cover Task Group #1
        14 defensive F4U-1C and 1 F6F-5 departed from #3 to cover Task Group #1
        8 offensive TBM-3, 8 offensive F6F-5, and 2 offensive F4U-1A departed from Task Group #2 for Airfield #16
        1 offensive F4U-1C departed from Task Group #1 for Airfield #16
    Axis
        6 offensive Ki-67, 7  Ki-61 departed from Airfield #16 for Task Group #1
        12 def N1K2 from Airfield #16 to cover Airfield #16
22:10
    Allies
        Pilot exchanges 1 F4U-1C for 1 F4U-1A out of Task Group #2
        1 F6F-5 is lost to defenders at Airfield #16
    Axis
        12 N1K2-J defenders at Airfield #16 engage 4 F6F-5s and shoot 1 down
        2 offensive Ki-61s depart from Airfield #16 for Task Group #1
22:20
    Allies
        4 F4U-1C + 1 F6F-5 defenders at Task Group #1 engage 2 Ki-61s and shoot 1 down
        4 F6F-5 jumped by 12 N1K2-J defenders at Airfield #16 and shoot 1 down, but lose 4
        10 F4U-1C defenders at Task Group #1 engage 3 Ki-67 formations and shoot 8 down and lose 1
        2 TBM-3 and 1 F4U-1A lost to defenders at Airfield #16
    Axis
        3 Ki-67 formations shoot down 1 F4U-1C, but lose 3 formations
        12 N1K2-J defenders at Airfield #16 engage 4 F6F-5s and 3 TBM-3s and shoot down 4 F6F-5s and 2 TBM-3s while losing 1 N1K2-J
        1 Ki-67 formation destroys a ship at Task Group #1 but the formation is lost
        3 Ki-61 damage Task Group #1 and sink 1 ship
22:30
    Allies
        3 F6F-5 departed Task Group #3 for Task Group #1
    Axis
        3 N1K2-J land at #13
        9 defensive N1K2-J, 5 Ki-61 depart Airfield #16 for Airfield #16
         10 offensive Ki-61 and 3 Ki-67 depart Airfield #16 for Task Group #1
...

I feel like this is better than the by squad,pilot time based facts, but is still a bit difficult to grasp all the moving pieces.  It is also the reason why I would eventually like to be able to replay with coordinates on a map.  Right now, we just know origination location, destroyed target location, and sometimes RTB location, and not a lot between unless an engagement occurs and then just who was involved in the engagement and not where.

I have some of this coded up, but I'm currently trying to deal with targets changing between hour 1 and hour 2.

If anyone has feedback on the style of the after action report or information presented, let me know.  I'd like to make it useful to someone other than just me. 

Once I get Objectives data integrated, I can add some additional distance and direction info, e.g. 6 offensive Ki-67, 7  Ki-61 departed from Airfield #16 for Task Group #1 100 miles to the NE
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: AKKuya on July 20, 2025, 12:19:44 PM
Quote from: Spikes on July 20, 2025, 08:55:20 AM
I don't recall FSO ever having 600 pilots.

Around 2009/2010, we hit 600 pilots for a few frames.  It was commented on.  i think I confirmed it looking at the logs.  15 years can make the memory a little fuzzy plus being on the other side of 50 now.  :old:
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: fudgums on July 20, 2025, 01:26:11 PM
I don’t anyone did yet, but it will inevitably turn on the CMs at some point lol
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: Devil 505 on July 20, 2025, 01:40:19 PM
Interesting data gathered.

There are a few elements that don't quite make sense though.

1. How are you calculating what a sortie is? I would expect to see the sortie number match the number of pilots except in FSO's where extra lives are given, but that seems to not be the case.

2. Your B-29 sortie count seems to be way too high. I can only think of 4-5 FSO's in total where the plane was used. No way their total use is 2900 sorties, even with drones and rearming counting as a new sortie.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 20, 2025, 02:59:12 PM
Quote from: Devil 505 on July 20, 2025, 01:40:19 PM
1. How are you calculating what a sortie is? I would expect to see the sortie number match the number of pilots except in FSO's where extra lives are given, but that seems to not be the case.

2. Your B-29 sortie count seems to be way too high. I can only think of 4-5 FSO's in total where the plane was used. No way their total use is 2900 sorties, even with drones and rearming counting as a new sortie.

A sortie is defined as one pilot takeoff (launch) followed by one flight termination (shotdown, landed, ditched, bailed, disco).  You can get multiple sorties even in one life events when pilots are allowed to bail/replane at the start or disco/replane with CM permission.

There were 3 B-29 events: 2012-12, 2013-12, and 2014-10 with 3 frames each.  I just did a quick scan of the html files and you are correct.  There were only 318 sortie departures listed.  I just validated that the DB has 318 sorties, so now I need to go back and find what I did wrong with a SQL JOIN.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: Devil 505 on July 20, 2025, 04:02:44 PM
Quote from: RedBeard on July 20, 2025, 02:59:12 PM
A sortie is defined as one pilot takeoff (launch) followed by one flight termination (shotdown, landed, ditched, bailed, disco).  You can get multiple sorties even in one life events when pilots are allowed to bail/replane at the start or disco/replane with CM permission.

Ok, so rearms don't factor in. Gotcha.

Quote
There were 3 B-29 events: 2012-12, 2013-12, and 2014-10 with 3 frames each.  I just did a quick scan of the html files and you are correct.  There were only 318 sortie departures listed.  I just validated that the DB has 318 sorties, so now I need to go back and find what I did wrong with a SQL JOIN.

Ketsu Go in April 2011 also had B-29's. It was the first one that used the Superfortress. Can't pull up the logs for that month for some reason.



Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 20, 2025, 04:42:23 PM
Ok, again, my apologies for the bad data.  I've fixed the SQL and rerun the queries.  This gets the count of "Departed" either matching or closely matching the sortie count.  There are still anomalies here and there where someone shoots down a plane that hasn't taken off (late start of logging?) or just weird data like a squad being listed twice for the same side with slight variations in the squad name and no merging of the two into one.

PlaneTotal SortiesSorties With DmgTotal Landed SortiesSorties Landed With DmgChance to Make TargetChance to Destroy Target and Get Home
A-20G10073921709038.93%8.94%
Ar_23416258924535.80%27.78%
B-17G129563663242349.11%32.66%
B-24J129751058431539.32%24.29%
B-25C25731171103357445.51%22.31%
B-25H21063341430.00%6.67%
B-26B100248051130547.90%30.44%
B-29318199948162.58%25.47%
B5N29121091742911.95%3.18%
Boston_III128656445825043.86%19.44%
C-47A7422102.70%0.00%
D3A112713522176627.69%5.19%
G4M1_Model_11111833235813229.70%11.81%
He_111H136555365138140.51%27.91%
Ju_87D-3182074432716640.88%9.12%
Ju_88A-4372117831607100847.92%27.09%
Ki-677732282819929.50%12.81%
Lancaster_III12864483850.00%29.69%
Mosquito_Mk_XVI12045532837.50%23.33%
SBD-5139738636911127.63%7.95%
TBM-310531892284717.95%4.46%
Tu-2S74236823213249.60%17.79%
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: Molsman on July 21, 2025, 12:45:38 AM
Red

How many FSO s had late war events with the Brits having lancs and the temps and typhoons against the late war German fighters. That was my first event I ran as a Cm and was just curious that was also when we had the numbers back in the day. not Now
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 21, 2025, 07:35:02 AM
Why do I feel like this is a test?

As far as I can tell, there's only been one FSO event with a Lancaster, Tempest, and Typhoon plane set.  It was Operation Clarion in April 2014, and yes, this did stretch my SQL skills.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 21, 2025, 07:39:07 AM
By the way, I show plissken as the CM for all three frames for Operation Clarion, though perhaps it was multiple people and plissken just happened to be the one dealing with the logs?
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: icepac on July 21, 2025, 08:09:21 AM

The stats are skewed by the bomb and bailers who have no intention of getting back home.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: hazmatt on July 21, 2025, 09:29:03 AM
Quote from: icepac on July 21, 2025, 08:09:21 AM
The stats are skewed by the bomb and bailers who have no intention of getting back home.

Why would somebody bomb and bail in a 1 life event?  :headscratch:
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 21, 2025, 11:55:10 AM
Quote from: icepac on July 21, 2025, 08:09:21 AM
The stats are skewed by the bomb and bailers who have no intention of getting back home.

Don't think so.  There appears to be a consistent fluctuation of bailing pilots throughout the history of FSO that stays consistent even after we started multi-life.

(https://i.imgur.com/r3q8gnR.png)
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: Spikes on July 21, 2025, 02:18:47 PM
Quote from: RedBeard on July 21, 2025, 07:39:07 AM
By the way, I show plissken as the CM for all three frames for Operation Clarion, though perhaps it was multiple people and plissken just happened to be the one dealing with the logs?
Yeah the name on the logs is who ran them in the arena. It's a bit strange because Operation Clarion isn't in our site at all, but there seems to be a few monthly articles missing (I don't see FSO setups for Feb, March, or April of 2014). There can be a variety of reasons for this but usually it happens when someone updates/modifies an article rather than creates a copy or something, or it gets categorized wrong in Joomla.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 23, 2025, 12:42:07 AM
I've had to make some choices in how to handle data normalization that is going to affect upcoming stats.  In particular, there are a lot of cases where there are multiple variations of a squad name.

Over the past 15+ years of data, there are 244 unique squad names used.  Out of this, 32 were generated by me as virtual squad names to distinguish a single squad that was split to fly both sides (some Allies, some Axis).  Most of the variations appear to be reformed squads.

There are two variations of reformed squads that I can see.  One is where the squad creator has disappeared and didn't set permissions for someone else to take over squad membership maintenance.  The squad was either disbanded when the account was dropped or the members left the squad and joined a new one.  Most likely it was the latter case and the new squad had to choose a variation of the squad name to preserve uniqueness.  I think there may even be a case where a squad reformed in mid-frame (two variations of a squad name showing in the logs and weird landing without taking off timed events shown).

The second type of reformed squad is a squad split.  In this case, one or more members drop or are kicked from a squad and decide to form a variation of the squad as a new faction.

Of the 244 squads, 107 or about 44% appear to be reformed squads.  This is based on manually comparing squad names.  A more thorough analysis would be to look at what squads pilots are associated with over time, but for now, I'm going to assume I've chosen right.

For future stats, I do not plan to merge squad variations down to one.  Technically, they are different, either through change in leadership or faction or virtual existence as a collection of members.  For the most part, I don't think this will matter a lot, except when looking at squad and member longevity.

If anyone cares about this, speak up.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 23, 2025, 07:09:01 AM
Most Inviting Squads

SquadMember Count
CLAIM_JUMPERS361
Arabian_Knights200
"162ndFG""Purple*Hearts"""190
LCA185
~~~THE_UNFORGIVEN~~~170
Kommando_Nowotny146
49th_Fighter_Group144
!68th_Lightning_Lancers!115
"JG54_""Grunherz"""96
G3-MF96


These squads have had the most pilots join their ranks over the life of the squad. 
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 23, 2025, 07:28:42 AM
Squad Hoppers

PilotSquad Count
MrCrowly15
DrBone12
shifty12
Zoney11
Vlkyrie111
Stampf11
LilMak10
FBGoetz10
FBGrit10
10thMD10

These are the pilots with the most squads that they have been a member of.  We don't know why they move from squad to squad.  It may be squads reforming or it may be the pilot looking for a different mix of people to fly with.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 23, 2025, 07:42:39 AM
An Air Force of Their Own

SquadFrame DateMember Count
CLAIM_JUMPERS11/06/0937
Rolling_Thunder01/15/1030
LCA10/02/0928
VF_15_Satans_Playmates_II03/05/1026
JG2_Richthofen06/19/0925
III./JG11_Sonder_Black_Hearts03/14/1425
"412th_FNVG_""Volunteers"""02/10/1725
LCA_~Tainan_Kokutai~07/19/1324
332nd_Flying_Mongrels06/12/0924
Nightmares_VMF-10102/19/1023

These squads have had the most members participating in a single Frame.  Some were large enough that they could fill an entire country/side of an event these days.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 23, 2025, 08:32:08 AM
Longest Running

SquadStarting DateEnding DateYears in Use
327th_Steel_Talons06/05/0906/20/2516.1
9GIAP_VVS_RKKA06/05/0906/20/2516.1
Arabian_Knights06/05/0906/20/2516.1
CLAIM_JUMPERS06/05/0906/06/2516.0
367th_FG_Dynamite_Gang12/04/0906/20/2515.6
Kommando_Nowotny04/09/1006/20/2515.2
"162ndFG""Purple*Hearts"""02/01/1306/20/2512.4
Anti-Horde10/04/1312/06/2411.2
~~~THE_UNFORGIVEN~~~06/05/0905/15/2011.0
"VF-17_""Jolly_Rogers"""05/17/1310/20/2310.4
364th_C-Hawks07/22/1606/20/258.9
JG11_Sonderstaffel09/23/1606/20/258.7
JG54_Grunherz09/23/1606/20/258.7
~Air_Raiders~06/05/0912/01/178.5
Duxford_Wing_RAF06/05/0911/17/178.5

These are the longest running squads and there are some that go back even further.  The logs I was able to use only go back as far as June '09.  Also, I haven't imported this month's logs into the data yet.  I'm not sure what happened to the CLAIM JUMPERS in June, but they appear to be back this month.

I thought about trying to form a query for longest continuously participating, but the only way I can think of at the moment requires using a program to manually verify a squad was participating in all three frames for each month over a given period of time.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 23, 2025, 09:41:47 AM
Most FSO Experience

PilotStarting DateEnding DateFrame Count
Steely06/12/0906/20/25523
Dantoo06/12/0906/20/25523
AKQwik06/12/0906/20/25503
JoeJoe06/05/0906/20/25499
RedBrd06/05/0906/20/25480
AKWxMan06/12/0906/20/25475
68hobo07/10/0905/09/25473
Devil5O507/08/1106/20/25470
jaeger106/05/0906/20/25462
Snibbo06/05/0906/20/25458

These are pilots with the most FSO experience.  This shows when they started participating and the last frame they participated in along with how many frames they have flown in.

Again, this is limited by the log data I have.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: Devil 505 on July 23, 2025, 11:10:51 AM
Quote from: RedBeard on July 23, 2025, 09:41:47 AM
Most FSO Experience

PilotStarting DateEnding DateFrame Count
Steely06/12/0906/20/25523
Dantoo06/12/0906/20/25523
AKQwik06/12/0906/20/25503
JoeJoe06/05/0906/20/25499
RedBrd06/05/0906/20/25480
AKWxMan06/12/0906/20/25475
68hobo07/10/0905/09/25473
Devil5O507/08/1106/20/25470
jaeger106/05/0906/20/25462
Snibbo06/05/0906/20/25458

These are pilots with the most FSO experience.  This shows when they started participating and the last frame they participated in along with how many frames they have flown in.

Again, this is limited by the log data I have.

This is strange in my case. My first FSO was January of 2011. No name change either.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: AKKuya on July 23, 2025, 02:45:22 PM
Do you have data on victories objects destroyed?
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on July 23, 2025, 04:10:12 PM
I’m in the process of hand entering objectives to get victory data. I have objectives emails for the past year or two, but not before that. If people want to send me objectives going back to mid 2009, I can enter those in as well.

By send me objectives, you could forward me just the objectives email, or send a crowdsourced set of data for the objectives, or both as there are over 500 frames to enter.  I'm currently using a CSV file format to store the objectives data.  The columns from Must Destroy Hangars onward are boolean where 1 is true and 0 or null is false.  Here's an example from the last frame:

ObjectiveID,Frame Date,Field,Type,Pos,Side,Must Destroy Hangars,Must Destroy Bunkers,Must Destroy Ships,Hr1 Target,Hr1 Not Target,Hr1 Active,Hr1 Capture,Hr2 Target,Hr2 Not Target,Hr2 Active,Hr2 Capture
,2025-07-11,#1,CV,"11,6,5",Allies,,,6,1,,1,,,1,1,
,2025-07-11,#44,BB,"11,6,5",Allies,,,3,1,,,,,1,,
,2025-07-11,#45,BB,"11,6,5",Allies,,,3,1,,,,,1,,
,2025-07-11,#16,LAF,"9,8,5",Axis,12,,,1,,1,,,1,1,
,2025-07-11,#18,SAF,"7,8,4",Axis,,,,,,1,,,,1,
,2025-07-11,#21,LAF,"9,9,6",Axis,,,,,1,1,,,1,1,
,2025-07-11,#2,CV,"12,8,5",Allies,,,6,1,1,1,,1,,1,
,2025-07-11,#13,LAF,"9,8,3",Axis,12,,,1,,,,1,,,
,2025-07-11,#3,CV,"11,6,5",Allies,,,,,1,1,,,1,1,
,2025-07-11,#41,BB,"12,8,5",Allies,,,3,,1,,,1,,,
,2025-07-11,#46,BB,"12,8,5",Allies,,,3,,1,,,1,,,

Note, the format may change as I get more victory styles entered and used.  I also use a separate settings table for things like map, fuel burn rate, AA strength, icon ranges, points, object weights, etc.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 12, 2025, 03:16:42 PM
Thought I'd post some more about FSO.  I don't have a complete set of information, but it's reasonably complete based on information found in objectives emails, orders, and forum posts.

Here's a breakdown of the number of events (months) with the most used theaters of operation:

ETO48
PTO38
MED35
CBI6
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 12, 2025, 03:24:59 PM
Interestingly, I found only two events that included fleet operations (control over the fleet) that were mentioned in the objectives or orders.  I would have thought there would be more, but perhaps it used to be assumed that would be done.  For those, we were given constraints of where the fleet could be moved and there were people assigned to change course as appropriate to dodge bomb runs.

I also have some recollections of fleet to fleet battles (manned gun positions), but I couldn't find any event that mentioned that in the material I had.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 12, 2025, 03:29:16 PM
I looked at air spawns over the years.  They didn't seem to be used that often in the early data with just 1 mention from 2009-2017.  The seem to have become more popular since 2023.  Presumably, this is to allow multi-life players a faster engagement experience to keep them sticking around the whole frame.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 12, 2025, 03:37:24 PM
I also took a look at formation use and bomb sight calibration.  There's not much mention of formations early on in the data, though calibration method is mentioned.  Presumably, no mention of formations would assume formations on. 

I did not find any mention of manual calibration in the order and objective material I had, so that would seem to indicate that manual calibration of the bomb sight was done prior to 2017.

I made a video for my squad on manual sight calibration back in March of 2016, so my data was probably just shy of that.  I don't know how often manual calibration was done back then.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 12, 2025, 03:50:13 PM
There have generally been two styles of events.  Battles (both sides playing both offense and defense), and assaults (one side is offense, the other defense).  Sometimes an event will trade off who is offense and defense with each frame.  Some events will mix a couple of assaults with a battle frame.

There were 46 assault style frames and 48 battle style events.  A pretty even mix.

Out of the assault style, 17 were axis assault events and 17 were allied assault events.  I didn't count events were assaults were traded off across frames.

Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 12, 2025, 04:04:39 PM
Map usage was a bit tricky.  There are some maps listed in AH3 Choose Terrain that are no longer available and are possibly FSO maps.  These would include Australia and Morocco.  Some maps look like they should be part of a particular FSO Event, but when trying to match field types derived from damage data, it didn't match field types in the maps.  I didn't think that changing a field from an Airfield to a Vehicle Base or vice versa would be trivial with a map editor, but perhaps there were some custom map changes done for some FSO events.

I also found it interesting that map usage didn't quite follow the theater usage.

MapEvent Count
bob4016
italy12
blksea9
finland9
luzon8
germany7
solomons6
newbrit6
bof445
egypt5
malta5
blkseaw5
tunisia5
okinawa4
burma4
northsea3
russia3
russiaw2
java422
greece2
Italy2
marianas2
danube1
germanyw1
rhnland1
danubew1
malaysia1
mnchuria1
finlandw1
midway1
Luzon1
0
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 12, 2025, 04:22:33 PM
Lastly, here's a look at the number of Events by war year.  Not all events have a year associated with them, but of the ones that were historical in nature and represented a particular time of the war and I was able to determine what that time was, they are shown here. 

I've kind of wondered why we didn't have some Blitzkrieg early war period events represented in the list.  I know that it may not be popular to play the Allied side, but setting an objective threshold goal for winning the frame/event that is within reach might compensate for having to stand up to overwhelming forces.  Give the Polish forces some Spads and Storchs with gunners and if they get even one kill, they win the frame.  :)

YearEvent Count
194014
194110
194227
194325
194428
194511
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: Spikes on August 13, 2025, 02:49:32 AM
Cool data. Regarding air spawns, I don't think we were able to use placed air spawns until not too long ago, maybe a few years? Only ones tied to the map prior (where it denotes it on the CBM). Prior to our placable spawns I assume the only ones used were in 8th or 9th AF events with heavy bombers (namely Germany map).

Morocco is a AH3 SEA terrain that we ran my first FSO on (Conquest at Casablanca) back in 2018, I'm not sure if there was an older map back in AH2 named differently or not. There was another Pacific event run on Morocco that was supposed to be a sub for an Australia map.

I am surprised to see Luzon with only 1 event, since that is our only map with Leyte on it and I recall a few events surrounding Leyte.
Disregard, there are 2 Luzons on the list for a total of 9 events.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 13, 2025, 09:59:50 PM
Yeah, sorry about the double Luzon entries. The spreadsheet kept wanting to capitalize the country name. I thought I had corrected them all, but I guess not.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: Devil 505 on August 13, 2025, 10:12:34 PM
Quote from: Spikes on August 13, 2025, 02:49:32 AM
Cool data. Regarding air spawns, I don't think we were able to use placed air spawns until not too long ago, maybe a few years? Only ones tied to the map prior (where it denotes it on the CBM). Prior to our placable spawns I assume the only ones used were in 8th or 9th AF events with heavy bombers (namely Germany map).

Morocco is a AH3 SEA terrain that we ran my first FSO on (Conquest at Casablanca) back in 2018, I'm not sure if there was an older map back in AH2 named differently or not. There was another Pacific event run on Morocco that was supposed to be a sub for an Australia map.

I am surprised to see Luzon with only 1 event, since that is our only map with Leyte on it and I recall a few events surrounding Leyte.
Disregard, there are 2 Luzons on the list for a total of 9 events.

There was also the 2019 FSO with the Algerian portion of the Torch landings. That was on the Morocco terrain.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 14, 2025, 02:19:21 PM
The first land battle event that I can find data on was Clash at Kursk back in June of 2012.  However, GV battles were not featured again until 2023.  From then on GV battles became a bit more popular with events featuring them up to once a quarter or so.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 14, 2025, 02:35:11 PM
Events featuring ace pilots seem to have been in and out of favor over the years.  In case you're not familiar, ace pilots is a point system feature that awarded more points to an individual "ace" pilot identified prior to the event.  We have no data on who was selected for ace pilots, so recreating points for those frames would be difficult.  I'd have to replay an event with each pilot treated as ace pilot until the scores matched up.  I'm not going to go there, sorry.

Ace pilots were used in 1 event in each of 2009, 2012, 2017 all the way until 2020.  That's 11 years with only 3 ace pilot events.  Then in 2020, ace pilot events were popping up about once a quarter until Feb of 2022.  After that, they appear to have dropped from favor again as there has only been one more event in 2023.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 14, 2025, 03:35:40 PM
I'm now going to turn to looking at the planes we fly.  To start with, we are looking how often planes are featured in a plane set for a frame.  I found the result a bit surprising.

PlaneFrame Count
Ju_88A-4197
B-25C163
Fw_190A-5145
Bf_109G-6142
Bf_110C-4b124
Bf_109G-2114
Bf_109F-4114
Bf_109E-4108
Ju_87D-3103
……
Jagdpanther2
Tiger_II1
RV-81
LVTA41
LVTA21

It took me a bit to figure out why German planes seem to be featured so much more than any other planes.  The best I can come up with is that the Germans used a limited plane set that was flown in all their theaters of operation, while other nationality planes were more specific to a theater of operation.  British planes on the western front.  Early war American planes are hand me downs to Eastern Front, China-Burma-India, and North Africa.  US Naval and Japanese planes for PTO.  So a common plane set used in multiple theaters is going to show up as the most featured planes in FSO.

I still get a chuckle when I see HiTech's RV-8 pop up in our stats.  I've tried hunting for the plane number for it a few times, but haven't found it yet.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 14, 2025, 03:56:02 PM
That was how often planes were available to use, now we look at how often they were flown.

PlaneSortie Count
Bf_109G-65330
Bf_109E-45074
Bf_109F-44792
Ju_88A-43721
A6M23619
Fw_190A-53529
Bf_109G-23513
Hurricane_Mk_I3264
Bf_110C-4b3194
Ki-61-I-Tei3074
……
RV-815
Jagdpanther9
LVTA27
Jagdpanzer_IV/706
Jagdpanzer_38(t)3

Now a sortie count can be influenced by a number of factors.  All FSO events have had various aircraft minimums and maximums, which are the primary influence of sortie counts.  To some extent, I think these tried to reflect aircraft availability at various points in the war, but I also suspect playability has been factored in. 

Early FSO sortie counts were also influenced by the need to replane for a disco or takeoff crash.  Later FSO events using multi-life would have been more influenced by aircraft survivability.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 14, 2025, 04:13:41 PM
One way to look at survivability of planes is to look at the average flight hours per sortie.  Another way would be to look at planes that feature the most landed sorties.  Both have potential problems.  Planes might have long average flight hours per sortie because they were used on deep penetration events where you spent a long time getting somewhere and a long time getting back.  Planes might have more landings because they were featured in more events with extra points given for landing back at a particular base.

In this case we are looking at total flight hours flown for each type as well as total sorties and coming up with an average flight hours per sortie.

PlaneHoursSortiesHours Per Sortie
P-51B1265.3511491.10
P-47M130.991231.06
Me_262A-1190.541841.04
Tempest318.653161.01
B-17G1290.6812951.00
F4U-1472.194741.00
F4F-42261.4323090.98
P-47N413.054300.96
F4U-1C115.641210.96
B-26B949.0010020.95
…………
PT_Boat53.628290.06
M1614.282550.06
LVTA41.78320.06
Panzer_IV_F10.712150.05
Jeep7.211580.05
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 14, 2025, 09:57:31 PM
I also looked at what are the deadliest planes we have in the inventory.  Initially, I opened it up to everything, but the results was dominated by GVs, so this is just looking at airborne assets.

As you might expect, perked planes tend to show up here, but there are a few surprising contenders as well.

PlaneKillsSortiesAvg Kills Per Sortie
Me_262A-12401841.30
Brewster_B-2398727031.24
Me_163B48411.17
Fw_190A-5387135291.10
N1K2-J143114091.02
Tempest3183161.01
F4F-4230223091.00
F4U-14464740.94
Hurricane_Mk_IIC2522690.94
Fw_190D-9115512690.91
…………
C-47A5740.07
TBM-37110530.07
Ar_234101620.06
B5N2549120.06
Mosquito_Mk_XVI41200.03

I'd blame ZE for the Brewster being one of the top contenders on the list, but I haven't checked to see if that's true.

p.s. OK, I had to go check and yes, ZE is the top Brewster ace with half again as many kills as the next person in line.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: hazmatt on August 14, 2025, 10:26:28 PM
Quote from: RedBeard on August 14, 2025, 09:57:31 PM
p.s. OK, I had to go check and yes, ZE is the top Brewster ace with half again as many kills as the next person in line.

I think ZE uses some special kind of wax on his plane or something. I don't recall ever being chased by a fast moving Brewster other then ZE.
Title: Re: A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO
Post by: RedBeard on August 22, 2025, 03:05:16 PM
Quote from: RedBeard on July 23, 2025, 07:28:42 AM
Squad Hoppers

...

These are the pilots with the most squads that they have been a member of.  We don't know why they move from squad to squad.  It may be squads reforming or it may be the pilot looking for a different mix of people to fly with.

Going through some old FSO data for my squad, I happened upon a case of squad hopping.  If you fly in multiple kinds of events (e.g. FSO and Scenarios or Fortress Europe), then there's a chance that you may be changing squads across these events.  I expect it also depends on whether or not those events are occurring in the same Special Events Arena.