From the Battle of the Coral Sea rules:
Lives:
* Fighter pilots get two lives in aircraft.
* Bomber pilots get three lives in aircraft
I'm curious... I recently returned to AH after taking a few years off, signed up for the Battle of the Coral Sea scenario, read the rules and cannot remember ever having multiple lives in a primary ride during a scenario. My previous experiences, as I recall, were you get one life and if you die, you move on to a secondary assignment. Why was this concept of multiple lives in a primary ride injected into scenarios?
I question the affect multiple lives has on realism in scenarios. For instance, I read somewhere that if all the positions are filled in Coral Sea, the numbers will be the same as the actual battle. Seems to me there will be twice as many fighters, three times the actual number of bombers and far more attacks than actually happened...
Perhaps historical realism has taken a back seat to increasing the so called "fun factor" while avoiding the frustration, for some, of training for several weeks just to die in the first few minutes of a frame? If this is necessary to fill the ranks, so be it, but for me it takes a good part of the realism out of the scenario.
