You're better than you think

[Thor]

 <S> all ,Here in this sim everyone gains experience in the first month or two that would have killed pretty much all of us off had this been a real war with real planes. We all are probably better with SA and tactics than most of the real fighter pilots of ww2 after playing AH for a couple of months, this is not knocking any of them  or the incredible feats they accomplished but with this exposure rate to "combat" in AH  we gain "combat" experiece very fast.
From what I've read about fighter combat 70-80% of all kills were made without the victim even knowing he was under fire till it was toooo late.   Here the figure is probably more like 5% or less. Reducing the size and information of the icons would enhance this sim.  Wouldn't it be nice if the tactics of real world fighter combat applied here somewhat ? instead of this radar drone arena.  I know my post will not be well recieved by the "I want to fly by wire people" that want to have everything laid on a silver platter to get a kill.  But think about it... WE ALL ARE BETTER THAN WE THINK and that 70-80% blind kill ratio probably wouldnt apply here due to the "combat" experience of the AH crowd and future players.

[Citabria]

wrong.

no one that plays this game is as good as the aces of ww2.

this game only models the Air Combat maneuvers aspect of flying warbirds and dogfighting. the rest is erased and treated like it didn't affect real combat.

navigation? we have in flight GPS. they had at most a nondirectional beacon and dead reckoning.

aquisition? we have idiotproof icons and laser rangefinders, in flight AWACS and JSTARS. they had only eyesight and sometimes vectors from ground control if they were on the defensive


identification? we have idiot proof icons that spell out what an enemy aircraft is. they had only their eyesight. plane types were hard to make out even under ideal conditions

systems failure? we only get damage from bullets they had airplanes that regularly broke down on their own and guns that jammed after only a few rounds.

gunnery? we have laser rangefinders hit flashes that apear below the nose, warping bandits and a perfect atmosphere they had turbulence they could not see through their plane they had to guess range and deflection shooting was difficult

icons off and no radar and you will get bounces like you wouldnt believe and more realistic gunnery simulation
in flight awacs is another reason for gangbanging and lack of surprise


[This message has been edited by Citabria (edited 09-17-2000).]

[Thor]

Right,

as far as the statement 'no one is as...'  that cannot be determined by you or anyone else.

Shooting down planes didnt usually require being a great pilot, reading from the annals of history ,but having SA and knowledge of tactics and the aircraft is what made for the most kills. Here in AH you still have to determine E states , you still have to spot the dots (be it they are big and no realistic sun here). WW2, Getting from point A to point B is difficult in itself ....but knowing what to do when they got there was the crux of their problem. Thats why the blind killed ratio was so high in ww2 and the turkey shoots whether in the asia theater or the euro theater with green pilots.

You're wrong about ability there Cit ...ask any present fighter pilot if he was sent up without time in simulators how long he would last in gun-combat without the adjusted gun pipper but with just his standard HUD info and just knowing how to get from point A to B against a pilot with months even years of simulator time.There's still a lot to be analyzed in this sim by the player even with all the mapo stuff,  do you pull your clipboard out in a dogfight? or when positioning for an attack? As far as gunnery unless its a dead 6 low or zero g shot you still have to learn how to hit the target with the variety of armament configs here, there's still alot of gunnery issues involved even with the laser range finders (which i vote to eliminate).  Then there is the fact that the players of AH have to deal with problems never seen in real life,  warps , veiw lag , incorrect angled view representations ect.

Just imagine this,  25,000 russian pilots in ww2 with simulator training like the AH commmunity has here ,  you can safely assume the success rate of the russian fighter corps would have been much greater, and would have pummeled the German fighter corps.


Personally I think just a red or green dot near the ac would be nice and eliminate the distance icon totally, it sounds tough to alot of people but after 2 months of that we all be killin regualarly again....probably even more.




[This message has been edited by Thor (edited 09-17-2000).]

[funked]

Cit add to your list:

Few people here know how to land properly.

Few people here know how to fly formation properly.

[Baddawg]

Let alone  know the proper procedure for the relief tube.  

[Fishu]

 

Just imagine this, 25,000 russian pilots in ww2 with simulator training like the AH commmunity has here , you can safely assume the success rate of the russian fighter corps would have been much greater, and would have pummeled the German fighter corps.

-- They didn't have time and life to learn about their mistakes or perfect knowledge of that how enemy plane flies like.

[LJK_Reschke]

 

Originally posted by Thor:

Just imagine this,  25,000 russian pilots in ww2 with simulator training like the AH commmunity has here ,  you can safely assume the success rate of the russian fighter corps would have been much greater, and would have pummeled the German fighter corps.

Think of this..........Not only the Russians having a "simulator" to train pilots on but what if every country would have had a simulator like they do now?  I imagine that not only would the Russians have had less attrition but also the Germans, Americans, British, Japanese, Australians, Belgians.....well I think you get the idea.

------------------
Maj. LJK_Reschke
Jagdbomber I-31, StaffelKapitaen JaboStaffel Ein
Kommandeur Jagdbomber, LuftJagerKorps
www.luftjagerkorps.com

[Ripsnort]

Thors post reflects HT's own words, online, many have alot more experience than the actual pilots did in ACM and BFM.

[Nath-BDP]

Fear of dying, being shot down and spending the rest of the war in a POW camp, and moral etc aren't modeled either.

Real pilots had to deal with these factors and keep their cool in combat, which, pyschologically wouldn't be an easy thing, also you had to deal with pyhsical stresses from G forces.

I could gaurantee you if you took a random ammount of people that play AH and put them in WW2 combat, 99.9% of them wouldn't be successfull.

[Jerry B]

I agree with Nath - it's kinda like saying that someone who plays F1 racing games a helluva lot could then go on and drive the real thing   !

[Pongo]

"There is a big difference between if you are in actual war and if you are playing war."
Erich Hartmann

I am not a pilot so I will leave it to them to explain all the things you dont learn about flying in AH. But certainly there must be a lot more to really flying a pony then we see here.

This game gives you great insight into the weaknesses of the planes modeled.(assuming they are modeled accuratly)

This game gives you an increadable understanding of advantage and postion in air  combat. Certainly this would be of near non matchable value to someone entering WW2.

The game does a credible job of gunnery training I think. With access to the info that they had at the time in WW2 HT could certainly make it much more accurate quickly. ie no range read out, gun reliablity, ammo loadouts. But even as it is it would have to give a signifigant advantage vs your contemporaries.

I think that a person that could otherwise qualify for service in the RAF/USAAF/LW fighter service in WW2 would benifit greatly from a year of AH.
With out all the training that the real men recieved, 80 % of us would just be killed trying to take the mustang off..

Pongo hits
alt-x...dam where is this thing going?
alt-x DAM
DAM
DAM
boomm

/.ef
/.ef....
dam

[Karnak]

Pongo has it about right.

We're certainly not better, or even as good, but most of us would have a leg up on the other guys if we were to enter training in that environment.  We have practiced deflection shooting over and over.  Some of us have a good grasp of ACM tactics.  We understand many of the principals of air combat that our fellow trainees would have no idea of yet and would need to have drilled into them.

This assumes that we could pass the physical.

I think that I could easily get my Wings in such a situation.  How I'd do in real combat, well, that's a different subject.

Sisu
-Karnak

[Duckwing6]

Oh and btw exhaustion isn't modelled either ...

i do an aerobatic rountine that does less G than i pull in a normal dogfight in AH .. and it is shorter in duration thana  lot of fights in AH now .. and i'm exhasuted after´wards , drenched in sweat...

Some people were able to litterally "wrestle" their opponents down by shere strength and dexterity... another reason why most Aces in WW2 preffered Bomm and Zomm or Hit and run tactics...

[miko2d]

 Ever tried to really pull negative Gs?

 Your first instinctive reaction upon hearing bullets suddenly hit you aircraft would be to push the stick down into redout.
 Your second reaction after half a second of a serious readout would probably be "pull up, pull up, better die then that".

miko

[easymo]

 I knew guys in the army that were great at shooting paper. You sould have seen what happen to there shooting, when the targets started shooting back . This is a game. What we do here bears only a passing resemblance, at best, to what the real vets did.

 We are just cyber punks next to the real fighter pilots.