Stats! Stats! Stats! 2009 in numbers (and fancy charts)

[Lusche]

1. Introduction and Arena Comparison
2. Raw Plane Usage
3. Usage by Fighter Frame Families
4. Plane Usage by ENY
5. Fighter K/D's
6. GV in AH
7. Airborne Tank Killers
8. Wirbel has been nerfed?



1. Introduction & Arena Comparison

Welcome to the annual AH stats examination.
As in last year, I limited my "analysis" to the Late War Arenas. The first chart will give you an idea why:


(Click on thumbnail to open picture)

Quality of combat, balanced planeset, more realistic settings or any other real & alleged advantages don't matter: LW is still the place where the action is, only to be rivaled by special events (especially FSO going very strong).


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2. Raw Plane Usage

Definition
Trying to determine the prevalence of a plane is a difficult thing. We don't have access to sortie numbers, and even if we had, it wouldn't be the perfect indicator, because CV planes do a lot of very short sorties. A "average" P-51 will fly just one sortie in the same time a typical F4U-D does 3 or 4.

For our purposes USAGE is still the best approximation we can get, being defined as
USAGE= (Kills + Deaths)
as counting kills or deaths alone are favoring either high or low k/d planes respectively.






No real surprises here. Number one in 2009 is still the P-51D, but I guess it will not repeat this feat in 2010 again. Since introduction of the 47M, 51D numbers dropped a bit so that in the last tours of 2009 the Spitfire XVI was ranked #1 (The Spit numbers didn't suffer from the 47M, because both planes cater to different crowds). Also the recently adjusted ENY of the Pony may result in a further slight reduction in usage.

Also strong, of course, are the CV planes F4U-D and Seafire. Rare outside CV battles, but as those are usually very hot with a lot of kills & deaths in a very short time (in case if the F4U-D mostly deaths ), both planes get some very high overall "usage".

And still only a shadow of it's former glory: The La-7, which never got back to it's pre-remodeled status in terms of usage. The 47M has made a strong entry, and while not a dominating factor anymore like it was in the first few weeks, it continues to be a"big player" in the LW MA's, and will probably end up in the top 10 next year.

At the bottom of the list you will find an EW trio: C202, BF 110C and D3A, all of them with less than 0.1% usage.

Unchanged, but still remarkable is the position of the perked Spit XIV: Despite having the lowest perk tag it's very low on that list: #61 with only 0.3% usage (the 14 has only 50% more kills than the highly limited Me 163)

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3. Plane Usage by Fighter Families or: "All I see are Spitfires!"

That may be true, as we don't know what particular model a plane is unless we get closer than D800. When arriving at a huge fight, we only see generalized icons.
Let's see how the usage is splitting up between the different airframes:



As to be expected: Spitfire family at the top. One may be surprised by the F4U, but again: CV battles result in a lot of kills+deaths in a short time.
The P-51 family falls short, because it's essentially just one model that gets all the action (B has only ~10% of kills+deaths compared to the D), while in the Spitfire there are several variants that see some very good usage.

Some families split up:



Posting a P-47 chart for the whole year doesn't make much sense, as the numbers were shifting greatly after the 47M appeared.

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4. Fighter usage by ENY

Just another way to look at it. Contrary to what seems to be another unkillable myth, it's not only low-ENY monsters that are populating the skies of the LW arenas:


(the current, revised ENY values have been used)

These numbers pretty much match the 2008 numbers, which is quite remarkable for the ENY 30+ category, as it has lost its strongest member: The 190A8 (ENY changed from 30 to 25)

[Lusche]

5. Fighter K/D's

A difficult topic... Has a fighter a good K/D becasue of it's performace... or the players flying it?
Answer: Both. The more players are using a certain fighter, the more unlikely it is of having it's K/D skewed by a few very good pilots. A talented single player can double the P-40B's K/D, but his efforts will be drowned in a sea of mediocracy when trying to do that in a Pony or Spixteen.
However, a plane with huge usage and still having a superior K/D must have some specific performance to cause this. A perked plane (thus largely untouched by 2weekers or other "n00bs") with only an average K/D will probably have some issues. (Yes, noticed right: I do have an agenda regarding the Spit 14 )

But here are the numbers:



Perk planes are marked in red.

Since the redesign of the Me 262, the Tempest's #1 rank is even more unchallenged than ever.

The difference between 38L and 38J is SAPP gaming the game and misusing the J as a "fighter" while the majority of players is using the L as one-way bomber, just as it's intended to be.

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6. GV in AH2

Here are USAGE and K/D of all ground vehicles (and our PT boat):





These are the generals stats. Please keep in mind that even more than in air combat, these numbers are influenced by the way the different GVs are being used. For example the expensive Tigers are much more commonly found defending their bases instead of attacking enemy ones. This gives them a huge boost in K/D (ability to safely tower out most of the time, or having easier access to vehicle supplies)

To see how the tanks in AH are faring against each other, I didn't use the numbers of the whole year 2009, I just took tour 119 as a sample (with a quick check if there is any animaly compared to other tours)




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7. Airborne Tank Killers or "You suck in GVs, so you are dropping bombs now?"

For this aspect of gameplay I concentrated on the most ubiquitous tank of AH 2: The Panzer IV
First, let's see how many Pnazer are actually killed by planes compared to the number being killed by other means (i.e. other tanks for the most part)



I have to admit that I would have expected to see a much higher share of Panzer being killed by planes. Only 14% is much less than I thought.
(Another random stat: On average, more than 2300 Panzer IV were being killed in the AH LW MA's every day!)

Now let's present the top tankbusters of 2009:



No surprise in #1, but the decline of the 110G in the role of a tank killer is quite remarkable.

For comparison, a typical tour from 2007, when there was no B25H, no 37mm IL-2, no Wirbelwind:



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8. "The Wirbelwind is worthless now"

Boy, what an outrage when the Wirbelwind's turret speed was adjusted to a historically more correct number. HTC giving in to the whiners, favoritism and so on...
Just last week there was another player stating here on the BBS: "Only the Ostwind is worth upping now."

But if the Wirbel is now really useless, K/D as well as usage should reflect it, shouldn't it?
Let's have a look:



This chart shows how the kills of planes are distributed between our three flack vehicles.
The change happened in tour 116.
As we can see, the WW's kill share shrunk only by a minor fraction. The M16 saw a (relatively) substantial initial increase, but overall it's share is still very small.

But maybe the players just stay in the WW because the OW's turret is now slower too, so that there is no real alternative... that could mean the WW still sucks?



More remarkable than the drop at Tour 116 is the sharp rise in K/D just before it. I have no real explanation for that - The WW has been around long enough so that you can't say "they had finally learned how to use it properly".

But when looking at the whole year, the WW just seems to do as fine as it did before tour 116.

[dhyran]

 

i like your stats! WTG

[jolly22]

that is amazing!!!!<S> thanks for using your time to make us this!!!! This is so cool!!

[Anaxogoras]

Awesome Lusche.

[Tom5572]

Awesome job Lushe, thanks for the time you put into this, sir <S>

[JunkyII]

I luv charts


Spit 14 needs unperk and the P-47M is going to be a monster this year

[Lusche]

.

[Anaxogoras]

No please don't!

I fund an error in that .. disregard these numbers 

Will put up the correct numbers in a few mins

Ok, I'll edit that out.

[stroker71]

WTG Snailman This is a pie chart from a very popular video game from the 80's...enjoy

[RTHolmes]

excellent work there chartmeister

quite surpised by the spitV usage, I hardly ever see em.

[waystin2]

Thank you Lusche for the time and effort Sir! 

 

Way

[dmdchief]

you are the man ! ! ! !

[Lusche]

Edited the tank vs tank chart... I hope that was my only error... 

[JunkyII]

Edited the tank vs tank chart... I hope that was my only error... 

I always knew the Tiger was the alpha male