It's funny how we all think of Late war rides as uber. Late war rides are really just a different trade off, with emphasis on Speed, often at the expense of maneuverablity. This means turny planes like Brewesters, Hurri2C, Fm2, A6M, have a big advantage over most late-war rides in a dog fight. The old planes can't run you down, or run away, but they do affect the dynamics of a late war fight.
So I'm wondering if E-W, M-W and L-W should be limited to ONLY the planes active during that era? It's currently stepped, so that Mid-War is really Mid-War + Early War, and L-W is everything.
Negatives of the current system: Getting tag teamed by a pony and Brewster. This is a tough combo to beat. If you try to fight the brewster you'll get picked by the pony, if the pony turn fights, you'll get killed by the brewster. This is a much harder 2 v 1 than say fighting two ponies. The Brewster vs Pony is a complete mismatch. These missmatches lead to bad action, which leads to whining. Example: Ponies only kill Brewsters when they pick them. Brewsters only kill Ponies when they pick them, because no pony is mixing it up with Brewster on purpose. And no Brewster can catch a LW ride to force a fight. If a pony sees my K4, he might want to fight me, but he's not going to do it, with a Brewster a Zeke and hurri, hanging around. I often won't engage a bandit if a turny bird is hanging around. I would easily engage 2 Mustangs, or a Mustang and Dora.
Positives of the current system: Getting tag teamed by a pony and Brewster. This is as tough as it gets. If you want to test the limit of your abilities, Mismatches like this will do it. Again the AH experiment of "what would happen if" is always interesting.
Commentary: How often do you hear the chest thumping of a LW pilot in an EW ride, bragging about killing someone in a 35 ENY plane? Then same pilot is whining that everyone BnZ'd and Picked him. the myth is that EW planes are Lesser planes, when in fact they aren't lesser at all. They are uber turners, while LW planes are uber fast. But I think these planes are so far outside each other's performance envloples they can't really fight each other. It becomes a contest of how isn't looking or who screws up.
I wonder if the fights in LW would be better if the EW and MW planes sets were deactivated, so the plane set was more evenly matched? Not a Wish List item...wanted to discuss first.
Thoughts? 
Was this ever tried in AH before?
You realize you just tore open that "cowardly runstang" argument AGAIN?
Or maybe it was me. Doh
People like to whine when they die to aircraft with opposite flight characteristics. FWs 109s and Stangs... "you're just a skilless spit dweeb." Spits, Brews, and Zekes..."you're a coward who's too chicken to fully engage." ...I should know, I've been on both sides.
The phrase "dog chasing its tail" comes to mind. But then I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.
