Suggestions regarding next Scenario (October, 2016)

[Guppy35]

you let me know how that works out for you..

Wow!  Who peed in your Cornflakes?

[USCH]

Wow!  Who peed in your Cornflakes?

Well lets look, the only Allied aircraft that has any speed advantage over the top 3 LW aircraft, only has that advantage when over 22k (the P38)

With that being said, the LW can out climb and out run any Allied aircraft at any altitude.

Now your only argument is that some (not even all) Allied aircraft can out turn some of the LW aircraft.
Or they can out dive them.

With that being said, the ground will always catch up to a diving aircraft, but a climbing aircraft will never run out of Space.

Basically the Allies are in a hole that only magical points from bombers hitting the target will ever get them out of. They cant honestly think that they have an equal chance fighting the LW. If you do, well revert back to what you quoted. Fighter wise the allies haven't got a snowballs chance in hell of having FUN. If fun is depicted by an "equal" match.

[Guppy35]

As one who is flying Allied, I figure on having fun either way.  But then in the MA I figure the bad guys are always going to be above me anyway

[Brooke]

OK, at least we are away from arguments over realism and on to it being an aspect of balance.

That is true and a good thing to ponder, but an alt cap is not an extra benefit to the axis.

The reason is that the P-40 and especially the P-39 are not high-alt planes, the P-40 because it takes it forever to climb, and the P-39 because it drastically loses performance above about 15k.

Yes, the P-38 gains speed on the 109 at very high alts (alts far above what were used in Tunisia), but starts to have some problems as well.  I liked flying the P-38 in Battle Over the Winter Line -- and I love the P-38 -- but it is a handful up high, requiring types of care that pilots who are not experienced in the P-38 are not used to.  I was not a threat to those 109G's and 190A's until the fight got lower.  I could chase them down at high alt, but all they had to do was enter a shallow dive, and I couldn't follow because of compressibility.  Some WWII P-38 pilots felt the same way -- that the P-38 was best once the fight went below about 20k.

[Guppy35]

Just keep in mind the thoughts of fighter pilots, cartoon or otherwise.  The other guys bird is always better than yours.  That way when you kill em, it makes you that much better of a pilot.  And if you lose, you have a built in excuse

[Brooke]

In this version, we set it up so that 8 or 9 formations an hour getting to target could get the objects down. 

My goal is to set it up so that (1) a single target site is able to absorb the efforts of a full bomber or attack group getting in (so that you don't have to send in a group then retarget half of it if you are lucky with no losses otw to target) and (2) for the target sites overall to allow more than three sorties per hour of all bombers and attack aircraft and still not run out of targets (so that we never run out of targets).

I do that by counting objects of different types at the various target locations, testing how many objects at those locations the different types of aircraft can take down, and then making sure that a town can absorb the efforts of a full bomber force, that a base can absorb the full efforts of an attack group, and then three towns and three or more bases (with appropriate down time) are sufficient to satisfy those goals.

The other calculations are to get the scoring so that it is worth it to fly bombers and attack planes and not keep them on the ground.

Your 4k hardness is higher, we used 3.5, but that is the number we came up with after excruciating detail and testing, we didn't just end up there.

I picked 4000 lbs as a result of testing to satisfy two goals.  First, I wanted to make it so that a town could absorb all (or nearly all) of a full bomber force (as talked about above).  So you want high hardness.  Second, I wanted to make it so that a B-25 pilot would get some objects destroyed.  If you make it too hard, one B-25 formation gets no objects destroyed, and the guy following him if he drops on the same spot gets the objects destroyed.  You get a situation where lead bomber pilots are always prepping an area for someone else to get all the objects destroyed, and bomber pilots (myself included) don't prefer that.  Best is to have it so that even a first set of B-25's in can get some objects, but the town overall can absorb a lot of bombers if they all do make it there.  If you can do both of those things, it is best.  I still need to test some more on that setting, but 4000 is my placeholder that works for B-25's.

[Brooke]

Just keep in mind the thoughts of fighter pilots, cartoon or otherwise.  The other guys bird is always better than yours.  That way when you kill em, it makes you that much better of a pilot.  And if you lose, you have a built in excuse

When I'm shot down, my built in excuse is that I sucked. 

[Brooke]

Folks, I want to think about how we handle walkons and bring this discussion up again.

Are we going to:

1.  Allow all pilots (registered and walkon) to move into open spots.
or
2.  Keep registered pilots in what they registered for and assign walkons to C.202's and P-40's.

We can't have this one -- keep registered pilots in what they registered for and let walkons fill open spots -- because any registered pilot for a C.202 who would prefer to fly a 109 is now worse off than a walkon, and we disincenitivise registration.

If we do option 1, we will end up during some times of the day with nearly all 109's, 190's, P-38's, and Spits and just a handful of people in C.202's and P-40's (which makes it worse for them).  P-40 and C.202 groups will never have cohesion.  Walkons will be happier, but I'm not sure what proportion of players in this will be walkons.

If we do option 2, walkons will be less happy, but we will get closer to the intended proportion of different aircraft and P-40 and C.202 group leaders can plan on more cohesion and fuller groups.

I prefer option 2.

Option 1 to me it is like making Scenarios that are just always P-51's, Spits, 109's, 190's, etc. -- just always picking the favored planes that were in any conflict and forgetting about what was really there.  It seems against what Scenarios are aiming for.

[Brooke]

Guppy brings up that the Spit group started getting Spit IX's in March, 1943.

Folks, should we make some of the Spit V's be Spit IX's?  What do you think?

[Guppy35]

Guppy brings up that the Spit group started getting Spit IX's in March, 1943.

Folks, should we make some of the Spit V's be Spit IX's?  What do you think?

The 31st operated a mix of them well into 44 and added VIII to the crowd later as well. The Vs would fly lower alt with the IX as their cover. Only seems fair 😀

[Hajo]

Sounds like a Spit Pilot slot would be fun.  SpitIX comparable speed to any 190s in the scenario (if there are some).

SpitV is a blast to fly.  Flew one in scenario before last.  Nice little aircraft.

[KCDitto]

OK,

As a former ATTACK Group Leader, I would like to bring up a couple observations.

"A-20A is a Boston III.  However, the 8x.303's result in unbalanced scoring on strafing vs. cannons of 190F's and 110C's, so put in A-20G, but no wing-mounted bombs (so is about same as A-20A except for better forward guns)."

You seemed concerned about the unbalance of .303s versus 20MM cannon?

But not too concerned about 21,000 rounds of .50 ammo versus 4040 20MM?

6X.50 strafing will take down multiple buildings on a single pass and drop a notch of flaps on your run and you can take down a lot.

2X20MM and 2X13 strafing, you can take down a building but you have to stay fast in a FW or you will pancake. Now you have more control in a 110 but the 7.9s are pretty much useless.

Now, I notice you did not focus on bomb load?

10 A-20s have a bomb capacity of 40 500Lbs or 20,000 pounds of explosives
6 FW F-8s can carry.....UH  6 500 Kg            or  6,000 pounds of explosives
4 110c can carry               8 250 Kg            or  4,000 pounds of explosives

That is double the striking power of the AXIS...

Does anyone care?  How do we "BALANCE"

Maybe take 6 of the A-20s away and add the P-40's to the strike group?

I do not know, just an observation.

[Tracerfi]

OK,

As a former ATTACK Group Leader, I would like to bring up a couple observations.

"A-20A is a Boston III.  However, the 8x.303's result in unbalanced scoring on strafing vs. cannons of 190F's and 110C's, so put in A-20G, but no wing-mounted bombs (so is about same as A-20A except for better forward guns)."

You seemed concerned about the unbalance of .303s versus 20MM cannon?

But not too concerned about 21,000 rounds of .50 ammo versus 4040 20MM?

8X.50 strafing will take down multiple buildings on a single pass and drop a notch of flaps on your run and you can take down a lot.

2X20MM and 2X13 strafing, you can take down a building but you have to stay fast in a FW or you will pancake. Now you have more control in a 110 but the 7.9s are pretty much useless.

Now, I notice you did not focus on bomb load?

10 A-20s have a bomb capacity of 40 500Lbs or 20,000 pounds of explosives
6 FW F-8s can carry.....UH  6 500 Kg            or  6,000 pounds of explosives
4 110c can carry               8 250 Kg            or  4,000 pounds of explosives

That is double the striking power of the AXIS...

Does anyone care?  How do we "BALANCE"

Maybe take 6 of the A-20s away and add the P-40's to the strike group?

I do not know, just an observation.

A20G has no bombsite and it only has 6 .50cals in the nose and twin .50 in the top turret just letting you know in case you didnt

[KCDitto]

Thanks,

Did not changes the bullet count from the nose though..

Axis attack do not have bomb sights either

[Devil 505]

Ditto, check your numbers. You seem to have places a few extra 0's in there.

A-20 has 2100 rounds in the 6 forward guns.

190F has 500 cannon rounds in 2 cannon and 950 13mm rounds in 2 guns.
The F-8 carries 700Kg(1540 lbs)

Also, every write-up has the A-20's external bombs disabled. So the max bomb load is 2000 lbs. Which can be tuned even closer to the 190 by limiting the A-20 to the 2x 500 lb bombs and limiting the 190 to only the 500 Kg (1100 lb) bomb,

Looks to me like the F-8 can do more damage per plane over the A-20.