Cockpit aids

[Seeker]

One of the harder things to adjust to in AH (coming from AW) was the lack of a dive bomb sight. In AW, all planes have an LCOS dive bomb sight, which of course was horribly incorrect.

Nonetheless, we will hopefully one day see such planes as the Stuka and the Helldiver in AH, and I wonder if we'll see some of the specialised adaptations for the role that some of these planes exhibited.

Many people have postulated that none one would fly the JU87 in the MA as:

1) It wouldn't last five minutes, and

2) There are other planes in the set which make a better Jabo platform

Now, while this is true at the moment, would it still be true if the Stuka were correctly modelled with such things as glass paneled floors, advanced dive bomb sights, automatic dive pull out at 4G on bomb release and I'm sure more stuff that I'm sure I'm ignorant of?

There's similar features in other dive bombers such as dive brakes, siting devices and the like.

Similarly, some late war fighters also had very advanced A2A sighting mechanisms, and certainly I've read many anecdotal accounts proving how important gunsights were in combat right from the Battle of Britain onwards.

Yet in AH gunsights are largely a question of aesthetics.

I'd love to see the ergonomics of the varying design philosphies play a greater part in AH, cockpit design, pilot aids and that sort of thing.

After all, making planes "easy mode" and upping the supplies of fresh faced but competant pilots were (IMNSHO) were two of the allies biggest achivements in WWII.

It helps not to have the Uberplane in your order of battle, if the dammend thing's going to kill half the people flying it, nor if you find that your concepts are so complex it takes three years to train pilots to cope with them, and you've only two years of fight left.....

[Ripsnort]

Click the training link below in siggy, there's a great Rocket/Dive bomb gunsite that we use.  If you stay within the parameters of a 60-80 degree dive, its almost 100% accurate.

[Seeker]

Thanks for the tip, Rip, but that wasn't my point (but yeah, my jaboing sucks, I know.....)

An aeroplane such as the Stuka, *did* have certain strengths for it role, but that the current level of modelling won't (I think) be capable of showing them up; and I'm wondering if any subsequent updates will come close to them.

We argue about wing design and engine development all the time; rarely about ergonomics and instumentation, or pilot workload.

Yet I maintain these are crucial elements to the effectiveness of the aircraft.

Would you, at present, prefer a 109 or a Stuka as Jabo?

And if the above modeling points were addressed, would your choice be the same?


Just wondering what HTC have got in thier heads..

[Ripsnort]

I would prefer a P61B Black Widow  

Actually, the Stuka would have a roll in AH, though it would be a better Historical (Snap shot, Check six event) aircraft...the IL-2 is rarely used in the Main due to its slowness, and vulnerability, and the only time I've seen them is when I post a IL-2 mission,or close air support on incoming ground vehicles.  Thats not to say it doesn't have its place in AH, it does, but wouldn't be used much in the Main.

I'm not quite sure if the community wants the specifics you requested put forth in work-applied man hours considering that HTC is only 6 employees, and would hinder any further developement of the flight sim, or additional models within.  It would be pleasant to see some of the 'detail work' farmed out to the community to make the sim more enjoyable all around.

[Staga]

Ju-87s bombsight was quite developed in its own time.
Pilot set drop-height in it and after he connected it on it trimmed elevators for dive position and after drop it pulled plane up with 6G and stabilized it in climb.

If AH could model bombing accuracy more like it was in WW2 we could see divebombers in their work: Dropping small load of bombs in high accuracy in small target-area instead of 27k bombers dropping one bomb from 10km altitude to target size of 5m x 5m.

I like to fly Stuka in WWIIOL btw, thought it has a (nice) bad habit to stall wing in low speed turns  

[bigUC]

A divebomber with some advanced sighting/autobombing device (in C++ of course, but close to the real thing) would be a very velcome addition.
 
Currently we have two "interfaces" when it comes to planes and ordonance:
1) Fighterbomber (scatter and pray/"this is about right")
2) Bomber w. "enhanced Norden" (lased paveway/"where is that ventilation shaft").  

Adding a third way to release ordonance would be great!  A dedicated divebomber should be able to put its egg on the target with a higher precision than F/B's (due to a special sight, not tweaked in blast-radius settings) and the divebrakes/automatic pullout should ensure that u don't auger.

Of course some of you will say that u can already accomplish this in a F/B, and that is of course true.  As surely there was real life pilots in real f/b's who could attack a target with very high accuracy and a high probability of surviving.  I can't.  I mess up the ingress/dive/pullup in 50% of my attacks, and I would rater have taken a dedicated divebomber most of the time if one (especially the Stuka) was available. Not just because the extra precision, but because it would be different from my 10000 fightermissions or 10000 bombermissions.  It would add a third way to attack something.
 

When it comes to arena survivability it should not be counted against bringing special planes to AH.  I frequently select a plane in the hangar which I feel like flying there and then, and not what would give me the best "survivability".  Not everyone hates getting shot down.

If planes "survivability"-factor should limit what we get in the future this game will slowly progress towards the Korean war.

just my 2 kroner....

[ 07-31-2001: Message edited by: bigUC ]

[Dowding]

I agree big.

The Stuka is fast becoming my most wanted plane. After a level bomber for Japanese/Russians.

Maybe the perk system will become more used once we have more early war plays.