Real World BoB Hurricane Pilot's views on SOW

[PeterPanPan]

Flight Lieutenant John Greenwood flew Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain with RAF 253 Squadron. He shot down a Heinkel over Farnborough in August 1940. He is now 91.

Through a mutual friend, I managed to show him this ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4Fx3pHQFHk

... and here's what he had to say.

"As for the simulator I cannot pass comment for it was short and looked like a computer game which I used to play some years ago. I guess it is more like a game than a simulator. A hurricane would have been shot down long before it reached the Heinkels."

Pretty blunt you might say but pretty revealing too. Interesting to hear that a real world Hurricane pilot used to play flight sims - I wonder which one?! Interesting too that he sees this as more of a game ... but then again probably not a fair reflection given the clip is short and he presumably doesn't know anything else about BoB SOW.

Most interesting of all though is his assessment of the poor approach by the Hurricane. Oleg said somewhere that this was a rookie AI, so that would seem to fit. I guess the other Hurricane you can see in the video scoring a hit is not a rookie!

Wouldn't it just be the icing on the cake if BoB SoW could be seen/enjoyed/commented on ... even endorsed by some the last remaining Few? I wonder if 1C/the publishers have thought of this possibility? Aside from the obvious commercial advantages of having this 'game' endorsed by real WWII pilots, how good would it feel for us to know that the Few think that SoW is very realistic too. A game and a memorial rolled into one.

PPanPan

[SG1_Gunkan]

Nice comment ant thanks to Mr. John Greenwood for helping us to create a great historical simulator.

I think too that He111 was in easy AI mode. If you try this against veteran He111 on IL2, you are dead.

Please, ask him about the turbulences behind the bombers!

[JG53Harti]

not to forget


Oleg Maddox



Default
Quote:
Originally Posted by OSSI View Post
Cool sound! Plane didn't shake when using weapon?
Shakes as neccessary... but recorded on easy difficult settings in most positions... No time to fight a lot... no time when we try to record something that is not going well due bugs in recording AVI directly from the game....

[AndyJWest]

Wouldn't it just be the icing on the cake if BoB SoW could be seen/enjoyed/commented on ... even endorsed by some the last remaining Few?

Seen//enjoyed/commented on - no problem.

Endorsed? I hope people have more sense than to ask BoB veterans to make endorsements of commercial products. WW2 isn't some sort of franchise to be hawked around the globe...

[StkNRdr]

I understand the comment about getting an endorsement. Doesn't need to be a BoB pilot. There are plenty of guys currently flying WWII warbirds. It would be nice to know what they think about the sim.

[Avimimus]

In a sense though, Oleg is creating a great historical masterwork - a detailed reconstruction of the war which brings out features that no book or artefact can. He is helping pass on and keep alive the memory and study of the war.

So, endorsement of the historical project and its value certainly isn't out of line.

Especially contra certain large military companies attempting to charge fees from anyone attempting to depict the use of certain pieces of equipment that citizens died in while fighting during the war.

[PeterPanPan]

Seen//enjoyed/commented on - no problem.

Endorsed? I hope people have more sense than to ask BoB veterans to make endorsements of commercial products. WW2 isn't some sort of franchise to be hawked around the globe...

Fair point Andy. Yes, 'endorsed' perhaps conjures up the wrong image. I guess what I mean is "proud/happy/pleased to be associated with". In the same way as a TV documentary on the Battle of Britain will feature 'talking heads' of some of the Few to lend weight/historical significance/accuracy/interest etc. to the subject matter, could not the same be done for this game?

Geoff Wellum was very happy for his book to be made into a TV Docu Drama and said it was probably the most realistic rendition of the Battle of Britain he'd seen. The same will hopefully be said about SoW. I just think it would be great if it could be said by one of the Few. And if they make some money out of it, I certainly wouldn't hold that against them.

PPanPan

[Triggaaar]

I just think it would be great if it could be said by one of the Few. And if they make some money out of it, I certainly wouldn't hold that against them.I'm all for any Vets getting money for their stories or whatever they want to give, but not for an endorcement, as it cheapens their opinion - ie, "here's $x if you say you like this" gets in the way of them giving their honest opinion.

[swiss]

I'm all for any Vets getting money for their stories or whatever they want to give, but not for an endorcement, as it cheapens their opinion - ie, "here's $x if you say you like this" gets in the way of them giving their honest opinion.

Not sure if they really remember all details, it was 70 years ago...

[Skoshi Tiger]

Not sure if they really remember all details, it was 70 years ago...

Do not discount these men’s memories. The events that occurred were very intense and indelibly etched themselves into these veterans minds.

In June this year I was in New Guinea, walking the Kokoda Track when our party met up with the author Bill James. He wrote a guide book for people walking the track that went over the various Battles. (Title "A field Guide to the KOKODA TRACK: an historical guide t the lost battlefields" ISBN 9780977570409)

Several years ago he had flown out a number of the veterans of the Battle of Brigade Hill (including my father) to the battle site by helicopter. Bill James walked the men through the battle site according to the maps and official history accepted at the time. Some of the veterans including my dad told him that he was wrong and the action that they were involved in happened a hundred meters further up the hill. Unfortunately time, the weather and issues with the helicopter forced them to fly back to Port Moresby that day.

On a later trip armed with metal detectors, Bill James and his team (including our groups guide) went over the battle field and from the location of ordinance and spent bullet cases determined that the evidence matched up with these men’s 65 year old memories closer than official histories that were written up a year or two after the battle!

The day before we left for New Guinea, Dad drew up a mud map of the area of the battle that he was involved in. This map drawn from 68 year old memories matched almost exactly to the location we walked through.

Many of the veteran’s memories of events are still quite lucid!
Cheers!

[PeterPanPan]

Do not discount these men’s memories. The events that occurred were very intense and indelibly etched themselves into these veterans minds ... Many of the veteran’s memories of events are still quite lucid!
Cheers!

Totally agree. Listen to anything Geoff Wellum has to say. He remembers things as clearly as if they were yesterday. He said "People ask me, how do you remember those things from all that time ago? I say, how can I ever forget?"

PPanPan

[Skoshi Tiger]

Flight Lieutenant John Greenwood flew Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain with RAF 253 Squadron. He shot down a Heinkel over Farnborough in August 1940. He is now 91.

Through a mutual friend, I managed to show him this ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4Fx3pHQFHk

... and here's what he had to say.

"As for the simulator I cannot pass comment for it was short and looked like a computer game which I used to play some years ago. I guess it is more like a game than a simulator. A hurricane would have been shot down long before it reached the Heinkels."

....

PPanPan

Hey do you think he was suggesting that the Tail Gunners should have been more accurate??????

Cheers and thanks for sharing your encounter with us.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Totally agree. Listen to anything Geoff Wellum has to say. He remembers things as clearly as if they were yesterday. He said "People ask me, how do you remember those things from all that time ago? I say, how can I ever forget?"

PPanPan

Every time I hear the stories that these men tell, my respect for them grows. Thanks to men like them I've never had to put myself in harms way.

The most unfortunate thing about that is that in the past I've taken too many things for granted and haven't even thought about the sacrifices that these men have had to endure for me to live the way I can.

Slowly as I'm getting older and now have got kids of my own, I am slowly realising the price that these men paid in their youth.

Cheers!

[swiss]

Do not discount these men’s memories.
Many of the veteran’s memories of events are still quite lucid!
Cheers!

Look, the last thing I want is to degrade/belittle them.

But: If you asked me about things that happened 20years ago, most of it is blurry - and black and white.
I could'nt tell for sure.
20years.

Or eyewitnesses in a criminal case, they cannot remember all details, they may think they remember, but their mind is just playing a trick on them.

That's how our brain is built, can't change this fact.

I also had a close relative who served in the 8th army as tank driver, I sure enjoyed listening to all that stories - but from a objective point of view....you can't tell if it's all true, somethings could be made up by the brain, unintentionally.

Edit:
We have a guy here in the form who interviews Russian veteran pilots.
I you read the interviews, you find several corrections by the interviewer - some facts were just plain wrong in the memories of the vets.
Do you think they "lied" intentionally"?

[katdogfizzow]

My experience in IL2 is the same as this vets...fly up to a 111 like that and you're going down, no doubt about it

[winny]

Look, the last thing I want is to degrade/belittle them.

But: If you asked me about things that happened 20years ago, most of it is blurry - and black and white.
I could'nt tell for sure.
20years.

Or eyewitnesses in a criminal case, they cannot remember all details, they may think they remember, but their mind is just playing a trick on them.

That's how our brain is built, can't change this fact.

I also had a close relative who served in the 8th army as tank driver, I sure enjoyed listening to all that stories - but from a objective point of view....you can't tell if it's all true, somethings could be made up by the brain, unintentionally.

Edit:
We have a guy here in the form who interviews Russian veteran pilots.
I you read the interviews, you find several corrections by the interviewer - some facts were just plain wrong in the memories of the vets.
Do you think they "lied" intentionally"?

This isn't a story it's a tactical fact. If anyone knows what would get you killed it's a guy who watched people getting killed doing it.

EDIT: One thing nobody's mentioned is the fact that you can't get killed in SoW, by burning to death or being shot in the head, or boiled alive by glycol this discussion is completley disregarding the fact that there has to be a person involved the way the vet did it...

[Skoshi Tiger]

Look, the last thing I want is to degrade/belittle them.

But: If you asked me about things that happened 20years ago, most of it is blurry - and black and white.
I could'nt tell for sure.
20years.

Or eyewitnesses in a criminal case, they cannot remember all details, they may think they remember, but their mind is just playing a trick on them.

That's how our brain is built, can't change this fact.

I also had a close relative who served in the 8th army as tank driver, I sure enjoyed listening to all that stories - but from a objective point of view....you can't tell if it's all true, somethings could be made up by the brain, unintentionally.

Edit:
We have a guy here in the form who interviews Russian veteran pilots.
I you read the interviews, you find several corrections by the interviewer - some facts were just plain wrong in the memories of the vets.
Do you think they "lied" intentionally"?


No, I’d say they answered to the best of their recollections. But also I wouldn't be labelling something as "plain wrong" when your judgement is based on documents sometimes written up months, or even years after the event by people who had not participated in the event.

Now I come from a large family and Dad has a hard time calling any of us boys name (This isn't an old age thing- it's been the same since I was a kid) , but he can still remember the name of the man who he met only once for a hour or two at most when their companies were combined and the guy was shot through the throat next to him.

I was present at a function where one of the man’s relatives asked if anyone knew the man as they to wanted find out details of the man’s service history. Dad and a few others that had been present were able to relate in detail the events leading up to the man’s death and provide a form closure to a grieving family some 65 years after the event.

The official fact’s given to the family was just a date and place of death. In just a few minutes the veterans were able to supply details about the lay of the land, the type of vegetation, the dispersal of the troops on both sides, the objectives of what they were trying to achieve and what went wrong. It actually gave a meaning to the man’s death.

I accept that there are going to be inaccuracies, confusions and errors in details. My position is that these errors are also part of the official records of the time and in many cases it’s impossible to make a judgment on the TRUTH of the events.

Cheers!

[swiss]

In fact it's a downright insult to disregard the stories in defence of a game, because they were risking thier lives.

You're right, only - no one did. ;)

Other than that, I tend to trust paper over memories.

well, whatever.

[Avimimus]

In fact it's a downright insult to disregard the stories in defence of a game, because they were risking thier lives.

Sorry, I have to ask:
Does this actually make any sense? I mean, when we really pause and think it through?

Just because someone risked their lives, doesn't mean that they are right. Similarly, just because someone is an eyewitness it doesn't mean that they are right (it just means that they probably are). It is worth respecting people for what they did and went through. But this shouldn't translate into a completely unquestioning attitude, where any other thoughts are considered sacrilegious.

It is disturbingly like not questioning politicians on the value of a war because soldiers are fighting in it (albeit 10000 times less important).

I really, truly, liked your point about the fact that no one dies in SoW. I think it is incisive and really brings out the heart of the subject.

[Skoshi Tiger]

You're right, only - no one did. ;)

Other than that, I tend to trust paper over memories.

well, whatever.

Not implied by me!

I think people are entitled to be passionate about their views and in some cases both sides of a discussion can be right or wrong. (or both at the same times which is confusing! ;) )

I tend to find the paper is good at recording the big picture of an event, but there are a lot of little details that are next to impossible to record.

It's these little details and anecdotes that I find fascinating

Cheers!

[BadAim]

Not implied by me!

I think people are entitled to be passionate about their views and in some cases both sides of a discussion can be right or wrong. (or both at the same times which is confusing! ;) )

I tend to find the paper is good at recording the big picture of an event, but there are a lot of little details that are next to impossible to record.

It's these little details and anecdotes that I find fascinating

Cheers!

That is exactly right, I have found that individual servicemen oftentimes have little understanding of what was going on around them in the big picture, but can recall the most minute details about their own little corner of the war.

I also also can relate to the pressure of the event impressing the memories deeply. I too can remember few things from 20 years ago, but I remember very clearly 28 years ago having my Camaro sideways at 110mph on the Highway sliding towards a bridge footing! I remember pulling off to the breakdown lane and getting out to walk off the adrenaline, much like the pilot in the Yak 50 thread. I can still taste that tinge of nickel on my tongue.
I have no Idea what the plate number on that car was, or the date of the incident, or any other myriad facts, but I can take you to the spot and describe what happened.

I guess my point is that the cold eye of the historian can only tell you a part of the story, and a necessary part, but it's the firsthand accounts that give history it's 'flavor'.

[Romanator21]

"As for the simulator I cannot pass comment for it was short and looked like a computer game which I used to play some years ago. I guess it is more like a game than a simulator. A hurricane would have been shot down long before it reached the Heinkels."


Although this could be in reference to the tail-gunners (the Hurricane was flying straight and level on their six for over a minute) it could also have something to do with the fighter escort. Just because the 109's had 20 minutes over London, didn't mean they couldn't be really nasty to the RAF. The Bf-109 was considered in many respects, the Spitfire's equal in the battle.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Although this could be in reference to the tail-gunners (the Hurricane was flying straight and level on their six for over a minute) it could also have something to do with the fighter escort. Just because the 109's had 20 minutes over London, didn't mean they couldn't be really nasty to the RAF. The Bf-109 was considered in many respects, the Spitfire's equal in the battle.

To choose between either the 109 or spitfire at this stage of the war would be very hard indeed. In some respect the Spitfires had a distinct disadvantage, one being the Negative-G Cutout issue.

Where the Germans pilots had a lot more experience that the British at this stage, the British however had the Home-Ground advantage.

This is going to be one of the interesting things about the BOB Sim. How evenly matched the aircraft were!

Cheers!

[winny]

You're right, only - no one did. ;)

Other than that, I tend to trust paper over memories.

well, whatever.

Really? Even your own? I was in a car crash 20 years ago. I remember it all vividly.

As for the BoB pilot saying the hurricane would have been shot down long before it got to the Heinkels he's absolutley right. Because no matter how realistic SoW is it's still a game. If you approached like that in IL-2 you'd get killed pretty quick. In real life it's not a case of seeing how much damage your plane can take before you bail out completley uninjured. There were real bullets. It only takes one to kill the pilot.

[mazex]

Look, the last thing I want is to degrade/belittle them.

But: If you asked me about things that happened 20years ago, most of it is blurry - and black and white.
I could'nt tell for sure.
20years.


My worst IRL incident as a pilot happened 24 years ago (i just described it in the YAK-thread):

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpost.php?p=195418&postcount=26

I can remember silly details like that I was a bit to the right of the ideal line when the tow pilot disconnected, the line was not loaded fully, it was sunny with 2/8 of Cumulus, the exact jacket I had on me, the jacket the instructor had on him etc - but what did I do more in 1986... Ehh - chased girls and drank cheap wine at high school parties probably? Who did I date? Don't remember... I am pretty sure I will remember the incident when I am 90 too if I get the privilege to remain "clear in my mind".

So if I remember an incident like that where no one got hurt, why should not a BoB pilot remember what is was like back then?

[philip.ed]

My worst IRL incident as a pilot happened 24 years ago (i just described it in the YAK-thread):

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpost.php?p=195418&postcount=26


So if I remember an incident like that where no one got hurt, why should not a BoB pilot remember what is was like back then?

Because each sortie would merge into the next like sugar in water. Apart from episodes of considerable interest/excitement/danger etc, I can't see a pilot remembering everything as clearly as one might in such an incident as yours.
I do, however, think that their combined recollection of different episodes is enough to give a pretty damn good impression IMO Although if, for instance, you asked the pilot about tracer; would he be able to distinguish between the different types he may have used? I'm not sure.
I think a veterans perspective is the best evidence to give. At the end of the day, if you can fly a sortie in SoW and come about with nearly exactly the same images as the pilots of 1940, then that is (for me) a near perfect sim ;)

[winny]

Because each sortie would merge into the next like sugar in water. Apart from episodes of considerable interest/excitement/danger etc, I can't see a pilot remembering everything as clearly as one might in such an incident as yours.
I do, however, think that their combined recollection of different episodes is enough to give a pretty damn good impression IMO Although if, for instance, you asked the pilot about tracer; would he be able to distinguish between the different types he may have used? I'm not sure.
I think a veterans perspective is the best evidence to give. At the end of the day, if you can fly a sortie in SoW and come about with nearly exactly the same images as the pilots of 1940, then that is (for me) a near perfect sim ;)

The only thing the BoB veteran needs to remember is that if you flew up behind a gaggle of heinkels like that you'd get killed. Not what day it was, or what he was wearing or what coulor the tracer was.. This thread is confusing memories and experience. Is anyone here arguing against what the guy said? I'm pretty sure you'd only need to see a friend killed once for it to register.. and for you not to forget it.

[Splitter]

Remember also that these guys were debriefed and probably did some commiserating among themselves over a pint or tea between missions. Those kinds of things tend to reinforce memories.

Now, we all know kill claims were always exaggerated. I don't think pilots all lied in these situations. They shot, stuff flew off the enemy plane, the enemy plane dove out of sight. Or several planes took shots at an enemy plane as it went down.

Still, I am thinking that some details got etched into their minds. Sometimes, "you just had to be there".

Splitter

[Blackdog_kt]

What Splitter says about debriefing holds quite some value. It's a generally accepted fact by medical scientists in the fields of neurology/psychiatry that going over the instinctive/automatic/subconscious experiences and brain functions while they are still fresh tends to imprint them a lot better in your conscious mind and memories.

I once read a book called "the tower of dreams" written by a French neurologist, which explains these things through a fictional story. A guy inherits a chateau from a distant uncle and upon moving there, he finds a chest filled with old manuscripts belonging to an ancestor from the 1700s. The manuscripts are actually dream journals and the book evolves into parallel storytelling between the two characters in the present and past. It's actually a very good book giving some insight on how our brain works by dressing it up inside a fictional story, while there still are scientific footnotes on the bottom of the pages that explain things professionally.

I think we can all relate to waking up after a very vivid dream and needing some time to get our bearings and acclimatize back to reality, but when we try to remember what we dreamed about later during the day we can't, despite the vividness or tension of the dream. However, if we take the time to think about and recollect the experience just after we wake up, it becomes that much easier to remember later.
A different instance would be going home drunk and having small memory lapses (not passed-out drunk, but sufficiently so that you miss a few small, 2-3 minute parts of the preceding night and wonder "now what happened between fact A and fact B?") :-P
If you recall the events of the night before going to bed to sleep off the alcohol, you have a much better chance of eradicating these little memory gaps.

What happens is that the brain automatically discards information that's deemed superficial and places it into a subconscious "long time storage" area. However, mulling about it in your head tells your brain that it's important to you and it gets recalled to the conscious "fast access to data" area. Since the subconscious is the main material pool from which dreams get conjured up (some even say dreaming is like a "safety valve", we might be annoyed by something we don't realize and we get a bad dream about it to remind us to do something about it), recording these memories for later recollection is in fact a scientifically accepted tool by medical scientists dealing with a patient's mental health.

A mission debriefing would do just that, reinforce the importance of last mission's events which the human brain would tend to brush aside due to their repetitive nature. Flying a combat mission would be a nearly unforgettable experiece the first time, but flying 50 would have your brain going "bah, same all, same all, off to subconscious memory with you!", until someone forced you to focus and dwell on it, sending the signal that it's important stuff to remember :grin:

In fact, some time ago i came across a linked video from a website called factualTV, one that took the viewer through a Lancaster night bombing mission from noon with the engineers working on the aircraft till the next morning when the bombers returned. The actual debriefing process was a long and exhaustive one, with each crewmember interviewed by an officer separately, so as to prevent different airmen from influencing eachother's accounts. In fact they took so much care to prevent them mixing up their memories of the events, that watching it made you feel they were interrogated by enemies and not their own colleagues :grin:

I know i'm going off-topic here, but i find it very interesting to see how many different branches of science were used during WWII in the effort to indirectly but crucially improve combat results. Aside from aeronautics, engineering and the code breaking mathematicians led by Alan Turing there was tremendous work done in the UK in other fields, from the psychiatry and psychology used in these airmen debriefings to mathematical optimization models. I once read an article in a military history magazine dealing with the latter one, saying that they used business research algorithms and models to deduce all kinds of stuff, from the obvious logistics to the not so obvious, like the camouflage pattern of the ships in the atlantic convoys. Insane stuff and very interesting due to their relative obscurity, compared to the well known parts of the war.

Anyway, let's stop before i derail this further ;)

[moilami]

Flight Lieutenant John Greenwood flew Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain with RAF 253 Squadron. He shot down a Heinkel over Farnborough in August 1940. He is now 91.

Through a mutual friend, I managed to show him this ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4Fx3pHQFHk

... and here's what he had to say.

"As for the simulator I cannot pass comment for it was short and looked like a computer game which I used to play some years ago. I guess it is more like a game than a simulator. A hurricane would have been shot down long before it reached the Heinkels."

Pretty blunt you might say but pretty revealing too.

Hmm, what else he could say when seeing a flight combat simulator? I think he had very good eyes! How else he could describe a stupid computer? I think he have very good brains!

Remember gentlemen, SoW is just a game, even though it should be by far the most awesome WWII combat flight simulation. It will look like a game, as will all games we see in, say, next 20 years.

Respect to the veteran who told what he saw and thought.

[II/JG54_Emil]

Guys what are we discussing about?

This Hurricane is flying into a close formation of 9 He-111 with at least 27 gunners being able able to shoot but not doing anything until 1 second before the hurricanes pass.

All the Hurricane veteran is saying if you did it like that you were dead.


Now why do we discuss his memory-capacity, when it is about his experience?

[brando]

Actually - and I'm talking from experience - the older one gets, the better one's memory of experiences in youth becomes.

[Ninelives]

The pilot is simply saying that if you sit behind a group of bombers like that you wouldn't last 5 seconds. When faced with a group you flew through them to break them up. Some would turn around and leg it, others would carry on. The force would then be weakened and the ones that were alone picked off.

If possible you would aim for the gunners. Then you would take the engines out. Sometimes the gunners would be taken out on the first pass leaving the plane undefended. Other times they were too busy trying to get themselves out of the plane to fire back. Attacks like this would last a matter of seconds because there would only be a few seconds worth of ammo and sitting still taking aim made you an easy target for a 109 that might sneak in behind.

These are well documented in many autobiographies and I have been reading them for over 30 years. It doesn't matter how good the sim is you will never replicate real world situations exactly by simply lumping AI in categories of Rookie, Veteran etc etc.

[Blackdog_kt]

Well, that's simply because we don't face any actual danger. Just finished watching BBC's first light and it was evident there as well (btw, is it out on DVD in the UK yet? got a relative on post-grad studies there that could get it for me).

On Wellum's first operational sortie, Brian Kingome who was the formation leader can be heard telling them on the radio "right boys, off we go, one good, fast pass and out of here".

I think this would be a good reason to completely do away with scores in multiplayer, or to totally revamp the scoring system to severely punish reckless behaviour when flying at high difficulty settings, because the current system in IL2 encourages people to stick around against silly odds a bit too much.

[WTE_Galway]

Unfortunately many PC gamers tend to have a Hollywood impression of what attacking bombers should be like, expecting they are something like ducks in a shooting gallery. According to this way of thinking the only serious RAF casualties were from enemy fighters, the bombers being close enough to undefended.

In reality attacking a bomber stream was always very dangerous. In fact the RAF used a range of tactics to reduce losses. For example feinting with one flight to draw bomber defensive fire and then attacking from another direction altogether with a separate flight. (This apparently worked really well with Heinkels which had a single gunner to operate both left and right waist guns)

A similar issue occurs with strafing capital ships. Gamers get indignant if shot down by a heavy cruiser or battleship whining about "sharpshooter" AAA.

This is what Medal of Honor winner Joe Voss had to say about strafing ships ...

" ... sometimes it will cost you about 50% of your fighters. You really lose the fighters on that deal. When you do get out and get out alive on a strafing attack on warships, you just aren't good, you're lucky? "

The problem is:

1) Real world loss ratios are unacceptable in a game because getting shot down every 2nd or third time you attacked mass bombers or a ship is just not that much fun. Games need to give the player a unrealistic chance of survival.

2) Unfortunately admitting that things like AAA need to be toned down in a game for game play reasons seems to injure some people ego's

[WTE_Galway]

Well, that's simply because we don't face any actual danger. Just finished watching BBC's first light and it was evident there as well (btw, is it out on DVD in the UK yet? got a relative on post-grad studies there that could get it for me).



Most of the photos and short clips I have seen from "First Light" are clearly from the Battle of Britain Movie. In particular they feature the Spitfires marked with the non historical Squadron ID "AI" .

The non-historical "AI" ID was partially used to avoid just the sort of long arguments you get on forums like this about which historical squadron was involved in which action.

Either way the footage for "First Light" is not necessarily using historical tactics its from a movie.

[Ltbear]

First thing you learn in any ww2 combat sim is not to engage bomber from six....This veteran just points out what we all know, exept he had hes life at stake...

Many virtual squadrons have BFT`s "basic flight training" Where from the ones i have been in and the ones i know of always help a new pilot to engage a bomber in a angle or head on....

Why can a debate about some "in my opinion" rookie noob stuf end up being a "CSI" debate about memorys

Sir how should i engage a bomber...

From any angle exept at direct six....

THE END!!

Ltbear

:) lol

[Blackdog_kt]

Most of the photos and short clips I have seen from "First Light" are clearly from the Battle of Britain Movie. In particular they feature the Spitfires marked with the non historical Squadron ID "AI" .

The non-historical "AI" ID was partially used to avoid just the sort of long arguments you get on forums like this about which historical squadron was involved in which action.

Either way the footage for "First Light" is not necessarily using historical tactics its from a movie.

I was made aware of that when the film first aired and was discussed in this forum, plus i saw it for myself when i finally watched it, but i wasn't referring to the accuracy of the visual presentation. After all, the film's main theme is not how tight the spitfire could turn with a 109 on its tail or the color of the tracers, but what it was like to be a terrified kid in your early 20s flying a 1000hp aircraft in combat, losing friends you don't have time to mourn, getting drunk to sleep so you can repeat it the next day, accumulating stress, combat fatigue and finally breaking down under the pressure and it conveyed that pretty convinvingly.

In that sense, what i'm referring to in relation to the combat sequences is not the actual footage, but the mindset of the pilots. In this case, how the flight leader tells them to do what we expect would be true in such a situation...a single massed pass to break up the bomber formation, followed by a couple individual passes to pick off a straggler or two and then getting out fast before the escorts can intervene, in order to inflict the maximum possible damage with the lowest amount of casualties in aircraft and pilots.

This relates directly to and highlights the discrepancy of mentality between the real deal and virtual pilots, which is what drives games developers to cut us some slack. Personally, i wouldn't mind one bit being forced to adopt realistic habbits when flying SoW on higher difficulty settings. I had little problem with IL2's sniper gunners and i guess i'll have even less with SoW's gunners that will be subject to G and possibly panic effects. Spices up the game quite nicely if you have more ways to skin a cat ;)

[zapatista]

I managed to show him this ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4Fx3pHQFHk

... and here's what he had to say.

"As for the simulator I cannot pass comment for it was short and looked like a computer game which I used to play some years ago. I guess it is more like a game than a simulator. A hurricane would have been shot down long before it reached the Heinkels."
so yo show a little 20 sec clip of a beta product that had many aspects incomplete or switched of, didnt seven show the sim itself and finished product, and you are surprised the 92 yo didnt think it was very "realistic"

once BoB is released and you put him in front of a big monitor with a decent pc and hotas controlers, and we'll see what he can then provide as opinion

untill then what you posted here is meaningless

[Splitter]

so yo show a little 20 sec clip of a beta product that had many aspects incomplete or switched of, didnt seven show the sim itself and finished product, and you are surprised the 92 yo didnt think it was very "realistic"

once BoB is released and you put him in front of a big monitor with a decent pc and hotas controlers, and we'll see what he can then provide as opinion

untill then what you posted here is meaningless

I hear what you are saying, Zap, but I love that a real combat pilot commented on it. I think we all know that the video was not a "real" attack run and that none of us would not attack a bomber formation in that manner. What the pilot said was absolutely correct but like you said, the clip was not a good representation of how the game is played.

Blackdog, my problem with AI gunners is not that they are insanely accurate when they are flying in formation, it is that they are no less accurate when their plane is maneuvering. Even when a bomber is banking sharply, climbing, diving, or TUMBLING, the AI gunner often hits you with the first bullet lol.

In hearing interviews and reading interviews with B-17 gunners, it seems they often gave a a potential attacking fighter a quick burst at long range to scare them or make them change their approach. They didn't expect to hit and do damage at those distances, they were just trying to make the other guy think twice.

In return, German fighters developed different tactics. One was a half roll as they passed the bomber to expose the heavier armor on the bottom of the fighter to the defensive fire of the bombers. Obviously they tried to come in at angles the minimized the number of guns that could be pointed at them.

In the end, we all know that defensive armament on bombers did not do an adequate job of protecting the bombers. When they went against fighters without escort, they got cut to pieces.

So I would argue that AI gunners are too good in IL-2 and will, hopefully, be more realistic in SoW. Sounds like they will. When your bomber is shaking, turning, and diving, it SHOULD have some effect on your accuracy lol. I know that my accuracy with my fighter is not as good when I am doing figured 8's and firing bursts at bombers on each pass while rolling :).

Just MHO's,

Splitter

[BadAim]

LOL, I just can't believe this is still a topic of conversation.........What were we talking about again?

[Splitter]

LOL, I just can't believe this is still a topic of conversation.........What were we talking about again?

Old people's memories....don't you remember?

:)

Splitter

[philip.ed]

The only thing the BoB veteran needs to remember is that if you flew up behind a gaggle of heinkels like that you'd get killed. Not what day it was, or what he was wearing or what coulor the tracer was.. This thread is confusing memories and experience. Is anyone here arguing against what the guy said? I'm pretty sure you'd only need to see a friend killed once for it to register.. and for you not to forget it.

Exactly. Although, just to be pedantic, he might need to be able to distinguish between friendly and enemy tracer. I do this all the time in Il-2.
I'm not sure if this was the case in the BoB.

It's all quite interesting really.
I also think that, for a sim, a veteran would be more concerned about the gameplay, rather than the eye-candy. ;)

Quite an interesting debate.

[PeterPanPan]

so yo show a little 20 sec clip of a beta product that had many aspects incomplete or switched of, didnt seven show the sim itself and finished product, and you are surprised the 92 yo didnt think it was very "realistic"

once BoB is released and you put him in front of a big monitor with a decent pc and hotas controlers, and we'll see what he can then provide as opinion

untill then what you posted here is meaningless

Gee, thanks Zap for your equally blunt reply ;). You're right, the clip was short and taken from a beta product. I would love him to sit down with the full product and be really impressed with the finished article. Unfortunately, I don't have anything else I can show him at this stage, so what am I to do? Show him something now which he can at least pass comment on? Or wait until the game is finally released, whenever that might be? Given his age, I don't need to spell out the pitfalls of that approach.

I don't think his comments are meaningless, notwithstanding they were made in respect of a short clip. Given there are perhaps only 100 surviving RAF BoB veterans still alive, I think his comments, however brief, are priceless. But that's just MHO.

PPanPan

[bf-110]

Not really a commercial view,but more as "we are bringing the experience of flying a WWII plane back".

[Avimimus]

I'm just waiting for the SoW release and the endless series of posts about AI "sniper" gunners taking out Hurricanes with MG-15s...

(Once the AI is finished and not on easy settings for debugging)

[winny]

Exactly. Although, just to be pedantic, he might need to be able to distinguish between friendly and enemy tracer.


I could be wrong.. but I think the enemy tracer are the ones coming towards you (in most cases) :P

(Note: In all cases treat any tracer coming your way as something you should probably avoid) I underlined the important bits.

It's kinda like showing an F1 game to an F1 Driver I suppose.. They're probably thinking... pah, nothing like it!

I actually liked the Veterans comment because it showed his mind still worked on a tactical level above anything else. It shows the first thing he thought of when he saw it was about the actual practicallity of it all, not the look, but the what do you do when you are in that situation. He was never gonna say "that's the best graphics I've ever seen", was he? Anyway respect to him for showing that old men still think like young men.

[Avimimus]

Good observation.

Come to think of it, I've seen this in a few other accounts of Veterans being shown sims. For us simmers it is a game - a game we can push towards being an art. But for them it was (and remains) anything but a game.

Practicality deserves a great deal of respect, especially for the causes behind it.

[Skoshi Tiger]

Check out from about 6:25 for some spiffing tactics to use against He111

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0-fVLCnsBs&feature=related

Unfortunately I can't listen to the comentators voice without thinking of Monty Python!

Cheers!

[Rodolphe]

...

Check out from about 6:25 for some spiffing tactics to use against He111

Cheers!

:grin:
So bad Vulching this "gear extended He111". :rolleyes:
:grin:

http://users.teledisnet.be/web/mfe39146/Vulch.jpg



:grin:
Euh ! They had the "Flat" cloud base. Right ! :grin:
:grin:

http://users.teledisnet.be/web/mfe39146/Cloud.jpg

...

[WTE_Galway]

...



:grin:
So bad Vulching this "gear extended He111". :rolleyes:
:grin:

...

yeah hopefully the distinctive way the gear dropped when the hydraulics were damaged on the he111 will be modeled in the game.

[Blackdog_kt]

I could be wrong.. but I think the enemy tracer are the ones coming towards you (in most cases) :P

(Note: In all cases treat any tracer coming your way as something you should probably avoid) I underlined the important bits.

It's kinda like showing an F1 game to an F1 Driver I suppose.. They're probably thinking... pah, nothing like it!

I actually liked the Veterans comment because it showed his mind still worked on a tactical level above anything else. It shows the first thing he thought of when he saw it was about the actual practicallity of it all, not the look, but the what do you do when you are in that situation. He was never gonna say "that's the best graphics I've ever seen", was he? Anyway respect to him for showing that old men still think like young men.



Good observation.

Come to think of it, I've seen this in a few other accounts of Veterans being shown sims. For us simmers it is a game - a game we can push towards being an art. But for them it was (and remains) anything but a game.

Practicality deserves a great deal of respect, especially for the causes behind it.

Actually, some years ago i came across a post on a forum (i think it was on the ubizoo) detailing how an IL2 player had his grandfather fly a sortie and what came out of it. I think it was in a thread about joystick sensitivity and the story where an RAF veteran frequented a virtual squad forum, got acquainted with the IL2 players, tried the simulator and gave then what he considered the settings that resulted in the most realistic control response.

Apparently another user's grandfather used to fly 109s for the Luftwaffe, so he convinced him to try out the settings proposed by the RAF guy and comment on them.
He set him up with the same sub-type he was flying back then, explained the controls to him and let him loose on the AI which consisted of some P-38s, expecting to hear how close the handling is to the real thing.

However, instead of commenting on anything like that the old guy just took to flying some of the most leisurely and calculated maneuvers his grandson had seen and it was still a natural to him after all these years (that's actually quite an indication that the FM and stick sensitivity settings were pretty much spot on however).

Happy to see his grandfather being comfortable with it and eager to see him score a kill, the guy is nevertheless a bit puzzled at how lazily his grandfather is flying while the AI opponents are throwing their P-38s all over the place, so he asks "why don't you close in and take a shot? you can out-maneuver them anyway". Well, the old guy replies "with the amount of turning he's doing, he'll be so tired in a minute or two that he won't be able to pull more than a couple of Gs, that's when i'll close in" ;)

[swiss]

Well, the old guy replies "with the amount of turning he's doing, he'll be so tired in a minute or two that he won't be able to pull more than a couple of Gs, that's when i'll close in" ;)

I think we need an additional feature for FR mode. :cool:

[philip.ed]

I could be wrong.. but I think the enemy tracer are the ones coming towards you (in most cases) :P

(Note: In all cases treat any tracer coming your way as something you should probably avoid) I underlined the important bits.

It's kinda like showing an F1 game to an F1 Driver I suppose.. They're probably thinking... pah, nothing like it!

I actually liked the Veterans comment because it showed his mind still worked on a tactical level above anything else. It shows the first thing he thought of when he saw it was about the actual practicallity of it all, not the look, but the what do you do when you are in that situation. He was never gonna say "that's the best graphics I've ever seen", was he? Anyway respect to him for showing that old men still think like young men.

yes, one would hope the tracer coming your way was from the enemy! But my point is that in Il-2, I have flown campaigns many times where the fight develops into a wide-spread dogfight. Sometimes I shoot one enemy plane down, realise I still have a fair amount of ammo and fuel left; can see another fight going on, so I will look at the tracer to see if it's enemy or friendly. It can be really helpful sometimes.
;)

[Stranzki]

I think we need an additional feature for FR mode. :cool:

Would be nice to have somekind of stamina. But I think Oleg already stated that they had no satisfying way of modelling it.

We surely miss a new dimension of trolling! Just imagine the endless discussions about the pilot's endurance and the influence of food on it ;) "German sauerkraut was uber! Ze Germans need more endurance. OLEG plz fix it!!"

[philip.ed]

would be nice to have somekind of stamina. But i think oleg already stated that they had no satisfying way of modelling it.

We surely miss a new dimension of trolling! Just imagine the endless discussions about the pilot's endurance and the influence of food on it ;) "german sauerkraut was uber! Ze germans need more endurance. Oleg plz fix it!!"

:D lol

[winny]

Would be nice to have somekind of stamina. But I think Oleg already stated that they had no satisfying way of modelling it.

We surely miss a new dimension of trolling! Just imagine the endless discussions about the pilot's endurance and the influence of food on it ;) "German sauerkraut was uber! Ze Germans need more endurance. OLEG plz fix it!!"

If SoW is being made as 3rd party friendly as they say it is then maybe someone would be able to also create some kind of pilot/crew management... including killable crew. I'm just thinking out loud feel free to tear this idea a new one..

For bombers..
You could have a heart rate/stamina/panic system.
You have a certain ammount of points to allocate to your crew before departure so you could have a balanced crew or have some crew stronger in areas than others... I think it would be quite good going off on a bombing mission knowing the guy in the rear turret is super cool but that if you start throwing your ship around then the waist gunner's gonna freak out! If you survive the mission you get points to account for experience.
You could see how many of your original crew survived the tour and as they get killed you get given a random new crew member good or bad.

This is probably way more complex than I've made it out to be... sorry, just a thought bubble.

[philip.ed]

Isn't this already in SoW on some level?

[ComeOneComeAll]

I realise this is a very old thread, but I was googling my father (as a bored man does sometimes) and came across this thread....my father being John Greenwood whose comments are quoted at the beginning of this thread.

I, in fact, remember getting a Battle of Britain PC game many years ago together with a joystick attachment and getting him to have a go at it. After showing him the controls and putting into a squadron of Heinkel he immediately showed the skills that kept him alive at that time had not disappeared. The way he locked on and then used his controls to "slide"with his prey was quite amazing.

Anyway, I will likely show him this thread and he will get a good laugh out of it no doubt.

He is now 91 and soon all of his kind will be "unavailable". I suggest if programmers or testers want information they should just ask.....he remembers his version of those days of lost youth very well (although he never remembers any of the bets he has lost to me ;-)

When I show this thread to him I will ask him to explain why he believed you would be dead flying straight and level for a period coming up the rear of the enemy.

[TedStryker]

Well, please pass on my gratitude to your father for his service and sacrifice. I have been fortunate enough over the years to be able to meet a few veterans and have been both amazed and humbled by these gentlemen and their stories.

My circle of friends are all in their late 20's - mid 30's, and apart from the serving soldiers, aren't interested in military history. They are all, however, very conscious of the sacrifices made that enable our generation to live and bring up families in a free United Kingdom.
While i can only speak for myself, i am pretty sure i speak for them as well when i say that thankyou is far too small a word.


Ted

[ComeOneComeAll]

Cheers Ted, I will pass on your kind thoughts.

I spoke to him yesterday and he reckoned the best approach on the Heinkel was level from the rear quarter....but often they would meet the enemy from below due to battling to get into position in time. Also he learnt very quickly not to fly level and straight for any length of time so I expect the original sim showed the fighter level and straight as it approached the Heinkel from straight behind....also bringing in their rear gunner as a problem. And Me109's with a height advantage, coming out of the sun meant you didn't have too much time for hanging around.

Glad it was him and not me! Certainly I'm grateful to be of a generation that hasn't needed to be called upon for such sacrifice....we just complain about our electricity bills lol

If your interested, my brother once set up some web pages about our father and got his comments to do with his war service and 253 squadron (his squadron during the Battle of France and Battle of Britain)....just do a quick google and they will come up.

Maybe they need an extra scene or two in these games re Cam Ships and a fighter being catapulted into action to protect an Atlantic convoy....another of my father's adventures.