[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by horseback

RE: Jug's (or Hellcat or Corsair's) size relative to an La-5 would be essentially irrelevant to the human eye until you get within shooting range, at which point it will seem closer than it actually is and distort your aim

But, on the other hand, it's slightly easier to see the Jug at greater distances, and assuming you know what you're shooting at, there's more to hit.

Originally Posted by horseback

LW along Channel Front in early-mid '43 had a terrible time adjusting to targets the size of the B-17 and P-47 after two years of shooting at Spits and Blenheim sized bombers in daylight.

Likewise, the Japanese initially had problems with getting the right range on Superfortresses. What would be nice is if the game modeled AI aircraft ID a bit better, so AI gunnery is downgraded against "unfamiliar" plane types of unusually large or small size. As it is, the AI immediately knows the right range at which to engage everything from a V-1 to a Gigant!

Even better would be if a critical failure with visual IFF meant that allied planes might accidentally attack you! That was a common problem for Mustang pilots, as well as Soviet fighter pilots operating near U.S. planes.

And, of course, certain planes would be easier to identify that others, for example the P-38 was specifically used on some occasions because its appearance was so distinctive.

Originally Posted by horseback

even if you're crossing his cone of fire at an extreme angle at high speed a split second after flailing his aircraft with a two or three second burst of 4 or 3 x .50"

This speaks to the difference between manually turned guns and turret guns. Turrets were generally more effective. By contrast, single guns hanging out in the slipstream were pretty useless. That's one of the reasons that the radio operator's dorsal 0.50 caliber MG on the B-17 was often removed.

Originally Posted by horseback

First, change the rules for AI aiming to a circle the diameter of the target wing span . . .

Like you said, but also:

1) Reduce accuracy by some percentage for manually-turned guns vs. turrets to simulate vibration from the airplane and guns.

2) Reduce accuracy by some percentage if the angle of the gun is at more than something like 15-20 degrees from the the plane's fuselage, to simulate slipstream effects.

3) Reduce accuracy by some percentage as the plane's speed gets much above 150 mph, to reflect wind buffeting.

Originally Posted by horseback

Second, assign a speed limit of X degrees per second of rotation for the gun installation type

.

The game already models this. Other than that, your points about hesitation and reorientation are valid. Currently, one of the nice things about fighter AI in 4.12 is that they will pause for a moment before choosing another target, whether to check 6 or just to determine that they're actually pointing themselves at a bogie.

Originally Posted by horseback

I find the whole defensive gun crew model of the sim to be oversimplified and unrealistic. Every time I tried it, I wanted to wash my hands afterwards.

Yep. IL2 was designed as a tactical mud-moving sim, not a heavy bomber sim. It's just one of those things that the sim is never going to do well, and more's the pity, because I absolutely love my Western heavy bombers.

And, yes, CoD seems to get a lot of the details of running a heavy bomber right.

Intercoms, oxygen supplies, effects of wounds at high altitudes, loosening jammed bombs, intercom communications, switching fuel tanks or moving ammo around the plane, and maps that let you fly from London to Berlin and back, maybe not in CoD, but certainly not in IL2.