Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant
Since AI has gotten so much more human, I'd love to see more AI levels: "untrained" and "superhuman."
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To follow up on my thread, I've recently learned that from 41 until about 1944, Soviet pilot training was terrible.
Due to lack of fuel and planes, many pilots only got about 9-10 hours TOTAL flying time in transitional or advanced trainers and that concentrated just on takeoffs and landings. Acrobatics were prohibited because it increased the risk of accidents.
Nominally, pilots got 20-55 hours of advanced training in type (per central planning documents here (in Spanish):
http://www.rkka.es/Estadisticas/VVS_stat/05/05_09.htm
English translation:
http://translate.google.com/translat...05%2F05_09.htm
In 41- to early 43, many pilots got NO training time in the type of aircraft they were to fly into combat. The luckier ones might have a few hours of familiarization training with their unit.
They got NO training in deflection shooting, much less shooting at aerial targets.
That speaks to a need to either: a) Nerf Rookie AI even more than it already is, b) create a new class of AI pilot below Rookie, as I have proposed.
While I understand the difficulties of AI programming, I think it would be a relatively easy task to create "untrained" level AI.
1) Make it so they don't lead their targets at all, start shooting at twice the appropriate range, and make sure that their cone of dispersion (or whatever) is 25-50% greater than Rookie level AI.
2) Give them virtually no spotting ability outside their 315-45 degree forward arc (i.e., anything outside of 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock).
3) Give them a 2-3 second delay in responding defensively to attacks from behind.
4) In combat, they use the pre-4.12 Rookie AI model. Additionally, they will only use horizontal "turn and burn" tactics, regularly using energy-bleeding high speed turns that result in loss of airspeed and high speed stalls.
5) If assigned as wingmen, they will blindly stick to their leader, not maneuvering defensively if fired upon, and always playing "follow the leader" - not adapting their maneuvers to the leader's movements (i.e., always following the leader rather than swinging wide or slowing to avoid stalling in a turn or split-s or leading the leader to catch up to the leader and keep station after he turns).
By contrast, in the ETO Western Allied pilots were consistently better trained, except for Early to Mid 1940 when the UK rushed some very inexperienced pilots into the BoB (with 10-20 hours flight time in type). To my mind, this is what Rookie AI levels actually represent.
Luftwaffe pilots were, on average, well trained until JUL 43 with hours of flight time equivalent to rookie US and UK pilots. After that, flight hours fell to the equivalent of what Soviet pilots were getting, although Luftwaffe student pilots still got some aerobatic and gunnery training until the basic training program was shut down in mid-44.
Data here (taken from a table so slight errors are possible):
SEP 39-42
DE total flight hours: 240 hours
DE total operational flight hours (fighter): 90 hours
UK total flight hours: 200 hours
UK total operational flight hours (fighter): 50 hours
OCT 42 - JUN 43
DE tot.: 200 h
DE tot. ops (ftr): 50 h
UK tot.: 340 h
UK tot. ops (ftr): 70 h
US tot: 275
US tot. ops (ftr): 75 h
JUL 43- JUN 44
DE tot.: 175 h
DE tot. ops (ftr): 20 h
UK tot.: 330 h
UK tot. ops (ftr): 70 h
US tot: 325 h
US tot. ops (ftr): 120 h
JUL 44- MAY 45
DE tot.: 120 h
DE tot. ops (ftr): 10 h
UK tot.: 330 h
UK tot. ops (ftr): 90 h
US tot: 390 h
US tot. ops (ftr): 170 h
Data taken from here - site login required to view attachment:
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/att...twaffe-lxx.jpg
Detailed breakdown of Luftwaffe pilot training hours here:
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/att...efeatgaf03.jpg