Real World BoB Hurricane Pilot's views on SOW

[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]

Originally Posted by 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).

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]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

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]

Originally Posted by PeterPanPan

I managed to show him this ...

... 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]

Originally Posted by zapatista

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