When the RAF pilot goes in the drink...
 

...what will happen in the game? The pilots never had dinghy's at this stage, and so would either have to swim back to the coast, or wait for a passing ship (if they were very lucky)
Most who went in the drink drowned.
Similarly, many didn't have the kapoks in their life-vest (by choice), or didn't have the stoles in their mae-west inflated enough. An episode in the channel soon changed this, if they were lucky enough to survive.
my question is, will all of this (or at least the dinghy issue) be taken into account in SoW?

Yes. Press escape and select the most obvious menu option.

:rolleyes:

Well after seeing the high quality of the pilot bailout video i cant imagine that they wouldn't have followed it through to the actual landing, most of which i assume would of been in water. Though I think most players would hit refly on landing, Taking the sim a bit far if you had to tread water waiting for a RAF air/sea recue launch or a Heinkel He59 to find you. Not sure how the new swap/thingy works, but I think after being shot down you can now hit a button and enter another a/c, thus staying in the battle, which might be fun. After playing the IL-2 series for so long anything new will "feel" out of place but im sure we will all adjust pretty quickly, being the hardy lot that we are :)

for bombers...pigions, look it up...kinda amazing fact that little knows...the Pigion war of ww2 :)

LOL Interesting, "what did you do in the war grand dad?" " I was a pigeoneer son! and proud of it!"

Article Summary

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Carrier Pigeons of World War II
The Pigeoneers of the U.S. Army Signal Corps
Click Magazine, 1943

Inasmuch as historians may like to refer to World War II as "the first hi-tech war", it must be remembered that some of the most ancient tools were still put to use with the greatest efficiency. The attached article gives a very brief outline concerning the W.W. II use of carrier pigeons and the goings on at Camp Crowder, Missouri, where these birds were trained. Throughout the entire course of the war, 50,000 carrier pigeons were trained by the U.S. Army.

"Since 1400 B.C. these birds have acted as couriers; they are the oldest instruments of war still in use. Although they form only a small part of our tremendous Signal Corps resources, the Army maintains a corps of expert pigeoneers who have rendered their birds, by scientific training and breeding, ten percent stronger than those used in World War One."

My post is raising a serious issue. I'm happy for the game to decide my fate (depending on where I am and what difficulty settings I have the game set to) but I can't see the reason for it to turn into a type of RPG

Yep I agree with you, i was mainly refering to online play, in an offline campaign i would not want to be able to just jump into another a/c as i like to try to stay alive as long as possible on my own merits. Not sure how it will work, guessing that if you bail closer to your side of the channel you will be rescued and further away you will be captured (end of campaign)

Well, that's if you survive.
With no dinghy, swimming in freezing cold water is disastrous.
Also, the Mae Wests were green, and only later in the battle did the pilots dope them yellow...the green blended in with the channel water, which again was disastrous.

I fly Luftwaffe, we are smarter than that :)

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c9...r_take-off.jpg

I recall one of the veterans in the recent 70th anniversay programmes saying that 'dropping in the drink' you only had a few minutes survival time due to the cold waters, unless you were near a passing boat you'd very little chance as loss of feeling in your limbs was rapid.

Yes, very true. Kit improvements helped this later on, but in the BoB, the RAF were not really prepared for such enventualities.

They weren't issued Mea Wests? And the sea temperature in the time period of BoB should be the warmer time, right? It's not the GIUK gap we'll be floating in.

Hopefully the prevailing winds will be blowing towards England!

Does anyone know if the crash rescue boats will be doing their job?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...eed_Launch.jpg

Cheers!

http://battleofbritain.devhub.com/bl...-pilot-rescue/

Serious issue but easy answer. Flight sims are RPGs by their nature - let's see what the developers have in store for us. I'd love there to be things that I can discover rather than being dissected on these forums.

No, they were issued mae-wests, but they weren't satisfactory for the purpose. They did the job of keeping one alfoat, but unfortunately they weren't suited to anything other than that. They had no dye-markers (until later) no torch, no provision for a mirror or anything like that. They even had no compartment for a mobile-phone. :-P

:-P

Anyone have the numbers of British aircraft/fighters that didn't make it to base and then these separated into numbers that landed in the field, made a parachute landing on land, belly-landed on the water and made a parachute landing on water?

WOP has this during simulator missions. When you die you jump int othe plane of a wingman/squadmember and fly them. They called it strategic or tactical respanw (something like that).

So in the summer and early autumn months of the battle, between 2 an 7 hours of consciousness and up to 40 hours of survival (60-70). In the Thames estuary and close to shore even longer. If the bay of Biscay were on the map, it would be in the upper zone of 70-80F.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/4341/613289976147.gif

(Maximum sea temperature is reached in the last week of August)

Apparently you had a worse chance of survival in the Thames Estuary due to strong currents.

Cheers!

All joking aside, that would be some interesting information, I should think that there would be a somewhat higher chance for Germans trying to get home with damaged planes ending up "in the drink" than Brits, who even if the made interception over the channel would be quickly chasing their quarry back over land. Of course that's only a guess.

Found an informative article, whose provenience I have not checked, though the source seems kind of reliable:

**Edit: And a somewhat different point of view (rather more recently):

Ironically, the german 'mae-west' was technically a better design that the 1932 psttern which the RAF used, as it was gas-pressurized to inflate. The RAF one relied on the user blowing into the tube of his stole/bladder.
However, although the luftwaffe one was like a vest, it had no neck support, so there were cases of pilots landing in the drink who were unconsious, and because the vest (rather like a modern gillet) inflated around them, this cause the pilot to tip onto his face and he drowned. This didn't happen with the RAF one. Ironically, many RAF pilots traded vests with luftwaffe pilots they had shot down. Brian Kingcombe and Eric Lock, for example.