Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt255
I think in that case, the pilots got different results.
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Maybe.. maybe not
The point being..
Two people can read a combat report and draw two different conclusions..
Due to their background and biases
Where as..
Two people can add 1 + 1 and draw the same conclusion.. i.e. 2
Independent of their background and biases
In summary..
The problem with anecdotical evidence (aka after action pilot reports) is as follows
1) anecdotical evidence is a one sided story.
2) anecdotical evidence is written by those who lived to write about it.
3) anecdotical evidence does not contain enough info to recreate the scenario in-game.
4) anecdotical evidence is subject to interpretation.
For example of each..
WRT 1) As most of us know there are two sides to every story, and you will not find anecdotical evidence that has input from both side (axis and allied pilot) with regards to the encounter being described.
WRT 2) As most of us know a statistical result depends on the input data. The fact that anecdotical evidence was written by the pilots who lived to write about it excludes the pilots who did not live to write about it. Which makes the statistical result based on the anecdotical evidence biased/filtered towards pilots who lived to write about it. For example, assume there are 100 after actions reports describing how the pilot in his 109 out turned a Spitfire.. We don't know how many 109 pilots died while trying to turn with a Spitfire a thus un-able to write about it, was it 10, 100, 1000? We don't know.
WRT 3) As most of us know anecdotical evidence does not contain enough information about the scenario to recreate scenario in game to preform a test to see if the results are the same. That and the results in both case (real and recreated simulation) depend more on the relative pilot experience than the relative plane performance. That is to say change the pilots and you can change the outcome of the scenario. In essence you would be making changes to the flight modeled based on the relative experience of the pilots not the relative performance of the planes. This is why they did testing under formal and controlled conditions. (see sig)
WRT 4) As most of us know people are different, and therefore peoples take on events will be based on their life experiences. That is to say two people can read the same anecdotical evidence and draw to very different conclusions. Ask any cop who has interviewed several people who have witnessed a crime and they will tell you how peoples perceptions of events can vary. Where as 1 + 1 = 2 is not open to interpretation. (math ftw)
PS in each statement above, there are no absolutes! To improve the readability, in this post I removed my previous qualifying text where I said things like 'typically this' or 'typically that' or 'you will be hard pressed to find'. That is to say, you may be able to find a couple of cases where both an axis and allied pilot had input to an after actions report, but this exception to the rule does NOT change the rule. Also note, I am not saying math is without error, only that math is your best hope of being on the same sheet of music, in that it removes most if not all human bias and interpretation errors. In short, given time, you can track down the source of math errors, where as even with all the time in the world you would still be hard pressed to track down the source of human bias and interpretation errors!
