Quote:
Originally Posted by majorfailure
Yeah that and the fact that in a rel life war there is no refly button. And I bet there are only a select few if any virtual pilots that didn't die virtually even once.
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More to the point, actual WW2 aircrew got relatively little gunnery training, and what they did get was often proven to be ineffective.
In 1943-44, the 8th Air Force had to run remedial training schools for gunners arriving in-theater. This despite the fact that US gunners probably got some of the best training available.
Gunners in many other air forces didn't even get training.
The same goes for pilots. If you were a British fighter pilot fresh from training in August 1940, or a Soviet pilot in 1942, or a German or Japanese pilot in 1944, you barely knew how to fly, much less how to shoot. The assumption was that you'd learn all that stuff once you reached your unit.
Realistically, of course, it was organized murder to send inadequately trained men into action. The only good all those badly trained "nuggets" did was distract the enemy long enough to allow the more skilled pilots to survive. The lucky few managed to survive long enough to gain experience.