TBF Avenger and other planes

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by RPS69

Your approach is a dogfight one.

What's wrong with that? IL2 is a great "sandbox sim" which you can enjoy in many different ways.

Given the popularity of arcade games like World of Planes, there's certainly a fan base for dogfights.

And, even if you're a hard core rivet-counting historical campaigner, there are still times when you want to fly the best plane in the sky.

But, like you said, being able to simulate any sort of historical mission allows us to appreciate the difficulties and heroism of combat pilots who flew the less glamorous missions.

Personally, I'd love to see a flyable Ju-52, Fw-189, or Fi-156, and would happily fly campaigns based around those planes. In some cases, the ability to deliver supplies or paratroopers, or to bring back information, was as important as delivering bombs and just as harrowing.

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

And, even if you're a hard core rivet-counting historical campaigner, there are still times when you want to fly the best plane in the sky.

As to me, this has nothing to do with 'rivet-counting'. I'm a minor nations geek, and minor nations typically had second-rank fighters. These are seriously outmatched by the first-rank fighters of major nations. Still, most fighter units of most minor nations had a positive kill/loss ratio (even the Polish in 1939!), as major nations too had obsolate planes. Now if you take out obsolate planes from the game (luckily we have quite a lot of such Russian types), then flying a Finnish, or Hungarian, or Romanian campaign becomes completely pathetic and, therefore, pointless. The tuna can live on mackerel, even if defenseless against the few sharks.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by sniperton

I'm a minor nations geek, and minor nations typically had second-rank fighters. These are seriously outmatched by the first-rank fighters of major nations.

We're birds of a feather then. I love my obscure planes and minor air forces, in particular the Finns. I'm thrilled to have rare birds like the Avia B.534 or Rogozarski IK-3 in the game.

And, its not that the minor nations necessarily had bad designs, they just didn't have the economic and industrial base to develop their designs fast enough or in sufficient quantities. I'd love to know how doomed planes like the PZL.50 Jastrzab, Weiss-Manfred WM.23 Ezüst Nyíl, Fokker G.1, Fokker D.XXIII, or the PZL.62 Kanya would have fared, even though it makes no sense to include them into a historical simulation.

[sniperton]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

We're birds of a feather then. I love my obscure planes and minor air forces, in particular the Finns.

I love them too. They are my favourite. 'Did you give up drinking?' -- Raikönnen: 'No'.

[Derda508]

Not counting my personal preferences, but what is 'needed' most I would opt for an early British bomber, a late Japanese Torpedobomber and, most of all, the Me 210/410.
That said, in my opinion the biggest obstacle for 'realistic' late war bomber intercept missions (no matter which theater) is AI behaviour. At present, if you try to attack a big formation of bombers with a small number of attackers, the protecting fighters will all immediately go for you, leave their bombers and chase you all over the map, even if you spend all your ammo and are no threat anymore. Your own AI (even obsolete Bf 110) will not go for a quick attack on a bomber, but happily engage in turnfights with vastly superior numbers of enemy fighters.
To create more 'realistic' bomber intercepts and survivable missions for destroyers the missionbuilder would need to be able to give several commands for attackers and defenders:
Blue high flying fighters (Bf-109, Ki-100 etc.): Attack fighters only
Blue bomber interceptors (Me 410, FW-190, Ki 84 etc.): Attack bombers only
Red fighter cover: Stick to the bombers, never get further than XXX distance from them.

I have no idea whether this is possible and I am well aware that AI programming is extremly difficult (and far beyond my abilities).
And, please don´t get me wrong: In my opinion Il-2 1946 AI is still by far the best of all flight sims I know. And I am perfectly sure that in terms of maps and planeset, all other sims will just reach a small fraction of what we can enjoy here.

[RPS69]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

What's wrong with that? IL2 is a great "sandbox sim" which you can enjoy in many different ways.

Given the popularity of arcade games like World of Planes, there's certainly a fan base for dogfights.

And, even if you're a hard core rivet-counting historical campaigner, there are still times when you want to fly the best plane in the sky.

But, like you said, being able to simulate any sort of historical mission allows us to appreciate the difficulties and heroism of combat pilots who flew the less glamorous missions.

Personally, I'd love to see a flyable Ju-52, Fw-189, or Fi-156, and would happily fly campaigns based around those planes. In some cases, the ability to deliver supplies or paratroopers, or to bring back information, was as important as delivering bombs and just as harrowing.

The wrong thing, is favoring one type of plane against others, those ones that are not first class fighters.

The better approach would be to fulfill the principal aircraft available on a scenery. Not just the fighters in it.

People say, the battle of France lasted only four weeks, but the battle of Kursk, employed more tanks and aircraft, and lasted only 10 days. I really don't like that kind of biased argument. The battle of France is one of the best scenerys to be played, and the only fighter missing is the D520, that was actually rare to be seen. But the french got no bombers, and no recon to employ in the game. The british are also in the same situation.

People complain about missing planes to fully fill the pacific scenery, and I must agree. There are no torpedo lunchers on the american side, and few late war japanese bombers. Trying to win a campaign from the japanese side is very difficult. Bombs are less powerfull, and torpedo launchers are really sitting ducks.