TBF Avenger and other planes

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Furio

The problem of balancing – or unbalancing – is around from day one, I believe, and is hard to control. A couple of examples: in the early days of Barbarossa, VVS suffered enormous losses, being numerically superior and inferior in quality of planes. Main factors were bad organization, wrong decisions by leaders, and inexperience of pilots and unit commanders. It’s not easy – to understate it – to recreate this situation with simple mission building tools and AI planes.
In the last days of war, Luftwaffe suffered from lack of experienced pilots and fuel. Again: how can you recreate this situation with simple mission building tools and AI planes? You should include missions with player’s plane sitting on the ground with empty tanks…

Make the AI on the German side good. Feed them Russian squads piecemeal.
For player sitting around with no fuel, just space missions apart a few days or more, and comment on it. Best campagins offline are those that have a good written narrative, and to name one that IMHO stood out: Castaways/Bushpigs.

Originally Posted by Furio

As I see it, at the moment the most efficient solution is to concentrate on theatres and scenarios historically balanced: North Africa 1942, Pacific 1942-43, Russia 1943, etc. My opinion, of course.
What-ifs are a viable and attractive way out, with many enjoyable possibilities. It’s a matter of measure, I think. Fantasy planes, many of which populate 1946, should be avoided, I believe.

Right. And make that North Africa//Mediteranean, planeset there is IMHO balanced till the end. Numbers will not help the axis side later on...

Originally Posted by Furio

And I didn’t mention what if side switching, such as an anti-Soviet alliance, actually considered by Winston Churchill…

I think this would be enormous fun. Never understood why 1946 didn't pick that theme up. German Co-Belligerent Airforce. And think about the near endless ordnance options, unguided rockets for the Germans, guided bombs and rockets for allied bombers. Or even better, German Airforce splits in two, and German planes/armament is available on both sides.