TBF Avenger and other planes

[Furio]

Originally Posted by RPS69

Your approach is a dogfight one.
On a campaign approach, someone must fly those secondary types you despise, but were much more important than pure fighter ones. They decided more battles than any fighter, and they represented life and death for fallen fighter pilots.
Try to read the german float plane missions over the black sea, or the storch scouting on the eastern front. Those guys got more balls and skill than any fighter pilot.

BTW, I agree that the french planes are really badly represented. One or two more types won't hurt, more than any british or american type.

And yes, obsolette or failure planes, like the fairey battle, were the only option available, and were what the pilots flyed at the time.

Trying to win a campaign with what there was available, is the real game.

There’s an example that demonstrates this concept beyond any doubt. Probably the single, most decisive dive-bomber attack took place at Midway, the battle in which a handful of SBD Dauntless pilots turned the tide of war. But their success was largely determined by VT8 squadron Devastators, hopelessly obsolete torpedo bombers equipped with unsuitable torpedoes. The Devastators were all shot down, but kept busy the Japanese Zeros, leaving their carriers defenceless against SBD. We can say that, acting as decoy, Devastators decided the battle no less than Dauntlesses.

Probably no one will ever want to fly a Devastator pilot career, and a flyable one would be a dispensable luxury, or a curiosity, but the AI only Devastator is, IMHO, one of best additions ever to TD era Il2, showing how much precious a secondary type can be.