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You shoot an enemy aircraft over enemy territory - how can the kill be confirmed?
Soviet doctrine was NOT to shoot down as many enemy planes as possible, but to prevent the enemy planes from attacking ground troops, while protecting own bombers during their bombing run.
In February 1945, German soldiers on one section of the front received the news, that the ace pilot was sick, and hence there wouldn't be any air cover. Sums it up nicely, doesn't it?
 
Confirmation would generally either come from another pilot that witnessed a 'kill' or the planes gun cams if they showed the plane to be uncontrollable.

If we take Galland's word RAF and USAAF scores could be if anything under reported as according to him the criteria for a 'kill were much more stringent in these two organisations than they were in the Luftwaffe.
 
Confirmation would generally either come from another pilot that witnessed a 'kill' or the planes gun cams if they showed the plane to be uncontrollable.
If we take Galland's word RAF and USAAF scores could be if anything under reported as according to him the criteria for a 'kill were much more stringent in these two organisations than they were in the Luftwaffe.
Ah, but cameras only work while the gun is firing. Also, if the enemy is diving, and smoke is coming out - is he downed? Because Bf109 had an engine on some models, that smoked while in overdrive.
 
But how do we model this? Random events? That would be boring. And, since all sides had aces, the whole thing would cancel itself out.

I was just thinking that it'd slightly increase the org regain rate (is that what morale does in HOI3?) in the unit or wing that the ace is assigned to. It could provide a max org bonus. It could give you a one-day org recovery jump, if org is below a certain amount depending on the reputation of the ace (if org<5 then org=5 if landed at 0:00 hours... perhaps with some limit, ex. can only happen once a month). A random combat event could risk the ace being shot down which would have a negative effect.

Is it boring? Well, I'm not wetting my pants over it either, but that doesn't mean someone else wouldn't like to see it as a little DLC if the idea is polished a bit. I do worry about increasing micro management even more.
 
It is my opinion that while this might be fun from a game perspective, it should not be over played from the standpoint of actual combat mechanics. The average quality of the average pilot on a given side is far more important to the outcome of a particular battle or campaign than a single ace (or even a group of aces). German aces, for example ran up, in some cases, very large kill numbers, but the vast bulk of their comrades were downed without downing an enemy plane nor even (in many cases) even spoiling his aim. A tiny group of aces, even exceptional ones, cannot (and did not) turn the tide.

What i would like to see modeled in the game is basic training. Near the end the bulk of German aircraft production was meaningless because there was no fuel to fly the planes or, vastly more important, train the pilots. Many German aces became such only because they were able to survive by luck and some skill while the rest of the air corps was lost several times over in the course of the war. Even an average pilot will become an ace by operation of random chance if he simply lives long enough. Forcing countries to spend fuel, manpower, industrial capacity (for training aircraft, infrastructure, etc...) to support the air forces would be a great step forward in my opinion. As an example, in 1939, the Luftwaffe provided pilots 260 hours (with 100 in combat types) before assigning them to front line units (where training continued). At the same time, the RAF only provided 200 and 65 respectively. German training declined continual, while that of their opponents continually increased. By July 1944 German pilots were being sent to front line units at 125 (35) hours, while the RAF provided 360 (75), and the USAAF a whopping 400 (200). And it only got worse from there. The USSBS is a great source for information like this using primary records.

Even then, many of the late war USAAF fighter pilots were as skilled or more skilled than many of their high-kill-count, long-service counterparts flying for Hitler, but never were able to become aces because there were simply too few German aircraft to allow them the opportunity.

But I digress. Suffice to say, this is just my opinion.

LR

PS - I'd just like to add this is not something academic, but critical to any fighting air force. The non-combat accident rate for the Luftwaffe for example was abyssmal to begin with (Jan Jun 1941 non-combat accidents accounted for 44.5% of all losses) and got worse (June 1944, over 3000 aircraft lost to non-combat causes vs 1476 lost to combat on all fronts). If pilot training is not directly modeled for the player (where it can be influenced), it and non-combat losses should be included behind the scenes in my opinion. It is simply too critical to ignore. Over the entire course of the war, German training and operational accidents accounted for 30.8% of all Luftwaffe losses (70,990 aircraft total were written off ). I am using Germany as an example, but these types of figures hold true for all nations, though to a lesser degree for the most part.
 
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What i would like to see modeled in the game is basic training. Near the end the bulk of German aircraft production was meaningless because there was no fuel to fly the planes or, vastly more important, train the pilots. Many German aces became such only because they were able to survive by luck and some skill while the rest of the air corps was lost several times over in the course of the war. Even an average pilot will become an ace by operation of random chance if he simply lives long enough. Forcing countries to spend fuel, manpower, industrial capacity (for training aircraft, infrastructure, etc...) to support the air forces would be a great step forward in my opinion.

Aye, +1 :).
 
It would add a nice strategic layer if there was significant consequence as to the level of experienced pilots one expend. Large scale offensive aerial operations like the Battle of Britain wouldn't solely depend on your industrial output, but eventually also on the amount of available experienced pilots, and would stand as an incentive to mostly handle aerial operations with moderation even once production is very high.

Pilot experience is hard to build up and should be something more valuable than new planes per week. Since the manpower pool is scaled for land units it gives aerial units a virtually inexhaustible supply of sufficiently trained reinforcements (assuming a mechanic similar to earlier titles) unless of course land units exhaust the supply. Having sacrificed a lot planes on a large or long-lasting offensive should have repercussions for future efficiency beyond building new planes IMO.

However abstracted, it would be nice to see some consequence there.
 
It is my opinion that while this might be fun from a game perspective, it should not be over played from the standpoint of actual combat mechanics. The average quality of the average pilot on a given side is far more important to the outcome of a particular battle or campaign than a single ace (or even a group of aces). German aces, for example ran up, in some cases, very large kill numbers, but the vast bulk of their comrades were downed without downing an enemy plane nor even (in many cases) even spoiling his aim. A tiny group of aces, even exceptional ones, cannot (and did not) turn the tide.
Yes.

No gimmicks in HOI IV.

However abstracted, it would be nice to see some consequence there.
One can imagine some good binary options here. Just for example, as it could be implemented in HOI3, the option would be:

Rotation of experienced pilots vs concentration of experienced pilots. Concentrated of experienced pilots increases air organisation whereas rotation increases starting experience. That would mirror the Japanese/American doctrines (I believe.)
 
Would one fighter ace significantly increase the effectiveness of his unit? Serious question.

Over time yes, The ace pilots were used to inspire and to teach combat techniques to new pilots. The way Aces were used meant they had a major impact on the units they were in. Germanys attempt to introduce tank aces and Uboat aces didn't have as much effect.
 
One can imagine some good binary options here. Just for example, as it could be implemented in HOI3, the option would be:

Rotation of experienced pilots vs concentration of experienced pilots. Concentrated of experienced pilots increases air organisation whereas rotation increases starting experience. That would mirror the Japanese/American doctrines (I believe.)

If i understand you correctly (training laws á la Hoi3 basically), this would probably not be able to represent any consequence from losing too many planes/pilots in a given interval of time--save for the planes themselves getting lost of course. I do think gameplay would have benefited from not having industrial output as basically the only metric as to the efficiency of your air force, seeing as how important the air aspect was. Even if you have the very latest tech in competitive numbers, an air force with only rookies should still be very inefficient, and at some kind of disadvantage in a 1v1 check such as the game will have.
 
Over time yes, The ace pilots were used to inspire and to teach combat techniques to new pilots. The way Aces were used meant they had a major impact on the units they were in. Germanys attempt to introduce tank aces and Uboat aces didn't have as much effect.

I disagree on this other than as a trivial or inconsequential input. Outstanding combat pilots were regularlly rotated back to serve as instructors in pilot training courses (particularly gunnery and air combat maneuvering - i.e. how to fly the plane to its limits safely) in all air forces at the beginning of the war. The Germans and the Japanese had to abandon this practice, particularly after the invasion of Russia, because of (among other things) the mistaken belief that their aces were more valuable at the front trying to stem the tide of their horrendous losses. This was a grave error. For what it's worth, this was something of a pet peeve for Adolf Galland but far more importantly it is axiomatic for all air forces flying today. You don't waste your aces at the front, you use them to raise you're overall standard of training and increase the chances your new pilots will live long enough to learn something. I think the results speak for themselves.

This rotation also plays a significant role in the Allied pilots "low" kill counts.

On the subject of Adolf Galland and my previous post, I think it is germane to point out that Galland noted that US kill calculations were by far the most accurate in his opinion of all air forces fighting in Europe because of the stringent qualifications and proof required. On the German side, by his own admission, it was very fast and furious, with little stringent proof required. This is important because, as we know from the battle of Britain, if we take both sides pilot claims at face value, and compare them to actual losses, it is usually 3 or 4 times as high (if the claims had been valid, both sides would have been totally wiped out three or four times over, regularly). This was also found to be prevalent in ground combat, particularly in the East, with for example multiple tanks and anti-tank guns claiming the same kills repeatedly. This is not to say people in general were lying, only that in combat it is very difficult to keep an accurate idea of what is happening. People trying to kill you doesn't lend itself to accurate record keeping as much as we might like. Taking any sides' estimates of enemy losses at face value is suspect.

LR
 
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Sorry for the prolific posting... but another point

I am unsure how this is handled currently, so it may not be an issue. I would recommend a long lag time after the introduction of a new weapon system (the moreso when it is revolutionary vs. evolutionary in nature) before units of these items begin to be delivered to the front. Even after serial production began, it was usually many many months before new types made their way to the fronts in any numbers. After a design freeze for production, and production start, production aircraft (for example) were required for training purposes (not just pilots, but ground crew, repair and maintenance units, etc....). All these components required new manuals, procedures, spare parts inventories, supply channels, and on "new" items all of this first time mass usage (just in preparation for combat commitment) often revealed things that needed to be changed or modified and even more time was required to make these changes.

Now, in desperation, some of these things can be rushed (and were rushed) with resulting degradations in flight profile, reliability, etc.... It would be nice for a player to have the option of making these trade offs if he felt desperate enough. Just doing the research in a given area, even if we consider it to produce a model that is ready for actual production, does not magically transform that vehicle/equipment into something that can be deployed, maintained, supplied, in the field. Most weapon systems spend less than one percent of their useful life actually in some form of combat. (An exception that proves the rule - if you were a German prop driven fighter that came off the production line in June 1944 you were far more likely to be destroyed at the factory by enemy bombing, crashed during acceptance flights from component or pilot error, crashed by a ferry pilot for the same reasons, or destroyed by bombing during rail transit as many German aircraft, particularly jets were shipped by rail to their units, crashed by a front line pilot with little experience or due to mechanical failure/poor maintenance, or be destroyed on the ground by enemy fighter bombers, than be shot down by the enemy. And you were far less likely to ever fire at an enemy let alone bring one down).

A sense of scale, particularly with things like the Me-262 are essential. Though the Germans produced some 1200+ (with another 600-800 destroyed during production) they were essentially an irrelevant footnote to the war. An interesting but meaningless technical achievement. The largest combat deployment of Me-262s, ever, in a single group was 29 committed against an American bombing raid in force on March 3, 1945. These 29 shot down 3 bombers. The greatest number of total sorties occurred on 10 April 45 when 55 262 sorties were recorded. The Germans claimed 10 bombers downed (the 8th air force records do not support all these claims, but 7 or 8) and 27 262s were lost (German records acknowledge this number). Detailed analysis of Luftwaffe and USAAF records indicate that Me-262s succeeded in downing 52 American bombers and 10 fighters for the loss of over 200 Me-262s between August 1944 and the end of the war. Even if the jet losses are overstated by 100% (i.e., only 100 lost in combat against USAAF aircraft, or even overstated by 400%, with 50 jets lost), this is not a great combat record and not all that great an increase from the records of competently flown German prop aircraft. It is questionable whether the massive out lay of critical strategic resources saw an adequate return on that investment in the Me-262.

Far from being a wonder weapon that struck fear in the hearts of the American pilots, it is stunning to review the records and see the raucous pell mell scramble to come to grips with the jets when they did appear. In fact, the American fighters were often so aggressive they were more of a danger to each other than the enemy simply by sheer numbers. And in the end, no matter what the jets did, they were irrelevant. The USA was approaching 100,000 aircraft per year in production and, more importantly, at the front the 8th Airforce was fielding, on a given day, more than 2000 4-engine bombers and more than 1000 of the finest prop fighters ever produced in escort. Total victories by the Me-262 in its entire career against the USAAF resulted in less than a 2.5% loss rate for a single day of 8th AF operations. Averaged out of those 10 months it amounts to one quarter of an aircraft lost per day to the jets - assuming full scale operations at least 1 day out of 4, that's a fearsome loss rate of 3/100ths of a percent. And this doesn't even include the medium bombers, or the Royal Air Force, or the mob of American machines under repair or in the pipeline to the front, or the other USAAF air forces in NW Europe. You stand a better chance of getting killed by a shark. A kill ratio 100 times higher would not have mattered. And it is worth noting that these aircraft were superlative in performance, for the most part, and flown by the very best combat aces Germany could produce.

LR
 
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No, just no. "aces" were toys for propaganda with highly inflated legends and kill count. IIRC, the sum of claims for the german aces with 100+ "confirmed" victories adds up the bulk of the allied combat air losses. One must wonder what the rest of Luftwaffe and all the AA were doing.

In any case, with combat on a divisional scale, individual aces are far too insignificant to make a difference to stats

Actually I've read from multiple sources that the Luftwaffe was fairly strict on counting kills.
 
Actually I've read from multiple sources that the Luftwaffe was fairly strict on counting kills.

The vast majority of sources on German kill-counting are outright wrong and completely unreliable; the reality is that German high command was so weary of the ridiculous kill claims of their frontline troops that they often reduced them by half or more when making intelligence estimates.
 
I was playing red dragon recently and a guy on my team asked me to take care of and destroy a tank. I said no sorry can't. He asked why not. I replied "It's polish".
 
Kill Claims in air combat were notoriously inaccurate. It wasn't usually due to intentional misreporting. Imagine a ME109 attacking a formation of Flying fortresses. There could be a dozen tail gunners shooting at it each of whom saw a plane they were shooting at go down in flames. similar things happened between fighters in a dogfight. Fighting over friendly territory where you could count the crashes gave the only very accurate way of counting the casualties. By the end of the war both sides knew to allow a large factor for over-claiming when assessing casualty reports.
 
Actually I've read from multiple sources that the Luftwaffe was fairly strict on counting kills.
Germany's top ace cannot prove his first 50 or so kills (his flight book was lost).
He gained most kills when he was a squadron (or whatever is was called) commander, and signed his own victory reports.
He claimed to have shot down Soviet planes, which according to the other side were simply not present at the time on that section of the front (IL-2's when non were assigned to the sector).
Most of his claimed kills in one day were of exact same type of plane (3 Yak day 1, 5 Pe-2 day 2, 4 Il-2 day 3 and so on).
 
....
He claimed to have shot down Soviet planes, which according to the other side were simply not present at the time on that section of the front (IL-2's when non were assigned to the sector).

Lots of that was just nonsense from people at HQ who had poor understanding of reallity on the frontline - units often had equipment that they werent supposed to have or unit was assigned somewhere for a short ammount of time and neither fact was often known to paper pushers a HQ.