Most of the time yes. At the extreme end, there isn't the airspace for large numbers of aircraft to operate, but that's not the main point.
My thinking was that the command points mechanism from Stellaris, could model pilot numbers & quality somewhat. Like, it is some number that takes into account population, education level, etc. of aircrew, to produce a number that represents how many aircraft can be operational simultaneously. Going over that number, means that the recruitment standards and/or training length is lowered, with some kind of penalty as a result.
Part of the issue, though, is that while those numbers sound ballpark correct, the actual numbers fielded at any one time were much less than the production numbers would makes us think they are. I'm no expert, but I suspect one key reason is accidents being higher IRL than in-game (but could well be wrong) - but it could also be that air combat losses were much higher historically as well (they could certainly be brutal in carrier battles).
I believe both of you are correct and on to something.
History records that there were many more planes built than the game allows. We also know from our general and collective knowledge of the war that not even the US was flying 5,000 or 10,000 planes in one air zone at a time. The US believed so strongly in air power that they made the deliberate gamble to limit their army to 91 divisions, so they could field all those planes. The B-29 program required almost 500,000 men, by itself. Even so, no where did the US keep 10,000 planes constantly in the air.
Where is the disconnect from the game and reality?
We know that the US lost as many or more planes to accidents as it did to combat. I suspect that was true with all the majors,
or at the least, the
accident rates were much higher than people realize. Remember, these pilots were NOT experts. They were kids right off the streets, under extreme pressure to learn flying fast. Tearing up equipment was the cost of that learning curve. When they got to their units they were still learning and continued to tear up equipment on the front line, until that learning curve flattened. These are not modern peacetime pilots who have time to learn safely.
Losses were higher than they are in the game. As,
@Axe99 said, the carrier losses were much higher IRL, than in game. This higher loss rate, means the accident rate is even higher.
We also know that many many more planes, or their equivalents, were lost than pilots.
We also know that plane quality mattered. If you want to lose precious pilots, then put them in a bad plane. They will accomplish little and die fast. Many obsolete planes were scrapped, used for training, or just left to rust. They were built, but not all of them were shot down.
It seems that during the war there was a HUGE mass of aircraft behind the thinner line of deployed aircraft.
Below are some ideas to address the obvious, or items under represented in the game:
- Add pilots to put a realistic limit on planes in the air. The pilots were the actual constraints to planes in the air, not the number of aircraft produced.
- Pilots are not a function of education or manpower rules. Instead they come out of the common manpower pool, but are "made" into pilots through accidents in training. Those accidents make pilots expensive.
- Introduce plane losses that does not kill the pilot. Many planes came home crippled, or the pilot bailed out and was rescued. The pilot just gets a new plane out of inventory.
- Increase accidents. Training pilots should consume planes at an alarming rate. Even at the front, lower skilled pilots will have more accidents than the veteran pilots. Production, then becomes the determining factor behind how many pilots a nation can field. The result would most likely produce a more realistic number of pilots, in relation to nations, than a manpower rule.
- EDIT: This is already in the game so striking it out.
Give obsolete aircraft a serious handicap. Putting a precious, and very expensive pilot (think how many accidents it took to field that pilot) into an obsolete aircraft that can be shot down quickly would make little sense. This would be realistic. Once an old fighter was replaced on the front, a nation tended to retire that plane into training squadrons, or scrape it all together.
- Create a training wing, or training pool, that aircraft can be assigned into. New pilots in training will consume those planes as they train for their first deployment to a front line air wing. Obviously, players and the AI would put their oldest planes here. If the training wing runs low on aircraft, then training slows down. If it runs out of aircraft, training stops.
- Once the new pilot gets to their front line air wings, they will consume the planes that air wing is equipped with. Their training continues until they finally reach veteran status.
Much of this would be behind the scenes. Pilots are made, much like tankers are made, through tearing stuff up in training. The exceptions would be 1) that pilots tear stuff up during their deployment training too, very realistic and missing from the game; 2) and that pilots tear up a lot more stuff than tankers while they train, again realistic.
