Killed after landing thoughts?

[il2crashesnfails]

Would you do the same in this situation?
or would you let the Russian pilot go?

 

 

[Hawk-2a]

Wow unlucky.

personally I don‘t waste ammo on planes that are out of combat in any way... smoking hard, engine out, damaged prop etc... he‘s done and busy enough to keep his box flying or to make a decent crash landing...

i usually let them go, knowing it often ends up as a an assist when somebody else still thinks he needs to shoot at a critically damaged plane just for the stats

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

AI AC strafe and shoot player plane when  landed and taxi or power off the engine. AI AAA is shooting at player parachute. Cold AI do not have any feelings ? Ppl tend to not do it.
BTW It's funny how long you stayed without body damage when bullets explodes near you canopy...

Edited May 1, 2019 by 307_Tomcat

[il2crashesnfails]

8 minutes ago, 307_Tomcat said:

BTW It's funny how long you stayed without body damage when bullets explodes near you canopy...

 

 

and the canopy was open. I ended up closing it  in the end. my question is does provide any protection?

[Pict]

I'd say they couldn't get you in the air so they had a go at you on the ground, but they even struggled with that  

 

How many of them were there?, looked like at least 4 of them had a go at you on the ground and still couldn't do the job 1st time around  

Edited May 1, 2019 by Pict

[Raptorattacker]

Personally I'd take up the practice of landing at airfields, at least there's usually some AAA for a bit of protection!! 

[RedKestrel]

1 hour ago, il2crashesnfails said:

 

 

and the canopy was open. I ended up closing it  in the end. my question is does provide any protection?

Anecdotally, I believe it does provide some protection against fragmentation and small calibre MGs. When making attacks with canopy open in an Il-2, my pilot is often wounded if I'm hit by flak or enemy fighters. If I close it, I'm usually not. 

When I fly the I-16 my pilot gets wounded a lot more often than if I fly other fighters.

Now, there's obviously some confounding factors here. The I-16 is a tiny plane so the pilot hitbox is likely a higher proportion of of the total area of the aircraft than on other planes. And the Il-2's canopy is partially armored, so it might be a special case. I don't fly with canopy open on any other aircraft so I don't have a good sample size. 

Now, as to the whole 'strafing a landed enemy fighter on the ground' thing, I don't do it for a number of reasons.

1. In multiplayer, I feel like it's only going to cause hard feelings. Like with chute killing, it just feels like adding insult to injury. Especially in a case where someone has worked very hard to nurse their plane back to the airfield or a safe place to ditch. I know there are meta-game reasons on some servers (like on TAW, where pilot deaths are tracked), but it doesn't seem worth it. It's not a real war, the person you're shooting at might be flying cover for you next mission or next campaign. And if the pilot is a relative beginner, you run the risk of frustrating them to the point of swearing off online play altogether. If an absolute noob gets humiliated by mean-spirited people 7 or 8 times in a row, they're not going to want to play anymore. 

2. From a practical point of view, the pilot is out of the fight, the plane is shot to hell. Ammo is at a premium in most planes, so its a waste of ammo. Worse, while you're circling to strafe the guy anybody who sees you during the attack can hit you with energy advantage. So you're low, slow, low on ammo and have lost the initiative. Not a good look on anybody!

3. From a mission-centric point of view, there's a lot of opportunity cost in terms of engaging a downed fighter, or even a heavily damaged one. While you're haring after the doomed smoking 109, three of his buddies in FW-190s are hammering the airfield you're supposed to be covering. Or while you strafe the ditched pilot, the bombers relying on you for escort are getting hammered by enemy fighters. If you must strafe something, at least put some rounds into enemy AA on a target area to make things easier for the Sturmoviks.

Anyway, TL;DR in my opinion there's no reason to shoot someone up once they've landed unless you're greedy for a kill or just hate the guy. 

 

[il2crashesnfails]

10 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

Anecdotally, I believe it does provide some protection against fragmentation and small calibre MGs. When making attacks with canopy open in an Il-2, my pilot is often wounded if I'm hit by flak or enemy fighters. If I close it, I'm usually not. 



 

 

I usually fly alot with it open because you can see abit better.  I guess I will stop doing that now, particularly around flak sites

12 hours ago, Pict said:

I'd say they couldn't get you in the air so they had a go at you on the ground, but they even struggled with that  

 

How many of them were there?, looked like at least 4 of them had a go at you on the ground and still couldn't do the job 1st time around  

 

I think there were at least 4, 109's

 

11 hours ago, Raptorattacker said:

Personally I'd take up the practice of landing at airfields, at least there's usually some AAA for a bit of protection!! 

 

Doubt I would had made it. Plus its fun trying off field landings ?

 

 

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

I will hit a downed airplane if he is just hanging around well after the landing. I always wait to see if he pops out first and sometimes text a warning to despawn before giving him a little love.  If it appears the player is doing any sort of forward air control he’s a fair target. There is a player who regularly crashes bombers near our airfields and shoots up spawning players, however, who gets no love whatsoever.

[jaygee485]

11 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

the pilot is out of the fight, the plane is shot to hell

 

I can only respond as one who has yet to fly MP, which may, in the future, alter my viewpoint. (?) 

The plane was airworthy enough to land safely, and, from the air it looked intact. In wartime it would be logical to destroy any enemy combat aircraft whenever possible.

A damaged aircraft can be repaired to fight again, so it's better to take it out of the war when you have the chance. 

The pilot had ample time to have got out and got clear, and anyway, by applying the same logic, it's better to kill him before he has the chance to jump into another plane

and kill me. Chivalry doesn't win battles.   

[Velxra]

9 minutes ago, jaygee485 said:

Chivalry doesn't win battles.   

 

Without mutual respect of your opponent or Chivalry in combat. There is no "do to others as you wish done to yourself" understanding. It is that mutual respect for your fellow combatant in the same situation as yourself that saves lives of wounded or captured after the battle. Without chivalry in combat, ships would lose entire crews drowning in the ocean and prisoners of war would be worked to death with no food. By respecting your enemy in defeat you are assuring the enemy knows they will be well treated in your hands and that your own troops will be well treated in theirs. The night and day treatment differences between Germans/Russians and Americans/German is total affirmation that chivalry is an unspoken rule of warfare. Without chivalry there is total war and total war is the absolute harshest and deadliest type of warfare. Just compare the after combat death toll of the eastern front and the western front of WW2. You will see many died after the war's conclusion from those captured on the eastern front, because that was total war. No respect of the enemy from either side lead to no mercy in the end. I am a strong believer in chivalry and some of the most memorable and respectable acts of WW2 and WW1 came from the soldiers of opposing forces helping one another because they both understood they both were merely serving their country and the fight was over. War often lacks humanity, and without humanity we fight for nothing.


Now with the sentinels out of the way and back to topic. I would have not engaged the grounded air unit as it was no longer a threat in the battle. I care about taking planes out of the battle and not pointless slaughter that only puts my own life/plane at further risk by attacking a non threatening or vital target. However I was very impressed by the accurate fire of the AI purely hitting the engine bay. 

[jaygee485]

12 minutes ago, Geronimo553 said:

By respecting your enemy in defeat you are assuring the enemy knows they will be well treated in your hands and that your own troops will be well treated in theirs.

 

Yes, that's very true, (even though it certainly wasn't always reciprocal, as in the case of typical Japanese treatment of Allied pow's), and while I don't withdraw from my statement

that chivalry doesn't win wars, that doesn't mean that I don't believe there is certainly a place for it.

While I would take the opportunity to strafe an enemy aircraft on the ground, or when it was landing or taking off, I wouldn't shoot at an enemy pilot after he's bailed out, no more than I would target an ambulance or hospital.

The notion of chivalry has to be qualified to a degree. I think we would all take the opportunity to bomb an unarmed merchantman. Certainly, merchant sailors will probably die, but the cargo of war supplies will be denied to the enemy war machine.

[il2crashesnfails]

13 minutes ago, jaygee485 said:

 

Yes, that's very true, (even though it certainly wasn't always reciprocal, as in the case of typical Japanese treatment of Allied pow's), and while I don't withdraw from my statement

that chivalry doesn't win wars, that doesn't mean that I don't believe there is certainly a place for it.

While I would take the opportunity to strafe an enemy aircraft on the ground, or when it was landing or taking off, I wouldn't shoot at an enemy pilot after he's bailed out, no more than I would target an ambulance or hospital.

The notion of chivalry has to be qualified to a degree. I think we would all take the opportunity to bomb an unarmed merchantman. Certainly, merchant sailors will probably die, but the cargo of war supplies will be denied to the enemy war machine.

 

I think another factor to consider is where did the plane land? If it was on his side of the line I would probably be more inclined to strafe, as the plane might end up back in service.

[jaygee485]

31 minutes ago, il2crashesnfails said:

I think another factor to consider is where did the plane land?

 

Yes indeed, and that's a point I hadn't really considered when I made my probably hasty judgement. 

If he'd landed at one of his own airfields, where he could have refueled and rearmed, or had the plane repaired as required, then the plane would have been fair game.

A forced landing though, especially when behind his lines, and there is a good case for chivalry to be applied.

So, I stand corrected.

[Hawk-2a]

14 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

1. In multiplayer, I feel like it's only going to cause hard feelings. Like with chute killing, it just feels like adding insult to injury. Especially in a case where someone has worked very hard to nurse their plane back to the airfield or a safe place to ditch. I know there are meta-game reasons on some servers (like on TAW, where pilot deaths are tracked), but it doesn't seem worth it. It's not a real war, the person you're shooting at might be flying cover for you next mission or next campaign. And if the pilot is a relative beginner, you run the risk of frustrating them to the point of swearing off online play altogether. If an absolute noob gets humiliated by mean-spirited people 7 or 8 times in a row, they're not going to want to play anymore. 

^ this. Thank you

[RedKestrel]

9 hours ago, jaygee485 said:

 

I can only respond as one who has yet to fly MP, which may, in the future, alter my viewpoint. (?) 

The plane was airworthy enough to land safely, and, from the air it looked intact. In wartime it would be logical to destroy any enemy combat aircraft whenever possible.

A damaged aircraft can be repaired to fight again, so it's better to take it out of the war when you have the chance. 

The pilot had ample time to have got out and got clear, and anyway, by applying the same logic, it's better to kill him before he has the chance to jump into another plane

and kill me. Chivalry doesn't win battles.   

You raise a good point here. Speaking practically again here, not ethically, and not specifically to MP... (incoming wall of text, take cover!)

If the guy lands on an airfield where there are planes fuelled up and ready to go, including with armament, hanging around to kill him appears to be even a worse choice. Say you kill the guy before he can run to the nearest LaGG. Good job, except all 10 of his buddies in the mess hall just saw you do that, they have scramble-ready planes at their disposal, and they're now out for blood and you're low on ammo over their airfield. If you're in a situation where a guy who just did an emergency landing can take off again and kill you within the same engagement, the smarter choice would be to strafe any planes on the tarmack to make sure they can't follow you. And of course any airfield that has scramble-ready planes probably has some AAA guns too. Overall there's not much to be gained in the near future even if you do manage to kill the guy, and much to be risked.

If he hasn't landed at an active airfield, just in a field somewhere, he's not an immediate threat. If he's in friendly territory, maybe we think hey, he's fair game, if he gets back to the airfield he could come and kill one of my friends later on! At that point, I would say that you and the pilot on the ground are an equal value resource to your corresponding armed forces, and the proper thing to do is to save your own butt, get back to your squadron and get back to covering them and whoever you might be escorting. You'll increase your odds and the odds of your friends survival substantially.

The grim mathematics of pilot attrition do come into play in a real war on a strategic level. Post war, we know that the real limiting factor for the Luftwaffe near the end of the war was trained pilots, not aircraft. The loss of too many veterans and experienced pilots, combined with the loss of room to conduct training safely away from Allied patrols, doomed them. So the question is: knowing this, should the Allies have adopted a chute-killing policy early in the war to hasten the Luftwaffes' demise? What happens if they run out of good pilots in 1944, or even 1943? Kill a guy like Galland and you save maybe a hundred of your own pilots over the course of the war, and replacing someone like that is difficult. We see the Japanese having this issue much earlier in the war than the Germans as their planes had less pilot protection and often pilots could not or did not bail out, and if they did they were often over the Pacific where rescue is extremely difficult and unlikely.

 Now we circle back to the issue that if the Allies start killing LW chutes, they will do the same, or escalate the practice. The Allies maybe can afford to lose more pilots than the LW, as they have overseas training programmes and lots of population, but it still means that even fewer of your crews manage to escape occupied Europe than already possible. And since you are thinking you will win the war, you want all those pilots in POW camps back home, rather than executed, if nothing else than for public morale. So its a bit of a thorny issue even from a purely pragmatic and practical approach. 

The Luftwaffe has very little incentive to chute kill on the western front because any pilot that bails out over German-occupied territory is a possible POW and therefore a source of intelligence information. On the eastern front, where pilots can more often walk back to their front lines, things are different. The Soviets have the same incentives, and with the battle lines so fluid and the action happening mostly over the battle area, whether a pilot will be captured or not is always an open question. Combine that with the much greater enmity on the Eastern front between the opposing forces and you can see chute killing becoming much more common. 

Anyway, its a complicated issue. At a strategic level, there might be some merit when looked at from the total war aspect of things. I still maintain that at a tactical level, its a bad idea for the individual fighter pilot. And for MP game players, I can't see it being beneficial, except for maybe the 'do anything to win' crowd on a server like TAW. In SP mode, if you want to kind of roleplay things a bit, I can see the argument for shooting up downed AI planes or chutes out of hatred or vengeance, but that doesn't do much to change the game really.

[Raptorattacker]

9 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

(incoming wall of text, take cover!)

Wall of text maybe but a good point(s) very well put!