Can these uneven battles get "fixed" in Career mode?

[RyanR]

Since my Luftwaffe career went from Stalingrad to Kuban, I've noticed that the odds are crazy skewed against us. The VVS comes at us in massive numbers and at higher altitude.

 

I grabbed the screen shot below.

 

Context:

Intercept Attackers

Target altitude, 1900 feet.

Six 190A-5's.

I've already dialed the difficulty and density back from full difficult to the medium settings.

 

I've learned to never trust the mission profile, and always approach at at least 5,000 feet, or 2-3 Km's. We get there, and there's six of us. They have twelve escorts... for only *six* ground attack planes. We're basically doomed. Four out of 5 wingmen get shot down instantly. I got six of them (4 escorts, 2 IL-2's) before I had to bail when I got shot up by some of the 8 Yaks following me all the way back to base (something I thought got fixed forever ago) at full speed on the deck.

 

 

 

 

Intercept Bomber missions work about the same. If you're unlucky enough to be flying 109's, the mission builder sticks 20mm gondolas on your G2/G4's just to ensure you're no match for the escort. There's no way to attack the actual targets and survive. I'd understand if I had full difficulty going, but this is crazy.

 

Thanks!

 

-Ryan

Edited November 23, 2022 by RyanR

[oc2209]

24 minutes ago, RyanR said:

Since my Luftwaffe career went from Stalingrad to Kuban, I've noticed that the odds are crazy skewed against us. The VVS comes at us in massive numbers and at higher altitude.

 

Is this PWCG or base game?

 

I usually kill-farm 'intercept attack planes' missions in the base game, and I always fly on the deck. The enemy flight is rarely higher than 1,000m, and if you wait to attack the Sturms until right before/after they make their attack run, the fighter cover tends to stay high above them and (generally) ignores you as you pick them off. Provided you don't reach the escort's altitude, at which point you probably trigger their 'killer swarm' behavior.

 

Beyond that, the enemy numbers you describe are typical for hard difficulty, but they seem excessive for medium diff.

[spreckair]

I am having the opposite experience with my Luftwaffe career.  I found BOM to mostly be evenly matched; then BOS was a killer with many uneven matches that were massacres; then BOK which is back to balanced matches.  I have been flying the BF 109 throughout.  I am always above the fray when I enter it, with the enemy far below.

[Ram399]

5 hours ago, RyanR said:

I've already dialed the difficulty and density back from full difficult to the medium settings.

Generally speaking difficulty is what affects the number and skill of the hostile aircraft you encounter while density has to do with the amount of activity around the frontline.
In most cases I find myself having even matchups using maximum density and moderate difficulty.

If you're still encountering an escort of 12 hostile fighters when your own flight numbers 6 there is something wrong with the settings- unless the additional fighters are reinforcing mid-furball which does occasionally happen, especially over hotspots like Krymskaya and Novorossiysk.

With all that said however, Kuban is notable as being the time when the VVS fighter force truly came into its own, and I feel the career does a good job reflecting that.  My only recommendation for improving you and your unit's chances for survival is to become the unit CO as quickly as humanely possible and fly practically every mission as the flight lead. (Being the CO will also allow you to remove pesky modifications such as the forced gondolas for Bf-109 intercepts)

For missions such as ground support/crossing cover and bomber/attacker intercepts I routinely bring as many aircraft as the game will let me and often fly a completely different route to give my flight as much of an altitude advantage as I can before moving in on the target locale.  After which its just a matter of staying hyper vigilant and maintaining altitude.  I generally go for a dedicated boom and zoom top cover approach while my AI wingmen get into the nitty gritty, and in this regard it is worth noting that the AI is far better at flying Bf-109s than the Focke-Wulf 190, and you can always expect more casualties when flying with the 190s.

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, Ram399 said:

If you're still encountering an escort of 12 hostile fighters when your own flight numbers 6 there is something wrong with the settings- unless the additional fighters are reinforcing mid-furball which does occasionally happen, especially over hotspots like Krymskaya and Novorossiysk.

With all that said however, Kuban is notable as being the time when the VVS fighter force truly came into its own, and I feel the career does a good job reflecting that.  My only recommendation for improving you and your unit's chances for survival is to become the unit CO as quickly as humanely possible and fly practically every mission as the flight lead. (Being the CO will also allow you to remove pesky modifications such as the forced gondolas for Bf-109 intercepts)

 

Yeah, 12 enemy fighters isn't unusual throughout the course of an entire sortie (on hard diff.), but if they're coming at you in one big angry gaggle, that seems like some kind of flawed mission design. Especially considering he's on moderate diff.

 

Regarding career methodology: I always start off any career as CO--I have no shame about it whatsoever. Before the mission starts, I place myself--in every flight--as the tail-end charlie. I leave AI to do the actual commanding of the flight.

 

Here's an example of an average intercept for me:

 

Spoiler

 

 

I let the friendly AI do whatever it wants. I start this particular fight with the intention of shooting down at least one Sturm to fulfill mission requirements, provided my flight doesn't do so. Luckily for me, they nail one on the first pass (I allowed my entire flight--except for me--to carry the extra wing guns). I then shift priority to the escorts. I waste the first minute tailing one of my own guys (I don't fly with icons on). By the time I surely identify him, I'm close enough to actual enemies to clearly ID them.

 

Rather than come at the enemy from above, I slowly drift my way up from the deck, into the midst of them. If attacked, I return to the deck. I have never felt comfortable at altitude. I don't like having anything below me, aside from ground as near as possible. I don't care how idiotic and ass-backwards this mindset is, since this is a sim against AI opponents; not reality against humans. I've been doing this (successfully) since my first Sturmovik days. So, for decades now.

 

Anyway, by the end of everything, we had one fatality, and shot down 8 enemy planes. I was credited with 2. I'm no longer as kill-hungry as I once was, so I like to damage as many enemy planes as I can, without caring if they're mortally stricken. I figure that once they're damaged, they're easier for my allies to shoot down, or they might disengage and flee the area.

 

By the way, since I don't use head tracking or VR, I'm flying with no peripheral vision. So, I didn't see how close a lot of the enemies were to me, nor how close I was to that mid-air collision with a friendly. Oddly enough, I find that level of blindness rather comforting, like shutting out too much going on that would otherwise be overwhelming.

 

Oh, and I also never fly with headrest armor. I like to check my six a lot, and I'd rather eat a bullet than not be able to see behind me. I rarely look to either side of me, mainly straight forward, forward-up, back, or back-up.

Edited November 24, 2022 by oc2209

[oc2209]

Oh, and I also forgot to mention, I'm rather severely color-blind. Which is perhaps the greatest reason I've never perceived any spotting advantage from altitude; it's actually a detriment to my spotting ability against all enemies aside from unpainted American planes.

 

Hence I prefer winter landscapes, or seeing enemies from below. Trying to spot a camo-painted plane against any kind of ground that isn't snow, is extremely difficult. It's not a visual acuity issue, since I have no difficulty spotting planes where color isn't involved.

 

This being a game and not reality, I can afford to manipulate it to suit my handicap. In reality, I doubt they'd even let me fly a mail plane.

 

 

[Leftenant_Soap]

Yup I am in the same boat with the BOS campaign. Yes it is exhausting to deal with the swarms of Yaks and La-5s, but fine by me. Fighter pilot is hard job.

At least I've done enough missions that I know what to expect.

 

Off-topic ramblings:

There are occasions where enemy fighters have chased me all the way back to Pitomnik, I then circle at treetop level praying the friendly AA swats them (rarely hits), then after ~5 minutes the enemies vanish into thin air - right in front of me!

On another occasion - bomber intercept - the target Pe-2s sometimes do not explode when they plunge into the ground, they kind of slam into the ground then sit there and despawn. Amusing.

Transport escort missions are a waste of time, can't remember ever encountering enemies on those. Once I became CO I sit those out.

My Gruppe has been wiped at least 6 times in <2 months of action. So the casualty rates don't reflect the history but who cares.

Still fun.

[Talon_]

Consistently in Career mode the most realistic settings are easy/sparse. Anything above that is pretty much videogame territory.

 

I guess medium/sparse if you're flying Russians in Moscow.

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, Talon_ said:

Consistently in Career mode the most realistic settings are easy/sparse. Anything above that is pretty much videogame territory.

 

I guess medium/sparse if you're flying Russians in Moscow.

 

Sparse only affects ground units at the front line.

[Lusekofte]

This is in fact historical correct. P 39 did fly as high they could and attacked from advanced position. Kuban campaign was harder on Luftwaffe than before.  
I read in a book that on commander did not attack in his p39 if he was not in favoured position. This surprised me a bit. Kuban produced a lot of Soviet aces

[Eisenfaustus]

2 hours ago, 216th_Lusekofte said:

This is in fact historical correct. P 39 did fly as high they could and attacked from advanced position. Kuban campaign was harder on Luftwaffe than before.  
I read in a book that on commander did not attack in his p39 if he was not in favoured position. This surprised me a bit. Kuban produced a lot of Soviet aces

Kuban is also where JG 52 became Germany‘s most successful fighter unit and Erich Hartmann learned his trait. So I guess the air war was rather well balanced there. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Eisenfaustus

[Lusekofte]

27 minutes ago, Eisenfaustus said:

Kuban is also where JG 52 became Germany‘s most successful fighter unit and Erich learned his trait. So I guess the air war was rather well balanced there. 

Yes it was. German pilots had no longer an easy ride. They never really knew what they’re were up against. Soviet also suffered losses. Thing is. Both sides needed to be smart about it in order to win or survive

[RyanR]

Indeed, I've dialed back the settings from Dense and Difficult to the medium settings for both. Indeed, 2 to 1 odds. I've added extra planes to these missions in the past, but if you lose seven planes early in the day, the later missions get that much harder. When I was flying 109's, I wouldn't let the AI's have the precious G-2's. Goo wreck a G-4.

 

As everyone mentioned, BoK is definitely where the Soviet aircraft got very good.... and the Luftwaffe went the opposite. I thought that was a great historical lesson to take away from this sim. You see the true evolution of fighter aircraft. The Yak's just got better and more potent. The La-5N is just a monster. Even just adding the rear gunner with the UBT in an IL-2 makes them pretty dangerous. On the other hand, the 109's got heavier and blobbier with the same ol' engine. The G-2 is supposed to outdo the F-4 a smidgen, but in practice the F-4 will do what the G-2 will without being as sluggish.

 

Honestly. between BoS and BoK, you really see how bad the German command was. Terrible strategic decisions, and with obsolete aircraft.

 

This is my third time playing through BoK, and something feels like it changed with regard to the numbers. I did Luftwaffe and VVS passes all the way through BoK (BoM through BoBP)  prior to the release of Normandy. Things felt more easily matched. Similarly, BoS felt a bit more uneven in the match-ups, but you could overcome the odds with a 190A-3 or F-4.

 

-Ryan

[JG27_Steini]

49 minutes ago, RyanR said:

Honestly. between BoS and BoK, you really see how bad the German command was. Terrible strategic decisions, and with obsolete aircraft.

 

Obsolete aircraft? The G2,G4 were among the best fighter. The Fw190 made it's debut was a desaster for VVS fighter bomber. We might have another definition of obsolet

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, RyanR said:

Indeed, I've dialed back the settings from Dense and Difficult to the medium settings for both. Indeed, 2 to 1 odds. I've added extra planes to these missions in the past, but if you lose seven planes early in the day, the later missions get that much harder. When I was flying 109's, I wouldn't let the AI's have the precious G-2's. Goo wreck a G-4.

 

As everyone mentioned, BoK is definitely where the Soviet aircraft got very good.... and the Luftwaffe went the opposite. I thought that was a great historical lesson to take away from this sim. You see the true evolution of fighter aircraft. The Yak's just got better and more potent. The La-5N is just a monster. Even just adding the rear gunner with the UBT in an IL-2 makes them pretty dangerous. On the other hand, the 109's got heavier and blobbier with the same ol' engine. The G-2 is supposed to outdo the F-4 a smidgen, but in practice the F-4 will do what the G-2 will without being as sluggish.

 

Honestly. between BoS and BoK, you really see how bad the German command was. Terrible strategic decisions, and with obsolete aircraft.

 

This is my third time playing through BoK, and something feels like it changed with regard to the numbers. I did Luftwaffe and VVS passes all the way through BoK (BoM through BoBP)  prior to the release of Normandy. Things felt more easily matched. Similarly, BoS felt a bit more uneven in the match-ups, but you could overcome the odds with a 190A-3 or F-4.

 

-Ryan

 

Yes, I've been reading Volume 5 of Black Cross / Red Star, which focuses heavily on the Kuban Bridgehead battles of 1943. It's readily apparent that, after a few days in mid-April, the VVS entirely tipped the scales in terms of numerical superiority and really started to become a modern, deadly fighting force. Once that happened, the 109s were really limited in how much they could affect what was going on in the air. 

 

One quote from one of the German divisions there in late April says it all: "The Russians are doing whatever they want over Krymskaya."

[oc2209]

@RyanR

 

The reason I asked if you're using PWCG is that, judging from your screenshot, the Sturmoviks are at a fairly high altitude. Which makes no sense to me, based on the many intercepts I've seen in the base game.

 

Also, the '12 escort' part is simply ridiculous. Are you absolutely sure you don't have any mods, or traces of mods, or anything else that might account for these discrepancies?

 

Every 'intercept attackers' mission I get looks more or less like this:

 

Spoiler

 

 

On hard diff, sparse frontline activity. 9 La-5s with 6 Sturms (I think one Sturm was hit by AA in the approach and crashed). All coming in at low altitude. You can see how quickly the fight gets to treetop level.

 

Beyond that, I don't know if this is due to some kind of recent change, but the friendly AI seems a lot more proficient than it used to be on hard diff. We got 12 kills (4 of them mine), with zero losses. I doubt this pattern will hold, but still. It's like we're playing two different games.

 

*Edit: I spotted a ninth La-5 that I missed originally. Also, the plane that I saw crashing from a distance, turned out to be a 109; one of two friendlies (not attached to my flight) that were loitering above the target area.

 

So, the end result was seven 109s versus nine La-5s and the six Sturms. The crashed 109 didn't hit anything before he went in.

Edited November 24, 2022 by oc2209

[oc2209]

Here's another one. I'm showing these to reiterate how typical this experience of mine is:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Granted, this is the first few days of a career, nothing ever stays this easy, and I probably won't go a whole week or two without getting shot at. But, that said, another 12 kill sortie (again, 4 by me). 1 fatality on our side.

 

Once again, 9 La-5s to start, with 6 Sturms. No friendly 109s or anything else in the area, this time. Once more, I repeat the usual tactic of coming in from the deck, latching on to the tail-end Charlie from below (basically a reverse of the classic bounce from above), and once more, my wingmen are remarkably effective. I'll keep playing this career (which I only started as a test, honestly) to see when the luck changes; I'll report when it does.

 

As an aside, I should mention that La-5s are historically easy pickings for me. It's the FNs that are a pain. Yaks also present a challenge, as catching them in turns takes longer and thus makes it far more likely you'll get shot at during the pursuit. P-39s, like La-5s, are a joke in the hands of the AI.

 

My ultimate point in all of this: you don't desperately need an altitude advantage against the AI, to be successful. In fact, it might work against you and your flight in some cases, because it very well might alter AI behavior triggers. Just a theory of mine.

 

What's far more important than altitude, in my opinion, is hitting multiple enemies (not necessarily shooting them down) in the first few minutes of the combat. I've found that this is a massive statistical force multiplier, in terms of increasing the chances your wingmen can survive long enough to do anything useful.

 

*Edit: by the way, I also prefer the G-4 because emergency power, even for a minute, helps me climb into attack position. G-2 can't do this.

Edited November 24, 2022 by oc2209

[9./JG52Gruber]

I have noticed that more aircraft in your flight also means more enemy.

[oc2209]

37 minutes ago, 9./JG52Gruber said:

I have noticed that more aircraft in your flight also means more enemy.

 

Last time I increased the default number of planes in my flight, I regretted it. I no longer bother changing it now.

[RyanR]

7 hours ago, JG27_Steini said:

 

Obsolete aircraft? The G2,G4 were among the best fighter. The Fw190 made it's debut was a desaster for VVS fighter bomber. We might have another definition of obsolet

 

I was referring to the big picture, and not with fighters in the sim. Ju-52, Ju-87/88, He-111, etc. Those were pretty antiquated at this point in the war.

 

The 109 is an amazing design, and one of my favorite planes. It was stellar at the beginning of the war, and still stellar at the end. That's just incredible. The G2/G4 just weren't the strongest variants, and were relatively under-gunned compared to the VVS at this point. The G6 at least brought the MG-131 to the table, and shortly thereafter, MW-50 helped. A 109K was still very competitive against a Mustang, and that says something.

 

 

4 hours ago, oc2209 said:

The reason I asked if you're using PWCG is that, judging from your screenshot, the Sturmoviks are at a fairly high altitude. Which makes no sense to me, based on the many intercepts I've seen in the base game.

 

Also, the '12 escort' part is simply ridiculous. Are you absolutely sure you don't have any mods, or traces of mods, or anything else that might account for these discrepancies?

 

Every 'intercept attackers' mission I get looks more or less like this:

 

I did try the "Gunnery Mod". I'll try to zero out my IL-2 install with a fresh one.

 

-Ryan

[RyanR]

6 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

Yes, I've been reading Volume 5 of Black Cross / Red Star, which focuses heavily on the Kuban Bridgehead battles of 1943. It's readily apparent that, after a few days in mid-April, the VVS entirely tipped the scales in terms of numerical superiority and really started to become a modern, deadly fighting force. Once that happened, the 109s were really limited in how much they could affect what was going on in the air. 

 

One quote from one of the German divisions there in late April says it all: "The Russians are doing whatever they want over Krymskaya."

 

 

Battle of Kuban is a nice centerpiece to the five BoX's we have. The tide really shifts against the Luftwaffe here. From what I've played, the BoN is pretty brutal for the Luftwaffe. BoBP is better "in a sim" since the 109K and Dora and 262 help keep you alive.

 

One does have to wonder why the Germans didn't pull back immediately to Kerch. Just maintaining supply lines to the Kuban had to be difficult.

 

-Ryan   

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, RyanR said:

I did try the "Gunnery Mod". I'll try to zero out my IL-2 install with a fresh one.

 

-Ryan

 

I have no idea why it would matter, but mods sometimes have a way of affecting things that don't naturally seem related.

 

Barring that as a possible explanation, the only other thing that comes to mind is a bug or hangup that's keeping your career locked on 'hard' settings despite your changing them.

 

1 hour ago, RyanR said:

One does have to wonder why the Germans didn't pull back immediately to Kerch. Just maintaining supply lines to the Kuban had to be difficult.

 

-Ryan   

 

If you ever need to ask why the Germans didn't withdraw in an orderly fashion to a more defensible position, rather than be forced back haphazardly and at great loss, the answer is generally: Hitler.

 

Without doing a systematic study, I'd guess that most of the occasions a German salient was left hung out to dry, it was against the wishes of the general staff.

 

That said, there were occasions when stubborn refusal to withdraw was the right choice; but those occasions were few and far between. The terrain around the Kuban probably was suited to a defensive, delaying action; but the time bought was minimal and only at prohibitive cost.

[Eisenfaustus]

7 hours ago, RyanR said:

Ju-52, Ju-87/88, He-111

All these planes did their job quite well - they needed local air superiority to accomplish their missions, yet most non-fighter planes did. The Ju-88 especially was in 1943 still one of the finest medium bombers in service. The shortcomings of the Ju-87 were known and replacement had begun - yet even that plane still performed well enough given decent fighter cover. 
And in what way would the Ju-188 or a more modern transportplane have changed the outcome of the war in the Kuban area?

German strategy was faulty in various ways - but the problem did not lay in the plane types you mentioned there. 
It‘s much more a question of resource allocation - both equipment and personal and the overall strategy of the war itself. 
 

5 hours ago, oc2209 said:

If you ever need to ask why the Germans didn't withdraw in an orderly fashion to a more defensible position, rather than be forced back haphazardly and at great loss, the answer is generally: Hitler.

Quite oversimplified version losing generals told after the war to rid themselves of blame and put it in a dictator who was seen as evil and hated anyway and couldn‘t defend himself anymore. 

Truth is way more complex and the military hierarchy has a huge part in most decisions which were clearly wrong in hindsight. 

[RyanR]

12 hours ago, oc2209 said:

I have no idea why it would matter, but mods sometimes have a way of affecting things that don't naturally seem related.

 

Barring that as a possible explanation, the only other thing that comes to mind is a bug or hangup that's keeping your career locked on 'hard' settings despite your changing them.

 

Too early to tell, but a fresh install of IL-2 (only 45GB) seems better. Curiously, the 190A-5 now kicks its supercharger into high gear a few hundred meters "sooner" than it had. Several missions in a row did this.

 

Aside from experimenting with mods, when I moved IL2 over to the new computer a few months ago, I copied a lot of user/data files over "en masse". It's possible I accidentally grabbed something I shouldn't have. I'm a bit more familiar with the file structure, so this time I just grabbed the key bindings, snap-views, and the database with the career in it.

 

-Ryan

 

[Avimimus]

Honestly, I'd prefer more unequal scenarios (e.g. an option for the campaign to simulate the 49/1 sortie ratio during D-Day itself).

 

However, what we'd need for this is a realistic ability to abort the mission - if one is outnumbered and doesn't have an altitude advantage, then the squadron leader should usually direct the flight to avoid engaging... similarly, after the first pass an outnumbered enemy should have a chance of fleeing (even if they had an altitude advantage that gave them the confidence to make a single pass)..

 

We really need a 'realistic ratio' and 'realistic morale' options for the campaign system.

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, Avimimus said:

We really need a 'realistic ratio' and 'realistic morale' options for the campaign system.

 

Yes, especially the first thing is something I've been bringing up for a while now. ? Hopefully it will become a reality.

[Avimimus]

36 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Yes, especially the first thing is something I've been bringing up for a while now. ? Hopefully it will become a reality.

 

Well then, I'll keep periodically floating the idea as well 

[RyanR]

2 hours ago, Avimimus said:

Honestly, I'd prefer more unequal scenarios (e.g. an option for the campaign to simulate the 49/1 sortie ratio during D-Day itself).

 

However, what we'd need for this is a realistic ability to abort the mission - if one is outnumbered and doesn't have an altitude advantage, then the squadron leader should usually direct the flight to avoid engaging... similarly, after the first pass an outnumbered enemy should have a chance of fleeing (even if they had an altitude advantage that gave them the confidence to make a single pass)..

 

We really need a 'realistic ratio' and 'realistic morale' options for the campaign system.

 

 

Great ideas. I'd been wishing there was a way to do an "organized egress" from a bad situation. A nose down and run. If you simply use the "follow me" command after it's smidgen too late, wingmen will fly straight and level, as the bandits shoot them down. 

 

I've noticed that friendlies and unfriendlies have a tendency to ignore their mission. If your mission is to protect something, then protect it! Don't go chasing bandits off to the ends of the earth. When they flee, let them go. I'll often have to recall the squadron from chasing fleeing bad guys with the "follow me" command to get them to disengage. Then use the "follow our mission" command once they get close again. Enemy squadrons need similar discipline.

 

Some of the Bodenplatte escort missions (in P-51's) really required you to corral your flight and stay on the ball. There were a lot of distractions en route to target, and if you let your guard down, A-8's and K-4's would make short work of the bombers you're supposed to be protecting. I learned this lesson the hard way. Chase some bandits down to the deck, and all of a sudden there's flaming B-25's falling out of the heavy clouds. Doh!

 

-Ryan

[oc2209]

11 hours ago, Eisenfaustus said:

Quite oversimplified version losing generals told after the war to rid themselves of blame and put it in a dictator who was seen as evil and hated anyway and couldn‘t defend himself anymore. 

Truth is way more complex and the military hierarchy has a huge part in most decisions which were clearly wrong in hindsight. 

 

Who had the most influence over the decisions to not withdraw from Moscow, Stalingrad, and the Falaise pocket, before things were too late to matter? Those are just off the top of my head.

 

Say what you will about revisionist generals, but it's very clear that Hitler's mentality was 'attack is the best form of defense.' Sometimes, it really is as simple as 'blame the megalomaniacal corporal who thinks he's God's gift to Germany.' Oh, sure, plenty of excuses can be made for him in some instances; he was fed misinformation that generally made the forces available to him seem stronger than they actually were. Nevertheless, that's the pitfall of all dictators who lead from far behind the frontlines, rather than delegate control and authority.

 

Ultimately it doesn't matter, since even the most competent generals in the world couldn't reverse the situation after the Soviet regime didn't collapse as had been expected in 1941. But I would say that Hitler's direct influence on frontline decisions certainly harmed more often than it helped. It's impossible to give correct orders without having intimate knowledge of actual conditions on a given area of the front; and yet he never stopped giving such uninformed orders until the bitter end.

[RyanR]

Back on topic. It's still the same. Super skewed on medium settings.

 

After a reinstall, I just flew a bomber intercept. Eight of us. Nine bombers, nine escorts. Escorts were P-39's so not too bad. Or so I thought. I dropped down and got an A-20 on the first pass with a high deflection shot. Put my nose up to regain energy and work in on escorts. Not sure how many escorts we got, but then three more P-39's came out of the east with much more altitude than us. OK.... Then 6 Yaks came with them! That's enemy 18 fighters in all. I recall (what's left of) my squadron with the "follow me" command and we try to make a run westward for altitude. We reversed when we had to and I had my squad "attack air targets".... after a few passes trying to get angles on the new bandits, I look back and realize that I've got 4 bandits "locked on" to me. Too close, and I'm running out of fuel (I took off with 50%), so I try to bug out for base. All four bandits follow me home.

 

Once the base AAA at Anapa started opening up on them, we were co-alt and my speed was higher... and I wasn't going to fly all the way to Kerch...  so I pitched back and reengaged. At this point, the remaining three of my squad showed up with some more bandits in tow, but the odds were better than 4 on 1. Somehow I picked off three more bandits, and friendlies must have gotten 1 or 2 others. I rolled in to land on fumes.

 

-Ryan

[oc2209]

6 minutes ago, RyanR said:

Not sure how many escorts we got, but then three more P-39's came out of the east with much more altitude than us. OK.... Then 6 Yaks came with them! That's enemy 18 fighters in all.

 

That's what you get for flying with a full flight of 8, ha ha.

 

No, seriously, that does sound exceptionally bad. Even for hard diff, and especially for medium. 

 

I just did a sortie now, intercept Sturmoviks, and it was 6 of us against 9 La-5s (and 6 Sturms) as the last few days have been. But because I was slow, we hadn't gotten as many kills as usual, by the time the second wave came in: this time, 5 Yak-1bs. I've seen second flights in the distance before, but we usually get out before they arrive. Not this time.

 

We had been mopping up the La-5s (albeit slowly), but the Yaks totally shifted the balance against us. 2 dead, 1 injured, 1 crashed (not injured), with only myself and another able to disengage. I had 2 cannon holes in my starboard aileron; a little further up the wing, and I'm sure it would've cracked off.

 

Yaks are a pain, as I've said. I only damaged 2 of them (not that well) before my cannon ammo was out.

 

Anyway, I'm beginning to wonder if this is a bug or if this is an intentional change to mission design to represent how screwed the Germans were by '43. I guess the only option you have for the time being, is to change diff. to easy. If only to see how the enemy numbers change.

[LukeFF]

4 hours ago, oc2209 said:

That's what you get for flying with a full flight of 8, ha ha.

 

The number of planes in the player's flight doesn't have anything to do with how many enemy planes are generated. ?

Edited November 26, 2022 by LukeFF

[oc2209]

39 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

The number of planes in the player's flight doesn't have anything to do with how many enemy planes are generated. ?

 

Whatever the case, he seems to be having worse luck in a 190 than I am in my 109. Maybe it's something to do with wherever his target areas are, though I doubt they'd differ much from mine.

 

I'm on hard diff., and one recent intercept mission had 'only' 9 LaGG-3s for escorts; no second wave. Next mission was the same, except some La-5s were coming in to support them from a nearby airfield. Just now I had 9 P-39s, which was a cakewalk.

 

And @RyanR's getting 12-18 planes regularly by the sounds of it. On medium diff. So something seems to be amiss.

[9./JG52Gruber]

16 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

The number of planes in the player's flight doesn't have anything to do with how many enemy planes are generated. ?

You sure about that? I have done some testing and have seen it does make a difference. Easy settings in a BoM bomber intercept if I take a flight of 4 there are 3 escorts and 6 IL2. If I just go buy myself there is only one escort. 

[LukeFF]

13 minutes ago, 9./JG52Gruber said:

You sure about that? I have done some testing and have seen it does make a difference. Easy settings in a BoM bomber intercept if I take a flight of 4 there are 3 escorts and 6 IL2. If I just go buy myself there is only one escort. 

 

100 percent certain ?

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, 9./JG52Gruber said:

You sure about that? I have done some testing and have seen it does make a difference. Easy settings in a BoM bomber intercept if I take a flight of 4 there are 3 escorts and 6 IL2. If I just go buy myself there is only one escort. 

 

Just started a clean career in Kuban, on medium diff.

 

First three intercepts:

 

6 in my flight, 5 escorts:

 

Spoiler

 

6 in my flight, 6 escorts (1 dead by flak already):

 

Spoiler

 

8 in my flight (after I added 2 from default of 6), 9 escorts:

 

Spoiler

 

The two bomber (not Sturmovik) intercepts were on the same day.

[oc2209]

Here's another 3, all in moderate diff. as above:

 

Flight of 6, escorts have 6:

 

Spoiler

 

And again:

 

Spoiler

 

And again:

 

Spoiler

 

Interestingly in that last one, however, there were 2 friendlies in the area, giving us a temporary 8-6 fighter advantage. However, 5 Yak-1bs came along within about 8 minutes, which again had catastrophic results for my flight.

 

Regardless, 6 escorts seems the norm on moderate diff. I only had an incursion of a second flight occur once.

 

Here's a couple funny incidents that I happened to be recording:

 

Headrest armor is officially unnecessary:

 

Spoiler

 

 

From my perspective, my pilot seemed wounded. Not the full tunnel vision, but definitely altered vision. So I inverted and bailed as quickly as I could, only to find that I had no injuries at all, and was able to do a second intercept later that day. Odd.

 

Also, I deserved to be hit, because I totally wasn't checking my six at all. I got cocky playing on moderate diff.

 

Second incident, my best bounce was almost my worst:

 

Spoiler

 

 

From the AI perspective, at reduced playback speed:

 

Spoiler

 

 

You might ask why I was going stupidly fast. Well, at one point in the pursuit, I was doing 350 MPH in a shallow dive, and still wasn't gaining on him (appreciably). So he was going full throttle until right before I rapidly overtook him; he probably cut throttle as a response to overheating.

[oc2209]

6 hours ago, 9./JG52Gruber said:

 If I just go buy myself there is only one escort. 

 

Just tried this out myself, on moderate diff. Hilariously, there were zero escorts, and I got two friendlies (not in my flight) to boot!

 

Spoiler

 

 

[oc2209]

On hard difficulty, going solo generated 3 escorts. Luckily they were P-40s, but unluckily they came out of cloud cover and I had no idea where they were (other than knowing by the map update that the intercept area was nearby).

 

Spoiler

 

 

My original plan was to do a high-speed pass and down one bomber to fulfill mission reqs, without tangling with the fighters at all. Despite being hit, I was able to do that anyway. I stopped recording when I thought there was nothing left to do but head back to base. Then I saw the P-40s were giving chase.

 

I maneuver killed two without hitting them with a single bullet. I shot the last one down legitimately:

 

Spoiler

 

Upon watching the recording, I wasn't hit as hard as I initially thought:

 

Spoiler

 

Looks like going solo is the best way to save lives and metal, both:

 

Spoiler

 

[RyanR]

There's some interesting stuff going on. The "density" setting may not be supposed to change anything in the air, but it seems to be doing exactly this. Just for bomber intercepts, I've seeing what others have mentioned elsewhere in these forums:

 

"Dense" density: 12 bombers in four groups of three

"Medium" density: 9 bombers in three groups of three

"Sparse" density: 6 bombers in three groups of three.

 

Also at "sparse" density, the AI enemy was seemingly less likely to chase us all the way home to our base. They gave chase and broke off much quicker.

 

Perhaps unrelated, but anytime I use the AQMB, the two difficulty settings seem to not work as expected. Could there be a relationship?

 

I wish I had more than anecdotes. It's also hard to gauge what's going on because I want these missions to have a good chance for failure. That's what keeps a game interesting. No challenge, no fun. Consequently, it's hard to draw an objective line in the sand between a "challenge" and "unfair".

 

As mentioned above in several places, it would be great to have a bit more control over the difficulty. The perfect marksmanship (one shot, one kill) of the enemy AI had me dialing back the difficulty to medium once I went from BoS to BoK.

 

It hit me last night that I should start a VVS career in BoK to see if the historical odds in favor of the Soviets are "baked in" to the sim. I don't recall it being this way, when I flew both sides in the past, but memories get fuzzy.

 

-Ryan