Medals in careers?

[Ken_Stallings]

Been playing the American side in a career mode Reinland.

 

I'm curious if there is a mark at which you earn the medals?  I've gotten 25 victories and haven't been awarded anything past the second Silver Star and six Air Medals that were awarded in the game multiple missions back.  Seems that may be the extent of the medal awards.  Anyone else earned a DSC or MoH in the career mode and if so, is there a known threshold for the higher stuff?

[Hotaru_Ito]

Looks like DSC needs 5-6 victories in a single mission; MoH needs 7 or 5 if the player is wounded. There's a detailed guide to career awards here:

 

I've never gotten either in a vanilla career. The planets kind of have to align to have a chance to score that many victories in one mission. Probably more doable on harder settings with more enemies to shoot down.

 

Hope this helps!

[peterk1]

You want medals, fly the Russian side. They have a medal for everything and you get at least one every mission. Getting into the plane. Using your flaps. Not dying.

[BlitzPig_EL]

 

I got yer medals.

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, peterk1 said:

You want medals, fly the Russian side. They have a medal for everything and you get at least one every mission. Getting into the plane. Using your flaps. Not dying.

 

Not really 

[JMax]

4 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

 

I got yer medals.

LOL. Excellent. Mega medals.And MEGA hats too.

[Trooper117]

They are North Koreans... you could say they are almost Russians!

[peterk1]

I bet they got their pockets full of rubles too. 

I love the swagger on the 2nd guy from the left.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

They look like little kids playing dress-up in their Dad's uniforms.

[Aleksander55]

On 11/23/2024 at 11:06 PM, peterk1 said:

You want medals, fly the Russian side. They have a medal for everything and you get at least one every mission. Getting into the plane. Using your flaps. Not dying.

It kind of makes sense. Soviet careers in Moscow and Stalingrad are survival horror. It's much easier nowadays, some 7-8 updates ago it was even harder. Waves and waves of interceptors being spawned aimed at you and your squadron. Your squadron anihilated almost every mission and you fleeing back to your base with anywhere from 5 to 15 EA on your tail. And they'd stay over your airbase until your fuel ran out.  That's how I learned to dodge gunfire, basic survival skill.💀

 

'You didn't die! Our greatest pilot for the motherland!' ✨💫🏅🥇🎖️

[Rudini]

@Ken_Stallings

as it is written in Sun Tse 1500 years BC, if a war is well prepared and executed, there is no need for medals!

 

By the way, here some perfect war criterias noted by heart:

 

- prepare your economy and people, especially the youth for 20 years

 

- demoralize your enemy within this time with propaganda and selfdestructive mindset, and economical isolation, then prepare for a short war. Sometimes a war is not needed if demoralization works 100% well.

 

- best timeframe for wars: September - October, or March - April.

 

- maximum duration: 6 weeks. No heroes needed. No medals needed, except for the Leader or some Generals.

 

 

Okay, here you can see it worked for the Wehrmacht in Poland, France and Balkans a bit. But then, England, Soviet Union you need heroes.  Hans-Ulrich Rudels medals proof the failure of the Wehrmacht.

Though as you can see in the Il-2 award criteria post as the war progressed, soviet rubel prices dropped and medals were not so easy awarded like in the beginning since the tide of war changed and began to favor the allies.

 

Lot of Medal of Honours were awarded in the tough (ground)battles on Iwo Jima (most by juming on grenades to protect comrades and sacrifice themself) with lots of US losses.

 

Edited November 26, 2024 by Rudini

[Ken_Stallings]

In the Eighth Air Force (ETO) it was exceedingly rare for a fighter pilot to earn an MoH.  The Marines on the other hand awarded them to any of their top aces who managed to bag 25 or more kills.  Just a total difference in philosophy.  The USAAF did not award the MoH nor the DSC for achieving a given total kill tally.  

 

It is interesting that award philosophy for ground units were fairly similar for all US branches of service.

 

The Luftwaffe point system was interesting as those needed tallies were significantly lower in the first year of the war and steadily were increased as the war dragged on.  It became a situation where it was deemed too many fighter pilots were likely to earn the highest awards and there was an implicit numerical limit.  In fact, the only real "mistake" I find with how the Luftwaffe medals are awarded is the Knights Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.  It was the plan to award them after Germany won the war and only to the top eight heroes of the war.  Rudel received his only because the senior leadership realized that Germany wasn't going to win the war and they wanted to award their highest decoration at least once.  Rudel was chosen because he had by far the best overall individual record of any member of the German armed forces.  

 

In terms of the book "The Art of War" it has some interesting points, but it's by no means without its weaknesses.  They applied when monarchs ruled supreme and wars were fought more or less on an elective basis and the monarchs treated it like a sport contest.  That ended when nations turned to being republics and war was seen as inherently evil and was avoided, but when entered was fought until the other side that started the war was destroyed.  Wars were not treated like sporting contests, but endeavors of survival or death.  Sun Tzu's book wasn't written for that sort of approach.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

On 2/1/2025 at 4:33 AM, Ken_Stallings said:

Rudel was chosen because he had by far the best overall individual record of any member of the German armed forces.

Not to mention that he was a convinced Nazi...

 

On 2/1/2025 at 4:33 AM, Ken_Stallings said:

That ended when nations turned to being republics and war was seen as inherently evil and was avoided, but when entered was fought until the other side that started the war was destroyed.

Not necessarily. Many republican wars were not necessarily about land per se. Take the four wars between the English and the Dutch Republic in the 17th century, of which the first one features a Republican England as well. These were essentially wars about trading rights; about control of the sea much more than they were about control of the land. It was in really nobody's interest to keep on fighting until the other side was destroyed. Which is the reason there were four wars in thirty years, because peace treaties kept being made without first getting the underlying issues resolved.

[Ken_Stallings]

Of course Hans Rudel was a Nazi.  He was an ardent Nazi.  Completely unlike others like Adolph Galland and Werner Molders, Rudel was 100% in support of the Nazi party.

 

As an individual, he was amoral for this.  But, in terms of his combat record, it was without peer on any side of the war.  

 

Back in the 17th century, neither Great Britain nor the Netherlands were republics.  They were full fledged monarchies.  This was the period of time during the English Civil War where Parliament was trying to establish its independence from the monarch and a lot of people were killed as a result, and at the end, despite the efforts of Oliver Cromwell, the monarchy was restored.

 

There were all sorts of terms thrown around back then, without meaning much less merit.  The idea of a Constitutional Republic was fantasy back in the 17th century.  John Locke's political theories of republican democracy were in their infancy of evolution.  It wasn't until 1689 that Locke wrote the seminal work Two Treatises of Government, which laid out the philosophy of guaranteed individual liberties ordained by God and by which legitimate governments had to foster and protect.

 

In the Netherlands, it wasn't until the same time that the Glorious Revolution took place.  However, at the end of it, one monarchial family replaced another.  In addition, the prime dividing line was religious -- Catholic versus Protestant.  Ultimately, it was a fight among monarchial families within two nations about who would remain in power over each.  It may have called itself the Dutch Republic, and no doubt there were many people who wanted the monarchy to step down entirely.  But, it didn't happen as William III of Orange ended up in power.

[LukeFF]

Okay, I think we're getting a bit off topic here. 🙂

[Ken_Stallings]

On 11/24/2024 at 1:30 PM, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

They look like little kids playing dress-up in their Dad's uniforms.

 

FWIW:  Even though the look is without question shocking to the point of absurdity, I remember that in North Korean culture, if you're in the military, you wear whatever medals your forefathers earned.  So, that accounts for some of it.  It's also part of the reason why children are often punished for what their parents and grandparents did wrong in the eyes of the government.