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ORIGINAL: Erkki

While I'm new to the game, actually nearly every heavy-duty strategies, I'm not new to military aviation history, which belongs to my hobbies, or simulators; been (mostly flight) simming nearly last 10 years...

So far in my BTR campaign the 4th is about to rise, casualties are 111:305(of 152 x B17, 10 x B26, 16 x misc. bombers); Bomber Command hasnt showed its ugly face yet. While casualty rates look great, way below max sustainable casualties, I think so are the Allies'(apart from B17s perhaps, 50/day [:D])

I'm pretty sure some of these questions are answered in the game manual(which I didnt bother to read all through), but hwg...

Squadrons; can squadrons be completely wiped out, or can they be created(ie. if I'd have been rather succeffull in avoiding Spitfire strafe attacks and had lots of extra pilots and planes...)? Or will I just have very weak and/or overstrong squadrons?

naw, you get the squadrons you get, you can't get rid or make new ones, the AI picks who needs planes, pilots, but some units have reinforcement pilots that come in

How does the reinforcement pool work? Will it automatically, at the end of each turn, ship squadrons missing aircraft the aircraft they need provided that there happen to be enough in the pool, or what?

The German radars, in BoB the radars scanned above 3000ft(long range, white) and above 500ft(smaller, red), I have a _feeling_ that this is not the case in BTR... Or is it?

do you get red and white circles ?

Aircraft have cruise speeds and top speeds; however speed is(or should be) altitude-dependant... Is this modelled? If it is, is there any way info on how top speeds varying depending on altitude are modelled could be dug up? Or do planes just get positive/negative bonuses at some altitudes?

no Speed is not modelled by Alt, a hassle, mostly, where found, the best speed at alt was used

Lastly... I dont quite get how some of the statistics of the aircraft are, ie. how does A6 have more durability but less endurance compared to A5, when they are practically the same aircraft with different outer wing weapons? How about P51D's gun rate compared to FW190A6: 18 vs 20... Thats 6 wing mounted HMGs vs. 2 wing mounted 20mm cannons, 2 20mm cannons in wing roots and 2 MGs in hull, with comparable ammunition, reliability, but if I dont remember wrong USAAF itself estimated a single cannon to be worth 3½ of HMGs; shouldnt FW's gun rate by that logic be at least somewhere around 42...? Many others too, just those two rose to my mind first...

would be very interested to see where the USSAF ever said anything like that, they thought the cannon was bad, a 50 puts out a whole lot more lead per second then the 20 mm did, and a lot of times, the damage done with the 20 mm, was surface damager, while the 50 went though what it hit, 30 mm is a little different round, and, if the 20 mm were so good, why did a lot of German pilots take the outer wing guns off of there planes ?


the A-6 is starting to take on weight, those outer guns are heavier then what the A-5 had, plus it had more armor, and new plumbing, which lets it carry "PaK" weapons that the A-5 doesn't

Lastly... Anyone ever seen B-534s get a single kill? [8D]

think it will be HARDer with Harley changes to combat, but yea, I have seen them get kills, depends on what they hit and when

but they are a bit outclassed by this time

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ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

do you get red and white circles ?

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would be very interested to see where the USSAF ever said anything like that, they thought the cannon was bad, a 50 puts out a whole lot more lead per second then the 20 mm did, and a lot of times, the damage done with the 20 mm, was surface damager, while the 50 went though what it hit, 30 mm is a little different round, and, if the 20 mm were so good, why did a lot of German pilots take the outer wing guns off of there planes ?


the A-6 is starting to take on weight, those outer guns are heavier then what the A-5 had, plus it had more armor, and new plumbing, which lets it carry "PaK" weapons that the A-5 doesn't

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ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

The German MG151/20 fires nearly at the same rate of fire as the Browning M2, the 151/20 firing 71,25kg/minute worth of lead(if all ammo is of the lightest ammo type, Minengeschloss), max weight for an M2 round is(according to wikipedia) 52g, weight of fire being 44,2kg/min... In shot energy/time M2 is closer, however AP rounds of the MG151 are heavier and have considerable higher muzzle speed than the Minengeschloss, and M2 doesnt have any kind of explosive effects in its ammo unlike the cannon, improving its long-range lethality and probability of putting shrapnels in places not directly reachable say, firing from 6 o clock.

odd, the Mine round was faster then the AP round, by about 100 M/s, 805 to 705, with the 50 cal, being 889

so, the 50 does have a higher Rate of Fire, and has higher MV also, plus, the simple fact that it carried a lot more ammo, and basicly, is going to be firing 6 or 8 barrels, to the FW's 2 (4 if using the outer guns, and needs to be on target, but different ROF and spread then the root guns)

also, from your other post, don't look like you having any trouble with the LW firepower



the root guns had 250 RPG, and the outer guns had 140, and those root guns, are going to be much more slower, then any gun used for a Stat Test, there ROF was linked to the RPM of the Props

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ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

your not thinking it though

the wing guns on the Allied fighters, are all wing guns, the guns on the FW will be nose mounted, wingroot (which will be very close to the center line still, so set up as nose guns) and wing guns, trying to link the wing guns, to match the aim point of the nose guns, is going to be very HARD

(the weapon load out for the 109 Z never made any sense to me, 4 Mk108's and 1 Mk103, if the aimpoint for the 103 is on target, the 108s are going to be missing, if the aimpoint for the 108s are on, the 103 is going to be missing, unless totally pointblank)

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the trouble with your thinking is the 151/20 is that much more effective, people playing with stats, say it must of been, not the pilots who flew for either side, you have predetermined that the 151/20 is better, so it got to be better

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you say you are a flight simmer, well so am I am, from IL-2, you got to know what Olaf thinks about the 151/20 and what he thinks about the 50 cal, both of the stink, the only gun that was any good, was anything made in Russian

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ORIGINAL: Nicholas Bell

Don't think you should simply look at the gun rating in the stats.  Better to look at the individual weapon status as range and penetration play their part.  Also remember the effective values are not linear in effect, and the critical hit routines are convoluted.  Harley is not given to explaining his code to help us understand.  I guess he thinks it is going to spoil our fun.  While I don't agree with this, it's his code and no amount of past badgering has made him change his tune on revealing how things work in the game. 

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Recon interception is realistically difficult.  Geometry is important - you never want to be chasing from the start.  Sometimes better to intercept the recon on it's return leg when you can better calculate it's path.  I don't agree that the G55s are the only way to go.  In my current campaign the AI controlled 109s and 190s have taken a heavy toll of my high flying recons.  And the Italian planes required 2 engines instead of one to simulate production problems, so the engines quickly become a bottleneck.

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You are correct in your comment about 1 20mm being worth 3+ .50 cals - I just read the same report recently.  I personally am not one who believes the .50 cal was the best thing since sliced bread, but it did the job against fighters and lightly constructed bombers, and was all the USAAF needed.  The USN disagreed and wanted the 20mm's, but as you point out there were serious problems with US 20mm cannon and ammo production standards (and bureaucracy).  What was really unfortunate was this thinking carried on after the war.  In game, the 4 20mm gunned RAF fighters realistically portray why the rest of the world was switching to cannons.

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ORIGINAL: Hard Sarge

The German MG151/20 fires nearly at the same rate of fire as the Browning M2, the 151/20 firing 71,25kg/minute worth of lead(if all ammo is of the lightest ammo type, Minengeschloss), max weight for an M2 round is(according to wikipedia) 52g, weight of fire being 44,2kg/min...