Um, is my memory foggy or didn't Germany lose
ALL OF THEIR FRIGGIN AIRCRAFT in 1945?
LOL, it might have been a PFC carrying a rifle that strolled up to it, but if we're getting technical, every single one of them was a combat loss.
100% Zero survivability. Not all of them were destroyed, certainly, but none of them as machines of the Third Reich.
The point of my saying this? Well, first, I love to deflate grogs by stating the obvious, particularly LW advocates. It's almost as if they're upset Germany lost the war.
Secondly, there's a big piece of combat readiness missing in this game: the people that were there.
I wouldn't dare try to solo a Cessna after 4-6 hours of instruction....yet Soviet pilots went to the front lines to fight experienced LW pilots during WWII with just that amount of training.
And kills will always be inflated when compared against production numbers. Heck, this happens in dogfight servers, where we can all lean back in our comfy chairs and sip coffee.
Example: I was flying the other night and just pasted this FW190 with my MG's and a cannon round from my P-39. He smoked, stuff flew off of him, and he did the death spiral. I didn't follow him down (why give up altitude) and waited for the kill confirmation that never came.
Why not? Well, the guy recovered the stall and squeaked it to his runway, ultimately landing with a dead stick. I wish it was icons or that I'd paid attention to the messages because it was fantastic flying by the Hun bastage....and I watched from the ol' external view.
If that had been real life, I would have claimed the kill, the gun camera footage would have been compelling, and I would have put a little German cross under my cockpit.
Fifty years later somebody would look back with the luxury of seeing both sets of reports and notice that I claimed a kill that day, but the Germans reported none. Maybe a damaged plane, even a complete loss as far as the mechanics were concerned, but not a kill or enemy victory.And then call me a liar (in so many words).
Likewise, if a pilot damaged the same plane (assuming it was repaired) to the extent that it appeared to be a kill (nosed up in a field, down but repairable) a second time, it gets further inflated.This wasn't possible during the Battle of Britain, as you couldn't get a tow truck over to Essex to fetch back your 109 (
), but was possible on the Eastern Front.
Which leads me to the clear troll comment about cowardly P-47 pilots:
LW pilots weren't cowardly when they shot down raw pilots mercilessly - they were doing what they needed to. I guess they were supposed to wait for the VVS pilots to get experienced enough to defend themselves?
Not even in WWI was there respect for a "fair fight." They weren't building snow forts, they were fighting to survive.
And the cheap shot: Isn't Barstow, CA where Johnny "Taliban" Walker is from?
Explains a lot about the comment, doesn't it?
[This message has been edited by BA_Dart (edited 06-07-2002).]
[This message has been edited by BA_Dart (edited 06-07-2002).]