AAMG Effectiveness?

[Bullethead 12]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before.

 

I've only just been able to return to flying OFF after taking several weeks off due to real life becoming busy. In my previous experience with older versions, AAMG fire was a bother but not something likely to cause you much harm unless you went looking for it. IOW, if you strafed an airfield, or went after a balloon, you'd likely be shot up, sometimes badly. However, if you just flew across the trenches at several hundred feet without hanging around or looking for trouble, you weren't likely to be hit by anything. You rarely even saw AAMG tracer unless you were pretty close to them. Only the bursting archie bothered you. In fact, in all the time I flew OFF before my break, I don't recall ever seeing AAMG fire hit reported in the mission replays, unless there was an apparent airfield or balloon strafe going on, and those didn't happen very often.

 

But now I've got 1.30b. And the biggest change I've noticed is that AAMGs now rule the skies. Anything below about 4000 feet gets shot to pieces by them. I had a mission last night where AAMGs, according to the replay, accounted for about 25 of the 30-odd aircraft on both sides that were shot down while I was flying. This included 11 out of 12 DFWs, none of which got below 2000 feet AFAIK, and they got a lot of hits on the 12th one too, although I claimed it :). Most of them were shot down when not over any real target, but flying between them at 4000 feet or so. I also noticed an entire flight of Quirks at 3500 feet got wiped out by them just behind the lines, between the troops there and the 1st line of ground targets. And I myself was well riddled by friendly AAMGs while flying within about 200 yards of a Hun. It took forever to watch the replay because of the near-constant stream of messages about AAMGs hitting planes.

 

Is this happening to anybody else? I think it's a bit extreme, and I'm wondering if I can tweak the settings to make this stop.

 

It's been a while and of course it's now impossible to check, but IIRC there used to be a Workshop setting in older versions of OFF for ground fire effectiveness. This setting is no longer there in 1.30b, if it ever existed at all. So I'm guessing the AAMG effectiveness is now rolled up into various settings for airplane guns.

 

Here's how I have my guns set right now:

• Player Guns Only: Normal
  
• AI Gun Fire (Range): Realistic
  
• Main Guns: Normal
  
• Rear Guns: Hard
  

Would changing any of this keep AAMGs from being the sky-sweeping deathdealers they are now? It's rather frustrating to go chasing after Huns only to have their whole formation wiped out by AAMGs before I can close in on them ;).

 

BTW, I'm using the standard damage model, too.

 

Also, I'm not sure about the AI Gun Fire (Range) being so realistic. I find them continually shooting at me (and hitting) from 300-400 yards.

 

Any help would be appreciated. I'm trying to be as realistic as possible. Thanks.

[Interlocutor 0]

BH, if you set your "AI Gun Fire (Range)" to "Normal" instead of "Realistic" this problem will go away, or at least be much diminished.

 

I had the same experience on the "Realistic" setting, kept losing pilots to Archie and AA of all sorts. In another thread, Polovski said to re-set the above setting to "Normal" to fix the problem.

[Bullethead 12]

BH, if you set your "AI Gun Fire (Range)" to "Normal" instead of "Realistic" this problem will go away, or at least be much diminished.

 

OK, I dood it. Thanks :). I see that dropped my realism from 110 to 100, though. Seems strange, because if it tones down the AAMGs, it would make things more realistic IMHO

[Interlocutor 0]

OK, I dood it. Thanks :). I see that dropped my realism from 110 to 100, though. Seems strange, because if it tones down the AAMGs, it would make things more realistic IMHO

 

I agree, I feel that the "Pilot Attrition Rate" (PAR? ) from "Realistic" AI Gun Fire (Range) was, err, unrealistic. But I suppose it's a matter of opinion.

 

BTW, I use "Main Guns = Hard" instead of "Normal", and got that 10% back; my guys thus have 110%.

[Bletchley 8]

With 'AI Gun Fire (Range)' set to "Realistic" both Anti-Aircraft Artillery and ground fire from MG guns is certainly very fierce in OFF, and especially so in the late period of the war when there is a lot more of it. My earlier suggestion was to set it to "Realistic" only for 1918, but even this is perhaps a bit too fierce (and in particular, like many others, I don't like the AI pilots' tendency to open fire accurately at what appears to be an 'unrealistic' range).

 

Pilot attrition from both AAA and ground MGs, as a proportion of total combat losses (discounting losses from accidents and 'unknowns', which actually account for far more) was between 15% and 20% for 1917/18 for both German and British pilots (sources vary slight, but remain consistently within this range - my own figures set it at around 17% for both). Aircraft losses for the war as a whole also appear to fall within the same range, perhaps slightly more (using the figures suupplied by Henshaw at the back of 'The sky their battlefield', Allied losses were 20% in 1917, 25% in 1918). If you just look at specific months during 1917 and 1918 there are some dramatic peaks, however - 40% in November 1917 (Battle of Cambrai) and 44% in March 1918 (German Spring Offensive), with lesser peaks in December 1917 (27%, Battle of Cambrai again), August/November 1918 (29% and 28%, dropping slightly to 22%-25% in September-October). Pilot losses, however, remain consistent at 17% for both months - suggesting that the bulk of these AA shoot-downs were at low level, with pilots managing to walk away from crash landings on their own side of the lines (something supported by the anecdotal evidence).

 

OFF appears to be rather severe on crash landings though - most of mine seem to end in pilot loss at the 'DiD' setting - so I have moved on now to flying at "realistic" just for balloon missions, and reducing the setting to "normal" for all other missions in 1916/17/18, and 'easy' for 1915 (although flying as a German pilot I would set it to 'normal' for 1917/18 and 'easy' for 1915/16, to reflect accounts of poor Allied AAA effectivness up to late in 1916).

 

Bletchley

[Wels 2]

Hello,

 

only flying the E.III, The Halberstadt and the ALb D.II my "experience" is probably not too big, but i have made some observations ..

 

1. the AA (Archie) from the ground is a bit too exact.

2. the ground AA machine guns are too exact. :yes:

3. the rear MG of e.g. the Sopwith strutter is way too exact.

4. the MGs of enemy planes still hit from very large distances, and almost every shot is a hit.

5. main concern my own MG accuracy and evading "tactics" suck badly

 

Hrrm but really, I can say that it has been a big improvement from P2 to P3, those great distance shots are gone. But I still think the enemy's distance hit accuracy still is a bit (!) too good from greater distance, regardless which gun or cannon used.

And always beware of those double-rear-MG two seaters, they are deadly. Only chance is attacking almost vertically from above, out of the sun (is this really modelled AI-wise that they do not see you then in time?) with max. dive speed, concentrating on one plane, and then do this well-known manouever #1 of getting the hell out of there (not in the "dicta Boelcke").

 

Greetings,

Catfish

[+Winder 32]

Hello,

 

only flying the E.III, The Halberstadt and the ALb D.II my "experience" is probably not too big, but i have made some observations ..

 

1. the AA (Archie) from the ground is a bit too exact.

2. the ground AA machine guns are too exact. :yes:

3. the rear MG of e.g. the Sopwith strutter is way too exact.

4. the MGs of enemy planes still hit from very large distances, and almost every shot is a hit.

5. main concern my own MG accuracy and evading "tactics" suck badly

 

Hrrm but really, I can say that it has been a big improvement from P2 to P3, those great distance shots are gone. But I still think the enemy's distance hit accuracy still is a bit (!) too good from greater distance, regardless which gun or cannon used.

And always beware of those double-rear-MG two seaters, they are deadly. Only chance is attacking almost vertically from above, out of the sun (is this really modelled AI-wise that they do not see you then in time?) with max. dive speed, concentrating on one plane, and then do this well-known manouever #1 of getting the hell out of there (not in the "dicta Boelcke").

 

Greetings,

Catfish

 

In a recent patch we did fix 2 seaters such that they can effectively be attacked from rear under (i.e by the book) - you can kill the rear gunner this way or kill the craft/pilot.

 

Finally I am contemplating making the gunnery spread wider and more random so that accuracy is diminished for all guns (yes selectable) but we will see.

 

Best

 

WM

[Wels 2]

Hello Winder,

thanks for answering, i guess my "problems" have more to do with my own combat flying capabilities rather than real issues lol

Greetings,

Catfish

[sgha 0]

The only decent book I can find about german flak has a chapter on WW1 (Flak - German Anti-Aircraft Dfenses 1914-1945, Edward Westermann) with some rather interesting information. It mentions a study carried out by a german officer in 1926 which estimates that the 748 entente aircraft destroyed by flak in 1918 represented an effective shoot down percentage of one eighth of a percent of the 600,000 sorties that could have been (but often probably were not ed.) engaged by flak during the period.

 

It also gives data for the number of artillery shells fired per aircraft destroyed.

 

1914 - 11,500

1918 - 5,040

 

Clearly they got better at it, but they were also probably often firing at larger formations as well.

 

While the data include all flak, most of which was employed protecting cities and industrial installations which were increasingly attacked by night, it still gives a feel for the true effectiveness of flak - ie very low.

 

(That is not to say that dawdling around within MG range of the ground is a good idea, I hasten to add...)

[Siggi 10]

The book I've just finished reading (On a Wing and a Prayer) mentions the use of Brisfits in low-level strafing and bombing over the trenches, and the pilot being quoted says how the majority were put out of action by MGs, needing extensive repairs back at base. So it would appear that they were hit very badly but not actually brought down in the majority of cases.

[Bullethead 12]

So it would appear that they were hit very badly but not actually brought down in the majority of cases.

 

Guys doing actual ground strafing missions and such took pretty heavy losses. I just was reading how Arthur Gould Lee was shot down 3 times in 9 days during the Cambrai battle due to strafing German troops just behind or right on the trenches . Another book (I think it was another) mentioned the pilots making bets on how many holes they'd get during ground attack missions, and says that 30 was about average. Both squadrons took pretty heavy losses doing this work, and I understand the Schlasta also suffered badly.

 

So it seems to me that if you get down low and spend much time in AAMG zones, messing with ground targets or balloons, you're going to get hurt. That's fine with me. That would be the natural and expected outcome.

 

What's not natural or expected is that, at least when using "AI Gun Fire (Range) = Realistic", just passing by minding your own business at 4000 feet will usually get you killed before you've gone more than a couple of miles. And not by exploding shells, but by AAMGs. Plus, of course, AI planes continually nail you from 1200-1400 feet away during dogfights. So I'm thinking the "Realistic" here is rather better shooting than reality :). I doubt I'll be using it again any time soon.

 

Of course, I'm getting these ranges and altitudes from the replay. And I've noticed that this sometimes doesn't report numbers accurately. For instance, I recently saw it say that a plane shot down about 20 miles away from me was at a range of "very close to player" . So it could be that I'm basing my opinions here on bad data. Hell, it might be explosive archie and not AAMGs doing the damage. But OTOH, I've been close enough to observe whole formations getting wiped out by what looked like AAMG fire while at 4000 feet (per my own altimeter), so I think I'm probably pretty close here.