not much of a counter claim, more like a wall of ramblings that have little meaning.
Exactly. This is also a natural course of things.
One peasant who never held a sword being equiped with machinegun is able to easily defeat 100 swordmasters.
Effectiveness and easy to operate is general direction in weapon development.
Can you name a game about WW2 planes that has the same sales as Ace Combat series?
I am sure you do. The question is how many of those like you.
I like dogfighting flying modern planes. Both with guns and missiles.
Meanwhile modern jet training takes years IRL, while WWII pilots trained ~3-6 months.
But devs made jets gameplay a 1-button shoot-and-forget. No flying skills needed.
AB and RB players come to sim straight to jet era and have no problems at all.
They skip that “flying” that older aircraft have.
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No surprise at all. I was talking about effectiveness and easy to operate (fly). Modern aircraft have complicated weapon to learn.
Still needed some to avoid missiles and do dogfights.
Which proves my point on easy to fly.
I wish we could have good gameplay for modern aircraft, so the ASB mode at top tier could be more popular.
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This is not an advantage, but a problem in Sim mode.
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I feel this is rather broad strokes for WW2 pilots and likely depends heavily on nation and theatre (and we need to consider accident rates. Lots of pilots died on take off/crashing from such rapid training.)
Here’s one quote I have:
Originally, c. 1939, pilots were all of good caliber. Candidates for the VVS were chosen from volunteers who had to meet a pretty strict set of requirements for both education and political reliability, including completion of a flying course with roughly 30-40 hours flight time, and then an 18 month course at the military pilots school, which included 80 hours flight in trainers, and 30 in combat aircraft (For comparison, a Luftwaffe fighter pilot would have 150-200 total hours upon deployment, so slightly more). There were also former advisors to Spain who had combat experience, which of course was useful. In 1940 though, the Defense Ministry screwed the pooch, so to speak. The course was reduced to 12 months, and instead of volunteers, candidates were screened from the draftees for the Red Army. Due to this, pilots were no longer junior lieutenants, but sergeants, upon graduation. It was believed that this would somehow improve the Air Force, but as you might expect, it destroyed pilot quality, and hurt discipline, to have draftees instead of volunteers training to be pilots. Combine this with the fact that these poor quality pilots were only just beginning to switch over to very new, very different machines in 1941, the Soviet Air Force was a total mess during Barbarossa.
It wasn’t until the beginning of 1943 that the 1940 reforms were mostly erased, although the exigencies of war meant the training course was only nine months at that point, although it would return to 12 months near the end when Russia was not quite as pressed in, with a pilot still getting 100 hours of flight time before deployment. German pilots still enjoyed a positive kills-to-loss rate through mid-1943, but by 1944, the Soviet pilots were dishing out more than they took.
Excerpt from a greater post citing the following works:
(https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2lgspr/how_did_the_soviet_air_force_develop_over_the/clus2qf/ )
Air War Over Russia by Andrew Brookes
Black Cross x Red Star: The Air War Over the Eastern Front, Volume 2: Resurgence January-June 1942 by Christer Bergstrom and Andrey Mikhailov
Stalin’s Eagles by Hans D. Seidl
La-5/7 vs. FW 190: Eastern Front 1942-45 by Dmitriy Khazanov
Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War 2: Single-Engined Fighters by by Dmitriy Khazanov and Yefim Gordon
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I do not think many players would play ASB if you force them to master WW2 planes first.
Now you have Ace of Thunder with no farmers and PvE players.
Yeah, I know it, that’s why I took information from US pilot training programs of that era.
Spoiler
Aviation Cadet Program (USAAF)
1941–47
Primary Pilot Training taught basic flight using two-seater training aircraft. This was usually done by contract schools (civilian pilot training schools) through the Civil Aeronautics Authority – War Training Service (CAA-WTS). Cadets got around 60 to 65 flight hours in Stearman, Ryan, or Fairchild primary trainers before going to Basic.
Basic Pilot Training taught the cadets to fly in formation, fly by instruments or by aerial navigation, fly at night, and fly for long distances. Cadets got about 70 flight hours in BT-9 or BT-13 basic trainers before being promoted to Advanced Training.
Advanced Pilot Training placed the graduates in two categories: single-engined and multi-engined. Single-engined pilots flew the AT-6 advanced trainer. Multi-engined pilots learned to fly the AT-9, AT-10, AT-11 or AT-17 advanced trainers. Cadets were supposed to get a total of about 75 to 80 flight hours before graduating and getting their pilot’s wings.
Transition Pilot Training Single-engined pilots transitioned to fighters and fighter-bombers and multi-engined pilots transitioned to transports or bombers. Pilots got two months of training before being sent into combat duty.
Graduates were usually graded as flight officers (warrant officers). Cadets who graduated at the top of their class were graded as second lieutenants. Aviation cadets who washed out of pilot training were sent to navigator or bombardier school. Aviation cadets who washed out of navigator or bombardier training were usually sent to Flexible Gunnery School to become aerial gunners.
Liaison Pilot School lasted 60 flight hours. It was an option for cadets who had passed primary training, but had washed out of basic or advanced training. They were trained to fly single-engined light aircraft similar to the light trainers they flew in Primary and were given training in takeoffs over obstacles, short-field landings, and low-altitude navigation. Their duties included transportation of troops and supplies, medical evacuation, aerial photography, and low-level reconnaissance. Graduates received liaison pilot wings. They were originally graded as flight staff sergeants until 1942, when they were graded as flight officers.
Bombardier School lasted 18 weeks. It consisted of 425 hours of ground instruction in the proficiencies of a bombardier (plus familiarity with the tasks of the pilot, radioman, or navigator in case of an emergency). After 3 weeks this included 120 hours of air training in which the cadet began with practice runs and ended by performing bombing runs with live ordnance. Graduates received a bombardier’s wings.
That’s how it should be.
But with auto trim…
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IRL, I completely agree. But here we are in the game, not in top gun academy.
I think, at some point they will stop to begin with old planes. They do not teach real pilots on how to duel with pistols flying ww1 planes, right?
Moreover, this game is commercial project, that should make money.
I do not think players will appreciate, if they have to fly old planes before being able to play modern jets.
Why did they do this?
Those hours seem far less than given in the following defense.gov source.
Pilot Training
To support full-up production in
anticipation of America’s eventual entry
into World War II, Training Command
officials estimated that about 3,600
instructor pilots and 12,000 training
aircraft would be needed to support the
30,000-pilot program. To meet the
requirement, officials reduced the flying
training program to three, nine-week
phases in March 1942. Student pilots
received about 200 hours in the air.
Helping to streamline the program,
initial military training, as well as
administration of the classification
battery, was moved into a preflight
program.
I wonder if differences come down to whether front-line aircraft training is included or not? Since in your source, it only talks about them flying trainer aircraft without direct hours in their assigned vehicles.
Wiki itself gives a third quote for USN for the period but does not give a reliable citation.
Primary Flight School was at NAS Pensacola and it taught basic flying and landing. It used the NAF N3N or Stearman N2S Primary trainers, dubbed “Yellow Perils” from their bright yellow paintscheme (and the inexperience of the student pilots).
Basic Flight School was broken into two parts: part one taught instrument flying and night flying and part two taught formation flying and gunnery; an additional part three stage for single-engined aircraft pilots taught carrier landing. They used the North American SNJ Basic trainer.
Advanced Flight Training qualified the pilot on either a single-engined fighter, dive-bomber or torpedo bomber or a multiple-engined transport, patrol plane or bomber; graduates were classed as Naval Aviators and received gold Naval Aviator wings. Each graduate had around 600 total flight hours, with approximately 200 flight hours on front-line Navy aircraft. Pilots who washed out were assigned as regular ensigns.
This page which seems to be biography of “Ed Scharch”
quotes for 1943 USN:
- ~35-40 hours in college War Training Services (before acceptance to navy flight school)
- ~100 hours Primary flight school (NAS Minneapolis)
- ~160 hours in Intermediate Flight school (NATC Pensacola)
- Unconfirmed, but assumed 110 hours at Operation Flight school at (NAS Jacksonville)
It looks like this website is the Wiki’s cited source (further down it quotes the 600 hours number). I cannot attest to its quality, it seems like a biographical work.
Edit:
Asking Historians, I got -
A significant number of pilots from the British Fleet Air Arm went through the USN’s pilot training system, under the Towers Scheme. The training took place in four stages. Initial or primary training, carried out with the N3N or N2S, was about 85 hours. This taught the basics of flight, from taking off and landing, through basic aerobatics to formation and night flying. Intermediate training was carried out on the SU-2 (a modified version of the OS2U) or SNJ Harvard. This took about 150 hours, and focused on training the pilots to fly more complex aircraft in more realistic situations - more formation flying and flying in instrument conditions - as well as some combat training. The third stage of training was advanced training, carried out mostly on obsolete combat aircraft like the Brewster Buffalo. For fighter pilots, the advanced training syllabus called for 93.5 hours of flight training, introducing them to gunnery and simulated carrier landings. Finally, there was operational training, which taught them to fly the actual aircraft they would fly in combat. For British pilots, this also included training in British practice and tactics, which frequently differed from what they had learned in the USN’s system. Even so, this was relatively quick - somewhere in the region of 30-50 hours. This comes out to about ~400 hours of flight training before joining an operational squadron; USN pilots would usually have about 25 hours of pre-flight training on light aircraft before this system as well.
Sources:
British Naval Aviation in World War II: The US Navy and Anglo-American Relations, Gilbert S. Guinn and G.H. Bennett, Tauris Academic Studies, 2007
The Fleet Air Arm Handbook 1939-1945, David Wragg, Sutton, 2003
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Just like Enlisted. It won’t.
The essence of the debate is the difference between WT ASB vs. AoT…
Let me summarize some information…
WT Sim is commercially available for more types of players…
- to some extent free…
- more control options (mouse-joystick, console, joystick, VR)
- relatively greatly simplified control model
- mix of aircraft on both sides
- alternative locations of game maps, etc.
Aces of Thunder
- fully paid game
- relatively small historical set of machines so far
- accurate historical battle locations should be available
- limited control options ( PSVR 2 + PCVR )
So each game has something, the main question is whether there will be development progress for both games in the future…?!
There have been and still are many different simulators in the past and I would say that different types of players have developed…
- mass gamers of computer games
- gamers who want to experience the feeling of a fighter pilot
- gamers who believe in hardcore, i.e. maximum simulation of all the actions that a fighter pilot performs, from the start procedure before the flight to the re-landing…
… with WT Sim it seems to be a very slow development so far, more like the developers have reached a point that they planned at the beginning of the game and there is not much will to continue further, with AoT there is some development that I am following, we will see what will come of it … ,
but already I am struck by the impossibility of joystick control, which is something that is uncompromisingly part of the essence of the aircraft! …
I would not like to give up WT SIM, because for example the DCS simulator seems like work to me, not fun…
We will see how it continues, both games…
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I can’t see Aces of Thunder killing Air sim for the reasons already mentioned. I see it being more like Birds of Steel 2.0 which I’m all for.
That said off memory prop torque was modelled in Birds of Steel. God that game was good.
I could imagine that many prop players will at least try AoT and many will stay for a while.
It will definitively have an impact in rank I-V, while top tier will stay in WT.
I will also try it, because the VR focus is really interesting.
But I really, really hope there will be a sim/pro/hard mode without auto trim and such things.
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I think the fears in relation to how realistic the game is going to be will somewhat be addressed.
Similar to how WT features many levels of accessibility (arcade, realistic, sim), surely AoT will do the same. It seems like a necessity they need to add to make the game more appealing to all levels of players. So I doubt things like manual trim and torque effect will be completely absent in the final release. This is just me speculating though it appears the goal posts for the game have moved several times, otherwise it would’ve been released already?