[horseback]

• The over accuracy of the ai gunners is primarily a concern for the off-liner; specifically the off-liner who mainly plays fighter scenarios. To me and those like me, the very idea that some poor schlub from the sticks of Bavaria, the rice fields of Honshu or the collective farms of western Russia dumped into a backless sling or seat and facing backwards while flying 200 kph or faster to shoot a light caliber machine gun mounted on a ball mount or ring at smaller, much faster attacking fighters could be accurate at ranges up to 750 meters is obscene, never mind historically false. We expect the default ai gunner routine to mimic or re-create the historic capabilities and limitations of the real human beings who flew those bombers and heavy fighters in WWII, not exceed them by squares and cubes.
• It is enormously frustrating to spend 30 or forty minutes trying to fly formation with an AI `escort’ routine that seems more concerned with either burning off your fuel or playing hide-and-seek behind your canopy frames than it is with keeping in close contact with the bombers we’re supposed to be protecting, finally catching a formation of Bf 110Gs down low and then getting your engine shot out by a Rookie rear gunner at an extreme angle at a range in excess of 400 meters while you’re diving on him at a steep angle and indicated speeds of over 500 kph. It’s unrealistic and grossly unreasonable, and it has nothing to do with `tactics’ or not knowing `how to fly’. A Mustang or Thunderbolt pilot attacking a zerstörer at those speeds and any angle was historically untouchable; the only thing between him and a victory was his guns’ reliability and his own shooting skill. Additionally, limiting all aircraft with rear gunners to `Rookie’ status means that both the heavy fighter and bomber aircraft are flown too poorly and ineffectively for the aircraft’s actual main weapons to be any use or danger in exchange for a minimal step towards realism.
• For the off-liner or online player who specializes or even dabbles in mud-moving in two-seater, medium or heavy bombers, the gunners are not nearly effective enough. From a practical standpoint I understand that imposing the real-life difficulty on the human gunner or the human pilot’s ai ‘crew’ would be suicidal, given the inability to impose the real-life discipline of formations and effective escort, even with other human players. For someone playing the bomber role, über gunners are an absolute necessity, and even then, the ai gunners protecting a human flown aircraft cannot enjoy the rail-smooth firing platform or even the basic levels of communication that a veteran real-life crew had, far less than the all ai “crew” that has the instant awareness and communication that so frustrating to the player who flies fighters.
• The players who campaign or do co-ops as ground-pounders naturally feel threatened by the very idea of limiting their already poor protection. I get that. Honest, I do. But nobody wants to take that away from the on-line or bomber campaign game. The off-line fighter players simply want a choice.
• We clearly now have the capability to give the off-line Player an option or tier of more historically realistic ai gunner routines for all-ai aircraft in off-line missions and campaigns. Therefore, we should:

1. Limit the `reality’ option to all-ai bombers, fighters and attack aircraft gunnery routines
2. Give turret style guns a 10 or 15% advantage over guns directed by human muscle power; the gunners in those were strapped in and had electrical or hydraulic aid in directing his guns
3. Make it strictly for QMBs and campaigns Off-Line as an option that must be selected before starting the QMB, Single Mission, or campaign. This means that I’ll have to re-start any existing campaigns to get this option; no mid-course changes.
4. Never apply it to Player-flown aircraft; in fact, make it impossible to apply it to a human-crewed aircraft or their formations, so that the mouse-gunners will have nothing to complain about or fear.

By the way Max, an M-60 has much less recoil and is lighter & far more user friendly than the older Browning MGs; that's what it was designed for and why it replaced the old-style .30 MGs in squad use and on Helos. No sprinkles for you.

cheers

horseback