Estimating enemy air losses

[jwolf]

For various reasons it appears that the daily intel screen overestimates enemy air losses, sometimes drastically. As I read some of the AARs, for example, it is common to see one player exuberantly proclaim "I shot down x enemy planes today!" but then when you see the opponent's AAR, the true number y is usually much smaller. And I see it in my own AI game as well; though I don't know the true number, what is reported seems rather optimistic. In fact, in some cases more planes were reported shot down than appeared in the raid in the first place! [:D]

So I am looking for a good rule of thumb. To this end, I wonder if a 3:2 ratio is a decent rule to use. That is, you think you shot down 15 planes, really you got about 10. I understand that not all air battles will be created alike, but I'd like a quick rule to use for generally more accurate intel. I'd like to hear thoughts on this from more experienced players as I as still very much a rookie.

[btd64]

Well, FOG OF WAR. If it's on, could go either way....GP

[Leandros]

My impression is that in real life claims were doubled or tripled. So, why not in a game.

Just reading an interesting book for the third time: Edward Spears - "Assignment to Catastrophe". He was Churchill's
liaison officer to the French Prime Minister Reynaud in the summer of 1940. Spears quotes Churchill from a meeting
as he is trying to keep up the courage of the French when things are going badly: "Our (RAF's) fighters are shooting down
four to five enemy (German) planes for each lost by us" (meaning the French should not despair).

On Battle of Britain "Eagle Day", September 15th 1940, he happily repeated the British fighter pilots claims of
triple the actual shoot-downs - 155 planes. The actual figure was more like 55. Most of them bombers.

Anyway, when mr. Reynaud, on another occasion, asked Churchill why he would not send more fighter squadrons to France
to help them in their difficult situation, Churchill's response was that they had lost so many fighter planes and the
Germans had thrice as many as them. With his previous air victories ratio, would it not have been a good idea to
send the British fighters to France? Yes. mr. Reynaud did not understand the logic, either.

Well, that is one way claims can be used, or mis-used.

Fred

[BBfanboy]

If you were just looking at the Combat Reports to get the "actual number 'Y'" for planes shot down, that does not show the operational losses which are often damaged aircraft failing to make it home. My rule of thumb (after playing H2H and being able to compare reports) is that about half the damaged aircraft from a battle become ops losses or write-offs. Range to RTB has a bearing on the degree of loss.

Players proclaiming "shot down" aircraft often include the ops losses in there.

If you were comparing Intel Report daily losses then the inflation of losses you are quoting was disturbing! Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

[BillBrown]

My rule of thumb is that about 1/2 of the losses, both A2A and ops are real.

[JeffroK]

Dont believe anything, especially Bombardment TF results!

[Lokasenna]

Do some math. You know what your VPs are on any given turn. Tracker makes this pretty easy... LCU VPs are not subject to FoW, nor are base VPs, but you really only care about your own VPs. On turns without lots of action to gum up the math, you can:

-Look at last turn's VP total
-Subtract that from this turn's VP total. That's your delta-VP.
-Subtract from that delta-VP any gains you made in:
---base VPs (captured, or expansions)
---Enemy LCU points
---Any known enemy ships sunk this turn (listen for sinking sounds... if there were none, this is easy because it's zero)

This will give you a pretty solid number for actual aircraft losses.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Dont believe anything, especially Bombardment TF results!

Destroyed results are underreported in all bombardment (and aerial bombing) missions, but it's really anyone's guess as to how many. It seems to be by a factor of 2-3, but hard to tell. Just know that you didn't actually destroy any unless 1 or more is reported as destroyed. If you see at least 1 destroyed, then you definitely got at least 1. That message doesn't show up otherwise.