The Best Wing Commander Battle

What would the best battle be to either watch in a movie or actually play in a game?

  • Vukar Tag

    Votes: 1 1.7%
  • Battle of Earth

    Votes: 31 51.7%
  • Tarawa's END RUN to Kilrah

    Votes: 23 38.3%
  • Invasion of the Kilrathi and start of the war

    Votes: 5 8.3%

  • Total voters
    60
Originally posted by Oggy
"Hey wet-pants you're in the twenty minuters now!"
seriously, in WWI the average life expectancy of a new pilot was twenty minutes as they were rushed through training

Dang if twenty minutes was it then that is just unthinkable. I know in WWII the Japanese were so strapped for good pilots and planes that they said to heck with the regular training program and went into full gear with the Kamikaze pilot training.
 
The reason for the short life expectancy would probably be due to the fact that, iirc, roughly half of all pilots are shot down on their very first mission. If you can survive that, then your chances of survival climb astronomically.
 
Originally posted by pygmypiranha


Dang if twenty minutes was it then that is just unthinkable. I know in WWII the Japanese were so strapped for good pilots and planes that they said to heck with the regular training program and went into full gear with the Kamikaze pilot training.

I promise you, I'm not yanking your chain, I got it out of the 'History of the Great War' in the Adsetts centre at University.
 
Originally posted by pygmypiranha


Dang if twenty minutes was it then that is just unthinkable. I know in WWII the Japanese were so strapped for good pilots and planes that they said to heck with the regular training program and went into full gear with the Kamikaze pilot training.

I promise you, I'm not yanking your chain, I got it out of the 'History of the Great War' in the Adsetts centre at University. Part of the reason for the low life expectancy was the fact that the pilots weren't equipped with parachutes and the planes weren't exactly durable. Therefore,
You get shot down = You (most likely) die
 
Originally posted by Oggy
the reason for the low life expectancy was the fact that the pilots weren't equipped with parachutes and the planes weren't exactly durable. Therefore, You get shot down = You (most likely) die

Yea, the technology back then was pretty ... sad by today's standards. I don't think they even really had parachutes back in WWII.
 
Parachutes are rather bulky, though. I know, for example, that the gunner in the ball turret in the B-17 couldn't have a chute with him in the turret because there was no room. In addition, fighters are so small that you were probably as likely to incapacitate a plane by killing the pilot as you were by damaging the fighter itself.
As to whether or not fighters actually carried chutes, I couldn't tell you.
 
Originally posted by Delta_Strife
Fighters did carry parachutes. Some men died when they jumped and there bodies hit there plane.

So your saying that the plane hit them when they jumped out or they fell into/against their plane on the way jumping out the door?
 
Originally posted by pygmypiranha


So your saying that the plane hit them when they jumped out or they fell into/against their plane on the way jumping out the door?

Well, there weren't "doors" on the fighters but they would usually whack themselves on the plane's tail...
 
Originally posted by pygmypiranha


Dang if twenty minutes was it then that is just unthinkable. I know in WWII the Japanese were so strapped for good pilots and planes that they said to heck with the regular training program and went into full gear with the Kamikaze pilot training.

Yeah, they even sent geisha girls to the cockpit at one point. They got real desperate, because at that time, they would not think to trust putting a woman into combat, much less in an airplane.
 
Originally posted by Chernikov
wouldnt that be more of a "catch me" horizontal tailfin then a help?

I think you may be referring to the P-38, or Fork-Tailed Devil, as the Germans used to call it.
Nice bomber killer. Can't beat the cannon they stuck on it as the main gun.
 
Originally posted by junior


I think you may be referring to the P-38, or Fork-Tailed Devil, as the Germans used to call it.
Nice bomber killer. Can't beat the cannon they stuck on it as the main gun.

Oops. Actually, that's the one I was thinking of :D

It had four machine guns on the nose, right?

*dr00lz*
 
If the SWotL maunal is correct (which I think it is) the P-38 carried four .50 cal. machine guns and a 20mm cannon in the nose.
Nice indeed.
 
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