SteveMartin wrote:
I think I will pass on your offer of a crash course on aircraft and flight mechanics.
Don't worry, they are usually overrated.
Your displayed knowledge of the realities of air to air combat seems to be lacking. To make a ludicrous statement that...and i quote
patrol/flight endurance has nothing to do with combat endurance.
<snippety snip to reduce length, check SteveMartin's post to read the text.>
I am quite aware that these situations do not involve World War I, however the principals remain the same.
Principles don't remain the same. First, both the allied (before the arrival of the p-51) while bombing Germany and the Germans during the Battle of Britain where flying to the edge of their ranges and had to cross a body of water to go back to their lines.
Secondly, in WWII air combat was different than in WWI because of the radically different aircraft design and power plants. In WWI, a/cs had to loose altitude in order to maintain corner velocity (best manoeuvrabilty speed) and high-g manoeuvring. In WWII, better engine performance (compared against the weight of the fighters on which they were installed) and, more importantly, highly efficient aerodynamics (think about the beautiful elliptic wing of the Spitfire) allowed sustained combat manoeuvring without sacrificing (too much) altitude. The reason why pilots had to check their fuel gauges was that altitude, while still being important for energy advantage, was less important as a combat stopper.
You are quite right about airplanes NOT being cars. That said, the same principals of motion apply equally to cars and to aircraft. Throttle settings will most certainly affect the speed of the aircraft and will also affect fuel consumption. That is why aircraft generally CRUISE to the target, to minimize fuel consumption and save it for time over the target and egress, when full power will be needed.
Cars and aeroplanes obey to the same principles of motion only when they are on the ground  . Throttle settings would affect aircraft speed if its engine had a throttle, which is not the case if such engine was rotary (as opposed to radial or inline) design. For instance, according to Wright's design notes, all the aircraft with 6 engine boxes are equipped with rotaries: Nieuport 17 and 28, Sopwith Triplane, Camel and Snipe, Siemens-Schuckert D.I, III and IV, and Fokker Dr.I. Rotaries had no throttle, mostly due to their design, and this is the reason why, at landing, ignition was killed, either selectively or totally.
Moreover, flying slower can be more expensive than flying faster, due to the nature of aerodynamics.
I did some calculations based on the Dr.I, which had, according to its most famous user, wonderful climbing ability and manoeuvrability. My source is http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/SP-468/contents.htm which has good correlations and data. I made some assumptions based on their data (mostly the aerodynamic efficiency during high-g manoeuvring) and figured out that it would loose between 1000 to 2000 metres per minute (by constantly manoeuvring at 4 g). Given its low ceiling (16kft, 5000m) it is possible to figure out that it will take less than 5 minutes to bring the aircraft to the treetops, hampering further manoeuvres.
I did not make any sort of conjecture regarding supply and air to air combat. My comment was directed more to the general situation facing the Germans during both wars and not a specific effect on any particular situation.
Case in point however, is that while German aircraft production reached its peak during 1944, lack of fuel and trained pilots lead to the majority of these aircraft remaining on the ground and horrendous losses to the units that did manage to get aloft.
Either you have enough fuel for your mission or you don't even take off, it is that simple. Odds can be changed by using unbalanced scenarios, as it is already possible.
The fascination that some players show for the German side has been prevalent since the 70s and while I never mentioned Avalon Hill, they were most assuredly one of the companies that pandered to that crowd. I can recall discussion in one of the early gaming magazines, Fire and Movement, about exactly this phenomenae. Designer, John Hills over glamourization of the Whermacht and SS in several games, including Squad Leader and his flippant comment that "their uniforms were pretty neat" leading one of the others to comment that it was pretty sad that the best he could say of the individuals who had killed his father was that their uniforms were pretty neat.
I am aware that most of my references were made about World War II, but then there are VERY few games dealing with World War I and it has never really been very popular with the majority of gamers.
And I thought that the dangerous people were the one with grease or dust on their uniforms  . I sincerely don't care if gamers tend to be fascinated by SS or Wehrmacht or if publishers try to make cash in, as these phenomena are not the point of this discussion.
I brought this point up, because the proposed changes would benefit ONLY the German player and will not make the game more enjoyable or historically relevant.
Strictly in my own opinion, this change might make the game more enjoyable as it adds more options to the game, by varying the initial conditions of a fight. As for the benefits, I tend to play mirror fights with the same opponents whenever I can. I am a German (Alliance) player as much as I am an Allied (Entente) one.
I am brought to agree with pokerguy, who proposed a limited change in test scenarios, so that each of us can test it for him/herself. This would allow the godless liberals to goad for their civil freedoms while the conservatives could have a taste of the change without disrupting the peace of the community and the status quo.
What about a scenario where a d.vii jumps on a snipe (60/30 fuel) where the snipe has much less energy to spare, or the same scenario with a spad xiii jumping on a ss d.iii  with the same fuel difference? Jumping planes will have MORE manoeuvre options while they try to kill the luckless one.
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