Win? Loose?
What does win or loose mean in a "campaign" that is intended to simulate 3 (three) days of war?
Just as a reminder, in terms of the meaning of TIME in big battles, and therefore in war, the Allied took 12 full days and nights of fierce fighting to break the frontline at El Alamein in Oct - Nov 1942. No need to mention many other examples...
So, whenever we discuss about winning or loosing, through the analysis of a point system, surely we move psychologically towards those little, "puny" tournaments of many types that were and are still functioning in the world of the IL2 simulator.
And that are so much blamed and underestimated by most of the people around here
.
But, as it was said, this approach is in fact very human, natural in most of the people who participated in this long lasting, and above all very involving simulation activity.
Then, is it a form of contradiction? Yes, I think so, a natural contradiction for the pilots who participated.
On the other side, if we really want to free ourselves from these "human weaknesses"
of a strong spirit of competitiveness, from the attention to every single point (or thousand of points) gained or lost, and if we really want to go towards a kind of simulation to be considered more "historical" than "competitive", I think that at least three pre-conditions should be applied in the future....
a) administrators themselves should lower the importance of a point system in planning campaigns, and especially in evaluating the results. (a.bis - if it is intended to be kept working, it should be crystal clear for all, from the beginning to the end)
b) an even bigger effort is to be made to avoid "unhistorical" situations, both in planning the campaign and in realizing it (see point c). For instance, an industrial production that in 3 (three) days of battle alters so heavily the balance of forces on ground and in air, in my personal opinion is not correct, whatever the advantage or disadvantage to blue or red faction.
c) The representatives of the 2 factions should form a "commission" and perform official "virtual meetings" in order to confront their opinions, solve controversies, adjust the rules,
under the coordination of the administrators.
THEN, AFTER ALL, THANKS TO THE ADMINISTRATORS AND ORGANIZERS FOR GIVING THIS OPPORTUNITY TO US, AND TO ALL THE PILOTS THAT SHARED THIS EXPERIENCE WITH ME!!!