Hear, hear!
I think you've hit the nail on the head Talisman.
56RAF_phoenix
On 02/01/2020 15:00, Michael Colby (Redacted sender michael.colby82 for
DMARC) wrote:
Colin has, rightly in my mind, raised the topic of direction. As far as direction is concerned, I think that we should be careful not to go too hardcore, although I suspect we may all have different feelings about exactly what hardcore might mean. My thoughts are that we should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and that we already have a lot going for us. I think we need to be a broad church. For me, it is the shared enjoyable human experience that counts with the squad as a whole and the reality of our real world relationships, via a shared passion in aviation, rather than flawed flight simulation statistics and our position on a server squad standings list. We have known each other for a long time and experience each others strengths and weaknesses in good spirit and understanding I find, so lets hold on to that.
I think that we should have a CO because I believe that, in life generally as well as in a flight sim squad, we all benefit from a sense of direction and leadership to which we can lend our support. Each CO is a hostage to prevailing circumstances though and I count myself lucky that we had CloD and the stability of the BoB air war scenarios and uncomplicated plane sets when I was CO. Things have not been so easy for our CO's since then. There is a lot to balance as a squad. For example, some of us are not entirely content with IL-2 GB at the moment for differing reasons. Things like performance issues, visibility issues, bugs, flight models, maps, plane sets and MP server options, etc. Also, different squad members like different aircraft and some of us like to perform sorties and missions in different ways. I think that we have collectively managed all these things rather well over the years. I will support any member of our squad as CO and offer the following suggestions for consideration for our group as a whole:
1. Consider the possibility of recruiting new members.
2. Consider the possibility of attempting to find another squad to occasional operated with on joint sorties in MP.
3. Consider the possibility of sharing mission planning and airborne mission lead on a monthly, weekly, nightly basis, so that the CO is not leading missions every squad night and to ensure that other squad members have the chance to have a hand in shaping our direction.
Happy landings,
Talisman
On Wednesday, 1 January 2020, 22:00:45 GMT, Colin Pack <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ultimately it is up to the squadron to decide in what direction it wants to go in, before it decides if it needs a CO or not.
Now I may be wrong but from what I see from the peripheral at the moment, I don’t think you need a CO par say. Really at the moment you like to have someone who turns up on squad night plans a mission that everyone then takes part in. Which is great, but you do not need a dedicated CO for that, really on a rotation basis you could nominate someone to lead a mission one week at a time. We did this when we played IL2 in the old days.
If squadron says it wants more than that then it must decide what? Don’t forget it’s a group decision and the parts of the group want different things.
It goes back to “the survey says...”
If the squadron wants more then is it prepared to put the effort needed, etc. Once you have decided all this, then it gives the CO if you need one the mandate in which to work with, also with that if someone wants to be CO and do that mandate.
One thing you have got to be aware of is that the way you do things at the moment suits everyone, but if you go hardcore down one route that might not work for everyone.
Like I said earlier decide in what you want to do, then decide if you need a CO or not.
Colin
Sent from my iPad
On 1 Jan 2020, at 20:24, 56RAF_phoenix <phoenix@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Finally - it's not an easy job! I know I never quite achieved as much as I hoped when I did it. Herding cats is an understatement, with everyone expecting something slightly different. The one this we need to avoid is drift and a lack of direction and leadership in the squad.
56RAF_phoenix
