Lets say we took a realistic scenario, a B-17 tail gunner, and made it into a video game (yes taking into account ammunition expenditure, etc) would any one actually like it? I’m thinking of when they change the rate of fire for SWOTL because no on wants to play a game with 2 seconds of ammunition.
Doubt it.
No gun onboard a B-17 carried more than 1 minutes’ worth of ammunition
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Game would be over too quickly.
You wish.
First you’d start the mission in briefing, moving on to assemble your kit while you wait for bomber command to give the go ahead, so a few hours before you ever get into the air.
Once there you’ll sit in freezing temperatures for hours on end trying to keep body parts from sticking to metal all the while staring out at an empty sky hoping you don’t see anything that day.
Then the flack starts, booms so loud your brain rattles around in your skull, nothing you can do but just wait.
So the ‘game’ would be hours of waiting coupled with horror show moments of the closest friends you are ever likely to have falling to their death or burning alive.
Google Desert Bus.
Give them a single bullet and I think people would still play this game.
Would many people buy B-17 Tail gunner: The Simulation? No, but I bet that if you made an entire game around simulating all of the roles of every man in multiple types of planes with lots of realistic scenarios and mechanics there would be plenty of aviation/military sim fan who would jump on it.
B-17 Flying Fortress
B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th
… among others.
I’ve only played the second one, not bad.
My cousin’s Father in Law was the tail gunner on a B-24 Liberator. He said once his ammo was gone he was just “waiting for the bullet that would kill me”
I guess thats why in TCE I can get hit with 3 rounds from an AK-47, duck into cover, pull out my glock and kill them with a head shot 
Amen brother, that’s why we have to remember them always.
Actually come to think of it I think I’ve got the first one lying around here somewhere, completely forgot about it. Couldn’t quite get it to work well with DOSBox though, shame as I’d heard reasonably good things about it.
And of course SWOTL…
I hated flying the B-17 to be honest, you’re trying to do a bombing run, the guns are set on AI, and then you get the dreaded “You have been damaged by a rocket attack” just as you’ve finally lined up on your target, you swap to look at your engines and you see flames, you switch to the ball turret and it says damaged…
Against the Germans (I assume…of course they used B-24’s a lot in the Pacific because of their superior range) the bullet was what you hope for, rather than the normal 20mm explosive shell which maimed you to live for the next 6 hours until you bled to death. Give him my best as one of our best
There are ARMA II aficionados out there, THOUSANDS of them who get together a couple of hundred at a time, and actually re-enact huge combat scenerios. Down to organizing into proper military ranks, groups, and following proper military lingo-laden orders in order to accomplish a goal.
Exhibit A:
This could be a scene from an actual boot camp training exercise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BguGRjPqCtM&feature=player_embedded#!
Exhibit B:
One ARMA battle from 3 perspectives:
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/07/05/realism-theater-one-arma-2-battle-three-perspectives/
There is also about a million people right now playing a Mod for this particular game (ARMA II) where you are thrown into a zombie infested island with a bandage and a prayer, along with hundreds of others, and have to fend for yourself, contend with infection, disease, zombies, and players out to steal your precious bandage.
Average Joe Gamer would run away from such gaming experiences. Hell, I’m tempted to avert my eyes, even though I do find this kind of stuff fun in a “holy cow in a real military engagement/zombie apocalypse I think I might be able to hold out for 5 minutes! Go me!”, kind of way.
So yes, there ARE people out there who would play games like that.
The 2 minutes was a general figure, mostly having to do with fighters. Of course pilots and gunners where trained for very short bursts.
That heartens me actually…
Didn’t the army develop extremely realistic games meant to to be training/recruiting tools that ended up being pretty popular?
Realistic meaning you can take a hit from a 15mm machine gun and then duck and learn that standing up wasn’t such a good idea? If thats the criteria than yes, it was very realistic.
I was going to add this as an edit but…5 minutes you know…
The point of those games was team work, how you rely on your fellow soldier to survive and accomplish your mission. Both things, if I designed a game I would probably emphasize .
Is this Full Spectrum Warrior or America’s Army?