Nik Mod Campaign Question

[LTC B]

Playing a PBEM game using Nikmod 5.4 as the US and we just hit 9/42. Been a great game so far, fairly historical results, even a Midway like carrier battle last month. Problem is, as the Allies, I'm running out of fighter planes (plenty of pilots) while my able opponent's fighter strength seems to be becoming greater in the past few weeks - just lost over 153 fighters to sweeps (over 200 Tojos and about as many Zeros just over the Solomons) in a two day turn, in exchange for about 60 enemy shot down. My fighter replacements are pretty much dry as is, before these recent losses.

So, guess my question is, is this normal with Nik mod? Seems pretty excessive. Think the problem was using the PDU option? Any suggestions?

[wdolson]

I'm playing the AI, but I began to run out of fighters in mid-1942. I freed some up by taking some of the West Coast groups to San Francisco and disbanding them. If there are no groups of that type there, this dumps the planes into the pool. This only works with 1.801. It was eliminated in 1.802 because some people were using it to train up pilots on float planes and transports and put them in combat aircraft using this because the pilots go into the pool when disbanded this way. If you just withdraw the group the pilots go into limbo until the group returns in 60 days.

Once I got some fighters back in the pool, I converted my remaining West Coast base groups back to obsolete fighters and used the P-40Es to fill out the depleted groups in the field.

You should probably discuss this with your oponent, since some people might find it gamey. The AI doesn't care.

Bill

[Przemcio231]

I mentioned this to Nik Once... the Allied Rep Fighter numbers are definetly to low... in every campaign[:D]

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I'm playing the AI, but I began to run out of fighters in mid-1942. I freed some up by taking some of the West Coast groups to San Francisco and disbanding them. If there are no groups of that type there, this dumps the planes into the pool. This only works with 1.801. It was eliminated in 1.802 because some people were using it to train up pilots on float planes and transports and put them in combat aircraft using this because the pilots go into the pool when disbanded this way. If you just withdraw the group the pilots go into limbo until the group returns in 60 days.

Once I got some fighters back in the pool, I converted my remaining West Coast base groups back to obsolete fighters and used the P-40Es to fill out the depleted groups in the field.

You should probably discuss this with your oponent, since some people might find it gamey. The AI doesn't care.

Bill

Ironically most Navy pilots experienced years of float plane duty in their careers so they skinned the wrong Cat. What they should be doing is lowering starting experience across the board, lowering experience gain rates and making it impossible for experience to increase beyond a certain threshold perhaps along the lines of the following...no exp beyond 60 except through A2A kills (1 exp point each), bomb hits on a ship (1 exp point each) or hits on a base (1 exp point per say 10 hits)
[:(]

[spence]

In spite of "Europe First" all fighter groups in the USAAF were brought to strength with P-40s and P-39s as soon as the planes were produced. The last P-36s (in the Canal Zone) were replaced by March 42. P-36s served only as courier planes and as trainers after their brief moment of "glory" at PH. P-35s disappeared completely from the inventory whenever the ones in the Philippines were killed off. The 14th, 20th and one other FG that appear on the West Coast eventually deployed to Europe but were completely filled out with P-40s/P-39s. Not sure how to deal with this though.

[Przemcio231]

Ron how is your A2A system Working??? did you find a cure for the Uber CAP and KB Death Star Effect???
 
Yep that is the problem with the Allied Fighter rep rates... you are sticking with P-35's or something i think the Allied player should get enough P-40's and P-39's to upgrade all existing groups to the Middle of 1942 and enough to sustain a battle of attrition with the japs later[:D]

[Rob Brennan UK]

I'm in the same boat in sept 1942. I keep the mohawks as i cannot afford 72+ P40's . I basically avoid air-air combat where i can, this includes burma where i have a shortage of hurricanes ( or will have if i engage), i miss the stock spits in june 42 badly.

One problem i find is i have lots of P39's but fighters cant upgrade to them only FB's and there aren't any/many on map that dont arrive as new groups. so i have P40 starved sqds and lots of spare P39's .. sigh. With the much lower P38 rates i don;t see how the allies can actually conduct an atritional war untill mid 43.

[LTC B]

I get the impression its more than just a lack of US Production. I've managed to keep three groups and two squadrons of P-40s at about half strength, only by managing to keep planes such as the P-36 flying in less important areas. After one serious carrier engagement, I'm zero balance on F4F-4 replacements and all the Marines are flying the F4F-3.
But it seems that the Japanese production is off the charts, compounding the problem. My opponent said he's currently producing over 300 Tojos a month! Hell, at that rate, I'll be lucky to get air parity by '44!

[Rob Brennan UK]

Thats the problem, Nik has reduced allied reinforcements to a more 'historical' level unfortunately it's easy for japan to gets its production through the roof but the allies are stuck and cannot react as they would have if japan prodeuced so many a/c IRL. (i.e send more a/c to the theatre to counter the increased japanese capacity).

I know its not possible but it would have been better IF the game managed allied replacemnets to be 100-400% greater per annum (i.e 100% parity in 41 and early 42, gradually increasing till a 5x amount in 45) as compared to what japanese production numbers are. IE Japan sticks to historical production then the allies get historical numbers but if japan cranks up the war material then the allies get more to compensate.

just my 2p

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I'm playing the AI, but I began to run out of fighters in mid-1942. I freed some up by taking some of the West Coast groups to San Francisco and disbanding them. If there are no groups of that type there, this dumps the planes into the pool. This only works with 1.801. It was eliminated in 1.802 because some people were using it to train up pilots on float planes and transports and put them in combat aircraft using this because the pilots go into the pool when disbanded this way. If you just withdraw the group the pilots go into limbo until the group returns in 60 days.

Once I got some fighters back in the pool, I converted my remaining West Coast base groups back to obsolete fighters and used the P-40Es to fill out the depleted groups in the field.

You should probably discuss this with your oponent, since some people might find it gamey. The AI doesn't care.

Bill

Ironically most Navy pilots experienced years of float plane duty in their careers so they skinned the wrong Cat. What they should be doing is lowering starting experience across the board, lowering experience gain rates and making it impossible for experience to increase beyond a certain threshold perhaps along the lines of the following...no exp beyond 60 except through A2A kills (1 exp point each), bomb hits on a ship (1 exp point each) or hits on a base (1 exp point per say 10 hits)
[:(]

Prior to 1942, ALL USN pilots rotated regularly and were given experience flying everything in inventory. (This is one of the details the movie MIDWAY got right when they portray Heston's character flying the SBD "spur of the moment"....

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Przemcio231

I mentioned this to Nik Once... the Allied Rep Fighter numbers are definetly to low... in every campaign[:D]

Too low???? Just look how durable your fighters are. My fighters with gun values of 12 aren´t able to take them down... Why would you want more fighters. The Hurricane is good enough to deal with every Jap plane, not to mention all those toys you get in 43....

[spence]

In so far as US production is concerned there should be no P-26s, P-35s or P-36s in operational groups (the one's included in the game) by early in 1942. Reading the AARs, the Allied Player is pretty much consistently still using those aircraft far later than was the case. As someone mentioned there are likely to be very large numbers of P-39s in the pool but no squadrons that can upgrade to them.

A lack of truly competitive fighters on the part of the Allies (not that good compared to Zero) seems right for '42 but an overall lack of the more modern fighters (the ones that are sorta competitive) really doesn't feel right with history.

[Rob Brennan UK]

The hurricane isnt the problem really. its the american planes or rather a lack of them. did the americans really have so few P40's in 1942 ? i guess so as much more intelligent people than me made the mods and they all have reduced allied replacements imo.

Unfortunately its made lop sided by japans ability to get all its future R&D factories cranking out early/mid war planes as R$D doenst matter much till 6 months before intorduction. Maybe really penalise japanses R&D if the factories are used for something else. Just throwing ideas around really and not trying to be an allied fanboy[;)].

Anyway come late 43 the allies will have enough to hurt japan i hope [;)]. No large allied hammer in the first 2 years is probably a good thing the more i ponder it. and once the allies get hellcats and new a/c the huge number of older japanese planes won;t matter much as they all become targets [:D]

Actually the more i think about what i pondered earlier about allied production in line with japan doesn't work as it penalises japan for good production management , not a good thing. And Nikmod does prevent the commonwealth from turning china into an air theatre for the allies too early. and i do feel like im in a good defensive posture which is ok in mid 42. just have to be careful and fight over friendly territory whereever possible.

ok im rambling [:'(]

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Przemcio231

Ron how is your A2A system Working??? did you find a cure for the Uber CAP and KB Death Star Effect???

Yep that is the problem with the Allied Fighter rep rates... you are sticking with P-35's or something i think the Allied player should get enough P-40's and P-39's to upgrade all existing groups to the Middle of 1942 and enough to sustain a battle of attrition with the japs later[:D]

Too early to say much as we are just into March 42 but the A2A is substantially less bloody. Opposing squadrons can stay in contact at the front line for weeks and still maintain well over 50% readiness if there are replacement aircraft available because the new pilots are not completely at the mercy of 90+ pilots. I've only just had my Dutch fighters emaciated but that was thanks to KB chewing them up for a week. They were holding their own vs LBA.

There is also no ability for the Allied player to keep flying anything older than P-40E/Fs in the version I'm playing as I've always thought having perpetual replacement rates for obsolete aircraft no longer in production was just plain wrong.

[Przemcio231]

Ronnie my boy[&o][&o][&o] thats great news[:D] but did you increased the P-40 Rep Rate??[:D]

[RevRick]

I won't tell you what I think of the Allied production rate in the Nikmods. It borders somewhere between ludicrous and absurd, though.

[spence]

As far as the European Theater is concerned US forces didn't enter into ground combat until Nov 42.  The B-17s got into it a bit earlier (8AF) but it is my understanding that most of the early escorts were provided by the RAF.  Kinda wonder whether a significantly large proportion of production of the '42
P-40s ended up heading West (from USA) rather than East.  It may be that the best way to figure out the P-40 thing is to investigate which squadrons/groups ended up in Europe in 1942 as opposed to trying to figure out how many (#wise) P-40s ended up in the Pacific...with active combat groups only in the Pacific during most of 42 replacement aircraft would most likely have headed that way to replace losses.  Just a thought haven't looked into it much other than to find out that the P-35/36 had no role in the war in any theater after 12/41.     

[mc3744]

Just when I was going to try Nik Mod out. [&:]

This seems like a real problem. Japanese fighter super production can be a problem in the stock game, if it's made worse by the Nik Mod ...

I guess I'll stick to the stock. [8|]

What about BigB? I read the changes and seemed pretty good to me.
Anybody tried that out?

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: m10bob
Prior to 1942, ALL USN pilots rotated regularly and were given experience flying everything in inventory. (This is one of the details the movie MIDWAY got right when they portray Heston's character flying the SBD "spur of the moment"....

I think the complaints came about because Japanese players could dump their floatplane, patrol, and transport groups with high experience into the pool late in the game and get 90 experience pilots coming out of the pool to fill out fighter groups. I haven't read what Japan did with these auxillary pilots, but I know Germany did this late in the war.

There is some unreality with it because the pilot with lots of experience flying Petes doesn't have any experience hit when they transfer to Raidens. In the real world, pilots that transistioned to fighters from other aircraft had their hands full for a while.

The USAAF had a conversion program for bomber pilots who couldn't take the responsibility for a full crew, but were OK flying alone. The loss rate for these former bomber pilots was so high the program was discontinued. their reflexes were trained for throwing a heavy B-17 around and a P-47 or P-51 was just too different.

Bill

[Miller]

Stock? Nah....I would rather put up with the reduced production rates. If playing with PDU on it may be wise to come an agreement with the IJN player not to abuse the system to much.

I am still relatively new to the game, but after looking at various AARs that use stock A2A model, it is a game killer for the IJN later in the war as attacks against heavy CAP take almost 100% losses.