ORIGINAL: Dili
A "torpedo bomber" can be used as a sort of Army Cooperation aircraft with recon ability, attack ability and without torpedo? I think the "Dive Bombers" in game have a bonus point for precision bombardment that should not be handed to Ki-36 Ida and other planes that could make light attacks but werent very effective or in my projects some Italian and German aircrafts, but i am not sure if TB is the best way to handle this.
First of all, note that army cooperation aircraft are NOT modeled in WITP and in general are NOT present. It is not part of the game design, there are not enough slots to permit the planes and there are not enough slots to permit the units generally to be listed. There are two exceptions to this principle - both obvious in the orignal Matrix unit/aircraft type mix:
spotter planes that got used for naval spotting (in particular British and Dutch); and the peculiar case of the Ki-36 which was ALSO used as a bomber, in particularly in China. RHS added a new case - with the Indian Air Force - where these planes also performed coastal patrol until relieved by more armed types. In case this is confusing - note that the primary FUNCTION of an "army cooperation aircraft" is spotting the enemy - not attacking the enemy.
Second, game code treats a torpedo bomber in a very peculiar way. It substantially disregards the loadout we list under the aircraft type. IF you list a torpedo at all - it does note the type - but then it wholly ignores the number mounted - so for example the CHS H6K with two torpedoes (very historical) NEVER uses two torpedoes - and it always uses one torpedo when attacking a ship target. Regardless of what we list for bombs - code seems to think there should be a torpedo and no bombs - it then proceeds to "fill in the blanks" for us - ignoring what we put in. It always delivers the same bomb load - probably 2 bombs to normal range and 1 to extended range - probably 250 kg bombs for Axis and 500 pound bombs for Allies - with the exception that a die roll may substitute an 800 kg bomb vice the torpedo for a port attack. None of this is going to get you a good model for a ground attack aircraft.
Third, the Ki-36 (or Ida to those who speak code names vice designations) is classified as a level bomber in most forms of WITP - only RHS classifies it as a dive bomber. This is quite deliberate - because for one thing it IS a dive bomber - and the peculiar bonus you don't like SHOULD apply - for bomb accuracy. Also as a mechanism to prevent gamey behaviors - like substituting heavy bombers for what amounts to armed observation planes - a problem we have if we classify it as a horizontal bomber. And note that the dive bomber attack routine exposes the aircraft to a lot more AAA - which means a poorly protected Ki-36 is going to suffer badly unless it attacks targets with little or no AA defense - true IRL. A GOOD dive bomber has armor - and the Ki-51 is the Japanese case in point. [It was derived from a horizontal bomber with armor added]
Fourth, you have another way to go - classify a plane as a fighter bomber. You can do that for a Ki-36 - it is so awful a fighter it won't gain you a great capability. I prefer the dive bomber route - and note a fighter bomber probably also is considered a dive bomber - so we don't have silly mission options appearing for units with the type.
