CV Air Wings

[Exinfernis]

Hello.

Playing stock 15. I noticed that certain US carriers sport 4 air wings during the early war, then revert to a 3-wing organisation. Now in the 45 Campaign I have glimpsed that all US carriers invariably fly 4 air wings again, with the second being composed of Corsair F4U-1Ds.

I'd like to know if my US carriers will include the 4th wing and if so when. My game's date is mid-June 1944 and so far all are 3-winged.

Thanks.

[saj42]

Yes they will.
See section 19.4.2 in the manual (last page)
The date is '1945'
- what that means in practice is your CVs will convert to a 4 squadron CAG according to some arcane code that randomizes the date in the early '45 time period.

[Exinfernis]

Cheers.

[dtravel]

Note that in order for your carriers to change their air groups, they must be disbanded in a base that contains that base's owning Theatre Command HQ (Central Pacific, Australia Command, etc.).  I believe there must also be something like 20K supply present but I can't remember for sure.
 
I also have found that the US VFB squadrons (F4U-1D Corsairs) are created at half strength in both planes and pilots.  So expect a huge drain on the aircraft and USN pilot pools starting in Jan '45 as you try to fill those out.  (I'm in late June '45 in my game and I've only just finished filling out the combat squadrons and have started filling up the two replacement squadrons.  And the combat squadrons perform like fecal matter because half the pilots have skills of 25 to 35.)
 
(Let's see here, 18 squadrons each needing 18 planes and pilots plus 2 replacement squadrons needing 30 each is 384 F4U-1Ds and pilots needed.  Assuming absolutely no losses in other units, that's 4 months of aircraft production and 7 months of pilot replacements.  Methinks something is wrong with this picture.... [:-] )

[Yamato hugger]

Just need to learn to squeeze what you have. 3/1/42 CHS as the Jap, 2 day turns and I have 99 navy pilots in the pool (384 or something close army pilots also).

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: dtravel
(Let's see here, 18 squadrons each needing 18 planes and pilots plus 2 replacement squadrons needing 30 each is 384 F4U-1Ds and pilots needed.  Assuming absolutely no losses in other units, that's 4 months of aircraft production and 7 months of pilot replacements.  Methinks something is wrong with this picture.... [:-] )

Perhaps the fact that it is total BULLSH-T has something to do with that?

[rogueusmc]

ORIGINAL: dtravel

...Assuming absolutely no losses in other units...

But there should be no losses because the Corsair is the kickass plane right?[:D]

[ny59giants]

I know I am dreaming here, but it would be nice to have two buttons when it comes to selecting pilots. One for those from the pilot pool with the appropriate experience and then those from a non-pool that you could assign to bomber/patrol that you could train up. 

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: dtravel
(Let's see here, 18 squadrons each needing 18 planes and pilots plus 2 replacement squadrons needing 30 each is 384 F4U-1Ds and pilots needed.  Assuming absolutely no losses in other units, that's 4 months of aircraft production and 7 months of pilot replacements.  Methinks something is wrong with this picture.... [:-] )

Perhaps the fact that it is total BULLSH-T has something to do with that?

Why do you say that? This is exactly what happened in my stock scenario 15 game. The US CVs re-organized their airgroups to units of 36xF6F, 36xF4U-1D, 15xSB2C & 15xTBM with only 18 aircraft and pilots in the F4U-1D units. I can dig up the save games showing it.

[rogueusmc]

I think the BS part was him agreeing with the lack of reinforcements that you mentioned...at least that's how I read it.

[dtravel]

Ah, you're probably right and I mis-read.  My apologies to Mike.
 
But as it turns out my memory was off.  The VBF squadrons don't arrive with 18 pilots and planes.  Only the ones on newly arrived CVs have 18 aircraft.  The squadrons for already on the map CVs have none.  So its more like 700 needed, which would be 7 months of aircraft production and a full year's pilot replacements.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: dtravel
Why do you say that? This is exactly what happened in my stock scenario 15 game. The US CVs re-organized their airgroups to units of 36xF6F, 36xF4U-1D, 15xSB2C & 15xTBM with only 18 aircraft and pilots in the F4U-1D units. I can dig up the save games showing it.

"Assuming absolutely no losses in other units, that's 4 months of aircraft production and 7 months of pilot replacements." When the US implemented these changes they already had the AirGroups trained and ready for deployment. Rotation of Squadrons was standard practice even early in the war, by 1945 it happened all the time with fully trained and equipped squadrons rotating in and out of various CV's.

[bobogoboom]

Yet for some reason the japs can produce 800 million advanced fighters a month[:@]. Seems resonable to me.

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: dtravel
Why do you say that? This is exactly what happened in my stock scenario 15 game. The US CVs re-organized their airgroups to units of 36xF6F, 36xF4U-1D, 15xSB2C & 15xTBM with only 18 aircraft and pilots in the F4U-1D units. I can dig up the save games showing it.

"Assuming absolutely no losses in other units, that's 4 months of aircraft production and 7 months of pilot replacements." When the US implemented these changes they already had the AirGroups trained and ready for deployment. Rotation of Squadrons was standard practice even early in the war, by 1945 it happened all the time with fully trained and equipped squadrons rotating in and out of various CV's.

Ya, I misunderstood what you were saying. We are in agreement that it is bogus that the VFB squadrons show up empty. My apologies for the misunderstanding.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: dtravel
Ya, I misunderstood what you were saying. We are in agreement that it is bogus that the VFB squadrons show up empty. My apologies for the misunderstanding.

No appology necessary. I was trying to be clever and flippant..., and managed to be unclear in the process. We both agree that by 1944-45 the US should virtually have enough trained and ready airgroups to fill their CV's twice over..., which was the point.

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: bobogoboom

Yet for some reason the japs can produce 800 million advanced fighters a month[:@]. Seems resonable to me.

The Japs could produce F-22s and it really wouldnt do them a lot of good with 25 experience pilots. Seriously. Experience is THAT important. So number and type of planes really is irrelivant.

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

ORIGINAL: bobogoboom

Yet for some reason the japs can produce 800 million advanced fighters a month[:@]. Seems resonable to me.

The Japs could produce F-22s and it really wouldnt do them a lot of good with 25 experience pilots. Seriously. Experience is THAT important. So number and type of planes really is irrelivant.

The problem is that it isn't the Japanese who are being forced to use 25 experience pilots. Its the US Navy in 1945 that is.

[saj42]

Would it be a code or database change to correct this? - assuming of course that Joe/Don/Robert/etc put it on a potential patch list........

[Yamato hugger]

Well, I cant say I have actually played in 45, because I havent. But I cant believe it is that hard to rotate out your inexperienced air groups, park them in the backwater and let them bomb Jap by-passed garrisions (like they did historically), and use your more experienced Marine airgroups on the carriers while this is happening (like they did historically). VMF 214 was on the Franklin when it was hit for example. A newly formed VMF 214 to be sure. I have no idea how many actual pilots had combat experience and how many were fresh out of flight school. But in game terms that is irrelivant as the players arent likely to be disbanding US air units at this stage of the game.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: dtravel
The problem is that it isn't the Japanese who are being forced to use 25 experience pilots. Its the US Navy in 1945 that is.

When in fact America wasn't letting anyone out of "Advanced Flight School" who wasn't basically a 55-60 by 1944-45. In the US, training time was actually increased during the war. There was NO shortage of fully trained pilots/aircrew in the US by 1944-45..., in early 1945 the Army pulled thousands of guys out of flight training and made them into infantry replacements