RHS technical error

[m10bob]

The Hornet of course arrives with the bipe divebombers, but since they upgrade to the SBD-5, they will be stuck with these old birds till well after the battle of Midway.(RHSCVO)

[witpqs]

It's that way in EOS, too. With PDU it doesn't make any difference, so I didn't think to mention it.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

The Hornet of course arrives with the bipe divebombers, but since they upgrade to the SBD-5, they will be stuck with these old birds till well after the battle of Midway.(RHSCVO)

Not exactly. A player can upgrade to anything they wish - and that means probably the SBD-3. But there are also other possibilities. Only if AI were playing the Allies - something that does not work and I never worry about because it is beyond my ability to address it fundaentally - is this an issue.

Nevertheless - we could make it SBD-3s if we wanted to. I am not sure this qualifies as a technical error, however. It is normal in RHS to skip a level in upgrades - otherwise you have problems spreading around the wealth (the new type).

I regard it as a sad commentary on US Navy practice in 1941 that a first line carrier squadron is not regarded as compeative with its issue equipment. I regard it as a bit of a wasted effort to add a plane type if players won't allow it to serve more than a few days: why did we revise the art, and go to the trouble to define its technical characteristics? Theoretically we were supposed to be adding a plane of use - in which case - I would think players would use it - at least for a while. If this isn't the case, players are voting de facto that (a) we wasted our effort trying to add useful plane types and (b) USN IRL was not competent in its choices of equipment.

By making the squadron on USS Hornet upgrade to the SBD-3 the biplane will probably not last even a couple of days in the game - at least in carrier service - as this is the only such squadron. I am setting this unit to so upgrade, but I am unhappy about it - and I feel the plane should probably not have been added at all - if this is how players feel about it.
USS Hornet is brand new, and IRL this plane was in its air group. Why? If we cannot simulate that, why did we add it?
USS Hornet is not on the map in stock or CHS because they didn't have the plane to simulate its air group. Now I have provided the plane - and allowed it on the map - and you want to change the plane early? Almost sounds like Matrix and CHS were wiser than I am - because they knew if players were allowed to have the ship - they would not allow the air group it really had. [It cannot be stock or CHS wanted the Shangra La Squadron - neither has that - so the decision to delay the ship was unrelated to that] In RHS I gave you both choices: the ship early with the SBC - or later with the SBD. But you seem to want it early - with the SBD. I find this frustrating - and I wonder if you will also upgrade the land squadrons (of which there are only two)? IRL the Allies would not be too fast to do this - they didn't know what they faced - and they were very confident of US airmen.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

It's that way in EOS, too. With PDU it doesn't make any difference, so I didn't think to mention it.

Not so. In EOS the Hornet arrives later and has already upgraded to the SBD-3 - and it has the worked up B-25 (as PBJ modified) Shangra La Squadron on board.

[witpqs]

Ya know, it might be the Wasp that came in with the old dive bombers then. There was one (arrived at New Orleans) where I just did an upgrade when it arrived.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: m10bob

The Hornet of course arrives with the bipe divebombers, but since they upgrade to the SBD-5, they will be stuck with these old birds till well after the battle of Midway.(RHSCVO)

Not exactly. A player can upgrade to anything they wish - and that means probably the SBD-3. But there are also other possibilities. Only if AI were playing the Allies - something that does not work and I never worry about because it is beyond my ability to address it fundaentally - is this an issue.

Nevertheless - we could make it SBD-3s if we wanted to. I am not sure this qualifies as a technical error, however. It is normal in RHS to skip a level in upgrades - otherwise you have problems spreading around the wealth (the new type).

I regard it as a sad commentary on US Navy practice in 1941 that a first line carrier squadron is not regarded as compeative with its issue equipment. I regard it as a bit of a wasted effort to add a plane type if players won't allow it to serve more than a few days: why did we revise the art, and go to the trouble to define its technical characteristics? Theoretically we were supposed to be adding a plane of use - in which case - I would think players would use it - at least for a while. If this isn't the case, players are voting de facto that (a) we wasted our effort trying to add useful plane types and (b) USN IRL was not competent in its choices of equipment.

By making the squadron on USS Hornet upgrade to the SBD-3 the biplane will probably not last even a couple of days in the game - at least in carrier service - as this is the only such squadron. I am setting this unit to so upgrade, but I am unhappy about it - and I feel the plane should probably not have been added at all - if this is how players feel about it.
USS Hornet is brand new, and IRL this plane was in its air group. Why? If we cannot simulate that, why did we add it?
USS Hornet is not on the map in stock or CHS because they didn't have the plane to simulate its air group. Now I have provided the plane - and allowed it on the map - and you want to change the plane early? Almost sounds like Matrix and CHS were wiser than I am - because they knew if players were allowed to have the ship - they would not allow the air group it really had. [It cannot be stock or CHS wanted the Shangra La Squadron - neither has that - so the decision to delay the ship was unrelated to that] In RHS I gave you both choices: the ship early with the SBC - or later with the SBD. But you seem to want it early - with the SBD. I find this frustrating - and I wonder if you will also upgrade the land squadrons (of which there are only two)? IRL the Allies would not be too fast to do this - they didn't know what they faced - and they were very confident of US airmen.

Sid, I did the research for the Curtiss bipe before you put it in the OOB's, but while I only found 1(one) unit using it at the time of Pearl Harbor, I also noted that it was a land-based Marine unit, normally stationed on Samoa, and that at the time of the attack the squadron was TDY on the East Coast on aerial maneuvers, (in North Carolina).
This was (IIRC) the last info I put into the thread concerning that plane..

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Ya know, it might be the Wasp that came in with the old dive bombers then. There was one (arrived at New Orleans) where I just did an upgrade when it arrived.

Well - Wasp has SB2U-2 Vindicators - not SBDs - so possibly you are confusing those with the SBC of the Hornet?
There are only three SBC units total - two on land - one on USS Hornet. It was barely worth adding to the Allied plane set. There are not many SB2U-2 units either - and if they "just get upgraded" when they appear - once again I wonder what is the point of having them? No "flavor" here - no respect for what USN thought was first or second line aircraft in 1941 - just - "get rid of em as soon as they appear." We might be better off to "pre upgrade" all such units and have slots for later types - or empty slots even.

[el cid again]

Bob: The SBC article in US Naval Aircraft says there were three units using it - and names them. I believe you will find one at Panama. Had there been less than three I would probably not have added it. I don't think there were any at Samoa when the war began, but I did find the unit that eventually went there and it is whereever it was when the war began.

[m10bob]

I too am a huge fan of the older planes that were in use in the beginning of the war, whether they remained a year, or a day.
We (and stock) have esoteric short terms planes already, (like the P 26), IF we need justification for units that existed, but did not "stick around".
There are all kinds of planes that were present IRL,but not in game, any mod, like the XB 19 (2 made and used for transports), and how about that Harvard "fighter" made by the U.S.(It actually LOOKED like a fighter, unlike the Boomerang, IMHO).
I have no problem with the Curtiss starting on the Hornet, but to paraphrase you, give the player the option to upgrade, or not.
Do you want to carry them into Midway?

This website, (the USN virtual museum of Pensacola apparently) claims the SBC-4 only flew from the Lexington

http://www.vusn.org/trawing/museum.htm

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
Well - Wasp has SB2U-2 Vindicators - not SBDs - so possibly you are confusing those with the SBC of the Hornet?

Yes, I think so. By the time Wasp appears there were plenty of SBC-3's available, so I just upgraded rather than be restricted to 500lb bombs, etc.

There are only three SBC units total - two on land - one on USS Hornet. It was barely worth adding to the Allied plane set. There are not many SB2U-2 units either - and if they "just get upgraded" when they appear - once again I wonder what is the point of having them? No "flavor" here - no respect for what USN thought was first or second line aircraft in 1941 - just - "get rid of em as soon as they appear." We might be better off to "pre upgrade" all such units and have slots for later types - or empty slots even.

With respect to the SB2U-2, it is on at least one carrier in the war zone when the campaign begins - plus there are very few SBC-3's to go around. The SB2U-2 could be a very important front line aircraft in the event of a shortage of SBC-3's. For example, if Pearl Harbor were under siege from the get go and heavy battle ensued.

About the SBC: I think m10bob is right - if playing without PDU it is important for the SBC to have either the SB2U-2 or the SBC-3 as the upgrade path. Otherwise the player is stuck with it for a long time, which is very unrealistic. Perhaps the SB2U-2 is the better upgrade path, as the player could then upgrade to the SBC-3, if they were available in sufficient quantity (or stay with the SB2U-2 for a while if need be).

[el cid again]

Upgrade paths are tricky - and do not work the way Matrix programmers insist they do. This isn't completely unusual - there is a lot of complicated code. Anyway - one of the factors is what you define the upgrade of a air unit to - and so we will try defining the unit on USS Hornet as upgrading to SBD-3 (vice SBD-5) and see what we get. But in theory, which doesn't always work, so long as one air unit uses the type, and so long as you are in the same service, and so long as the plane function (e.g. dive bomber) is the same, you can upgrade to it. This may be a problem here as I think the other units are NOT USN - but USMC - and so in WITP code - a different service! Anyway - it is part of x.759 - and all I am waiting on is tests about units that want to be "carrier capable and carrier qualified" when not really on carriers. If this works as expected, the "jeep" carriers (without air groups) will return to RHS (except USS Long Island, which never had an air group in RHS - awful ship that it is). FYI I have created a training carrier called USS Wolverine - which isn't really that ship - but it honors a strange paddle wheel (side wheel) aircraft carrier really serving on Lake Michigan! If this works out - I will also add USS Sable - a similar paddle wheel training ship. These two ships had flight decks - period. They were only used to train take off and landing - and the air units really were based ashore. They have no actual air group capacity at all IRL. I hope to define air units as belonging to these ships - but not appear on board them - and you don't really get the ships to play with. This because we observed FAA units appearing NOT on their assigned ship (or WITPQS did).

This last is happening - the tests are completed - and a number of US CVEs will lose air groups - because they served as aircraft transports. Yet all the squadrons involved will remain carrier qualified, which they were IRL.

Turns out there are two USN SBC squadrons - both on USS Hornet [VS-8 and VB-8] and only one USMC squadron (VMO-151) - which I believe starts the game in Panama. This is probably the unit that goes to Samoa later, IRL.