Aircraft

[Historiker]

Some questions:

1. Is it possible to let the Japanese side produce Allied planes or vice versa? One might add a production facility with Allied planes to a Japanese base. Will this factory convert the next day or will it continue its production?
2. How can I simulate that some planes are cheaper (perhaps made mainly of wood) while others need much rare materials? Is it only possible to do this by adding more or reducing the numbers of engines?
3. How much will a plane without an engine cost to produce for the Japanese side?
4. I've found out that a unit has some "tolerance" concerning the numbers. So when its standard size is 36 planes, it may have around 39. If it has more than this, the planes will go into the pool. But what happens, if I give a Japanese unit allied planes - which is possible while they recieve no reinforcements - but a much huger size than "allowed"? The idea is to give a Japanese unit so much allied planes that its need can be fittet for some time. Is that possible?
5. Is there ANY possibility to let planes fly without pilots?

[el cid again]

1) You can use a plane on the "wrong" side - RHS does this for a few obscure types - BUT it will never replace for the wrong side.

2) You can capture an aircraft plant - and if Japan does - it will then produce ANY plane they want - while for the Allies it will only produce
whatever you set it to produce.

The biggest problem is art - but since there are so many Allied slots - I borrowed a couple and put Axis art in them. For things that cannot produce anyway - it works fine. It does have the side effect of reporting losses on the wrong side - I think.

3 The cost of a plane is zero for the Allies -

it is 18 plus (number of engines times 18) for Axis.

Nothing we can do changes that.

4 IF you put a lot of planes in an air unit - they will go into reserve status and not fly.

5 planes without pilots are missiles - and as devices they will work - but not as planes per se
I also have blimps "fly" without pilots - because they are not planes either

[Historiker]

ad1: so the Japenese would produce for the Allied pool?

ad2: what does it produce after being captured before the Japanese player changes it? Does it still produce the allied plane?

ad3: So the Allies don't need any HI to produce?

ad4: Try it! withdraw 10 units that a unit has 200 planes instead of 20. The next turn it will have only 40-50, the rest is in the pool and after some days, it will have (nearly) the allowed size. So if I give a unit zized 20 250 planes per editor, 230 of them should move into the pool - but in which pool? In the Allied?

ad5: but if I want strategic missiles like the V2 - how could I use and produce them as a device? THe idea is to add a unit which is Kamikaze - to have the plane used one way - and equip it with planes "V2". But as a device I can't do that, right?

[el cid again]

1 No - the factory changes sides -

2 ANY valid Japanese aircraft - but ramps up from zero - which I find reasonable

3 - No - Allied HI exists to give resources and oil something to do - and to be captured -
I guess

4 - this is too many - but a more reasonable number goes into reserve

5 - Use a gun type device - it is true - a missile is a very long range gun

[SireChaos]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

1 No - the factory changes sides -

2 ANY valid Japanese aircraft - but ramps up from zero - which I find reasonable

3 - No - Allied HI exists to give resources and oil something to do - and to be captured -
I guess

4 - this is too many - but a more reasonable number goes into reserve

5 - Use a gun type device - it is true - a missile is a very long range gun

Wait... I thought it said in the manual that captured aircraft factories convert to vehicle factories. So is this wrong, too?

[Historiker]

ad1 et 2 It changes sides, yes - but which plane does it produce then?

ad3 I thought that it was necessary to add additional HI to RHS to fit the Allied demands for the mapbase production of planes?

ad4 Too many for what? In which pool will it go? Will Allied planes in a Japanese unit go in the Allied pool or in the Japanese?

ad5 But which unit shall it fire than? Artillery? It can be used only in the same hex then which makes it useless...

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: SireChaos

ORIGINAL: el cid again

1 No - the factory changes sides -

2 ANY valid Japanese aircraft - but ramps up from zero - which I find reasonable

3 - No - Allied HI exists to give resources and oil something to do - and to be captured -
I guess

4 - this is too many - but a more reasonable number goes into reserve

5 - Use a gun type device - it is true - a missile is a very long range gun

Wait... I thought it said in the manual that captured aircraft factories convert to vehicle factories. So is this wrong, too?

I don't know what it says in the manual. Shipyards do convert to repair shipyards. But aircraft factories remain aircraft factories - fact - whatever it may say. And they work too. No exceptions. Nor is this wrong. The shipyard part is wrong. Japan both used captured shipyards and "mobile repairs sections" to build ships - warships and amphibs as well as transports.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

ad1 et 2 It changes sides, yes - but which plane does it produce then?

AXIS player may decide- must decide in fact - as it won't work UNLESS an Axis type is selected

ad3 I thought that it was necessary to add additional HI to RHS to fit the Allied demands for the mapbase production of planes?

RHS has a good deal of HI production, much more than CHS did. There are problems just adding more: you might run out
of resources to feed it - you must move resources and oil to feed it (more non-military shipping) - and there is a problem with
how much HI existed/could exist. RHS represents about half the HI - for technical reasons the model does not work quite right -
the ratio of resources to oil consumed is not correct - and we actually remove all the other half the HI, resources, ships to move them, etc.
Unless one is into a fantisy mod - as Terminus says - a modder must actually think about what he is doing - and it is very hard when the
basic economic model is not structurally correct. Adding HI is not a simple thing - and it is perfectly possible to add it without it actually working - nor being related to anything in the location you added it - either or both at the same time.

ad4 Too many for what? In which pool will it go? Will Allied planes in a Japanese unit go in the Allied pool or in the Japanese?


Axis units with Allied planes should be small - as in RTAF perhaps. They will report as losses to the wrong side - and if they could dump into a pool - they would dump into the Allied pool for that type. I don't think they can. I was talking about too many planes of an Axis type. I do not understand what you seek here - but it is not intended to put too many planes in a unit - and the only way to find out what happens is to try it. It defeats substantially the system - which expects planes to be lost - replaced - or not because they are not available. And it expects planes to be of the right side in a unit. Gross changes to this will cause some problems - probably not all of which we can know - but at least in reports and victory point terms (affecting automatic victory etc)

ad5 But which unit shall it fire than? Artillery? It can be used only in the same hex then which makes it useless...

I don't think very long range weapons are contemplated in this design. But it may not be limited to one hex. I do have a very long range for some coast defense weapons - and the Schneider rail gun. Since a hex is 64000 yards across - that is farther than one can see - even with radar vs a surface target - and so it works fine for most weapons of interest to WITP. Certainly short range SSMs would work = even today not many go farther than that - and most that did in history were not effective at greater ranges than that. [Missiles - actually defeating them - is my naval specialty] If one could make a long ragne missile - I doubt you could make it miss enough to be realistic (even an accuracy of 1 would be grossly exaggerated) The problem with the V weapons was they were never able to be used as intended - from the perminant stations which had precision radar to track them - and send guidance corrections. So they were used in a mobile form - and they could only sometimes fall within the limits of a gigantic target (e.g. London) - they could not be targeted on an airfield - a port facility - a building - name it.
We don't really have a mechanism to simulate a random attack on civil infrastructure - we can't even do an attack on a rail martialing yard, bridge - etc.