7.9 comprehensive update: AI scenarios ALSO uploaded

[el cid again]

I wonder if this is confusion about terminology?

USS Sangamon in RHS has a proper USN VF squadron. It is assigned the FM-2 Wildcat. Now while there IS a RN version of that aircraft - it is called the Martlet V - and the FM-2 really is a USN designation.

It is the name of an F4F - probably something like F4F-5 - made by General Motors. Note that the F4F-4 is called F4F-4/FM-1 - because some of those were made by GM - and called FM-1s. FM-2s are just an up engined FM-1 - and more or less the same as an F4F-5 would have been - but except for prototypes - F4F-5s were all made by GM - so the aircraft company could focus on the F6F project. GM was a sort of slave company - it made what the aircraft company designed - and it could make anything.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

I wonder if this is confusion about terminology?

USS Sangamon in RHS has a proper USN VF squadron. It is assigned the FM-2 Wildcat. Now while there IS a RN version of that aircraft - it is called the Martlet V - and the FM-2 really is a USN designation.

It is the name of an F4F - probably something like F4F-5 - made by General Motors. Note that the F4F-4 is called F4F-4/FM-1 - because some of those were made by GM - and called FM-1s. FM-2s are just an up engined FM-1 - and more or less the same as an F4F-5 would have been - but except for prototypes - F4F-5s were all made by GM - so the aircraft company could focus on the F6F project. GM was a sort of slave company - it made what the aircraft company designed - and it could make anything.

Still at the office, but the F4F's with the ships are showing the traits and pic art of the brit model,(with a range of 3)..They are however listed as being FM 2's....

[el cid again]

That be right. They got there by a different path - but it is the same. RN cruises at 238 mph for 120 minutes.
US uses 164 mph for 141 minutes. These are operational doctrinal data.

[el cid again]

I have converted the Swordfish to its ASW configuration as default - but let SOME units start with torpedoes. That means you have the option of 'upgrading' to an ASW armed carrier plane for the first time as the Allies. It has radar, rockets, bombs and DC - not bad really. Units that start with torpedo capability have a suffex T - those with bombs suffex GP - those with DC/bombs AS.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

That be right. They got there by a different path - but it is the same. RN cruises at 238 mph for 120 minutes.
US uses 164 mph for 141 minutes. These are operational doctrinal data.

Okay, here is the problem..The USN carrier units with the F4F (slot#092 should upgrade to slot 093, but instead are upgrading to slot 090 on some of the USN CVE's..
Further, some of the earlier American CV's will never upgrade past the F4F (slot 093) to the Hellcat.
This is in RHSCVO 7.xx

[el cid again]

There are things happening here:

there is the upgrade path of the plane and the upgrade path of the unit.

There is also automatic upgrade and player upgrade.

Not all units really follow the same upgrade path IRL - and this is somewhat represented by unit upgrade paths.
The upgrade path for the plane is to enable the player to do what is most linear and logical if desired.

Then there is code: if the upgrade is not available, but some other plane is available it will fill with that plane -
usually an older type in my experience.

I am not sure what you are describing here - because I don't know if it is automatic or not - but it may be
everything is "right" - or at least set as right as we can get it. More data = more precise opinion.

[m10bob]

I looked in the editor and from that discerned which aircraft slot number the USN F4F's were upgrading to. This is how I deduced the earlier F4F4 was going to slot 090, instead of the American FM-2...

The reason I *believe* some of the earlier USN flattops will never go from F4F to F6 Hellcats is because the units themselves do not say they will upgrade to anything greater.
Maybe in this instance the plane itself will upgrade to the Hellcat on its' own???

[el cid again]

The F6F should NOT be possible on CVEs - and I did something to prevent it - but no longer remember the details.

It may or may not be working as intended.


PLANE path is

F4F-3 to F4F-4
F4F-4 to FM-2
FM-2 DEAD END

Then UNITS SOMETIMES get an option to go to F6F-5 or F4U-1D

[m10bob]

Please read carefully. The ships I claim will not progress from Wildcats to Hellcats are the earlier CV's. (Lex, Sara, Hornet class, Wasp).
I believe this because the units themselves (on those ships) say "upgrade to" "(and then only name the type F4F they already have).
Does this not mean they will not get F6F's????

[el cid again]

Lexington starts with Buffalos - these will upgrade to F-4F3s - which will in turn upgrade to F-4F4s - which will in turn upgrade to FM-2s. They will NOT automatically upgrade to F-6Fs or F-4Us - but if ANY of these planes is in USN service- PLAYERS have the option to so upgrade them.
Since the Allies cannot be managed by AI - I didn't think this was a problem.

Saratoga starts with F-4F3s - which will upgrade to F4F-4s - which will upgrade to FM-2s.
Yorktown and Enterprise same same.

Hornet starts with F-4F4s - which will upgrade to F6Fs.
Wasp and Essex same same.

[el cid again]

I checked - these fighter units show ALL naval fighters of USN as upgrade options - so playes may do as they wish.

RHS also "cheats" in code terms - and is strictly historical in fact- in that you can transfer LAND BASED carrier fighter units to carriers - in some cases. I used training carriers and date tricked these units - they ALWAYS appear at San Francisco - ANY carrier capable and carrier qualified land squadron can be assigned to a carrier if you wish. This really happened too - but I did it because the units will never resize - in case you don't like a resize - just use a unit of the right size.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Lexington starts with Buffalos - these will upgrade to F-4F3s - which will in turn upgrade to F-4F4s - which will in turn upgrade to FM-2s. They will NOT automatically upgrade to F-6Fs or F-4Us - but if ANY of these planes is in USN service- PLAYERS have the option to so upgrade them.
Since the Allies cannot be managed by AI - I didn't think this was a problem.

Saratoga starts with F-4F3s - which will upgrade to F4F-4s - which will upgrade to FM-2s.
Yorktown and Enterprise same same.

Hornet starts with F-4F4s - which will upgrade to F6Fs.
Wasp and Essex same same.

Thank you..

[el cid again]

This is a vast undertaking - reviewing thousands - perhaps tens of thousands of units

and so I am doing things to the air groups - if I must look at them anyway

aside from fixing any eratta -

I am making more loadouts

In general - you CAN change a unit's loadout - but the later in the war you do that - the more you lose in specialized equipment

Thus an ASW unit with suffex [AS] for Allies may have advanced surface ship hunting radar, MAD and ASW torpedoes -
and changing it means you cannot get those back.

Turns out players can see UNIT loadouts by looking at AIRCRAFT DATA inside the UNIT screen - lower left button area.
This shows up the peculiar loadout of the UNIT - not the generic plane. Look at this and think carefully before upgrading a unit -
or double upgrading back to the same type - which gives you the default loadout for the aircraft type.

[el cid again]

Investigation USN depth charge data, I found that the 'modern" (post 1930) destroyers were not at first fitted with them. To honor treaty restrictions, there was only provision for mounting DC racks at the stern - and none were fitted at all - and no Y guns or K guns either. When that changed, generally something else had to change - typically landing torpedo mountings or gun mountings. Now when this was done varies sihp to ship - and also Atlantic and Pacific - so using generic classes requires we be a bit statistical. I elected that the original class (Farrigut) - and the overloaded Porter and Somers (which could not even take DP mountings due to their 8 gun design) - be without DC at all. Since the All three classes were stripped in Levels 5 and 6 as well. Behhams were missing half their TT in their WITP form - I let them have a bigger DC suite than was used before (by CHS and RHS) - they had a Y gun as well as 2 racks. [This is probably wrong: the pattern here is for the Atlantic - but Pacific units refitted "later" - and probably very early. If some were not so fitted when the war began, it compensates for any of the stripped classes that got emergency DC racks fitted.] But the Sims class lost half their pattern - it should only show 2 racks. This I backfitted to Level 5 and 6 as well, but without the pattern devices.

[el cid again]

Benson class ships of the first two forms (272 & 1296) should be identical - and slightly better in AA and ASW than shown. These are among the first really good US multi role DDs - with one 5 inch gun mounting and 1 5 tube torpedo bank landed to permit mounting of 40mm, 20mm and DC throwers. We could use one of these slots for an improvised armament - which was done pending availabilty of the new AA guns - hmmm.

Great as Benson was, the earliest Fletchers - still fitting 1.1 inch AA guns (themselves a big improvement over .50 cals - and in quads too) - were 50 per cent better in DC fit. Nice ships. Sumners and Gearings had the same (maximum) DC fit - we call it pattern of 12 large DC -
but while they had the same machinery and apparently better gun mountings (3 twins vice 5 singles) - the Fletchers seem to have been regarded as better ships overall.

[el cid again]

RNN DD should be classified as DM (van Ghent & Isaac Sweers classes) or DMS (van Galen class) - in original configurations.

These classes were messed up seriously - since stock - and nobody ever noticed. They are much better destroyers than it seems.
The first two classes have four mounts for the main battery vice two - making it harder to take them out. They had more and better AA suites than shown. They had specialist MS or ML functions not properly classified. And they had a lot more range:

3200 nm at 15 knots for van Ghent
3300 nm at 15 knots for van Galen
5400 nm at 19 knots for Isaac Sweers (!!!)

I took the opportunity to define upgrades - in case they survive - and in EBO with its accelerated Dutch program all three ships are able to make it in time for the war - two completed and the third made it to UK to fit out - so the first pair start at Soerabaja and their sister is just entering the map edge at Aden when the war begins in PTO. The British N class that replaced them still appear - in RN form - in 1942.

[el cid again]

Some classes so changed function they should change classification: thus RN A Class destroyers are reclassified as DE when they upgrade.
This simulated better sensord and training - because code gives advantages to DE type ships in ASW operations.

It appears that when PTO eruptes into war, British destroyers are better fitted for ASW than others - no doubt a reflection of war experience in the Atlantic vs German U booten.

In Level 7 HMS Raider should appear at Durban on 29 March 1943. In other mods or RHS levels it should appear at Aden about 15 April 1943. This ship is renamed RIN Rana in EBO. Redoubt is renamed RIN Ranjit and Rotherham is renamed RIN Rajput also in EBO. All three ships were indeed transferred to RIN IRL - and all three served in Indian waters in WWII - but they were transferred only in 1949. In EBO - the greater threat generates pressure to create a more powerful Indian military force sooner. Only Raider (or in EBO Rana) needed to be added - but it appears to be missing since stock.

[el cid again]

This is still pending. It is massive work - and impossible to stage partly: you cannot mix radically different ASW data. Not doing much until it is done. I hope it substantially solves the problem of too easily killed submarines. I have put some effort into better sensor modeling - hard in the semi-abstract world of WITP sonar - but still possible. Thus while all AS ships and air units are weaker - some benefit from higher detection changes - and at least some air units will get a surprisingly effective AS torpedo (plans to make 10,000 were cut to 3,000 - because there was no need for so many - they worked - and became the basis for post war ASW).

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Investigation USN depth charge data, I found that the 'modern" (post 1930) destroyers were not at first fitted with them. To honor treaty restrictions, there was only provision for mounting DC racks at the stern - and none were fitted at all - and no Y guns or K guns either. When that changed, generally something else had to change - typically landing torpedo mountings or gun mountings. Now when this was done varies sihp to ship - and also Atlantic and Pacific - so using generic classes requires we be a bit statistical. I elected that the original class (Farrigut) - and the overloaded Porter and Somers (which could not even take DP mountings due to their 8 gun design) - be without DC at all. Since the All three classes were stripped in Levels 5 and 6 as well. Behhams were missing half their TT in their WITP form - I let them have a bigger DC suite than was used before (by CHS and RHS) - they had a Y gun as well as 2 racks. [This is probably wrong: the pattern here is for the Atlantic - but Pacific units refitted "later" - and probably very early. If some were not so fitted when the war began, it compensates for any of the stripped classes that got emergency DC racks fitted.] But the Sims class lost half their pattern - it should only show 2 racks. This I backfitted to Level 5 and 6 as well, but without the pattern devices.

It appears three classes never were fitted with DC at all - but went from anti surface DD to anti-aircraft DD. These include Porters, Sumers and Mahan. Farrigut was given a minimal DC fit - two racks - but was not large enough to turn into a serious ASW ship without loss of important mountings. Benhams were too small to add much - only a few 20 mm - until a planned 1945 Anti-Kamakaze refit - which contemplated removing 4 banks of TT to gain serious AAA. If done that would have stripped them of their two minimal DC racks as well. The almost identical Bagleys were built to a more robust standard (Benhams appear to have been built light so they would go faster - which payed a bonus to the builder) and could add some significant AA during the war - and their planned 1945 emergency conversion would not have cost DCs - but they didn't really get a significant ASW suite either. So it appears that many of the start of war USN destroyers are not serious AS ships at all - and many of them have no DC - while the rest drop tiny patterns (albiet of large rather than small DC). Thus the new issue will feature for the first time ships not over rated for DC they never carried. On the other hand, ships which became serious ASW ships are re rated as DE - so they have a higher chance of detection rolls. Some ships get higher DC counts.

We never put as much focus on minor warships as major ones - and that pattern may also have been the case in CHS and stock - so this is a significant review for many of these vessels - and many (thousands) of fields not related to ASW are being updated.

ETA Thursday.

[anarchyintheuk]

Sorry to bother but I thought that the Porters and Somers had the Mk 22 SP mount? Odd that they would be thought of as AA destroyers. Were those mounts ever even used against torp planes?