A/C frame fatigue question + ops losses

[Rob Brennan UK]

OFFENCEMAN PLS DO NOT READ !













Hello all.

My team mate (LoBaron) any myself have been having a discussion about the allied transport a/c ops losses and what's causing them. From out chats we have come up with a wee list of things to check/ask.

1) Do planes get scrapped when fatigue gets too high ? , is there a % chance that a high fatigued airframe goes in the spares pile before the maintenance cycle ?

2) Are the high C47 losses just a result of us using a lot of them, and a/c in smaller numbers just don't get flagged as often so less noticeable ? One side note here :- I have been using the allied bomber groups in India to fly in supply to Burma (mythilinka etc.) for 2 solid months and not noticed an excessive loss of a/c. The Chinese SBIII's would be highly noticeable as there are nil replacements for them in the pools.

3) Range does (or should) be a factor , but even flying ledo-myth (3 hexes from L9 to a L6 airfield) seem to have similar losses as flying from Ledo to Chengtu (L5) Range 12. this seems odd ? On the game related note , Ledo to Myth has been 90% of the runs for the allied transport groups for the past 6 months.

4) Pilot skills , Exp and transport skills are (I assume) the important ones , would setting up rear area training bases specifically for transport pilots eliminate most of these losses ? .. again the allied bombers have good exp but naff all transport skills.

5) Why have transport skills anyway ? surely flying from AF A to AF B , any idiot from training can do this surely ? sure xp for bad weather tests etc , but even these should be a lot safer than active missions , even if unopposed. What is the transport skill used for in game ?

Additional note.

weather , its always horrible in Burma , so not flying in thunder/storm forecasts is not really an option or they would never fly.


Has anyone got anything to contribute to help try and shed some light on this. The point is to try and reduce the ops losses (2-3 every 2 days) to a rate where the pools for C47's actually accumulates.


Thanks in advance to anyone who drops by and comments, especially to any devs who can share their wisdom on the programming ideas behind the scenes.

Thank you. and TTFN.

[vonTirpitz]

Hi Rob,

I believe that you have most of the factors figured out, i.e. range, frequency, fatigue, volume, etc. They all add up to increased operational losses in my opinion. Enemy Long Range CAP over target and/or origination bases for transport missions also seem to increase transport op losses but I have no idea to what degree it happens.

5) Why have transport skills anyway ? surely flying from AF A to AF B , any idiot from training can do this surely ? sure xp for bad weather tests etc , but even these should be a lot safer than active missions , even if unopposed. What is the transport skill used for in game ?

Just speculation, but I bet any idiot from training would not effectively drop supplies to troops in the middle of a jungle. I have no idea if this affects the amount of supply that reaches non-base LCUs when targeted but it would make sense if it did.

weather , its always horrible in Burma , so not flying in thunder/storm forecasts is not really an option or they would never fly.

Historically the weather seems pretty accurate in theater. Most pilot interviews I have read about Burma always mention bad weather in and around their flight paths. I have no idea if this is reflected in transport ops losses but it would not be suprising if it was.

If your goal is to reduce op losses then I can only recommend reducing the number of consecutive turns that you fly missions. Just my two cents.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Rob Brennan UK

My team mate (LoBaron) any myself have been having a discussion about the allied transport a/c ops losses and what's causing them. From out chats we have come up with a wee list of things to check/ask.

1) Do planes get scrapped when fatigue gets too high ? , is there a % chance that a high fatigued airframe goes in the spares pile before the maintenance cycle ?

Write offs are a form of Op Loss - see s.7.2.1.14 on page 168 of the manual.

2) Are the high C47 losses just a result of us using a lot of them, and a/c in smaller numbers just don't get flagged as often so less noticeable ? One side note here :- I have been using the allied bomber groups in India to fly in supply to Burma (mythilinka etc.) for 2 solid months and not noticed an excessive loss of a/c. The Chinese SBIII's would be highly noticeable as there are nil replacements for them in the pools.

Yes[:)]

3) Range does (or should) be a factor , but even flying ledo-myth (3 hexes from L9 to a L6 airfield) seem to have similar losses as flying from Ledo to Chengtu (L5) Range 12. this seems odd ? On the game related note , Ledo to Myth has been 90% of the runs for the allied transport groups for the past 6 months.

Range is a factor in that it increases pilot fatigue, which is different from airframe metal fatigue. Both fatigues are factors in the game.

4) Pilot skills , Exp and transport skills are (I assume) the important ones , would setting up rear area training bases specifically for transport pilots eliminate most of these losses ? .. again the allied bombers have good exp but naff all transport skills.

Of the two, pilot experience is the relevant one for operational losses. Transport skill has one definite, and one inferred benefit. The definite benefit is concentration on training up transport skill will improve experience quicker than the scatter gun approach of "general" training. The inferred benefit is that IIRC, michaelm said that the quantum of supplies delivered via a supply drop to a non airfield is dependent on a die roll whereas air transported between airfields, the exact supply is delivered. If that interpretation is correct, and I may well be incorrect in my recollection, I would infer the transport skill plays a role.

5) Why have transport skills anyway ? surely flying from AF A to AF B , any idiot from training can do this surely ? sure xp for bad weather tests etc , but even these should be a lot safer than active missions , even if unopposed. What is the transport skill used for in game ?

Actually there is considerable adjustment required between flying a single and a multi engined aircraft. See above for my inferred comment regarding transport skill.

Additional note.

weather , its always horrible in Burma , so not flying in thunder/storm forecasts is not really an option or they would never fly.


Has anyone got anything to contribute to help try and shed some light on this. The point is to try and reduce the ops losses (2-3 every 2 days) to a rate where the pools for C47's actually accumulates.

Actually with that loss rate, you should still be increasing your C-47 pool.[:)]

Alfred

edit; colour change

[tocaff]

Alfred the color of your text is awful for these poor eyes.  [:(]

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: tocaff

Alfred the color of your text is awful for these poor eyes.  [:(]

It's even awful for fairly good eyes.

[Capt Hornblower]

ORIGINAL: vonTirpitz

Hi Rob,

.
.
.
If your goal is to reduce op losses then I can only recommend reducing the number of consecutive turns that you fly missions.

I have no experience with this in WITP:AE, but in Uncommon Valor, I fly supply missions every other day to reduce pilot fatigue. (I believe pilot fatigue is a major contributor to ops losses in transport missions.)

[beppi]

In general air transport losses are just massive from my opinion. I currently PBEM i lost 689 C-47 , 98 Dakota 3 and 138 C-46A. So close to a 1000 transport planes. 98% where op losses. So your losses are not that spectacular. My game currently is in begin of 44 and most of the transport losses where in 1943 alone (around 150 C-47 where lost earlier).

Pilot XP and transport skill was quite well at the begin but with the continuous pilot losses it is hard to keep up even with around 10 empty C-47 squads doing permanent training. More or less i had every C-47/C-46/Dakota available doing air transports into china since almost a year to prevent it from collapsing. So i was forced to do so but the losses are by my opinion are much to high.

For around 2-3 months i even had around 200 4E shipping supply on a constant rate but the losses where marginal compared to around the 250 - 300 C-47 at the same time.

Pilot fatigue is low most of the time and the planes are operating from a lvl 9 base so it should not be a problem too. LRCAP was no real issue as i CAP quite aggressive against it.

I think in my next PBEM i would rise the production of the C-47 by at least 50% to compensate the losses.

[Heeward]

Could we have some people who have completed scenario describe their use of transport aircraft and op loss rates to compare with historical results?

[DeriKuk]

2) Are the high C47 losses just a result of us using a lot of them, and a/c in smaller numbers just don't get flagged as often so less noticeable ? One side note here :- I have been using the allied bomber groups in India to fly in supply to Burma (mythilinka etc.) for 2 solid months and not noticed an excessive loss of a/c. The Chinese SBIII's would be highly noticeable as there are nil replacements for them in the pools.

My empirical $0.02: Fly the same number of Dakota IIIs and C47s on the same mission from the same base on the same turns . . . and after a while you'll notice how the C47s fall like confetti compared to the Dakota IIIs.

Of course, mine may simply be a biased observation. [;)]

[obvert]

I fly transport with 20-30 percent rest, and still have high losses, but not as high as before i started this. All pilots start at around 50 exp and 70 transport. Using 5-7 groups for supply and occasionally troop movement, and not accumulating C-47s in the pools.

I wondered if in this area altitude makes any difference? Obviously the standard 6000 setting wouldn't get you over the Himalayas, and yet when I have the groups set to this level, they get to their destination. It can't be assumed this is 6000 over any surface, because performance would still be different. But does altitude have any bearing on Ops losses?

Also, does the game take away paratroops lost due to Ops losses or CAP losses in transports?

Has anyone noticed if the 4E transports get the same kind of losses? Their replacement rate is so low I assigned them to trainging and am waiting to have a group full before using them for occasional paratroop missions.

[Rob Brennan UK]

Thank you all for your replies.

I do keep pilot fatigue as low as possible (10 or less on average), I hadn't considered the transport skill for non base hex drops and para attacks , that's very useful, thank you for pointing that out.

Guess I was looking for a non existent magic button that would curtail the ops losses, but sadly none is available.

So training up pilots and just going for it seems the way ahead , might leave the groups on 20-30% training too , although this ofc will impact the amount flown by the same %(or will it ? with the 20% spare pilots this might not be the case ) at least the extra (non flying pilots) will get books to read on their rest days. What else is there to do at Ledo ? [;)][;)]

Thank you all once again.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: obvert

I fly transport with 20-30 percent rest, and still have high losses, but not as high as before i started this. All pilots start at around 50 exp and 70 transport. Using 5-7 groups for supply and occasionally troop movement, and not accumulating C-47s in the pools.

What I have 'figured" out that works for me is:
min 30%, better 40% rest
50% more AV support than required at Bangkok.
max pilots in group to keep pilot fatigue <8%

This testing was done using the Bangkok to Pt. Blair (12) supply route. I'm down to losing less than 10% a/c per month. From what I have been able to determine, this is far lower than RL losses, so I'm ok with it. When I was at 20% rest, min AV; I was losing ~10%/week which was completely unsustainable.

ORIGINAL: obvert
I wondered if in this area altitude makes any difference? Obviously the standard 6000 setting wouldn't get you over the Himalayas, and yet when I have the groups set to this level, they get to their destination. It can't be assumed this is 6000 over any surface, because performance would still be different. But does altitude have any bearing on Ops losses?

I've always assumed that 6000 ft = 6000 AGL. If not, then yeah, flying the hump at 6000 you'd better have a good drill on those planes! [:D]