[FIXED B481] 6 hrs to prepare an Harrier???

[bsq]

I think if we are looking at a long campaign and big picture stuff, then a steady (repair), service, re-arm and crew-in could take time, however this does not simulate a long campaign - it simulates a day or two at most.

It took 3 hours to turn around a Nimrod MR2 in peacetime during the cold war. It was quicker during exercises simulating war or transition to war. So here we are potentially looking at 6 Torpedoes, 2 Specials, 100+ Sonobuoys and 84k Lb of fuel all in less time than it takes to re-arm an SHAR.

I am afraid that the OP is correct, something is not quite right. We are not simulating peacetime with all the checks and balances to eliminate 99.99999999% of all risk, we are simulating wartime ops where, to a degree, mission is everything and, whilst important, safety is a step back from this.

And its not just the re-arm times either, lots of things are not quite right from a timing perspective. It takes too long to launch aircraft. Often I am seeing taxi times of 10 minutes or so for fast air - just does not happen.

[ComDev]

Cross-posting from Wargamer:

We're planning a 'quick turnaround' option for certain aircraft/loadout combos. Like Israeli attack a/c hot-fueling & re-arming during various wars, A-10s and Marine AV-8Bs doing several CAS sorties in quick succession, Swedish Viggens doing 15-min AAM re-arming, etc.

So the Israeli aircraft could do, say, 2-4 strike sorties with 30 min turnaround time (need to check the sources on the exact number) but would then have to step down for a prolonged period of time for aircraft maintenance and crew rest (say 18-24hrs vice 6hrs).

It should probably be up to the scenario author to enable/disable the quick re-arm option in his scenario. In many cases it would not make sense to have this ability.

How does that sound?

[bsq]

QTR sounds ideal.

If there is a penalty to be applied either to weapon accuracy (lack of planning) or maintenance (cutting corners) then so much the better (in terms of modelling) (although I am sure not all would agree with that [:D]). This way you take a penalty for a QTR, which is the case IRL because you can only do so many 'Qs' before you have to do it 'properly'.

[Gunner98]

Not sure if AC malfunction rates are modelled - Would be interesting penalty for QTR is you suffered in-flight engine, weapon or avionics malfunctions which as a minimum would result in an abort and a long maint period and worst case you would lose the AC.


B

[chemkid]

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[jdkbph]

This is an interesting conversation. I'm going to put on my wayback hat here for a moment in the hope that I can make a contribution.

Back in the 70's and 80's (cold war atmosphere, tail end of Vietnam, several years on the Korean peninsula during high tension times, etc) we used to do things like sortie surges. As you can imagine these were events intended to generate the maximum number of sorties over a finite period of time. Typically that would be 2 or 3 days.

Pretty much EVERYTHING changes from the normal way of doing things when that's going on. If a plane comes back banged up it gets a temporary repair (ie just enough to get it safely airborne again) or flies the next mission with degraded capabilities or sans some non-mission critical capability altogether. About the only thing that wasn't (intentionally) compromised was safety of flight. However I don't think it was coincidence, or can be explained away as a 1:1 function of increased flight hours, that most of the a/c losses I witnessed occurred during these events.

Now these were fighters - F-4Ds to be exact - configured primarily for air to ground. They did occasionally fly air to air as well, but they almost always carried an ECM pod and/or a Pave Spike in the right/left forward missile well when doing so. It was just too time consuming to remove it. That meant AIM9s on the inboard pylons only and 370s on the outboard pylons... no AIM7s at all. That's an example of what I meant by degraded capability.

Same deal with the A10s as well. I spent a year at Suwon Korea with them in the early 80s. Obviously no air to air to worry about, but way more air to ground configurations than the F-4s.

I can't say 100% for sure based on personal experience, but I suspect that the capability to quick turn an airplane during a sortie surge has only improved since then. With the advent of LRUs and palettes and what-not I'm guessing it's not only just as fast as it was when I was there, but probably a hell of a lot safer as well.

So bottom line: I tend to agree that the fixed 4-6 hour turn around we're seeing in the game is an issue. It appears to be a compromise based on normal "peace time" or low threat operational tempo. Ragnar's idea sounds like it might go a way toward addressing this.

Oh and BTW... sortie surges like I described would invariably be followed by extended down time for maintenance <g>.

JD

PS. I also spent a few years at Fairchild in WA. B-52Gs. These things were lucky to fly once a week. But then again they were older than I was. The mission was "nuke", so there wasn't much thought given to turn around times, but I don't think 16 - 24 hours would be unreasonable for that kind of airplane.

That said, I think it's more about "will" than "way" though. Will = need in this context, and the effect on procedures, facilities, equipment and staffing. It might be appropriate to think of this in terms of mission types assigned to a given unit (squadron, air wing, etc) and aircraft types within that unit. For instance, a fighter or fighter-bomber type airplane assigned to a unit with a tactical type mission should have a much lower turn around time than a heavy bomber assigned to a unit with a strategic mission. OTOH, a heavy assigned to a unit with a tactical mission should probably be between the two.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, maybe the optimum answer is to figure out a reasonable MINIMUM turn around time for each platform, then modify it based on assigned unit type, and again based on load out and whether or not the load out changes between missions.

[Primarchx]

Great ideas and conversation here, folks! My primary concern is that while implementing the positives - fast sortie regeneration - that the frictions of air ops also be given sufficient weight as well.

[Gratch1111]

I love this discussion. Interesting, not to many pointed fingers of blame, factual and solution oriented.

[rjlee]

I think a variable turnaround time (with a penalty for "surge") is a fantastic idea. And if it's tied to particular scenario loadouts it should be easy to administer (from the player side as well as from the scenario designer side).

The only suggestion that I have is to maybe display the status of aircraft that are operating in this mode with a special notation or different color. The problem with fine-grained adjustments like this is that it becomes hard to distinguish intended behavior from a bug (both for players and the support team).

[Gunner98]

I like the idea of gradual degradation due to surge activity, some form of penalty needs to be modelled in however. Perhaps the malfunction rate mentioned above could be adjusted by aircraft type or training level of ground crews (set by scenario designer or hard coded in stock) thus moderating the effects. For instance a CVBG coming out of refit would have more poorly trained flight deck crews but better mechanical reliability of both ship and AC than a CVBG just coming off of a year long deployment. More mechanically reliable AC would prove beneficial here.

Pilot fatigue might also be modelled - a tired pilot returning from his 3rd mission in 9 hrs might have a chance of crashing on landing with deck shutdown, AC loss (not just his) and fire as the consequence. tired ground/flight deck crews might make mistakes causing a slow down or something catastrophic.

The messages would certainly add flavour to the game play. No idea how hard this would be to program...

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[Tomcat84]

One thing that also complicates modelling this vs the real world is the fact that we are just seeing a plane, and there is no way of seeing the human element around it.

You can have the same jet turn around reasonably quickly, and have a second pilot fly the second sortie. This pilot may have started his planning cycle before the first mission in the same plane even took off... Plan your strike, route etc, get intel updates, brief the mission, by the time you fly it might be hours since you first showed up.

Now this might give you the ability to launch the plane quickly after the first mission, but after the second one, could you still do the third? Do you have another pilot waiting? Whats the pilot per jet ratio of this particular squadron/air force?

Problem is, Command doesn't model a squadron roster of pilots and crewchiefs etc. I think with the current six hour turn around for most fighter strike type missions they actually arent far off the mark for a sustained sortie rate. And that air to air is much shorter makes sense too, cause theres way less planning and briefing involved for that. Problem is some things get a bit of a grey area, like a CAS loadout, it probably doesnt really require that much planning if it's not a complex CAS situation, and of course theres the "wartime emergency we need to get things done now screw regulations". Does that happen? I dont know to be honest. But even if it does, as posted above, theres only so many times you can do that. It would not be realistic to continuously be able to quick turn complex loadouts.

So yeah i dont have the answers lol, but I like the discussion But what I want to highlight again is that people indeed need to realize theres more to prepping a flight than just hanging bombs on a plane and putting fuel in. The pilots have to have lunch too before they go [:D]

[Gunner98]

And there is always the Taxi ride back and forth to the 5* hotel and the war-stories in the bar to account for[:D]

[Tomcat84]

exactly. And the women need attending as well

[BipBip]

Hi,

Indeed, this ready time was a problem for me, several times.

Especially when it adds up with other games limitations !

As no time planning is possible and "time to ready" of the A/C is not shown in the mission creation window, we end up going forward and backward in the windows to find a pair of planes that could actually be ready at the same time, and which would be ready at a time compatible with the mission.

A failure to do all this quite ridiculous micro-management can screw an entire raid... example :

Yesterday, I tried to launch a raid with Corsairs II. The four-ship formation was grouped, but... while all seemed to be ready, number 4 reverted to 6h before being ready !
The three took off, and waited for the group to form. I wasn't able to break the group and after one hour was forced to RTB them as they continued to orbit the carrier waiting for the last guy.

Mission scrubbed... I doubt that it would have been like that in real life...

[ComDev]

Curious... was this the latest beta build?

[BipBip]

It was the build 438.

[Lerxt]

You think 6 hours is bad? Try 20 hours for a B2. Not realistic.

[thewood1]

Actually on the B2 it is believable. After every flight, almost the entire skin has to be inspected and a number of the special panels have to be re-applied. Northrup at one point admitted in hearings that B2s might only be able to sortie 2-3 times a week.

[thewood1]

ORIGINAL: Lerxt

You think 6 hours is bad? Try 20 hours for a B2. Not realistic.

btw, what information do you have on sortie rates for B2s. I am curious because they are hard to find.

[Quellist]

ORIGINAL: Primarchx

In before the 'yeah, but in wartime they'll throw the book out the window' arguments...

You are getting tiresome, who died and made you keeper of the faith? And what are you adding to the discussion?