Allied Aircraft Pool sizes

[HMSWarspite]

Am missing something here? I think I have far too many of some aircraft types in pools. I appear to be able to change out the entire RAF BC force to Lancasters in 1943. For example, I have (in first week Sept 1943), 1730 Lancs in pool, having lost 150 in 9 turns. I have replaced all Stirlings already and have only 18 Sqds of Halifaxs (including 2 in the Med). I could have a 100% Lancaster Heavy bomber force and this is not correct. Harris would have given his right arm for such a force and didn't manage. I am also concernd about the ease with which some other types can be replaced (e.g B17F, P47 and Spit V). I only dont do massive replacements on turn 1 to avoid he squadron outage.

[Helpless]

I think it starts with 1700+ Lancasters. Probably too much.

As for the replacements, I somewhat agree that in some cases it should be more than just 1 turn miss as it does now. Automatic upgrade and swapping was toned down in the .07, but manual is quite free.

Quite sensitive and complex topic, I still remember these long PDU discussions in WITP.

[HMSWarspite]

I have no data but I would guess 3 weeks on a like for like, and 6 for wildly different (different number of engines or something)

[Denniss]

The 43 campaign seems to have a very generous compliment of aircraft in the pool, especially for british/Commonwealth units.
1k Halifax II, 500 Beaufighter NFs, 500 Stirling III and 1k Tiffies sounds way off.
Did they really have 4k M4 Sherman tanks by 43 available from stores?

[HMSWarspite]

Can't judge Sherman numbers, but they might have had (across all versions). Production was huge. The aircraft thing definitely feels wrong...

[marion61]

You may need all those planes. On medium bombing in clear weather I lost over 1k planes total for the phase, but mostly it's from air to air. Air losses have increase about 4 fold and I take every precaution not to get my planes shot at before they bomb (I fly around them using the pathing).

[HMSWarspite]

I accept that BC may have to run at 5% losses (sustained) for a while (as in RL) but new production (36 per week) pays for 5% attrition on the Lanc force if I fly every Lancaster squadron every day (7 times a turn). If I double the number of operational Lancs over night, and fly them every day (some 6000+ Lanc sorties per week 340 shot down) I wont run out for over 4 weeks. Casualties would need to be horrendous for BC not to be fully Lanc in a week. I havent even counted the B1(specials) with which I could equip a full Group! I haven't looked at pilot replacement rates but I suspect crews run out before aircraft...

Ah, according to the following link (http://www.lancaster-archive.com/lanc_p ... _month.htm), the issue is the pool at game start is equal to the entire Lanc production to that date. As a minimum it needs current numbers in units (484) and Lanc finishing schools/conversion units netted off, and losses, which I haven't got to hand, but Middleton will doubtless provide. The pool should be nearer 800 than 1800...

I wonder if the other aircraft have the same issue.

[Denniss]

Plus several Lancs may have been sent to naval patrol duties or to other theaters (middle east/pacific).
Halifax II have 1k in pool with further 400 in units. Although ~2k Halifax may have been built by then (all variants), ~250 bomber command Halifaxes were lost in 41/42 and out of ~710 Halifaxes lost in 43 I would assume 355 to be already lost by campaign start. This loss list I have found in a book does not seem to include training losses. Sounds like that pool has to be cut in half as well.

[HMSWarspite]

In fact, working available on demand, I make the pool 180 at end June
Built 1629 (end June)
Number in units 890 (12 HCU at 32 each nominally and 27 sqds at 22 each)
Losses c560
1629-890-560=180. HCUs probably werent up to strength but non-operational losses not included. 180 sounds a much better number to me. BC converted 12 Sqds and a HCU in 2nd half 1943 (and the LFS but not sure where their a/c came from.

[Jim D Burns]

Some numbers:

http://www.lancaster-archive.com/lanc_p ... _month.htm

Jim

[warshipbuilder]

Typically conversion would take place over a four week period. "A" flight would be stood down and train on the new aircraft for the first two weeks, while "B" flight would continue on ops. Then their roles would be reversed, so the whole squadron would be converted and fully operational on the new type after the four weeks.

[HMSWarspite]

The B17G ia out tool - hundreds arrive overnight once available. All the pools need a review IMHO