The Good The Bad & The Indifferent

[jwolf]

Regarding a hypothetical Soviet activation: do you have any sense of how close the Japanese are to the trigger value in the Manchurian garrison? It would certainly be cool for the Soviets to enter the war as the final kick in the teeth to the Japanese.

My opinion on Shanghai, FWIW, as the major hub in the area it merits a very healthy supply delivery. It's easy to transfer some from Shanghai to Korea later if you think you need more there.

And don't tempt the fates of WITP with reference to that TD pass! [:D]

[Canoerebel]

I've ordered 100k supply unloaded at Shanghai, enough to bring it up to 3x its needs. Then I'll see how things go.

One of the things I've noticed - at least here and there, now and then, is that sometimes level 9 airfields with more than enough aviation support don't seem to be adequate to maintain the aircraft at the base.

This has been especially true at Taichu, Formosa. That level 9 base has been a center of Allied air operations. A thousand or more fighters and bombers are typically station there. To my surprise, I've found that, over time, many squadrons end up with a significant percentage of disabled aircraft even when not flying ops for weeks or longer. This has gone on for more than six months, game time. I don't know if there's something I'm missing, if it's limited to Taichu, or if it's a pernicious problem that can crop up at any massively used level 9 airfield.

All that to say this: I want to have Shanghai airfield fully functional just in case Gunzan airfield has a similar problem once Operation Unicycle commences. Gunzan is a level 9 and will have 1500 aviation support. I plan to base at least 1200 aircraft there, and maybe more eventually. But if I find that squadrons continually end up with a significant percentage of aircraft in maintenance, I'll have to figure something out.

I'm not borrowing trouble. I'm just trying to plan ahead in case I encounter something I think I've noticed before.

[CaptBeefheart]

I have yet to see a problem with Level 9 airfields with plenty of aviation support. By "not flying ops" are they set to training at range zero?

I'd probably offload more supply at Shanghai. Still, if you need more later, you can always ship some from Gunzan.

Cheers,
CC

[Barb]

Even squadrons on long standby are cycling their aircraft through maintenance - not all at once, but few at a time (say heavy bombers with SR4 and fatigue 10-25) are thrown into maintenance to reduce their fatigue to 0. In the end you will probably end up with a squadron having planes with fatigue range 0-10 instead of 0-25 (as would be the case when the maintenance is done only on those frames that got damage or fatigue> SR threshold. And this is rather normal behavior.

The problem that you see a number of planes on maintenance is that heavy bombers (B-29s especially) can take 15 days or more to fix even when in the maintenance mode.

IRL squadrons of size 25 (fighter squadrons) rarely operated with more than 16 planes on a given day (and even that could be 2x8 flights).
IRL squadrons of size 20 (Light/medium bomber after resize) rarely operated more than 12 planes.
IRL squadrons of size 16 (Light/medium before resize and HB after resize) usually operated 6-9 planes (3x2, 2x3, 4x2 or 3x3)
IRL squadrons of size 12/13 (HB before resize or VHB) usually operated 6 planes

Thus a HB Group of 4x12 squadrons usually operated just 18 or 24 plane combat box (in a PTO or early ETO). Later (especially in the ETO) the combat boxes rose to 36 planes in size. In that case usually 3 BGs (Combat Wing) were to create 2 boxes.

Thus if you are using a full squadron strikes (no rest), the maintenance had to be catched up during the stand down. If you were using about (50% rest) the number of available planes should remain more constant (as those not flying could be repaired. Unfortunately the game engine is supportive a full squadron strength strikes (rolls, coordination, etc).

[paullus99]

I know that a good amount of work went into fixing CAP (when dealing with extremely large numbers of aircraft, late war) - but I, too, have seen some wonky things at Level 9 airfields.

Difficult to replicate - sometimes happens, sometimes not - so I always chock it up to sometimes the system just having a hard time dealing with thousand + aircraft at one location.

[HansBolter]

If you recall there was a time when all that was needed to service an unlimited number of squadrons at a level 9 airfield was 250 aviation support.

The change to make it necessary to provide an amount of aviation support equal to the number of planes in order not to have operations hindered seemed to also open the door to using overages of the required minimum as an advantage.

At a level 9 airfield I intend to stock with a huge air force, I typically strive to provide double the amount of aviation support required.

Having a significant overage of required support seems to provide for more fluid operations with less down time and more planes flying in every sortie.

I also haven't yet figured out exactly what the Aviation Engineer Battalions in Babes based mods actually do.

They don't have any aviation support, but rather engineers. Does anyone know if these units actually support flight ops or if they are just good for building airbases and repairing damage?

Does having a bunch of them at an airfield affect flight ops in any way?

There are a plethora of different engineer types in Babes that I have never actually gotten a clear handle on the actual functions of.

[Canoerebel]

Hans, unless an engineer battalion has aviation support squads it doesn't assist with aviation support. So Engineer Aviation Battalions don't help with av. support.

Regarding massive airfields, Paullus seems to have experienced what I've experienced.

In that regard, I'm not talking about squadrons going into maintenance or repairs for awhile and then coming back online (as Barb is referring to, I think). What I'm saying is that, over time, the percentage of planes in maintenance or repair constantly increases and never decreases. The situation is constantly degrading rather than gradually improving, as you'd expect.

At Taichu, sometimes I wouldn't have flight ops for weeks at a time. At turn one, all squadrons might be 100% flight worthy. By turn 10 they might be 90% flight worthy. By turn 30 they'd be 60% flight worthy. This was at a level 9 airfield with more than sufficient aviation support and supply. The squadrons were routinely getting worse and worse.

I'm not looking for an answer to this. Rather it's just something I've noticed and have begun trying to allow for.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Hans, unless an engineer battalion has aviation support squads it doesn't assist with aviation support. So Engineer Aviation Battalions don't help with av. support.

Regarding massive airfields, Paullus seems to have experienced what I've experienced.

In that regard, I'm not talking about squadrons going into maintenance or repairs for awhile and then coming back online (as Barb is referring to, I think). What I'm saying is that, over time, the percentage of planes in maintenance or repair constantly increases and never decreases. The situation is constantly degrading rather than gradually improving, as you'd expect.

At Taichu, sometimes I wouldn't have flight ops for weeks at a time. At turn one, all squadrons might be 100% flight worthy. By turn 10 they might be 90% flight worthy. By turn 30 they'd be 60% flight worthy. This was at a level 9 airfield with more than sufficient aviation support and supply. The squadrons were routinely getting worse and worse.

I'm not looking for an answer to this. Rather it's just something I've noticed and have begun trying to allow for.

OK, I might have missed this detail above, but the only thing I can think of is that there is no longer a cap on air support at 256 or whatever the old number was. Level 8 and 9 have their air support present doubled, but no longer can you put in a certain amount of air support and have it counted (effectively) as infinite. If you have 2,000 fighters you need 2,000 air support (or 1,000 x2 for level 8 or 9 base).

Even though I might have missed it in this discussion I'm pretty sure you already know that and have the needed air support on hand. So, I guess another issue is simply the tempo of operations coupled with the damage accruing to the aircraft. Michael did comment that extra air support is used up to a certain point. You might, for example, double the required air support to get aircraft back on line faster. There is a limit to that and Michael might have said what it is but I don't recall the number.

[JohnDillworth]

In my limited experience B-29s fly more coordinated strikes when they are all under the same command. Perhaps having as a many units as possible under the same command with that HQ at the base will keep things running a bit smoother? Put in a CO with a high admin rating? As with many things HQ there is sometimes much mystery.

[Canoerebel]

3/22/45

Operation Unicycle: The Herd didn't quite reach Gunzan today but Operation Unicycle commenced. A modest number of B-29s hit Shimonoseki Resources while some LBA fighters swept that base. Tomorrow, the Herd should arrive and begin the lengthy job of unloading the reinforcements and supply. The B-29s will target Toyama and Hammamatsue while LBA fighters sweep Nagasaki. BB TFs will bombard Keijo and Moppo. This is the beginning of what I hope will be the sustained drive to achieve victory. The whole war, up to now, has been about "setting the table." Well, it's set. Now it's time to deliver.

The Allied lead in points is up to nearly 57k, with a bit more than 17k needed for auto victory. I'm optimistic about the late April to early May time frame.

And what of John? Does he Banzai attack? Does he hang back and wait for an opportunity?

[Canoerebel]

I might have found the answer to my airfield puzzle while putting together an image that would illustrate the problem.

From the images below, you can see that Taichu is a 9 airfield with far more support than aircraft. But the second diagram shows that the "aircraft stack level" exceeds the amount of aviation support. I *THINK* aircraft stack level is number of aircraft adjusted for engines (4EB counting more than 1EB). If I'm right, then I don't have enough aviation support to handle the squadrons.

The impact of this is shown in the second image. Taichu airfield hasn't been used for any major operations in months (excepting CAP, some recon, and a few 2EB raids). Yet 1/3rd (roughly) of aircraft are not operational.

I'll now check Gunzan airfield and see how I'm doing there.

[Canoerebel]

Gunzan airfield just went to level 9. It has 1458 aviation support with just 1052 required...but stack level of 1458 (the exact same number as the aviation support available, by coincidence).

You can also see that nearly all aircraft on the field are airworthy.

Each turn, I'm flying in more air support.

But the main thing I'm going to do is juggle my aircraft numbers to keep them under that stacking level. I'll pull out a good bit of the 2EB that I've been using for ground support in favor of the B-29s needed for Strategic Bombing. The latter is the quickest way to victory.

[MakeeLearn]

"WhatsNew.pdf"

57. Group stacking on base with AF 6+ gains a 1/3 lowering of the "Aircraft Stack Level" for 4E planes.

Manual
"A 9+ airfield does not suffer from overstacking" ?

[Barb]

Can you show an Aircraft fatigue of the following units from Taichu? Plus maybe their CAP settings to get a better picture?
311th FG/529th FS
311th FG/530th FS
318th FG/19th FS
343rd FG/344th FS

[Canoerebel]

3/23/45

Operation Unicycle: The bombing campaign got off to a rocky start, scoring a fair number of hits against industry but losing around 29 B-29s (more than half to ops). I'm going to shift the Superforts over to night ops, brining in fresh squadrons to strike tonight, while 2Eb and B-24s from Gunzan and Shanghai join the show. It will be critical to see if the non-Superforts can materially contribute to the bombing campaign. If so, John is going to be hurting.

I aimed my sweeping fighters for Nagasaki, which John always protects, but they found only about 25 fighters on CAP. Since the bombers are flying nighttime raids next turn, the fighters are going to sweep Fusan, where John has had roughly 275 fighters the past week or longer.

The Allied bombardment TFs did effective work against Keijo and Moppo.

Reinforcements and supply are coming ashore in good order.

While today's B-29 losses are a matter of concern, this operation is just getting underway. I'm pretty optimistic about the setup.

[Canoerebel]

ORIGINAL: Barb
Can you show an Aircraft fatigue of the following units from Taichu? Plus maybe their CAP settings to get a better picture?
311th FG/529th FS
311th FG/530th FS
318th FG/19th FS
343rd FG/344th FS

[HansBolter]

That may be why I noticed a decrease in down time at bases where I deployed 200% of what I thought was the necessary minimum aviation support.

I was likely meeting and exceeding the actual need based on stacking and not airframe count, while my other bases that were meeting airframe count were falling below stacking count.

[MakeeLearn]

Aircraft fatigue

I think he meant the fatigue of the aircraft, not pilot fatigue.

The P38L has a service rating of 3 and the P51b is 2 {DaBabes lite}

Taichu airfield hasn't been used for any major operations in months (excepting CAP, some recon, and a few 2EB raids).

Ive notice that if planes don't fly for a few days in a row, they will start to be grounded to repair even the smallest amount of damage or fatigue maintenance.

[paullus99]

I find the Superforts to be incredibly brittle - they need to be used "en-masse" against a single target. Go in low, with all of them & just burn a city to the ground.

For the other targets, you should be using your other bombers, since they can take more punishment.

Just a bit of advice from an old warhorse.

[Canoerebel]

During a late afternoon run, I remembered: B-25Bs are stripped down versions meant for night missions! No wonder they fared so poorly during that daytime raid over Iwaki.

The school of hard knocks is a good way to learn something.