Can't Air Transport?

[Bobbybat]

Hi all. I'm having a go at transferring the BR 1st Airborne Div, which has not moved at all in the scenario, from their base in the UK over to France.

The Div is sitting on an airbase that seems to have lots of transport aircraft (see attached) but when I shift rt-click on a target hex and get the little parachute image on the hex the 'No Transports Available' message pops up. Am I missing something basic?

[cfulbright]

1. Are the transport air groups set to Day/Night or Day Only?
2. If you're doing an air assault (rather than air transport), the target hex needs to be within one hex of a naval invasion hex, and you first need to do the moves for the naval invasions (this is true until you get airborne corps later in the war).

Cary

[Bobbybat]

Hi Cary.

1. I'll check...What is the impact in terms of Air Transport (and not air assault)?
2. Hence no, not an air assault, just moving them from UK to friendly territory in France.

[cfulbright]

ORIGINAL: Bobbybat

Hi Cary.

1. I'll check...What is the impact in terms of Air Transport (and not air assault)?

If the transport air groups are in Rest mode, they're unavailable to fly.

And if you're slapping your head right now, you're not the first person who got stumped by that!

Cary

[LiquidSky]

Something else that caught me out once was that the planes can fly training missions on the air phase, thus accumulating some travel time.

[cfulbright]

Another "gotcha". You should set training percent on all Air HQ to 0% for this very reason. I've had D-Day air-landings messed up because one C-47 pilot decided he needed some more training.

My experience is that training in WitW = dying. If you set air groups to TR, 3-5 will crash/die. If you set an entire Air HQ to train 1%, it will bite you in in the butt.

Cary

[Bobbybat]

Loved the face-slap comment - that is indeed the case in that they were set to 'Rest'.

But the training % => 0 is a good one to watch out for all over the place. Is there an implication regarding upgrades to air units if you have training set to 0% - i.e., would that prevent an air unit from getting upgraded?

Has anyone done any sort of calculation looking at whatever benefit training is supposed to give you versus the death factor impact of allowing some training to occur?

[LiquidSky]

I have. You should in general leave training at 50%. As the allies, you can be more aggressive in that if a pilot who is less then 50 dies in training, he may be replaced by somebody better....


If you have the machines to spare...you can afford to throw away crappy pilots in the hopes of getting a better one. As a test, I just tried to gained 11 untrained pilots into a squadron (axis). I got: (29, 42, 43, 43, 44, 49, 49, 49, 49, 53, 55)

So I got two pilots who are over 50. The four pilots at 49, well...probably 3 of them will survive training to 51. The guy at 29 will probably die, but will also probably be replaced by somebody better.

One way of clearing away the worse pilots is to fly your squadrons at very low altitudes...like 1000 feet. Those with low experience tend not to survive the experience

I usually keep passive training for everyone except transports and planes I want to be flying auto naval patrol. I never ever ever fly actual Training as a mission...unless I dont care if I lose most of the planes and the squadron has very low average experience compared to what I will get as replacements.

[cfulbright]

LiquidSky answered most of your questions. I don't know the answer on whether turning training to 0% disables automatic upgrades, as I do all my air group upgrades manually, usually either during turns with bad weather, or if an air group has low morale and I wouldn't fly them that turn anyway. That way an air group isn't unavailable due to an upgrade when I really want it to fly.

Cary

[Bobbybat]

Ok, so back on this general topic but this time from an air assault perspective.

In Breakout and Pursuit I started pushing through the German lines to the east of the British/Canadian sector and wheeled north after punching through with American armor to Reims. I could see a route starting to open up to Calais so decided to set up for an airborne assault around the city that my troops storming north and northeast could link up to. I set drop targets according and started regrowing prep points. My paras are now good to go and the tanks are within striking distance so its time to hit the skies.

1. Do transport aircraft have to be in the same airfield hex (I believe the troops can be adjacent to an airfield?) as the paras, or can they be anywhere close by?

2. How do you know how many aircraft/how much lift capacity you need?

3. If the airfield where the transports are coming from is overloaded (i.e. has the little exclamation mark next to the airfield symbol on the map) will the aircraft still be used for the drop, or does one need to redistribute the planes (and depending on the answer to Q1, the paras to match with the aircraft) across multiple airfields?

4. When/how/do you transport over the para's HQ(s)? e.g. if the 101st belongs to the US 1st AB Corps, and the 1st AB Corps along the the BR 1AB Corp belong to the Allied 1st AB Army, what if anything does one do with all those superior HQ's when sending the paras into battle?

5. The Brits have an 'air-mobile' division - what does that mean?

[cfulbright]

ORIGINAL: Bobbybat

Ok, so back on this general topic but this time from an air assault perspective.

In Breakout and Pursuit I started pushing through the German lines to the east of the British/Canadian sector and wheeled north after punching through with American armor to Reims. I could see a route starting to open up to Calais so decided to set up for an airborne assault around the city that my troops storming north and northeast could link up to. I set drop targets according and started regrowing prep points. My paras are now good to go and the tanks are within striking distance so its time to hit the skies.

1. Do transport aircraft have to be in the same airfield hex (I believe the troops can be adjacent to an airfield?) as the paras, or can they be anywhere close by?

Actually the paras have to be on an airbase, but not necessarily one that has transport groups in it. Open up the D-Day scenario and take a look at where the airborne divisions are located compared to the transport air groups.

2. How do you know how many aircraft/how much lift capacity you need?

The only way I've found to do this is to press the Drop button and experiment with how many groups you need. The AI always assigns more groups than you need, so do some jiggling of selecting and deselecting groups to get just enough.

3. If the airfield where the transports are coming from is overloaded (i.e. has the little exclamation mark next to the airfield symbol on the map) will the aircraft still be used for the drop, or does one need to redistribute the planes (and depending on the answer to Q1, the paras to match with the aircraft) across multiple airfields?

No additional effect of the overloading on the airborne drop beyond the reductions in group readiness already factored in by the game.

4. When/how/do you transport over the para's HQ(s)? e.g. if the 101st belongs to the US 1st AB Corps, and the 1st AB Corps along the the BR 1AB Corp belong to the Allied 1st AB Army, what if anything does one do with all those superior HQ's when sending the paras into battle?

You can't transport the airborne corps or army HQ units. Section 5.4.5.3 says:
"Units attached to an HQ containing the name Airborne or Fallschirm are considered 1 hex from their HQ and all higher level HQs in the chain when completing leader checks. So attach Units to an Airborne HQ when conducting drops."

5. The Brits have an 'air-mobile' division - what does that mean?

You can land it, but it will leave behind all its vehicles and heavy equipment.

Cary

[Bobbybat]

Thanks Cary.

Great answers, thanks...The only follow up I can think of is in regard to your response to question 2.

So how do the transports get assigned? Your answer suggests the AI does it automatically? Buy you also said to press the Drop button and experiment with how many you need, which suggests the player somehow attaches the transport air groups to the airborne unit...So, which is it - or is it neither and I've REALLY misinterpreted what you meant

[cfulbright]

When you're ready to launch an airborne invasion, press F9. Then on your eligible airborne divisions the "Drop" button will appear in the lower right of the unit's details. If you click on Drop you'll get a screen like this. Note that the area in red shows how much transport capacity the AI has assigned to the drop, and the Load Cost requirement. The air groups assigned to the drop are highlighted in orange, and other available groups are shown in white. In this example the AI has assigned 275 more units of capacity than is required. By clicking on air groups in the list to add or remove them, you can bring that capacity down to a more efficient amount. For example, you might add a Halifax group and remove two Dakota groups.

Once you've got your allocation the way you want, click on the "Launch" link, otherwise nothing will happen.

Also, don't forget to change the status of your transports from Rest to Day/Night, otherwise you'll get a message that no transports are available.

Cary

[Bobbybat]

Yeah I was getting the 'not enough transports' message as I suspect they were still set to 'Rest'...

Excellent description - thanks!