aircraft fatugue

[LGKMAS]

Okay,
I have a number of fatigued pilots which I fix by either sending to the group reserve thus taking them off flying or by switching out and standing down whole Sdns. Or reducing their assigned tasks and ranges so they do less flying.
How do I lower the fatigue on the airframes? Do I standown the whole Sdn or is there a way I can standown individual airframes? I figure if I have 18 airframes and 24 pilots, even if I standown 6 pilots, there are still enough pilots that will fly those airframes and thus keep fatiguing them. Airframes are not linked to pilots?

[Nomad]

There are some things you can do.
1. Stand down the air unit
2. Set the rest percentage to some number. Trial and error is needed to find the right percentage.
I usually use 30% rest for 1 and 2 engine bombers and 30-50% for 4 engine bombers.
3. Ignore it, the program will take aircraft out of service as needed.

[LGKMAS]

Thanks Nomad
I was really thinking about but did not articulate clearly my thoughts on fatigue. My bad,
Does excess airframe fatigue contribute to operational loss? I mean, I read in the operational reports that a damaged aircraft does not return and that another crashed on landing. Does airframe fatigue contribute to this? Or, as you have suggested, the maintainers look at an airframe and ground it for maintenance before it can fly and crash?

[Ambassador]

If you have reserve planes, they’ll get rotated in place of damaged planes undergoing maintenance, so on the long run, it’ll be taken care of.

It looks like writing off planes on return happens on damaged planes mostly, I’m not sure the plane fatigue plays a role, but this is not inconceivable.

Also, if you move the squadron per boat or railways, they’ll all be disassembled and enter maintenance when at the destination. That’s a way to stand down the unit and not wait for the maintenance to occur naturally..

[LGKMAS]

Thanks for that. Something to bear in mind.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: LGKMAS

Thanks Nomad
I was really thinking about but did not articulate clearly my thoughts on fatigue. My bad,
Does excess airframe fatigue contribute to operational loss? I mean, I read in the operational reports that a damaged aircraft does not return and that another crashed on landing. Does airframe fatigue contribute to this? Or, as you have suggested, the maintainers look at an airframe and ground it for maintenance before it can fly and crash?

You are quite right - even with reserve aircraft available a unit with no rest set will fly the aircraft to high fatigue levels (both pilot and plane) before taking them offline for maintenance. Usually that is around 40 or higher airframe fatigue which still means a lot of ops losses. The only way I have found to manage that is to set a rest % that allows the repair resources at the base to keep up with fatigue. You will have to experiment with this because the things I find affecting airframe repair, fatigue and minor damage are:
- size of base relative to size of bomber
- SR of the aircraft
- Air Support squads available
- number of squadrons and aircraft needing servicing
- operational pace - how often they go on missions
- mission altitude vis-à-vis flak
- enemy CAP encountered
-weather at departure base - usually the game will scrub the mission if there are thunderstorms at time of launch, but there could be OK weather for launch and thunderstorms when they return ...

So the question becomes : "How much monitoring and micromanagement am I willing to do? Initially it will be quite tedious but once you get a feel for how much fatigue you are comfortable with and how to keep the levels manageable it doesn't take so much time.

Incidentally - my rule of thumb has been 15 fatigue is the point at which I stand down aircraft to rest. I count the number of aircraft with fatigue that high or higher (not counting the ones already offline for repair) and apply that to the total number of aircraft in the unit to get the % to rest instead of going on mission. Exceptional circumstances like getting a chance at striking enemy carriers or transports can cancel the rest % but generally most missions do not require max effort.

[Sardaukar]

Some planes have so bad SR that they had to be stood down half of the time.

[Ambassador]

To BBFanboy’s excellent advices, I’ll add this : don’t keep squadrons operating in a permanent basis (CAP, Search, ASW) above 50%. Training 100% at 0 range is sustainable, but patrols do not.

For routine strikes (like bombing an enemy airfield every day to keep it close), I take the range into account to set a healthy Rest percentage too.

For long range 4E operations, you really want a fatigue level under 10.

[RangerJoe]

It also depends upon the basing to a certain extent. The higher air base level will have more repair facilities which may help although I am not definitely sure about that. It is something to look up. But carrier aircraft that are not in constant combat will be able to sustain decent levels of operational status with no rest. You really don't want the fighter planes and pilots resting when the bombs are dropped on the TF nor air launched torpedoes are coming in.