Chinese air transport?

[LGKMAS]

Going through the airplane replacement pool lists, I have noticed that there are sizeable pools of both DC-3 and C-46 listed against China. Yet the Chinese do not have any Tpt air groups. Scenario 6, btw.
So how do I get my hands on these 50 odd tpt planes?

[LGKMAS]

Okay, just noticed there is a C-46 group in 14th AF called CNAC, which somewhere I remember was actually Chinese National Air Corporation in real life. Don't know why it is 14th AF rather than CAF but still. Is this actually the only Chinese Tpt air group?

[btd64]

You got it. The CNAC I think is the only Chinese air transport unit in the game. But it has been so long since I have seen a game passed 44 that I can be 100% sure....GP

[BBfanboy]

Going through the airplane replacement pool lists, I have noticed that there are sizeable pools of both DC-3 and C-46 listed against China. Yet the Chinese do not have any Tpt air groups. Scenario 6, btw.
So how do I get my hands on these 50 odd tpt planes?

Did you eliminate all of the other nationalities to see the pool of transport planes? Some devices including aircraft are shared among allies but I am not sure if there is a priority system for assigning the planes to the potential users. US units seem to get their TOE filled first - but then they make the plane!
You do need adequate supply to draw the aircraft into the Chinese squadron, and there might be other considerations like HQ and AF size. Since NCAC is unrestricted, I usually send the transport squadron to India to fill out.

[LGKMAS]

Looking at the units, it is really weird.
The CNAC is listed as a USA Sdn under 14th AF. Definitely NOT CAF. Yet the figures for the Air Gp show the same C-46A losses that the air replacement screen shows, about 48 lost in Chinese service and the same for the CNAC. The USA figures are much smaller in the air replacement screen.
So this USA Sdn in 14 AF, which btw shows Chinese markings in the artwork, is actually drawing on the Chinese air replacements. Okay, strange but since it means I can actually use those C-46A that flow to the Chinese, I am not really upset. Just wondering what unit could have used the DC-3 pool that grew before the CNAC appeared.

[LGKMAS]

Hi BBF
Not certain about the sharing of aircraft? If that were the case, then the Dutch, of which I have a small remnant, would surely have gotten P-40 replacements months ago as there are now over 200 P-40 earlier models in the pool and the USA has moved on to P-47. The only upgrade for the Dutch has been the earlier models of the P-40, so they are the only Allied nation that wants them. Yet none seem to be forthcoming. Have you any evidence that this does occur and what criteria did you use to make it happen?

[Ambassador]

Hi, there are several things to consider.

First, you have to understand that plane models have nationalities : you have in the game several P-40E, one US, and others of several nationalities. While in real life they were the same planes, the game engine does not consider them as such : they are different items in the game, and can not be freely swapped (like devices, in fact*).

Squadrons (and other air unit sizes) also have nationalities, and this determines the nationality of the pilots you can draw, and the nationality of the plane model you can upgrade to. So, if you have a US Army squadron, you use US Army pilots and US Army planes.

That’s the basic. Now, there are exceptions, which you can engineer through the Editor.

For example, you can include pilots of other nationalities in a squadron, if you decide so through the Editor - never in-game. The only example I know of is Greg « Pappy » Boyington, which starts the game in a Flying Tiger squadron but is actually a USMC pilot.

Likewise, in the Editor, you can attribute a plane of a different nationality to a squadron, or define it in the upgrade list. Example of the former is the CNAC transport squadron, but also the AVG : their variant of the P-40B (H-81) is defined in the Editor as a Chinese-nationality plane ; if you upgrade the AVG to another type of plane (US Army-nationality plane, as they are USA-nationality squadrons), you can upgrade Chinese squadrons to H-81 (if you can train enough Chinese pilots not to waste those planes, which are much better than their other models).
An example of the latter is a bunch of Australian squadrons, which can upgrade to Dutch-nationality planes (I suppose to allow using up the pools once the Dutch squadrons are destroyed).

To complicate matters, USMC use USN planes (but have to pay PP to swap models), and there are Commonwealth planes which can be used by British (and maybe RAAF/RNZAF ?) squadrons.

So, it’s useful to check in each squadron their upgrade path, you might find useful insights.


* re: devices : they don’t have true nationalities (beyond being Allied or Japanese side), but there are several instances of unique-ID devices being shared among units of different nationalities (like the Valentine MkIII, the Bren/Vickers sections, etc), but also examples of identical devices with several different ID (like 40mm Bofors, some mortars, some guns) used by units of different nationalities and constituting different pools. Complicating matters is the fact that the game does not show you the ID of the devices (or of the planes) in-game.