Re-Equiping Squadrons

[Capt Cliff]

How can I change the game to allow me to re-equip squadrons with what ever plane I want? Rihgt now my Commonweath bomber squadrons can't get A-20's! Well they did fly A-20's so what gives? Can I modifiy the OBC.41 file in anyway to allow me up upgrade any squadron with any airplane I have in the pool?

[Capt. Harlock]

No, to the best of my knowledge the Commonwealth squadrons are hard-wired in Version 3.2. This has been a nuisance for me as well: both the A-20 and the B-25 were used by Commonwealth forces. On top of it all, Dutch squadrons are considered Commonwealth, when I strongly believe they would have been happy to fly anything Allied as long as it wasn't obsolete. (Having you homeland and all its factories overrun makes you less choosy.)

You may be able to fudge things a little by using the editor. You could make the Dutch squadrons into U.S. groups, or start off the individual squadrons you want with the aircraft you want. I confess I'm not sure about replacements and upgrades if you do that, however.

Speaking of upgrades, one minor point. It's a good idea to keep at least one squadron of Blenheim IV medium bombers, because around the end of 1942 they get the chance to upgrade to Vengeance IV dive-bombers, with a range of 5 and bomb capacity of 20. (I'm still amazed that no one demands a "house rule" limiting the number of USMC squadrons that can shift to the Vengeance.)

[Denniss]

Commonwealth/Dutch groups are not hardwired but limited in the planes they are able to use .
Just to avoid the player from changing UK production to US types to have more planes and to have them more historically equipped .

AFAIK the Martin 139 bomber has an upgradepath to A20 so don't loose them all !

[returnfire]

ORIGINAL: Denniss
AFAIK the Martin 139 bomber has an upgradepath to A20 so don't loose them all !

Bzzzzzzt. [:)] Sorry, one wrong guess.
The correct answer is B-25-- and yes, you'll get thousands of them very quickly.

I personally prefer using the Wellington III for commonwealth bomber squadrons, though. Although it is expensive (its cost is 12 compared to B-25's 4) and less survivable (it has lower dogfight and cannon ratings compared to B-25's), it has twice the range (which is very nice for NI purposes). Also, the Wellington III will get an unhistorical upgrade in 1945 (WARNING-- very gamey/"this is definitely cheating"):

Previous versions of PacWar gave the P-51 (which was in slot 25) a "+2 range upgrade" in 1945. Since this was unhistorical, P-51 was moved to another slot. However, the upgrade is still there, and Wellington III, which happens to be slot 25 now, will get the upgrade.
So why not use them to bomb the home islands (at night, please) if you're not upgrading them to B-24 (which will not happen automatically if you're setting factories to human control) [:D]

[Sardaukar]

I think that quite logical candidate for that +2 range upgrade would have been P-47D, to simulate P-47N. But I guess it was considered to merit it's own type...and it'd upgrade all P-47Ds...so there are lot of downsides to that too.

Cheers,

M.S.