Moving damaged aircrafts

Chairman · Post by **Chairman** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 12:39 pm

How is it possible to move damaged aircrafts??
Some ok but several hundreds, as russian you will have a LOT of damaged aircrafts.
Some dont have spare parts, some to shot up, some no aircrews and so on.
Off course you can take from some parts from total wrecks to damaged planes to get them up in the air.

The russians had more or less start a new with their airforce, ok the frontline were almost wipedout and there were reserves in the interior with more modern planes, but still in the WIR you get a lot off the obsolete planes back.

Not to mention the pools were you can have thousands of planes and tanks.

Svar · Post by **Svar** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 7:19 pm

Originally posted by Chairman:
How is it possible to move damaged aircrafts??
Some ok but several hundreds, as russian you will have a LOT of damaged aircrafts.
Some dont have spare parts, some to shot up, some no aircrews and so on.
Off course you can take from some parts from total wrecks to damaged planes to get them up in the air.

The russians had more or less start a new with their airforce, ok the frontline were almost wipedout and there were reserves in the interior with more modern planes, but still in the WIR you get a lot off the obsolete planes back.

Not to mention the pools were you can have thousands of planes and tanks.

Chairman,

When you move air groups, all A/C are moved including the damaged ones.

Svar

Chairman · Post by **Chairman** » Wed Oct 10, 2001 7:42 pm

Ok in the game that happens but in "real life".
It is not possible to move all those damaged planes.

What I mean is that the game should eliminate some of those damaged aircrafts, when the HQ is moved or the air group is transferd.

Mist · Post by **Mist** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 11:12 am

Originally posted by Chairman:
Ok in the game that happens but in "real life".
It is not possible to move all those damaged planes.

What I mean is that the game should eliminate some of those damaged aircrafts, when the HQ is moved or the air group is transferd.

That's funny riddle, Chairman. It took mee one hour of thinking about <img src="biggrin.gif" border="0"> .
My guess is that damaged aircraft in WiR represents damaged or malfunctioning aircraft which still can fly(ie has limited flight capabilities). So they can't fight but still can be sent somewhere by air. Aircraft which can't fly will be unable to make its way back to airfield anyway. Such aircraft is considered as destroyed. I am total dummy in damaged aircraft capabilities, but I hope that my answer is correct <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 11:40 am

Originally posted by Chairman:

Ok in the game that happens but in "real life".
It is not possible to move all those damaged planes.

What I mean is that the game should eliminate some of those damaged aircrafts, when the HQ is moved or the air group is transferd.

Wrong. All planes in Soviet air force, except for 4-engined bombers, could be transported by treiler-type trucks.
The technicians simply had to remove wings from a plane, and after that - 2 big trucks, 1 with fuselage, another with wings.
The same is probably true about other air forces in general -
how else can damaged planes be transported to the airfield for repairs after forced landings?

BF-109, BTW, was especially easy to prepare for truck-transport - it's wings weighted under 380 pounds each,
and it took only 1 technician with a jack and 40 minutes of time to remove a wing.

One addition. Soviet ace Pokryshkin (he flew a MiG-3 fighter) got damaged in the summer of 1941 in a dogfight.
He made a belly-landing.
But around him Soviet troops were in general retreat,
he couldn't call his fighter regiment to get him a truck or even a technician.

However, he commandeered some nearby soldiers with a small truck, managed to load latch his 3-ton MiG to it by the tail.
For 1 day they were moving the MiG by the tail. (Wingspan over 10 m).
Then they removed the wings and put them into the trunk.
But, they travelled east for some days with that MiG.
And only after Germans cut off the last road, and the truck with the MiG could not move off-road.
Only then Pokryshkin and his soldiers had to destroy the MiG.

(Source: memoirs by Pokryshkin "To know yourself in Combat", Moscow, Terra, 1993)

The exception, AFAIK, is 4-engined bombers - these are too big for truck-transporting,
and can move only under their own power.

[ October 11, 2001: Message edited by: Granat ]</p>

Chairman · Post by **Chairman** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 12:00 pm

Ok thanks.

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 2:26 pm

I would also throw in the suggestion that unlike Pacific War, air combat is more abstract in WiR, you don't get 200+ air groups in PAC. I think that the damaged planes are not all literally "damaged" planes. They also represent a lack of supplies like ammunition or bombs, a lack of pilots, and pilot and crew fatigue. If Gary had designed WiR's air combat system like PAC, then I'd agree that damaged planes shouldn't move with the unit.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 8:54 pm

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

I would also throw in the suggestion that unlike Pacific War, air combat is more abstract in WiR, you don't get 200+ air groups in PAC.
I think that the damaged planes are not all literally "damaged" planes.
They also represent a lack of supplies like ammunition or bombs, a lack of pilots, and pilot and crew fatigue.

I respectfully disagree. A lack of supplies like ammunition or bombs, pilot and crew fatigue is represented by Readiness.
Arnaud said, that Air units have readiness, too, just like ground ones - it just isn't shown.
BTW - 2 good ideas:
1. Ask Arnaud to SHOW air unit readiness in the next release.
2. Ask Arnaud to tell us, what affects readiness of the air unit - with numeric formulas.
And pilots - well, the plane/tank/gun and it's crew aren't distinguished separately neither in WiR, nor in WiP, and I guess we'll have to live with that.

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

If Gary had designed WiR's air combat system like PAC, then I'd agree that damaged planes shouldn't move with the unit.

With all due respect, again, damaged planes CAN and WERE moved - historically.
All but 4-engined bombers were moved by trucks and by rail; and, if you talk Pacific theater, by ships. In both cases wings were disconnected.
BTW - you're wrong if you think, that to move an air unit (whether Soviet, US, German, whatever) means that planes just take off and land at other airfield.
You have to move - as you yourself mention - supplies like fuel, ammunition or bombs.
Also, the equipment used to repair planes. BTW - In fact, damaged planes are NOT the heaviest thing to haul around.
Way larger, heavier and more cumbersome is various equipment, needed to repair damaged A/C.

[ October 11, 2001: Message edited by: Granat ]</p>

Ranger-75 · Post by **Ranger-75** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 7:22 am

The damaged planes can and were moved as necessary; if it was repairable, it would be kept, it if was a junk heap it was discarded. How do you think the thousands of lend lease planes got to Russia? They were crated and then shipped or trucked or railed to the Soviets.

In PacWar you can't have the damaged planes "move" because most of the time you're talking about an island, there ain't no place to truck or rail the damaged planes to.

I still think it's hilarious how I can fly a group of 40 operational 10 damaged planes from an island base and have the 10 damaged planes go into the "pool" They should be total losses.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 9:15 am

Originally posted by Mike Santos:

In PacWar you can't have the damaged planes "move" because most of the time you're talking about an island,
there ain't no place to truck or rail the damaged planes to.

I still think it's hilarious how I can fly a group of 40 operational 10 damaged planes from an island base and
have the 10 damaged planes go into the "pool"
They should be total losses.

Here the fundamental problem is that PacWar has no concept of “stored damaged planes” for a base.
A base has only 2 types of stores: Supply & Fuel.
So, when you change aircraft types to some newer type, the old aircraft,
instead of ending up in some storage at the base, waiting to be transported to some place where they're needed,
goes into SINGLE big pool.
As a result they can be used immediately elsewhere.
Same problem with flying planes to different airfield, as you correctly pointed out.
Well, we're slightly off-topic here.

[ October 12, 2001: Message edited by: Granat ]</p>

Ed Cogburn · Post by **Ed Cogburn** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 12:02 pm

Originally posted by Granat:
I respectfully disagree. A lack of supplies like ammunition or bombs, pilot and crew fatigue is represented by Readiness. Arnaud said, that Air units have readiness, too, just like ground ones - it just isn't shown.

Yes, I know. Its also true that in PAC, you raise readiness by expending supplies, and you "undamage" a plane by expending supplies, so in PAC it always comes down to supplies, readiness becomes a secondary variable tied to supply. I believe a similar situation exists here, the only difference is supplies aren't literally represented. Instead time is required to raise readiness an arbitrary amount per turn. The time is used not just for crew rest but to also move the *supplies* needed to make a damaged aircraft ready for combat.

BTW - 2 good ideas:
1. Ask Arnaud to SHOW air unit readiness in the next release.

That request was made a long time ago by me, its still on the issues list.

2. Ask Arnaud to tell us, what affects readiness of the air unit - with numeric formulas.

I'll try.

With all due respect, again, damaged planes CAN and WERE moved - historically.

Yes, thats true. I don't believe I said anything to conflict with this.

BTW - you're wrong if you think, that to move an air unit (whether Soviet, US, German, whatever) means that planes just take off and land at other airfield.

Maybe I'm wrong (won't be the first time), but I've got the feeling this wasn't the only way. Planes did fly to new destinations in the Pacific once they arrived in the South Pacific or Australia, because new redeployments would take too long for ships, given that the air unit might very well be able to fly its planes to its new base easily. The very existence of this possibility as a standard feature in PAC strongly suggests so. Ships were required to get them from the US West coast to the theater of operations because of the distance, despite the loophole in PAC that allows you to bypass this restriction.

However, this doesn't apply to WIR, as I consider its air system to be more abstract. The air bases aren't literally in the square with the HQ, they are spread out, and most I suspect will be much more than 5 squares away from the front line. Because we're not talking about island hopping as in PAC, most damaged planes can get moved in WiR except for perhaps the occasion where a new airstrip is close to the front lines, and the enemy suddenly attacks or counterattacks and enemy mechanized forces can get to the airstrip before all the planes that can't fly can be prepared for movement. For the sake of simplicity however, I don't think this needs to be simulated.