Aircraft Engine Modification for CHS

[el cid again]

Reviewing aircraft (because that is the current effort - I wanted to do ships first), I found aircraft engines are very strangely handled by WITP. CHS tried a simple fix - and both CHS as it is and my mods ran into a code brick wall - some reporting of engines is not responsive to changes in the editor.

Gross hard coded limitations include a maximum of ten engine types and, worse, a problem with changing the engine names. You CAN change the device names, but some places report the ORIGINAL names anyway - a potential cause of confusion. Reluctantly I accepted both limitations - for now anyway - in the interests of time.

The critical point to grasp is that the engine types are basically fictional. They tried to preserve the names of engine manufacturers - and basically ignore the real technical issue of engine size. Thus, you can stockpile (fill in the blank) engines from company X early in the war, and use them later on planes that need much bigger engines. I revised this comprehensively on the following system: engines NOW are rated by size, and given the name of the most important Army (later joint) engine in that size class. To avoid confusion, that name is put in parens following the Manufacturers name that is included in many reports and lines of the game. SOMETIMES my name (with the parens) appears - sometimes not - but at present with Advanced Mitsubishi and Advanced Nakajima engines sometimes you get the wrong name altogether!

My system follows, in summary form:

Mitsubishi (Ha-1) representing engines from 200 to 800 hp (550 nominal).

Nakajima (Ha-5) representing engines 800-1000 hp (900 nominal).

Hitachi (Ha-34) representing engines 1000-1200 hp (1100 nominal).

Kawasaki (Ha-41) representing engines 1200-1400 hp (1300 nominal).

Ishikawajima (Ha-191) representing engines 1400-1600 hp (1500 nomina)

Mansyu (Ha-45) representing engines 1600-1700 hp (1650 nominal).

Aichi (Ha-32) representing engines 1700-1900 hp (1800 nominal).

Nissan (Ha-104) representing engines 1900-2100 hp (2000 nominal).

Kokusai (Ha-43) representing engines 2100-2300 hp (2200 nominal).

Toyoda (Ha-44) representing engines 2300-2500 hp (2400 nominal).

Typical applications include:

Ha-1: Ki-36, Ki-59, D1A1, Ki-27, A5M4, D2A1

Ha-5: A6M2, B5N2, C5M, Ki-30, Ki-32, Ki-51

Ha-35: Ki-43I, Ki-45, Ki-48, A6M3, Ki-61I, A6M5

Ha-41: Ki-44, Ki-49, D4Y

Ha-101: Ki-21II, Ki-61II

Ha-45: A7M, Ki-84

Ha-32: G3M2, G2M3, B6N, P1Y2, H8K

Ha-104: Ki-67, Ki-109, C6N,

Ha-43: B7A, N1K5-J, J7W1, A7M2, Ki-83

Ha-44: Ki-87, Ki-94, Ki-100, Ki-102, Ki-46III

The last three cases do not appear until 1944.

[jwilkerson]

El Cid,

Can you show us the "initial availability date" for each of these engines as well ?

Thanks.

[el cid again]

At the moment my first pass values for numbers work out as follows for turn 1 of modified Scenario 155:

Ha-1 Needed 119 engines, 300 pool, 872 plant capacity.

Ha-5 Needed 225 engines, 250 pool, 399 plant capacity.

Ha-35 Needed 355 engines, 200 pool, 310 plant capacity.

Ha-41 Needed 33 engines, 50 pool, 60 plant capacity.

Ha-101 Needed 132 engines, 150 pool, 40 plant capacity.

Ha-45 Needed 0, 50 pool, 0 plant capacity.

Ha-32 Needed 46, 50 pool, 20 plant capacity.

These values can be modified - but that is where luck put them on the first pass.

[el cid again]

Can you show us the "initial availability date" for each of these engines as well ?

Seven of the ten engines are available at the start of the war - and six are in production (the seventh has no demand at the start). The other three are

Ha-101 - Initially available 3/44.

Ha-43 - Initially available 2/44.

Ha-44 - Initially available 6/44.

These dates may need modification. I set them so the first plane needing them gets them. But in the real war, planes were often delayed by lack of engines - and probably we should simulate that. Suggestions?

[jwilkerson]

I guess I'd start by displaying the list of proposed planes and their start dates ( and engines ) as well - then we can see what the effects of the decisions would be. In the game I'd suggest a bit of "rationalization" so that we don't have ( like we do now in CHS ) new plane types arriving months before their engines - that is pretty frustrating - and can be abstracted simply by delaying the plane.

So I'd suggest that engines come in 1-3 months prior to the scheduled arrival of the plane - in the game - and thus that the planes and engine arrival be set to approximately what they were historically ( as close as we can get it ) but with the added constraint of planning to have the engine arrive a bit earlier.

In the game, the player doesn't have a staff of thousands ( like they did IRL ) to keep track of things and plan around all the possibilities - so in essence we "simulate" this staff - by abstracting the arrivals a bit.

[doktorblood]

Err...What is the point of all this minutae?

[el cid again]

I guess I'd start by displaying the list of proposed planes and their start dates ( and engines ) as well - then we can see what the effects of the decisions would be. In the game I'd suggest a bit of "rationalization" so that we don't have ( like we do now in CHS ) new plane types arriving months before their engines - that is pretty frustrating - and can be abstracted simply by delaying the plane.

So I'd suggest that engines come in 1-3 months prior to the scheduled arrival of the plane - in the game - and thus that the planes and engine arrival be set to approximately what they were historically ( as close as we can get it ) but with the added constraint of planning to have the engine arrive a bit earlier.

In the game, the player doesn't have a staff of thousands ( like they did IRL ) to keep track of things and plan around all the possibilities - so in essence we "simulate" this staff - by abstracting the arrivals a bit.

So far I have not tampered with plane arrival dates. Since you are reviewing them, I am content to feed you raw data. Also, so far, I set the engine date equal to the first month the first plane that needs that engine is scheduled to arrive. That means ALL later planes have no problem. However, I think this is poor simulation. Japan had wonderful planes more than a few times, but could not make them for lack of engines. Other planes had to literally change engines to see production in the time desired. I think a little taste of this is better simulation. Given the way I had to lump engines to get proper reporting, I feel that the number of problem planes is going to be very small - very likely three to six (one or two per engine type for three engine types). But as the reviewer of this data, IF you want to I have no problem with YOU setting the engine dates. I am just RECOMMENDING we set them so that a few planes have initial production issues.