Matrix Games Forums

Will aircraft weapons upgrade if set so in editor? For exemple if i set a Torpedo to upgrade to another better one, the aircraft will use the last one after the set date?

SAIEW -- you'll have to upgrade your aircraft to get the latest weaponry or ordinance

Will the Allies get more dedicated Recon aircraft??

You will see historical recon squadrons, even among some of the early bomb groups.

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Will the Allies get more dedicated Recon aircraft??  I also hope that the 12 plane squadrons can be broken down to 3 or 4 plane groups.

Can a partial list of the aircraft types be posted?? I know that some B-17s were used for Recon roles. I get frustrated as the Allied player in stock and then in various mods not having enough Recon dedicated aircraft besides the fighter variants.

Just about everything can fly recon now. Even fighter units. I think the only ones that cant are transports, but I could be wrong.

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Will the Allies get more dedicated Recon aircraft??  I also hope that the 12 plane squadrons can be broken down to 3 or 4 plane groups.

Can a partial list of the aircraft types be posted?? I know that some B-17s were used for Recon roles. I get frustrated as the Allied player in stock and then in various mods not having enough Recon dedicated aircraft besides the fighter variants.

Just about everything can fly recon now. Even fighter units. I think the only ones that cant are transports, but I could be wrong.

all ac types other than fighters and transports could fly recon in WITP too, the difference was their effects. I hope it isn´t changed that a dedicated recon aircraft still produces better results than a normal fighter/bomber...

A recon unit should give you better intel than a unit that normally is tasked to fly bomber escorts I guess.

The difference between the ac types in WITP was how much they raise the detection level with recon planes raising it the most of course. How is this handled in AE?

Well the manual I have has no pictures in it so someone that can actually read will have to answer that one [:D]

I suppose that there won't be a bonus for Recon squadrons. What would be logical is that since they have planes best suited for recon and therefore mainly do this, the pilots will gain exp in the recon trait and therefor be more efficient than a bomber squadron doing recon. Add to that that recon squadrons already on the map at start will certainly have pilots with high recon exp, it ends up giving them a natural bonus...

I haven't played stock for the last 3 years of my 4 years playing WItP. But in most mods, the Allies start with just the Dutch Recon planes which are pretty much useless due to their extremely short range (2). A few mods have British/CW Recon planes, but the Americans get nothing until the F-4s arrive and those come in small numbers through 42.

The Japanese start with small groups of 3 or 9 plane groups. These can be used to great effect to increase the DL of bases or hexes being attacked. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the higher the DL over a base and/or land hex, the greater the amount of damage is inflected on the units below.

This is why I'm asking about Recon groups for the Allies in AE. Will there be small groups of dedicated Recon aircraft?? I shouldn't have to assign a whole squadron to the Recon mission. As the game engine works now, only a few aircraft will actually go on that mission while the rest stay home.

With the increase in FOW, the Allies will need to use Recon more to find out what is at a base. The "free" intel of moving the cursor over a base will be greatly reduced.

ORIGINAL: Cathartes

Will aircraft weapons upgrade if set so in editor? For exemple if i set a Torpedo to upgrade to another better one, the aircraft will use the last one after the set date?

SAIEW -- you'll have to upgrade your aircraft to get the latest weaponry or ordinance

Devices can in fact upgrade [:'(]

ORIGINAL: veji1

I suppose that there won't be a bonus for Recon squadrons. What would be logical is that since they have planes best suited for recon and therefore mainly do this, the pilots will gain exp in the recon trait and therefor be more efficient than a bomber squadron doing recon. Add to that that recon squadrons already on the map at start will certainly have pilots with high recon exp, it ends up giving them a natural bonus...

Presuming "won't" is meant to read "will", you're spot on Julien [:)]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

I haven't played stock for the last 3 years of my 4 years playing WItP. But in most mods, the Allies start with just the Dutch Recon planes which are pretty much useless due to their extremely short range (2). A few mods have British/CW Recon planes, but the Americans get nothing until the F-4s arrive and those come in small numbers through 42.

The Japanese start with small groups of 3 or 9 plane groups. These can be used to great effect to increase the DL of bases or hexes being attacked. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the higher the DL over a base and/or land hex, the greater the amount of damage is inflected on the units below.

This is why I'm asking about Recon groups for the Allies in AE. Will there be small groups of dedicated Recon aircraft?? I shouldn't have to assign a whole squadron to the Recon mission. As the game engine works now, only a few aircraft will actually go on that mission while the rest stay home.

With the increase in FOW, the Allies will need to use Recon more to find out what is at a base. The "free" intel of moving the cursor over a base will be greatly reduced.

As a general methodology we try to avoid splitting units below the squadron level. However recon sqds can be split into smaller components.

As a general methodology we try to avoid splitting units below the squadron level. However recon sqds can be split into smaller components.

[&o][&o]

ORIGINAL: timtom

ORIGINAL: veji1

I suppose that there won't be a bonus for Recon squadrons. What would be logical is that since they have planes best suited for recon and therefore mainly do this, the pilots will gain exp in the recon trait and therefor be more efficient than a bomber squadron doing recon. Add to that that recon squadrons already on the map at start will certainly have pilots with high recon exp, it ends up giving them a natural bonus...

Presuming "won't" is meant to read "will", you're spot on Julien [:)]

What I meant is that the bonus isn't coded, ie because a squadron is a recon squadron it has such a bonus. What happens is that by design recon squadrons are better than others at reconning. In the end this is the goal of a good design.

I have a couple of questions about airborne torpedoes and torpedo bombers

1. There was an incredible differnce in the launch envelope for Japanese versus Allied torpedoes (at least USN). At war's start a Mk13 torpedo had to be dropped at wave height with the aircraft going no faster than 110 kts (roughly). The US torpedoes had a serious problem with the weapons either disintergrating or broaching if launched outside that envelope. Barring the attack on Shoho, the USN did not hit much with torpedoes until 1944. By then the BNO had fixed the problems where the aircraft could at least fly faster. I realize there is really no way to model this into the game but what about giving the munition an abysmally low hit percentage? Also there was a note about weapons upgrading. So is it possible to code a TBF/TBM with a mk 13m1 to 01/01/44 and then m2 until 01/01/45? Or do you need to actually change the aircraft designation?

2. I have read many an AAR where the Japanese player takes his Vals off his CV's and loads them up with Kates. With torpedoes being the most devasting weapon in the game vs ships, I understand this. The reason RL IJN did not do this is becasue so few Kates came home. The AAA from the USN just became too devastating after late 1942. USS Hornet was the last USN CV torpedoed by the Japanese and that was October 1942. Is this addressed at all in AE that torpedo bombers get hammered. BTW, the USN TBF's suffered pretty badly too. With the exception of Yamato and Musashi, most serious damage done to major combatants was by SBD's and later SB2C (not counting the slaughter of the IJN CV fleet at Leyte but they were just bait)

ORIGINAL: vettim89

I have a couple of questions about airborne torpedoes and torpedo bombers

...

2. I have read many an AAR where the Japanese player takes his Vals off his CV's and loads them up with Kates. With torpedoes being the most devasting weapon in the game vs ships, I understand this. The reason RL IJN did not do this is becasue so few Kates came home. The AAA from the USN just became too devastating after late 1942. USS Hornet was the last USN CV torpedoed by the Japanese and that was October 1942. Is this addressed at all in AE that torpedo bombers get hammered. BTW, the USN TBF's suffered pretty badly too. With the exception of Yamto and Musashi, most serious damage done to major combatants was by SBD's and later SB2C (not counting the slaughter of the IJN CV fleet at Leyte but they were just bait)

No Vals means only horizontal/torpedo bombers. The game doesn't model hit probabilities or terminal ballistics at all accurately, but IRL a dive bomber was about twice as accurate as a torpedo bomber and about eight times as accurate as a level bomber when attacking ships. Also IRL a torpedo was about twice as effective as a 500 kg bomb. Given the cost and available supply of torpedoes, that would limit your average CV to a single deckload strike against shipping between ammo replenishments and would provide nothing to handle smaller warships and civilian vessels.

Will late war USN Air dropped homing torpedoes for ASW work be modeled?
 

Considering small impact of Pacific War:

http://www.uboat.net/allies/technical/fido.htm

US Navy OEG Study No. 289, 12 August 1946 provides the following estimates of MK24 usage and results achieved:


Number of attacks in which Mk24s were launched 264
Total Number of Mk24 torpedoes launched - all targets 340
Number of MK24s launched against submarines 204
Number of Mk24 attacks on submarines by US aircraft 142
Number of submarines sunk by FIDO 31
Number of submarines damaged by FIDO 15
Number of MK24 attacks on subs by Allies (primarily British) 62
Number of submarines sunk by FIDO 6
Number of submarines damaged by FIDO 3
Total number of submarines sunk by FIDO (German & Japanese) 37*
Total number of submarines damaged 18
*Note: Includes five Japanese submarines sunk;
1 in the Atlantic
4 in the Pacific

A later submarine launched version of FIDO (MK27 Cutie) was developed for use against surface vessels and saw service use in the Pacific war beginning in the summer of 1944.

Torpedo MK24 FIDO continued in service with the US Navy until 1948.

Might be for modders.

Unfortunately I don't believe current code would support something like Fido, at least not as an ASW weapon.

Wonder what that Japanese sub was doing in the Atlantic. Weren't there some small transfers of strategic materials by the Jap. to the Germans via sub, and some exchanges of German blueprints etc. during that period ?

ORIGINAL: stuman

Wonder what that Japanese sub was doing in the Atlantic. Weren't there some small transfers of strategic materials by the Jap. to the Germans via sub, and some exchanges of German blueprints etc. during that period ?

Yes some japanese boats travelled to france, bringing some rare metals and resources, and in return they took military materials back to home.

F.e. Machine Guns, Motors for aircraft, Bombs, of course some blueprints, etc.

In one case a japanese Sub come with a double crew and take a german Type VII back to Japan with the idea to build them in license.

But of course, this like this were difficult by such a distance, and much subs were sunk i believe.

Just wondering - homing torpedoes = more chrome As always thanks for the analysis and response.
 

Will the Allied aircraft inventory include any of the many planes that never made it overseas? (The Buccaneer comes to mind)..
Just wondering if CONUS might be defendable with them, at player option.

ORIGINAL: m10bob

Will the Allied aircraft inventory include any of the many planes that never made it overseas? (The Buccaneer comes to mind)..

Or the Skypirate. [;)]

M-

Will in AE aircraft continue to attack already sunken or doomed ships as they did in stock WITP? It is very frustrating when 50 aircraft attack some sunken CV (unable to find target) while there are undamaged cruisers or even battleships ignored. That frustrated me very, very often [:@]