CV Air Wings

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger
The Japs could produce F-22s and it really wouldnt do them a lot of good with 25 experience pilots. Seriously. Experience is THAT important. So number and type of planes really is irrelivant.

Agree that experiance is vital. But remember that in the game, Japan isn't forced to set up, man, and equip dozens of additional "Basic and Advanced Flight Training Facilities" during the war. They can just take a recruit of the streets and put him in a Nate over China. Bingo! Instant training facility!

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

Well, I cant say I have actually played in 45, because I havent. But I cant believe it is that hard to rotate out your inexperienced air groups, park them in the backwater and let them bomb Jap by-passed garrisions (like they did historically), and use your more experienced Marine airgroups on the carriers while this is happening (like they did historically). VMF 214 was on the Franklin when it was hit for example. A newly formed VMF 214 to be sure. I have no idea how many actual pilots had combat experience and how many were fresh out of flight school. But in game terms that is irrelivant as the players arent likely to be disbanding US air units at this stage of the game.

Except that moving air units off of carriers is a programmer designated Bad Thing that causes the program to go crazy. And even if you are lucky enough that the program lets you put your newly trained Corsairs back on the carrier, doesn't that take something like six months to get them up to a reasonable level? So sometime around June or July 1945 you can pull all 18 to 20 of your fleet carriers back to swap around air units, again? (Had to do it at the start of '45 too.) (Also, those historical "bomb the bypassed islands for training" operations were one or two day affairs while the carriers were enroute to their real objective. Not multi-month long affairs.)

And even at that, that assumes that you have the 700 to 800 Corsairs in your aircraft replacement pool to equip those units in the first place. Did you forgo upgrading any of your F4U units at all in 1944 so you would be ready for that?

As for fixing it, Tallyho, it would have to be a code change since the entire carrier airgroup changing process is hard-coded. I believe someone tried to do a database change to address this as part of a Mod and the program simply over-wrote the database changes. But that could just be poor memory on my part, I don't pay attention to the Mods. (Scenarios, that is. [:'(] )

[saj42]

It's good that it's a code thing - no need to restart existing games - IF it even reaches the patch queue.
I won't hold my breath[;)]

Perhaps we should ask Andy Mac when he's back from his hols what state his airgroups were in when they 'upgraded' (his game with PzB is into April 45)

A supplimentary question:
As the other 3 squadrons of each CAG reduce in size what happens to the a/c and pilots?
Do pilots stay in sqdn or go back into pool / do a/c overload the CV or go back into pool

[Cpt Sherwood]

Most likely, they both just disappear. [8|]

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: dtravel

Except that moving air units off of carriers is a programmer designated Bad Thing that causes the program to go crazy. And even if you are lucky enough that the program lets you put your newly trained Corsairs back on the carrier, doesn't that take something like six months to get them up to a reasonable level? So sometime around June or July 1945 you can pull all 18 to 20 of your fleet carriers back to swap around air units, again? (Had to do it at the start of '45 too.) (Also, those historical "bomb the bypassed islands for training" operations were one or two day affairs while the carriers were enroute to their real objective. Not multi-month long affairs.)

And even at that, that assumes that you have the 700 to 800 Corsairs in your aircraft replacement pool to equip those units in the first place. Did you forgo upgrading any of your F4U units at all in 1944 so you would be ready for that?

As for fixing it, Tallyho, it would have to be a code change since the entire carrier airgroup changing process is hard-coded. I believe someone tried to do a database change to address this as part of a Mod and the program simply over-wrote the database changes. But that could just be poor memory on my part, I don't pay attention to the Mods. (Scenarios, that is. [:'(] )

OK, assuming that you didnt look ahead and save planes and pilots for this event, where are the planes and pilots you used? They have to be SOMEWHERE, right? Now as far as I know, the only carrier air groups that "go crazy" if you take them off are the CVEs carrier groups because they were designed as replacements and not for "real" use. Now assuming you arent putting 4000 planes at a level 4 airfield, you SHOULD have more than enough Marine groups to stick in place of the Navy Corsairs until they are trained (which frankly is how I believe they WERE employed, the initial Corsairs on carriers were Marine groups if Im not too terribly mistaken) because the Army planes have better range and are probably in the front line at this point in the war.

Getting an air group from 25 to 60 really shouldnt take more than 2 months. 3 tops. You dont need 90 experience air groups to kill Japs in '45. And if you do have occasion to need 90 experience groups, you have a few that SHOULD be 90 (likely more than just a few).

My .02

[Cpt Sherwood]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

ORIGINAL: dtravel

Except that moving air units off of carriers is a programmer designated Bad Thing that causes the program to go crazy. And even if you are lucky enough that the program lets you put your newly trained Corsairs back on the carrier, doesn't that take something like six months to get them up to a reasonable level? So sometime around June or July 1945 you can pull all 18 to 20 of your fleet carriers back to swap around air units, again? (Had to do it at the start of '45 too.) (Also, those historical "bomb the bypassed islands for training" operations were one or two day affairs while the carriers were enroute to their real objective. Not multi-month long affairs.)

And even at that, that assumes that you have the 700 to 800 Corsairs in your aircraft replacement pool to equip those units in the first place. Did you forgo upgrading any of your F4U units at all in 1944 so you would be ready for that?

As for fixing it, Tallyho, it would have to be a code change since the entire carrier airgroup changing process is hard-coded. I believe someone tried to do a database change to address this as part of a Mod and the program simply over-wrote the database changes. But that could just be poor memory on my part, I don't pay attention to the Mods. (Scenarios, that is. [:'(] )

OK, assuming that you didnt look ahead and save planes and pilots for this event, where are the planes and pilots you used? They have to be SOMEWHERE, right? Now as far as I know, the only carrier air groups that "go crazy" if you take them off are the CVEs carrier groups because they were designed as replacements and not for "real" use. Now assuming you arent putting 4000 planes at a level 4 airfield, you SHOULD have more than enough Marine groups to stick in place of the Navy Corsairs until they are trained (which frankly is how I believe they WERE employed, the initial Corsairs on carriers were Marine groups if Im not too terribly mistaken) because the Army planes have better range and are probably in the front line at this point in the war.

Getting an air group from 25 to 60 really shouldnt take more than 2 months. 3 tops. You dont need 90 experience air groups to kill Japs in '45. And if you do have occasion to need 90 experience groups, you have a few that SHOULD be 90 (likely more than just a few).

My .02

You are wrong about moving CV air groups as pointed out by Don Bowen here: tm.asp?m=1312154&mpage=1&key=moving%2Cc ... t&#1312419

[tabpub]

ORIGINAL: Cpt Sherwood

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

ORIGINAL: dtravel

Except that moving air units off of carriers is a programmer designated Bad Thing that causes the program to go crazy. And even if you are lucky enough that the program lets you put your newly trained Corsairs back on the carrier, doesn't that take something like six months to get them up to a reasonable level? So sometime around June or July 1945 you can pull all 18 to 20 of your fleet carriers back to swap around air units, again? (Had to do it at the start of '45 too.) (Also, those historical "bomb the bypassed islands for training" operations were one or two day affairs while the carriers were enroute to their real objective. Not multi-month long affairs.)

And even at that, that assumes that you have the 700 to 800 Corsairs in your aircraft replacement pool to equip those units in the first place. Did you forgo upgrading any of your F4U units at all in 1944 so you would be ready for that?

As for fixing it, Tallyho, it would have to be a code change since the entire carrier airgroup changing process is hard-coded. I believe someone tried to do a database change to address this as part of a Mod and the program simply over-wrote the database changes. But that could just be poor memory on my part, I don't pay attention to the Mods. (Scenarios, that is. [:'(] )

OK, assuming that you didnt look ahead and save planes and pilots for this event, where are the planes and pilots you used? They have to be SOMEWHERE, right? Now as far as I know, the only carrier air groups that "go crazy" if you take them off are the CVEs carrier groups because they were designed as replacements and not for "real" use. Now assuming you arent putting 4000 planes at a level 4 airfield, you SHOULD have more than enough Marine groups to stick in place of the Navy Corsairs until they are trained (which frankly is how I believe they WERE employed, the initial Corsairs on carriers were Marine groups if Im not too terribly mistaken) because the Army planes have better range and are probably in the front line at this point in the war.

Getting an air group from 25 to 60 really shouldnt take more than 2 months. 3 tops. You dont need 90 experience air groups to kill Japs in '45. And if you do have occasion to need 90 experience groups, you have a few that SHOULD be 90 (likely more than just a few).

My .02

You are wrong about moving CV air groups as pointed out by Don Bowen here: tm.asp?m=1312154&mpage=1&key=moving%2Cc ... 2Caircraft?

Nope, you didn't completely read the entire thread; moving of carrier groups to land is fine, though I would have them at no replacement and upgrades and handle that manually just as safeguard.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Don,

To confirm, Is it OK to move your squadrons to a shore base and then back to the original CV? This would cover rebasing due to damage. My understanding is that you shouldnt change the CV they are based on??


You can indeed move squadrons ashore for training and they will "remember" that they are part of the carrier's airgroup. They will not grow excessively and can be placed back on the carrier. This used to be a problem but was addressed sometime in the 1.8 update cycle. The same "home carrier link" that is a problem in resizing is what makes this work.

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Tallyho!

It's good that it's a code thing - no need to restart existing games - IF it even reaches the patch queue.
I won't hold my breath[;)]

Perhaps we should ask Andy Mac when he's back from his hols what state his airgroups were in when they 'upgraded' (his game with PzB is into April 45)

A supplimentary question:
As the other 3 squadrons of each CAG reduce in size what happens to the a/c and pilots?
Do pilots stay in sqdn or go back into pool / do a/c overload the CV or go back into pool

The excess pilots and planes stay in the unit. The "extra" planes will slowly move to Reserve status.

[dtravel]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

ORIGINAL: dtravel

Except that moving air units off of carriers is a programmer designated Bad Thing that causes the program to go crazy. And even if you are lucky enough that the program lets you put your newly trained Corsairs back on the carrier, doesn't that take something like six months to get them up to a reasonable level? So sometime around June or July 1945 you can pull all 18 to 20 of your fleet carriers back to swap around air units, again? (Had to do it at the start of '45 too.) (Also, those historical "bomb the bypassed islands for training" operations were one or two day affairs while the carriers were enroute to their real objective. Not multi-month long affairs.)

And even at that, that assumes that you have the 700 to 800 Corsairs in your aircraft replacement pool to equip those units in the first place. Did you forgo upgrading any of your F4U units at all in 1944 so you would be ready for that?

As for fixing it, Tallyho, it would have to be a code change since the entire carrier airgroup changing process is hard-coded. I believe someone tried to do a database change to address this as part of a Mod and the program simply over-wrote the database changes. But that could just be poor memory on my part, I don't pay attention to the Mods. (Scenarios, that is. [:'(] )

OK, assuming that you didnt look ahead and save planes and pilots for this event, where are the planes and pilots you used? They have to be SOMEWHERE, right?

[&:] I'm confused by this. What are you trying to say or ask here? All I can think of that might apply is to say, how many of you would have known you had to spend all of 1944 saving up planes and pilots for this if I hadn't complained? But I get the feeling that doesn't address whatever you are trying to say here.

Now as far as I know, the only carrier air groups that "go crazy" if you take them off are the CVEs carrier groups because they were designed as replacements and not for "real" use. Now assuming you arent putting 4000 planes at a level 4 airfield, you SHOULD have more than enough Marine groups to stick in place of the Navy Corsairs until they are trained (which frankly is how I believe they WERE employed, the initial Corsairs on carriers were Marine groups if Im not too terribly mistaken) because the Army planes have better range and are probably in the front line at this point in the war.

You're a lot more trusting of the code working right in that situation than I am. But even if it does, we shouldn't have to be doing this in the first place! Now, maybe the carrier-based Corsair units should have been programmed as Marine units but even if they had been that would actually make the problem worse. The Marine pilot replacement rate is the same as the USN (60 per month) and their experience level is 55 compared to the USN's 60. Whatever the game-nationality of the CV Corsairs, be it USN, USMC or Martian, the air units should not be appearing empty. Fix that and all the rest of this becomes moot (not to mention that it should be easier to fix it than make the players jump thru all these hoops).

Getting an air group from 25 to 60 really shouldnt take more than 2 months. 3 tops. You dont need 90 experience air groups to kill Japs in '45. And if you do have occasion to need 90 experience groups, you have a few that SHOULD be 90 (likely more than just a few).

My .02

Well, I don't gimmick around with deliberately training air units with missions so I'll have to take your word for that. I do know that the "training" mission is seriously FUBAR and is utterly useless. Whether its two months or six months, you're still stuck with pulling your carriers back to swap air units around.

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: dtravel

Well, I don't gimmick around with deliberately training air units with missions so I'll have to take your word for that. I do know that the "training" mission is seriously FUBAR and is utterly useless. Whether its two months or six months, you're still stuck with pulling your carriers back to swap air units around.

As I understand it, the "training" mission will take 13 months to get a 25 experience unit to 65. 65 is the maximum experience "training" will get you. "Training" works at the same speed as rear area training in the states or Japan taking a year or more to train pilots. So to say its "FUBAR" really isnt accurate. It works as designed. Problem is, most players (including me) dont have the patience to wait a year when we can send them to a backwater and spend 2-3 months instead of 13.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: dtravel
The problem is that it isn't the Japanese who are being forced to use 25 experience pilots. Its the US Navy in 1945 that is.

When in fact America wasn't letting anyone out of "Advanced Flight School" who wasn't basically a 55-60 by 1944-45. In the US, training time was actually increased during the war. There was NO shortage of fully trained pilots/aircrew in the US by 1944-45..., in early 1945 the Army pulled thousands of guys out of flight training and made them into infantry replacements.

Why is the Allied lack of trained pilots so idiotic? Let's look at a few numbers. Japan began the war in December of 1941 with about 6000 very well-trained military pilots (divided between the IJA and the IJN). During the year 1941, the USA trained 11,000 pilots. During 1943 (the last year that Japanese "Pilot Training" actually deserved the term) the Japanese only trained 5,400 pilots, while the USA the number was 82,700! While the Americans had thousands of Pilots with training levels (in game terms) of 55-60 available (so many that at the end of 1943 they actually CUT pilot training back to 60,000 per year), the Japanese were scrambling to provide the bare minimum to allow their new pilots to get off the ground by that time.

By 1944, the USA COULD have produced over 100,000 pilots (all with a minimum of 350 hours of beginning, advanced, and "in-type" Flight Training) IF the need had existed --- while Japan was cutting it's programs down to 60-70 hours (and less) of basic Flight Training to try and get enough "warm bodies" to fill the cockpits (where almost all ended up as "cold bodies" in short order). Basically, what I am saying is that by the last two years of the war, the Allies should NEVER recieved a pilot of less than 55 experiance, while Japanese replacement pilots should NEVER show up as more than 10's (often less).

[Yamato hugger]

1 thing you need to take into consideration Mike is the fact that 70% of our war effort was sent to Europe as the Germans were deemed the greater threat. Now I will grant you, the vast majority of Navy and Marines went to the PTO.

As for the Japs they actually had 2 schools. That for the "special attack" squadrons (step 1) take off, step 2) point your nose at this point of the ship) and the "real" flight school. While its true the Japs shortened their "regular" school from 13 months to 8 at the end of the war (IIRC may have been 9), I believe that would still rate at least a 35 and probably a 40 personally (assuming 13 months rates a 60).

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger

1 thing you need to take into consideration Mike is the fact that 70% of our war effort was sent to Europe as the Germans were deemed the greater threat. Now I will grant you, the vast majority of Navy and Marines went to the PTO.

And you should consider that 30% of US 1943 Pilots trained is still almost 25,000 compared to Japans 5400 that year.

As for the Japs they actually had 2 schools. That for the "special attack" squadrons (step 1) take off, step 2) point your nose at this point of the ship) and the "real" flight school. While its true the Japs shortened their "regular" school from 13 months to 8 at the end of the war (IIRC may have been 9), I believe that would still rate at least a 35 and probably a 40 personally (assuming 13 months rates a 60).

The "real" flight schools were the ones giving 50-70 hours of "basic" flight training during 1944-45. No "advanced" flight training at all, and the "in type" took place when they arrived at their unit and flew their first combat mission. Kamikaze tactics were developed to give these poor "lambs to the slaughter" some small hope of doing damage to the enemy before they were shot down or killed themselves accidently. Calling them a "10" is stretching it.

[Yamato hugger]

Lol, Im sorry, are you under the impression that Im saying the allied pilot replacement rate should be less than the Japs?

The "real" flight schools were the ones giving 50-70 hours of "basic" flight training during 1944-45. No "advanced" flight training at all, and the "in type" took place when they arrived at their unit and flew their first combat mission. Kamikaze tactics were developed to give these poor "lambs to the slaughter" some small hope of doing damage to the enemy before they were shot down or killed themselves accidently. Calling them a "10" is stretching it.

Please give your source for this, because every account I have read puts it at 8 or 9 months.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: bobogoboom

Yet for some reason the japs can produce 800 million advanced fighters a month[:@]. Seems resonable to me.

True, but at at cost. HI fuels everything. If the Japanese player chooses to produce a large number of fighters, something else eventually has to give. It may be the navy or ground forces, but something will give. Also, keep in mind that if they do build bunches of planes, the pilot experience will be in the 20s for the IJAAF and 30s for the IJNAF. Look at all the late war AARs. The Japanese players are losing 1000 or more planes a day. If they are all fighters (and they won't be), that is a cost of 36k HI per day for the airframes and engines. That ain't happening. Then there's the supply cost to build all those factories. They would need 30k factories to produce 1000 planes a day. 30k factories would require 30 million supply to repair. That ain't happening either.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Yamato hugger
Please give your source for this, because every account I have read puts it at 8 or 9 months.

"Apples and Oranges" is the problem. You are talking about Flight School (class room training) and I'm referencing "Flight Training" (hours actually spent in an aircraft in the air. At War's start, the best Japaqnese pilots had 700+). As for sources, try Overy's "THE AIR WAR 1939-1945" for starters..., good overview of everything and everybody.

[Yamato hugger]

http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijnaf.htm

"Shortening the amount of training was tried and, by the last year of the war, Japanese pilots were being pushed into combat missions with as little as 100 hours of flight time."

If one assumes 20 flight hours a week average in training, the difference between the Japs 100 hours and the US's 300 hours would be 10 weeks or 2.5 months. At 10 hours a week it would be 5 months. How much air time was given to a pilot per week in training? I have no idea.

But your statement of the Japs getting only 50 to 70 hours is in error. "As little as 100 hours" doesnt mean they ALL only got 100 hours either.

[Rainer]

This develops in one of the threads I don't like (which is my problem, not yours, of course).
What are the both of you trying to achieve? Who's better at guessing? The data of the events you're discussing are old, very likely incomplete, probably inaccurate, and most likely written by people who were not "there" and/or had incomplete access to "classified" sources.
Same problem for ALL historians for ALL times they study.
Again, not you're problem. Discuss as you please.
But keep in mind there is as much reliable data or sources as there is free lunch.
What I'm trying to say is don't get upset about oppinions which differ.
Cheers
Rainer

Edit for spelling

[Yamato hugger]

Well I think the original point was Mike stated that he ran out of pilots for his US airgroups and I said there are other things you can do to compensate - in a nutshell.

[bobogoboom]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: bobogoboom

Yet for some reason the japs can produce 800 million advanced fighters a month[:@]. Seems resonable to me.

True, but at at cost. HI fuels everything. If the Japanese player chooses to produce a large number of fighters, something else eventually has to give. It may be the navy or ground forces, but something will give. Also, keep in mind that if they do build bunches of planes, the pilot experience will be in the 20s for the IJAAF and 30s for the IJNAF. Look at all the late war AARs. The Japanese players are losing 1000 or more planes a day. If they are all fighters (and they won't be), that is a cost of 36k HI per day for the airframes and engines. That ain't happening. Then there's the supply cost to build all those factories. They would need 30k factories to produce 1000 planes a day. 30k factories would require 30 million supply to repair. That ain't happening either.

Point taken.